Passion In James County X
Badge of Dishonor
By D.C. Roi
Chapter eight
"I'll take this asshole to the jail and lodge him," Trooper Martha Loomis told Rod. After a bit of a struggle during which they used pepper spray, she and Rod managed to get Ray Leone, the battering husband, in custody. "I'm going to charge him with domestic assault, resisting arrest, and two counts of assaulting an officer."
"Sounds about right," Rod told his colleague. "I thought the bastard was gonna break my arm there at one point."
"Rod, why don't you run his wife over to the E.R. and have her checked out?" Martha said. "See if they'll take pictures for us. It will help a lot with the court case. You can give her the domestic abuse information while you're at it, too."
"Sounds good to me," Rod said. He walked into the living room where Donna Leone, whose husband had been hitting her when they arrived, sat.
Mrs. Leone, a slim, attractive blonde, looked up at Rod. "Are...are you going to arrest Ray?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am," Rod told her. "Trooper Loomis is taking him to jail. If you don't mind, I'd like to run you over to the E.R. and have you checked out."
"O...OK," the woman replied.
After the victim was checked out at the hospital and pictures of her injuries were taken, Rod drove her home.
He glanced at her, sitting next to him in his cruiser, as he drove down the highway. She wasn't bad-looking, actually. Kinda skinny, but she had nice tiny tits. And, although he usually liked chicks with long hair, he found her short haircut nice. The pale pink sweatshirt and snug jeans she wore looked good on her.
Rod got off the freeway off-ramp, braked, and turned in the direction of the Leone house. The woman sitting next to him had been quiet ever since they'd left the hospital.
"Does your husband hit you a lot, Mrs. Leone?" Rod asked.
The girl nodded. "He's been hitting me for a couple of years now!" she said. She hugged herself. "Goddammit!" She began to cry. "I try to be a good wife, why the hell does he have to do that?"
"Hey, come on," Rod said. He'd always been uncomfortable with crying women. He glanced at Donna Leone again.
Her face was interesting, not quite pretty, and she looked like she might be in her teens, but he'd heard her give her date of birth to the nurse at the E.R. so he knew she was quite a bit older than she looked.
"You ever talk to any of those battered women's support groups?" Rod asked.
Tears streamed down her face and she sniffled. "I...I know I should have," Donna murmured, "but I...I guess I kept thinking Ray'd straighten himself out. Damn!" She pounded the cruiser's dashboard with a small fist.
"I've got an information pack that lists all the services available to battered women. You have any family who can come stay with you for awhile?" Rod asked. "That might help keep you safe."
"There's nobody I can call," Donna replied. "My folks are both dead and the only other family I have is my sister. She lives up in Washington state, near Spokane." She hit the dashboard again.
"Look," Rod said, "You can get a restraining order. I think that would be a good idea. The number to do that is in the information packet I'll give you when we get to your place. And the number for a battered women's service, too. Maybe they can help you find someplace safe to be, in case your husband makes bail."
The woman looked at Rod. "How long is Ray gonna be locked up?" she asked.
"I'd guess overnight, depending on whether the judge sets bail or not," Rod said, "And whether he can find someone to bail him out. I mean, we're filing some pretty serious charges against him, but you can't count on the damn bleeding heart judges we got these days to keep anybody in jail any more."
She studied him, puzzled. "You mean he can beat me up and they won't keep him locked up?" she said. "That don't seem fair."
Rod shrugged. "I know," he said. "Most of the people I work with would agree with you, but that's the way it is. Remember, he was beating on Trooper Loomis and me, too. The judge won't care about that, either."
Donna snorted. "Great! I get beat up and nobody does anything to keep it from happening again," she said. "What's it going to take to keep Ray from hitting me again?"
"If I were you, I'd start with the restraining order," Rod told her.
"Is that going to keep him away from me?" she asked.
Rod looked at her and shook his head. "No, but it will mean we'll be able to arrest him and lock him up again if he violates the order," he explained. "Usually, judges don't take too kindly to guys who violate restraining orders. And we respond to those kinds of calls as quickly as we can."
