Chapter Five
Death Can Wait
Willow
Deputy Wallard called an hour later. Again, Dale placed his cell on speaker.
“This is Deputy Wallard. Who am I speaking with?”
Dale rolled his eyes. “Dale Berger out on Juniper Springs Ranch.” Before the deputy could say anything more, Dale continued: “We’ve got human bones out by one of our property lines. They’ve been there for a while. Need someone to come take a look.”
“Are you sure they’re human?” The deputy’s voice sounded incredulous.
“Yeah, they’re human.”
“It’s a little late to be calling this in, isn’t it?” Scorn now filled Deputy Wallard’s voice.
“Called in as soon as I returned home.”
“I was about to go off duty,” was the next grumble.
“Go off duty. Bones have been there for years; I don’t see them walking away overnight unless a mountain lion or coyotes get hold of them. Dog dug ’em up, but they weren’t deep, so I think either scenario is unlikely, or it would have happened already.”
“Give me your information and I’ll come out when I check on duty in the morning if there are no other calls.”
“I can do that, but if I were you, I would call my supervisor and give him a heads up.”
“Just give me your information and let me do my job.” The irritation in his voice had turned to full-blown aggravation.
Dale gave the address, which was more map coordinates than anything else. “Call before you come out so I’m home when you arrive. I’ve got two big dogs, and they don’t like strangers snooping around.”
“They need to be restrained when I get there,” Wallard said.
“See ya tomorrow.” Dale hung up and turned to Willow.
“Already don’t like the pompous ass. Where the hell do they find these people?”
He didn’t sound like he expected an answer, but Willow gave him one anyway. “From the prison guard rejects.” She offered a smile.
“You got that right. Prison pays more. To work up here, you’re a masochist or a moron.”
Willow didn’t touch that statement.
“I got a few things to do in the barn, and then I’ll lock things up before heading in. If you don’t have anything planned for dinner, I’ll make chili.”
She smiled. Dale used two kinds of beans and no meat in the chili. He’d come up with the recipe to please her. He made it hot and spicy the way she liked her food. Prison meals lacked taste, and she went heavy on the spices whenever she cooked. Hot chili peppers were her favorite.
Willow still had occasional nightmares about her father, incarceration, and her experience with Lance Hogg. Dale suggested she see a therapist, but she’d declined. They had poked and prodded her enough while she was in prison.
Directly after Willow’s father killed her mother in front of her, he’d told her to call the police, then curled into a ball on the floor and cried.
He always kept a bat by the front door within easy reach.
Willow didn’t quite remember the events that happened next, but the evidence didn’t lie.
She had beaten her father to death with the bat.
The blood and brain matter covering her proved it.
Her father’s abuse went back as far as she could remember.
She tried hard not to remember. After leaving prison, it took months before she would carry the shotgun Dale provided.
As a felon, she couldn’t own a gun. Dale explained how dangerous the property was without a firearm.
Lance Hogg, the son of the man responsible for her grandmother’s death, almost killed Willow.
Now she carried the shotgun on the property, but she still worried about being caught.
Lance had taken a plea deal, and been given twenty years in prison.
As his victims, she and Dale had agreed to the deal.
“You never know what will happen in court, and I don’t trust our current county attorney as far as I could throw the man,” Dale had said. “Twenty years is a good chunk of change, and if we get lucky, someone will take care of the problem while he’s incarcerated.”
Even after changing her name from Willow Humphreys to Willow Joan Morgan, her nightmares snuck in at night. She wasn’t afraid of much, but returning to prison terrified her, and if she was caught with a firearm, there was a good chance she would go back.
She was careful to only go armed on her property, but the danger she faced from law enforcement always stayed at the back of her mind.
Dale walked to the barn, and Willow went inside to shower.
As always, she took her time. It was another thing that prison shaped within her.
Showers had been limited to five minutes.
Dale didn’t blink an eye if she stayed in for close to an hour.
That was one of the things she loved about him.
He had been a cop, but he also saw what went on in the county jail.
He gave her space and understood her idiosyncrasies.
When she finished and opened the bathroom door, the scent of chili filled the house, and she smiled.
She took clean dishes from the cupboard and laid them out on the small island in the kitchen so they could fill their bowls.
They ate their meals in front of the television.
Dale enjoyed watching the nightly news. Willow could take it or leave it, but she enjoyed hearing Dale cuss at the TV.
They had a few shows they watched together, but she preferred reading.
Her grandmother had everything from romance novels and mysteries, to how to install a solar system and fix common problems with a well.
“The chili needs ten minutes,” Dale said. “I’ll jump in for a quick shower.”
“Take your time,” she told him.
They only had the one bathroom inside the house, and they shared it. Dale had connected his travel trailer to the septic system, so it was usable if they had a traffic jam, but so far that hadn’t happened.
