Mr. Wallace and Me Pt. 11-12

More importantly, I was introduced as Dr. Phillips' girlfriend to his co-workers, who saw us dancing and kissing. Because of them, there would be no way, I thought, that he could start an investigation of Mr. Wallace's death involving me for months, if ever. He would be ridiculed viciously if everyone in his office knew that the girl he was kissing and calling his girlfriend was revealed to be a boy. By the time their memories faded, I'll be long gone to Chicago.

Not only that, but horrid Dr. Phillips, who drugged me and tied me up and blackmailed me, must have been the most surprised and disappointed man in the world to find I had left the room. I smiled as I imagined how his face must have looked when he realized that he was trapped in that room with no clothes, no phone, and unless he wanted to wander about the hotel in a towel, no way out until a maid arrived to clean the room in the morning. He'll find his clothes in his car eventually, but I figured he's going to be very mad for a very long time.

"Not a bad result for a few kisses and dances," I thought, feeling in control for the first time since my feminizing began. Just in case Dr. Phillips could somehow trace the cab from the hotel, I told the cab driver to let me off two blocks from the church. I gave him the $20 bill and told him to keep the change. I listened to my heels clicking on the pavement, my shawl wrapped tightly around my shoulders, feeling the breeze play with the skirt of my dress. It was lovely being a woman, even as I felt vulnerable walking in the dark toward the darkened church.

Finally, I arrived in the darkened church parking lot. There was a parked sedan in the distance, the only one there other than my mom's car, which I approached, reaching for my purse. Suddenly, the other car moved rapidly toward me, its flashing police lights illuminating the parking lot .. and me. The car screeched to a halt, terrifying me. The police car door opened and a 50ish, husky police officer got out with his gun drawn.

"Put your hands on top of the car!" he shouted.

"What?" I said, trembling. "I ... I don't understand."

My mind was going a mile a minute. I didn't think there was any way Dr. Phillips could have had this done this to me in such a short time.

"Put your hands on top of the car!" he ordered again.

Shaking now, I put my purse on the roof of the car and placed my hands on it. My shawl slid to the ground, my bare back revealed to the police officer who approached rapidly, his gun still drawn.

"Stay just as you are, Missy," he said. "I'm going to see that you're not armed."

The officer ran his rough hands down my arms to my torso and all the way down my back and sides to my ankles and up again, his hands lingering perhaps longer than necessary on my bare skin. Then he took my right wrist and then my left, pulled them behind my back and clasped handcuffs on them over my white gloves.

"Wha ... " I said, terrified. "Why ...? What have I done?"

The officer turned me around by my shoulders and looked down at me, his deeply lined face showing his disapproval.

"Such a pretty young girl," he said sadly. "You should be ashamed of yourself for stealing from a man of the cloth."

"What?" I said. "I don't know what you're talking about, officer."

He shook his head.

"If it was up to me, I'd run you in right now," he said, "but the good father wants to see you."

"The .... the father?" My legs felt weak and my head was swimming.

The policeman put my shawl over my bare back, picked up my purse and led me by the elbow through the darkness to the church rectory. Answering his knock on the door was huge, imposing Father Kincaid in his black cassock, his priest's collar still on. He smiled benignly.

"Ah, Timothy," he said to the policeman. "I see you've captured our thief."

The cop led me into the living room of the rectory. Apparently Father Kincaid had been alone in the house, awaiting our arrival.

"She showed up, just like you said she would, Father," said the policeman. "Good thing you knew what car she would be driving."

"Yes," said Father Kincaid, staring at me, "her mother is a fine, church-going woman. I've seen this car many, many times."

I turned to the officer, my wrists handcuffed behind me. My voice was cracking.

"Why am I here? What have I done?"

The policeman said that Father Kincaid had reported something stolen,

"It was his gold cross," the officer said. "I've seen him wear it many a time in church. The good father said he has reason to believe that you purloined it."

I struggled against the handcuffs, my shawl falling off my bare shoulders to the carpet.

"But I didn't," I protested. "I haven't taken anything!"

The policeman asked if I minded if he looked in my purse. I told him to go right ahead. He opened it and reached inside. To my horror, he pulled out Father Kincaid's gold cross.

"I didn't take that!" I kind of shouted, my voice shaky. "I don't know how that got ..." and then I figured it out. While I was dancing with Dr. Phillips in the hotel ballroom, Father Kincaid must have planted it in my purse. There was no way I could prove it, though. What a sly, evil thing for him to do. I was so frustrated and scared that I started to sob.

"You have the right to remain silent," the cop said. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney ..."

The room was swimming around me as I stood there in my lovely dress, my arms bound behind me. I heard Father Kincaid's firm voice.

"Hold on for a minute, Timothy," he said. "Billie here isn't really a bad girl. I'd like to counsel her privately, to convince her to see the error of her ways."

"No!" I pleaded with the policeman through my tears. "Don't leave me alone with him."

"OK," said the cop. "I'll take you down to the station now for booking. Where was I? If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. ..."

I thought about what being arrested would mean. The humiliation when it was discovered that I was a boy, what Mom and Dad would say. I'd almost certainly be forbidden to go to Chicago. My life would be over.

"Wait," I said reluctantly, my head down. "I changed my mind. I want to be counseled by Father Kincaid."

"I don't know, Father," the cop said. "She's a lot younger than you. She could be dangerous."

The priest smiled and patted the policeman on the shoulder.

"Fine, Timothy," he said. "Then leave the handcuffs on her. Come back in an hour and I'll decide then about whether I want to press charges."

"Well, all right, Father," said the cop. "But I've got to take my dinner break in about 45 minutes, so it'll be more like an hour and a half till I'm back, OK, Father?"

Father Kincaid looked me up and down as I stood there handcuffed in my beautiful dress, the old priest's craggy face breaking into a wide smile.

"No problem, Timothy," he said as he closed the front door behind the departing policeman and smiled evilly at me. "No problem at all."

End of Part 12. (To be continued.)