Chapter Five
Bill Maxwell wasn't exactly welcomed by the local blue, being a Fed from LA, but they respected his rank and were certainly willing to help bag the creeps who had burned down a building in their town. It didn't take long to make a copy of the fingerprints, scan it into the computer and find a match. Two matches, actually.
David Hartman, 34, Animal Activist, Community College Professor, arrested three times before for protesting research at Rutgers University. No jail time.
Karen Englewood, 35, Animal Activist, Aerobics Instructor, also arrested for protesting, for vandalism against animal labs and once for breaking into one in Pennsylvania and releasing all the animals. Served 90 days in jail for that.
The photos matched the two he and Ralph had seen in the holograph.
Bill smiled. "Gotcha," he said.
"You know where they are?" the police sergeant asked.
"Looking into it."
"Don't hog the glory like you Feds always do. This fire was in my town. I want to nab them."
"Do your own investigation," Maxwell said, grabbing the glass and the criminal sheets. "I found this in the warehouse. Just lying on the floor. I can't help it if you and your fire inspectors need glasses."
Maxwell had no time to answer the vitriol that followed. He had to get to the train.
It was a very windy day. Windier than Ralph had ever flown in. He had heard the weather that morning warning that a thunderstorm might move in during the afternoon and it seemed likely by the wind and the clouds slowly moving east.
A sudden downdraft sent Ralph crashing down into a large oak in a public park. He flopped down onto the ground and before the woman pushing her baby stroller could even begin to comprehend what she had seen, he was skipping three steps and taking off again.
He didn't get very far. His cape kept bouncing all around behind him, fluttering and at times snapping sharply. It pulled Ralph off balance even more. He found himself nose-diving again into an office building, hitting the red brick wall with his arms covering his head, only to drop fifteen feet further to the paved ground of an alleyway.
Minutes later, he crashed again into a parked semi trailer at a truck rest stop. He turned invisible while the large trucker came out of his cab to investigate the noticeable "thud!" and took off again, but his concentration on keeping aloft turned him back visible within seconds. He kept his arms straight out in front, and ignored the buffering of his body left and right and up and down. He could fly. He had been doing so for nearly two years. He could do this…then the wind did a wicked move and his cape flashed around the front of his head, covering his face and obscuring his vision when he believed he heard helicopter rotors coming up on his right…? Struggling to remove the cape and send it to his back again, Ralph then clipped the landing pod of a helicopter, not harming it but once more he did a long fall to earth, landing on his stomach in the middle of someone's backyard. He sat up, feeling incompetent and frustrated and let a harsh "Damn!" erupt out of his mouth.
This was going to take much longer than he had anticipated.