They ate dinner in front of the TV.
“Did you have a nightmare last night?” Dale asked.
He most likely heard her, so she didn’t bother denying it. “Yes. It was about Lance.”
“You saved yourself from him just like you did your father. Men have treated you cruelly, and they don’t deserve your dreams.”
She gave him a half-smile. “Tell that to my nightmares.”
“I know, and they aren’t your fault either. There’s a documentary you might find interesting,” Dale told her.
“Okay,” she said.
Dale found it, and Willow quickly became engrossed. When it concluded, she turned to Dale with raised eyebrows waiting for his lesson.
“That girl saved herself, just as you did with Lance Hogg. Let me ask you this,” Dale said. “Have you heard the term Stockholm syndrome?”
“Isn’t that where the victim falls in love with her abuser or something like that?” she asked.
“Yes, and it’s ridiculous. Survival is not a syndrome.
It’s also not a label they give to male captives.
Calling it a syndrome is a way to degrade a female victim's natural survival instincts.
Survival is a strategic response to a life-threatening situation.
When you call it a syndrome, it shifts focus from the abuser's inexcusable violence and places the responsibility for the emotional response on the victim.”
Willow loved when Dale discussed these types of things with her. He carried so much knowledge, and she absorbed every word.
“Syndrome suggests that something is psychologically wrong with the victim for feeling sympathy towards their captor. It doesn’t acknowledge the horrific circumstances the victim is forced to endure.
It’s a convenient way to dismiss a victim's account or to question their sanity. People love blaming the victim for some reason. I’ve seen it a thousand times.
One of the deputies told me that after he arrested a man in a brutal domestic violence case, that if the bitch had been his wife, he would have beat her too.
” Dale rubbed his eyes and shook his head before he continued, “What she was wearing when a woman is sexually assaulted is another instance. If that argument held weight, why are small children raped? I’m talking toddlers. ” Dale’s face had become red.
“I think your blood pressure is rising?” Willow said carefully.
“Most likely it is. In ninety percent of crimes against persons cases, women and children are the victims. I saw it too many times. I’m no psychologist, but you need to change your thinking.
Just like the young girl in the documentary, you are a survivor.
If you continue having those nightmares, you need to kick some serious ass in them. ”
She gave a short laugh. “I’ll try my best.”
“I know you don’t like talking about it, but even with what happened to your father, you displayed resilience, and you survived against impossible odds.
You don’t remember that day, but that doesn’t mean it happened like they say it did.
I’ve never seen an aggressive bone in your body except for when you fought Lance Hogg.
Stop doubting yourself. I can’t imagine a situation that you can’t handle. ”
No one had ever offered any other explanation for her father’s death.
Even at the trial, her attorney didn’t offer an alternative explanation.
He wove self-defense into years of abuse and the trauma she suffered.
Even if Willow thought of herself as a murderer, Dale was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Thank you.” She wanted to cry because he cared so much. He loved her just as her grandmother had. It was unconditional.
“When that deputy comes tomorrow, don’t let anything he says bother you. I know he’ll rile me up, but I’ll try my best to hold onto my temper. He will most likely prove himself a bigger ass than I already know he is.”
“How did you do it?” Willow asked.
“Do what?”
“Work with all the assholes.”
That made Dale smile. “There were a few that were on the up and up. I learned from one of the best. He hated the old-school crap about the wild west. Not the real wild west, but the so-called rural counties and their atrocities that haven’t stopped. In my book, city police are only one step up.”
“Why did you go into law enforcement?” Willow asked. She’d wanted to know the answer for a long time.
He grimaced. “When I say it, don’t laugh.”
She nodded.
“I wanted to help people.”
“Why would I laugh at that?” she questioned.
“Because it’s what every wet behind the ears cadet says at the police academy. Sadly, I helped very few.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I did my best. After an arrest, the attorneys get hold of it and turn people’s lives into a money game.
If you have the money, you can easily get out of a DUI up here.
If you don’t, you lose your license. Hire a city attorney, and they clean the officer’s plate in court because we’re unused to intelligence when it comes to trying a case. ”
“So that was your reasoning? You wanted to help people?” she asked, refusing to let it go.
“I grew up poor. My dad left my mom when I was young, and we never had enough money for things like food. I couldn’t afford to go to college, so I joined the Army.
Did my minimum before leaving and needed something to go into where I could earn money quickly.
Out here, if you’re twenty-one with no criminal record, you can be an officer even if you shouldn’t. ”
“I don’t care what you say, you were a good deputy and I know you helped people. You helped me.”
She saw his expression change, but he didn’t say anything more on the subject.
Dale would die thinking he failed her grandmother.