“Ma’am. Open the car door,” the officer said. He was threatening, though very small, about as tall as the car window he was shouting at.

“I can’t the alarm will go off, she shouted back,

“Ma’am. Then. Open this window,” he said.

Good thing she could read lips.

“I can’t. My husband took the keys.

They were locked in, she and this stray dog.

The dog madly licked her face, panting and shivering in a-frenzy.  He pinned her to the passenger seat with his giant paws pressed into her thighs. A wide-faced-boxer-mix with his smooth muscular body all gone to hell with fear. He sloshed his wide smelly tongue up the front of her face. Ownership she presumed. Was this dog mad?

“Ma’am, you’re on a dangerous corner,” the cop said,   “ma’am, you’ve got to move the car.”

“My husband locked us in, he’s off to find the owner.” She tapped the window and pointed.

She could see her husband, knocking on somebody’s house, his hair mussed from the mission.

“Ma’am, I could have you arrested.”

The boxer-dog danced on her thighs and licked her face even more urgently.

“Nice boy,” she crooned   He didn’t belong in a stranger’s car and she didn’t belong there either.  How did I get here in this stinky car on this dangerous hill, on a busy street, a cop shouting through glass?

Her shirt was wet from slobber. Her ear was full of panting.

Did he say, “I could arrest you?”  He did look threatening.

Her cell phone rang. She hoped the owner was found.  She reached for the cell phone.   But the cop didn’t know. He reached for his gun.