Chapter 12 #3
“I’m going to have Deputy Fitzwater go out and take statements from the witnesses.
Here’s what’s going to happen now, Ty, and this time you should listen good.
You can get a lawyer, all right. You’ll need one.
I’m filing charges for assault, for resisting, for D-and-D and for creating a goddamn public nuisance.
You’re going to jail, and not just overnight. Not this time.”
“Bullshit.”
“Assault on a police officer? That’s a felony, Ty. You got two counts, plus the resisting. You could do five years.”
His rage-red face went white. “Bullshit.” And the word shook.
“You think about that. A lawyer might get that down to, oh, eighteen months in, with probation. But you’ll do real time for it, that’s a promise.”
“You can’t send me to jail. I’ve got to make a living.”
“What you’ve been doing the last couple years? I don’t call it living.”
He thought of Tybal out in center field—fast on his feet, an arm like a rocket. Of Ty and Missy shining all through high school.
And told himself what he’d done, what he would do, was for that bright, shiny couple.
“You think about that tonight, Ty. Think about spending the next year or two, or more, down in Little Rock. Or the chance I might give you of spending that time on probation, contingent on attendance and completion of alcohol rehabilitation, anger management and marriage counseling.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ty dropped down on the bunk, putting his head in his hands. “I feel sick.”
“You are sick. You think about it.” Brooks stepped back, secured the door to the cells.
“You baited him.”
“What’re you talking about, Ash?”
“Come on, Chief, he can’t hear us out here. You baited him into the assault.”
“Ash, I’m going to say this once. Sooner or later, it wasn’t just going to be Missy with a split lip or black eye.
The neighbors, they’d get tired of calling us in.
Maybe one of them would get it into his head to stop it himself.
Or Missy would get tired of getting smacked and pick up one of the guns they’ve got in that house.
Or he’d get tired of having her run out and hit her hard enough she couldn’t run anymore. ”
“He never broke up the place like he was doing tonight.”
“No. He’s escalating. I don’t want to get called out there to deal with one—or both—of their bodies.”
“Can you do like you said? Make him go to rehab and stuff?”
“Yeah, I’m going to make sure of it. Officially? What you heard me say to him tonight was the same as you’ve heard me say before. Did he hit Missy, where was she, what was the problem, and so on. You got that?”
“I got it.”
“All right, then, I’m going to write it up, have Boyd go on out there to get those witness statements, and check to make sure Missy’s back home.”
“She’ll come in tomorrow, like always.”
Yeah, she would, Brooks thought. But this time she’d have to make a different choice. “And I’ll deal with her. You can go on home.”
“No, sir. I’ll stay here tonight.”
“You caught it last time.”
“I’ll stay. You should ice down that jaw. You took a pretty good shot. In the morning, maybe you could bring in some of those sticky buns from the bakery.”
“I can do that. Fancy coffee, too?”
“They got that one with the chocolate in it and the whipped cream on top.”
“I know the one. How’s that shoulder?”
“It’s not bad. Probably bruise up some, but that’s more weight on it. Tybal’s okay when he’s not drinking. Maybe, if what you did sticks, he’ll be okay.”
* * *
It took longer than he’d hoped, but Abigail’s lights were still on when he got back to her house.
The four Motrin he’d swallowed took the throbbing in his jaw down to an annoying ache.
That would’ve been good, but the lessening there made him aware of the few other spots Ty had landed a fist or a boot.
Should just go home, he told himself as he eased out of the car. He should go home, take an hour-long hot shower, drink two fingers of whiskey and go to bed.
The whole business with Ty had ruined his mood, anyway.
He’d just ask her for a rain check, since he’d driven out here.
She opened the door before he knocked, stood there in that braced and ready way of hers, studying his face.
“What happened?”
“Long story.”
“You need an ice pack,” she said as she stepped back.
The first time, he thought, she’d let him in without him asking or maneuvering. He went in.
“It took a while. Sorry.”
“I did some work.” She and the dog turned, walked back to the kitchen. She opened the freezer, got out an instant cold compress and offered it.
“People usually go for the frozen peas.”
“These are more efficient, and less wasteful.”
He sat, laid it against his jaw. “Get punched in the face often?”
“No. Do you?”
“It’s been a while. I forgot how much it fucking hurts. You wouldn’t have any whiskey handy, would you?”
