tasted blood as Ash let out a wondrous
And on a roar, Ty charged.
Brooks sidestepped, turned his foot just enough that Ty tripped over it and went flying into the yard.
“Now you’ve done it. You’re under arrest for assaulting an officer.”
“I’ll kill you.” Scrambling to his feet, Ty came at Brooks, fists flying.
“Add resisting arrest.” Brooks dodged or blocked most of the blows. “You want to give me a hand securing the prisoner, Ash?”
“Yes, sir.” Breaking out of his openmouthed shock, Ash ran forward.
“You keep your hands off me, you pissant cocksucker.” He swung at Ash, went wide, but connected with his shoulder.
“That’ll be a second count of assaulting an officer. I think it’s clear we’ll be throwing drunk and disorderly into the mix.”
Between the two of them, they got Ty down on the ground, cuffed him. As they hauled a struggling, cursing Ty up, Brooks scanned the faces on neighboring lawns.
“I’m sending a deputy out shortly,” he said, raising his voice. “He’ll get statements from y’all. I don’t want any bullshit, you hear? You say what you saw. Anybody doesn’t, I’m charging with obstruction of justice. Don’t test me.”
He put a hand on Ty’s head, boosted him into the back of the cruiser, then swiped the back of his hand over his bloody lip. “Deputy Hyderman, you follow me in.”
“Yes, sir, Chief.”
He ignored Ty’s rantings as he drove to the station, did his best to ignore his aching jaw as well. The warning look he shot Ash had the deputy keeping his mouth shut as they loaded Ty into a cell.
“I want a lawyer. I’m suing your ass, then I’m kicking it for saying that shit.”
“What shit?” Brooks locked the cell door.
“That shit about I ain’t got a dick, and I can’t get it up to do Missy. You fucker.”
“Damn, Ty, you must be drunker than you look. I haven’t seen your dick since the showers in high school PE, and I can’t say I paid it much mind then. I never said anything about it.”
“You lying sack, you said it was the size of a—a—something small.”
“You’re drunk, you had the music blasting. You don’t know what you heard. Deputy, did I say anything to impinge the prisoner’s manhood?”
“I … ah. I didn’t hear anything.”
“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.”
