January 27th, 1994

Today Kitty cleaned the kitchen floor. To this purpose she emptied a bucket full of cleaning water over it. She then spaced the water out evenly. It took Eve and me the better part of the forenoon to clean the bottoms of my kitchen furniture.

Danny was irritated that a person who was supposed to be older than him could do such silly things. Gently Eve asked him if he would have the idea of cleaning a floor for somebody at all.

He stared perplexedly at her. "Why on earth should I do that?"

Patiently Eve sat down with him and tried to explain to him the value of giving somebody a treat.
Danny tried hard to understand her. "But how should I know when somebody wants to have their floor cleaned? Wouldn't they be hurt if I did it just after they did it themselves?" Sometimes he thought that he understood what people wanted. Then he had to notice that they were beyond comprehension altogether. This was definitely not his day...

It was a relief for everybody when Ellen Crawford phoned. She caught a cold yesterday. Now she asked if 'our sweet children' could walk her dog, Christmas.

Now, that was a chore they were able to carry out together and without any further trouble, or so we thought...

"Me, walk a dog?! Never in my life!" Danny shouted and started to crawl under my freshly cleaned kitchen table.

"But Danny, Christmas is hardly bigger than a Matchbox car!" Robert tried to encourage him.

From under the table Danny answered, "Does it matter if you are killed by a hand grenade or by an atomic bomb?!"

Ed tried to suppress a grin. Somehow his son's logic seemed to make sense to him.

"I can walk a dog!" cried Kitty. "We had one when I was little."

It was agreed that Kitty would walk the dog and Danny would escort her to make sure that she found her way back.

The scene played vividly in my imagination: Carefree Kitty skipping ahead with the little dog, Danny two paces behind her, ready to flee, torn between panic and the sense of duty he must have learned from Ed Brown...

When they came back two hours later everybody had cooled down.

"No problems this time?" asked Robert suspiciously. He had stopped believing in miracles, as far as the smooth living with children was concerned.

"Yes and no," explained Danny in his precise way. "We came home without any accidents, which is quite noteworthy these days, isn't it? But Christmas insisted on walking on the shoulder of the road, and we were a little anxious because of my recent accident..."

He stopped abruptly. Even for an autistic child it was obvious that he must have said something shocking, since both his father and Chief Ironside stared at him. And Dad and Chief Ironside were never shocked, were they?

Robert turned around. "Come on, Ed, what are you waiting for?" he barked.

Eve, who was just coming back from the bathroom, glanced perplexedly behind them. "What's the matter? Where are they heading?" she asked.

Outside the engine of the van was started.

"The hole where Danny fell on Monday was on the shoulder of the road. Usually nobody walks there. Now the kids tell us that Christmas, Ellen Crawford's dog, likes walking there. That trap must have been meant for him. I suppose Robert and Ed are driving over to the Crawfords'."

Robert told me what happened there:

When they arrived at the Crawfords' estate, they heard the barking of the little dog in the garden shed. They hurried to get there.

Bill Crawford was raising a roof batten over his head, aiming at Christmas, who was tethered to an old table. Obviously he wanted to kill the dog with it!

"Ed, stop him!" shouted Robert.

Ed tackled the older man, using the surprise effect to knock the batten out of his hand. He could not get in a fight with Crawford; he would not have stood a chance against him. But he used his judo skills to turn Bill's arm in his back and then force him against the wall. The moves did themselves automatically.

Robert rolled over. With Christmas' dog leash he tied Bill's hands together.

Then he made him sit down.

Ed's breathing was labored, and he bent over the table to steady himself and take the pressure off his lungs.

The dog started to bark happily – Ellen Crawford was entering.

She ignored her little darling as well as her husband and Robert. Instead she turned to Ed. "Chief Brown – calm down, please." Her voice was full of concern. She laid her hand onto the small of his back. "Sit down. Try to breathe slowly. I know that it is a horrible feeling. You are doing fine, sir. It'll pass..."

Surprised, Robert looked at her. He had never taken her seriously.

"I was a nurse before I got married. And I have seen your picture on TV, Chief Brown. Can you manage?"

Ed nodded, for some reason feeling ashamed.

Ellen turned towards Robert now. "What happened?"

Robert felt too much respect for her to lie to her. "Your husband wanted to kill your dog."

At first he had wanted to feed him raisins to poison him, then he had set a trap for him, then he caused a flood, and when nothing worked he used a roof batten.

She nodded, not really surprised. "He becomes awful jealous when he has drunk."

Bill had started snoring softly.

"And now he will sleep until tomorrow morning."

There was an old couch in a corner of the small room. Ellen pulled her husband standing and guided him there. He followed her like a sleepwalker. She helped him lie down.

Robert rolled over to him and loosened his bonds.

"He won't need these then. You don't think that he is dangerous now, do you?"

"No, he's not. But he may be after his next helping of alcohol."

Ironside sensed that Ed felt embarrassed. He wanted his friend out of this place.

"We should talk about everything tomorrow – say, nine a.m. Do you agree?"

"I would be very happy about it."

Ed stood up. He had his breathing a little better under control now.

"Let's go," said Robert.

"Thank you very much for saving my dog."

One thing about this wild story confused me a bit. "Robert, why did you encourage Ed to attack Bill? Yesterday you tried to stop him from running into the water because you thought that he wasn't up to it."

"Firstly he was the only one who could prevent Crawford from killing the dog without a bloodshed. My only alternative would have been to shoot him, since he would not have been able to stop his momentum. And secondly... Ed is really not in great shape physically. But this was basically a piece of routine police work. Ed has been an excellent policeman for decades now. He knows the moves in his sleep. And you have seen that he is still fast. Therefore it was only a question of mental strength. I was sure that he could do it, but I wasn't sure if Ed knew he could do it. Now he knows."

I had to hug my husband tightly. "Oh, Robert! You are the best friend he could have. You managed to give him some self-esteem back. I love you so, so much."

"How much?"

"Shall I show you how much?"

"Don't answer a question with a counter-question!" he joked.

Author's note:

Have you noticed that there is a new Ironside writer among us? Check out "Cold Cases" by Briroch. It is in the crossover section (Ironside – Streets of San Francisco).