“Stay out of it,” she warned. “Get back.”
“Let him go!” she screamed, pushing at Jen. “Jimmy! Please don’t hurt him!”
Lord deliver us from fools, Jen thought, as she grabbed the woman’s right arm, twisting it around behind her back, pushing her against the side of the car. She had seen it time and again in her years working the street. A man could be beating the daylights out of his wife, his kids, and anyone else within reach, but let the police get the best of him and his loving wife was ready to fight, die, and go to hell to save him. She’d seen it happen even when the couple no longer lived together, as in this case. The destructive relationship often went on for years after the courts had legally ended it.
A marked unit squealed to a stop, and two uniformed officers from the midnight shift bailed out. Will’s unmarked was only seconds behind. Randall was cuffed, and she and her ex-husband were placed in the back of the cruiser, where they leaned against one another, Randall still sobbing. Jen saw Jimmy kiss his ex on the forehead before she turned away, shaking her head in disgust. She turned her attention to the young man who was sitting on the ground holding his head.
“How do you feel?” she said. “Do you want us to call an ambulance?”
“No, no ambulance.” He shook his head and winced. “I’m okay. What was that all about anyway?”
He started to get to his feet. Will took his arm to steady him.
“That ‘gentleman’ is the young lady’s ex-husband,” Jen said. “He apparently didn’t care for her choice of new friends. It looks like you picked the wrong woman to go home with tonight.”
“Figures. That’s the kind of luck I have.” He rubbed the back of his head. “What did he hit me with?”
“I think his fist,” Jen said. “You have the right to press charges. We have some of our own on him, but you can file assault.”
The man shook his head.
“I just want to go home. I don’t want anything more to do with those two.”
“I can understand that, but if they fight the charges we have on them, you might still have to testify as to what occurred here tonight.”
“Yeah, sure, okay.”
Jen pulled out her notebook.
“I’ll need your name and contact information, and I’ll need to see some ID.”
As he handed his driver’s license to her, the cruiser pulled off with the prisoners. Hank came over to where they were standing. He was grinning.
“Just like old times, wasn’t it, partner?”
“Yeah,” Jen said. “Now I know what I’m missing over in detectives. Absolutely nothing.”
Hank laughed and turned to the man.
“I don’t believe I got your name.”
“Sam Heinlein. I want to thank you two for showing up when you did.”
“No problem. We’d been out ourselves and just happened to be driving by.”
“I guess that should teach me,” Heinlein said. “Next time I meet a girl at a bar and she invites me home, I’ll get letters of recommendation first.”
Jen handed back his license.
“Can I go now?”
“You can,” Jen said, “but I think you’ll have to come get your car in the morning. Not only have you been drinking, you were hit in the head. I still think you should get checked out at the hospital just to be sure, but whether you do or not, we can’t let you get behind the wheel. We’ll give you a ride home.”
Heinlein grudgingly agreed, and Hank led him to the unmarked, then got behind the wheel. Jen turned to Will.
“Thanks for showing up so quickly.”
“I would have done it for anyone,” Will said, the corners of his mouth turning up in that sexy way of his.
Jen laughed. They both knew he’d stayed in their area when he’d heard Randall was on her way home because he worried about Jen’s safety. It was a relief that his concern for her and her resistance to it had become a laughing matter to them.
“I guess that takes care of our surveillance for the night,” she said after she and Hank had dropped Heinlein at his apartment building. “Unless Randall bonds out, she’s as safe as she can be. I suppose we should just roam for extra coverage.”
“Beats sitting in one place,” Hank said. “Even if she does bond out, I doubt we have to worry about Randall. If the killer was following her, he’s bound to have been scared off by what happened.”
Jen held her wristwatch up to the streetlight. It was a quarter till two.
“Let’s head for the ranch, Tonto. We can fill out the arrest sheets and get a cup of coffee before we head back out.”
Hank nodded and started to key the mike to report that they were on their way to the jail when Vic Hensley’s voice came over the radio, his tone low but urgent.
“This is Zebra 5. Is there a unit in the area of the 800 block of Tenth? We’ve got a subject on foot who just came out of the bushes on the west side of the target’s house.”
Jen remembered from the earlier briefing that Sue Carpenter lived in a one-family house at 812 Tenth Avenue. It was set back several feet from the sidewalk. A row of tall, thick bushes ran along the property line on the west side. They could easily conceal a person who didn’t want to be seen.
“This is David 10,” Jen responded. “ETA, three to four minutes.”
“Rover 2,” Will’s voice crackled over the mike. “We’re about a mile from you. Where do you want us?”
“Both units, step on it and advise when you get in the area,” Vic said. “We’ll keep an eye on him.”
Lonnie’s voice came over the radio calling control on the open channel. He advised the dispatcher to get four marked units moving that way to set up a quadrant in the four-block square area around Carpenter’s house. A code had