Saying nothing, she turned to a cupboard. She took out a bottle of Jameson—and right there he wanted to kiss her feet—and poured him two fingers in a thick lowball glass.
“Thanks.” The first slow sip eased the rawness in his mood. “Anything you don’t have handy?”
“Things I don’t feel I have any use for.”
“There you go.”
“Do you want to tell me the long story?”
“Honey, I’m from the Ozarks. Long stories are a way of life.”
“All right.” She got out a second glass, poured more whiskey, and sat.
“God, you’re a restful woman.”
“Not really.”
“Right now you are, and I sure need it.” He sat back, ignoring twinges, and took a slow sip of whiskey. “So, Tybal and Missy. Back in our high school days, they were the golden couple. You know what I’m saying?”
“They were important in that culture.”
“King and queen. He was the all-star athlete. Quarterback with magic hands. Center fielder with a bullet arm. She was head cheerleader, pretty as a strawberry parfait. He went to Arkansas State, mostly on an athletic scholarship, and she went along. From what I hear, they sparkled pretty good there, too. Up until junior year, when he messed up his knee on a play. All the talk of him going pro, that blew up. Ended up coming back home. They broke up, got back together, broke up, that sort of thing. Then they got married.”
He sipped more whiskey. Between that, the Motrin and the restfulness of the woman, he felt better.
“He coached high school football awhile, but it didn’t go well.
He didn’t have the wiring for it, I guess.
So he went to work in construction. Missy, she tried some modeling, but that didn’t work out.
She works at the Flower Pot. They never prepared, I’m thinking, for things not to keep on sparkling, so dealing with the dull took a toll.
Ty, he started paying that toll with Rebel Yell. ”
“He yells?”
“No, honey, it’s a whiskey not nearly as nice as what you poured me. My predecessor in this job let me know about the problem. The DUIs, the bar fights, and the D-and-Ds—that’s—”
“Domestic disputes. He becomes violent and abusive when he drinks.”
“That’s right. The last year or so, it’s been worse.”
“Why hasn’t he been arrested?”
“He has been, then he ends up with a warning or community service. Missy won’t press charges when he smacks her around, and denies it ever happened. She fell, she slipped, she walked into a door.”
“She enables him.”
“That she does. And the fact is people have given them a blind eye on the trouble. The kind of shine they had lasts a long time in a small town like this. But I spent some time away, so maybe I see it—them—differently. Since repeated attempts at getting them into therapy, rehab, counseling have failed, I went another way.”
“That resulted in your injury.”
“You could say. When my deputy called to report they were at it—which means Ty came home drunk, hit her, she ran out—I got Ty to come out on his stoop, in full view of the fourteen people outside to watch the show. He had music blasting to accompany his wrecking of every breakable in the house he could get his hands on. This was a plus, as nobody but Ty and my deputy could hear me incite this drunken asshole to violence by questioning the size and virility of his penis. If that hadn’t worked, I was prepared to suggest that his long-suffering and idiotic wife might find the size and virility of my penis more to her liking. ”
On a long breath, he shook his head. “I’m glad it didn’t come to that. He punched me in the face in front of witnesses, and is now contemplating serving time for a felony or two.”
“That was very good strategy. Men are sensitive about their genitalia.”
He choked a little on the whiskey, then rubbed his hand over his face on a laugh. “God knows we are.” Then he sobered, took a small sip. “God knows we are that.”
“Your method wasn’t conventional, but the result was good. But you feel sorry and a little sad. Why?”
“He was a friend once. Not best, not close to best, but a friend of mine. I liked them, and I guess I liked seeing that sparkle, too. I’m sorry to see them brought low like this. I’m sorry to be a part of bringing them low.”
“You’re wrong. It’ll be up to them to address and seek help for their problems, but as long as they were both unable to do that, they’d never resolve those problems. What you did gives him only two choices.
Jail or help. It’s more likely that, when sober and faced with those choices and consequences, he’ll choose help.
As she appears to be codependent, so will she.
I would think your actions fall well within the function and spirit of your job description.
As well as within the parameters of friendship. ”
He set aside the whiskey he hadn’t finished. “I was telling myself I should just go home with my mood and my aches and annoyances. I’m awfully glad I didn’t.”
He reached out, took her hands. “Let me take you to bed, Abigail.”
She kept her eyes on his. “All right.”