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Photo by Kit Miller |
She looked at the all-points bulletin on the suspect. He had been identified as a tweeker on a run who had kidnapped a baby that he believed to be his daughter. He was presumed to be armed and high on methamphetamine. He had reportedly said he would kill anyone who tried to take the baby from him.
The problem was the woman who filed the charges was under 18. And they weren't married. So the guy was either a kidnapper, if the baby wasn't actually his, or had committed statutory sexual assault, because the woman was a minor. The blood test would show.
Summers watched while the man meekly agreed to allow the nurse to draw blood.
Through the translator, she questioned him about a fake driver's license he had used. But it was minor point, she admitted. He was in for much more serious charges.
Summers took the blood back to the sheriff's office and checked it in at the evidence room. Through the open door she could see baseball bats, bicycles, hubcaps, and boxes and boxes of evidence of the crimes committed in Carson City. The blood would go in a refrigerator and then up to Reno where the microscopic evidence of one man's guilt would be teased out.
Summers went back to her desk and typed a summary of the blood work into the computer. It was evidence gathering. And every bit of evidence had to be backed up with a narrative in case she was called into court.
Then she rummaged through her active files to see what she might finish or at least get started before the weekend began. She called a man who had gotten into a fight with another driver in a case of road rage. It didn't seem like the case was going anywhere but she urged him to keep in touch with her.
Then she began investigating a run of stolen checks that had recently been reported. She called the victim, who didn't have anything to add to the report she had filed at the front desk. The victim thought the checks might have been found in a box of junk she had donated to a thrift store.
Summers noticed one of the checks had been cashed at Kmart. She called security there to see if a suspect might still be on the store's videotape surveillance. But it was too late. The tapes had already been reused.
She would track down the cashier next week, but even that was a long shot. Still she had an inkling of who might be behind the check scheme. There was a small gang of ne'er-do-wells in Carson City who specialized in this kind of petty fraud. She would follow this case until it was closed, just like every other case she got now.
"When you're on patrol," she said, "you pass your cases on to detectives. But here it's yours until you're done with it.
"In detectives you never get caught up," she said. "Your mind has to shift from one case to another. It's a constant challenge. But I love finding things out. I love getting on the phone and figuring things out. It's the satisfaction of knowing you've been on a case from beginning to end, when justice has paid off."
Summers has had almost 100 cases in the nine months since she became a detective. Some have resulted in arrests, some in trials, and others are still active. But around 20 have become inactive.
"That's frustrating," she said, "when there's nowhere to go. But you've got to let it go. What's most frustrating is when you have a major case, and you don't have time for all the little cases. And the victims get frustrated too."
Late in the afternoon, Summers and Johnson were the only ones left in the office. She liked to talk with Johnson about detective work. He had helped her draw an important lesson from her run-in with the guy who grabbed her gun.
"Let them be caught at the most inopportune moment for them," Johnson had told her.
Summers looked at the pictures of suspects on their walls and her gaze narrowed on one man she herself hopes to catch some day, a man who often stalked around her home when she lived in Carson City.
"He's the one who has to look over his shoulder now," she said. "But that's different for a homicide. We'll beat the bushes 24/7 on that," she said, her mind quickly jumping back to the major case she was working on.
Summers reached for the phone and called the FBI in Carson City to check in about the Pinon Plaza shooting. She told the agent that "America's Most Wanted" had promised to broadcast a 30-second spot with the shooters' mugs. And the secret witness reward had climbed to $7,500. Maybe that would loosen some lips.
"They're scared," she said about the shooters. "They can get weapons. But they're lives are also in danger from retaliation. Everybody says they'll be back. But I'd like to catch them before they get back to Carson City."
As the day wound down, and Summers got ready to go home, she realized this wouldn't be a big day. But things were moving. And that is what kept her going. That and getting away from it all at the end of the day.
"I love my job," Summers said. "But there are days when it's a relief to go deal with something different, something positive, where you can create your own world, and it's a safe world."