Passion In James County X: Badge of Dishonor
Chapter fourteen
Lise Billingham sat at her desk, opening the bag that held her lunch, when Luke Thomas, a young deputy she'd gone to high school with, walked into the office holding a coffee cup in his hand.
"Hi, Lise," Luke said. "I heard you were working here now. How are you doing?"
"I'm fine," Lise replied. "I didn't realize you were a deputy."
"I've been one for two years," Luke said. "Ever since I got out of college. I usually work night shift, so I haven't had a chance to stop in and say Hello before this." He walked into the office and sat down in a chair in front of Lise's desk.
"I thought you were going to be a lawyer," Lise said.
"I was," Luke said. "But when the drunk who killed my folks got off because of some sleazy lawyer, I decided I didn't want to be one any more. I wanted to be able to catch bad guys and lock them up, maybe keep what happened to my folks from happening to anybody else."
"I was really sorry to hear about your folks being killed," Lise said. "That had to be awful."
Luke nodded. "It was," he said. "But I managed to get over it OK. My uncle and aunt took me in and being with them helped a lot."
"Where are you living now?" Lise asked.
"I...ah...I rent a little apartment over on Thomas Street," Luke replied. He tried not to think about what had happened between his landlady and him the night before, but couldn't help himself. And, as he thought about what he and his Lorrie had done, he felt his face getting hot. "You married Rod Billingham, huh?" he said, hoping to get his mind on something else.
"Yes," Lise said.
"How's he like being on the patrol?" Luke asked. "I thought about applying for the Patrol, but they had a hiring freeze on, so I came on with the sheriff instead."
"Rod really likes it," Lise said. "He loves the job."
"You have any kids?" Luke asked.
"Three," Lise said. "I kind of hated to come to work because I do like being a stay-at-home mom, but you know how it is these days, we need the money."
Deputy Jonas Briggs stuck his head in the door. "Hey, Luke, come on, we got to roll on a domestic complaint out at Mason Estates."
"Oh, shit," Luke said. "You mean the Drews are at it again?"
"Yep," Briggs said. "Martha claims Irving's threatening to stab her."
Luke smiled at Lise. "Got to go," he said. "See you around sometime."
"Take care, Luke," Lise said. She watched the two deputies leave with a bit of worry in her eyes. She was a police wife and knew domestic complaints were the most dangerous calls officers had to handle. She hoped neither Luke nor his partner would wind up getting hurt handling this one.
"How do you like this new shift schedule?" Jonas Briggs asked as he and Luke headed toward the scene of their call.
One of the first things the new patrol commander did when he took charge was change the schedule for the patrol division. The new schedule allowed officers more choice of shifts they worked, and even provided for two-officer cars part of the time.
"I think it makes sense," Luke replied as he guided the cruiser through traffic. "With this schedule, it should be a lot easier to get backup when things get busy. And it's kind of nice working with a partner, too."
Luke and his partner were assigned to one of the "mid-watch" units, two-officer cars whose tour of duty overlapped the normal shifts and kept officers on the street during shift changes. He and Jonas were assigned to the James County Nine car, and were working the afternoon watch, which ran from eleven in the morning until six in the afternoon.
The domestic dispute, which was at a location only too familiar to the deputies, didn't turn out to be much. Both the husband and wife were drunk, so Luke and Jonas settled things down for the day by taking the husband into protective custody and transporting him to a local de-tox center.
"Well, that was easy," Jonas said as they drove away from the detox center.
"Yeah, be nice if we could settle every domestic that easy," Luke agreed. "You sure it was Irving's turn to go to detox?"
"Hell, I don't know," Jonas laughed. The deputies had been to the home so often, and the couple had both been to detox so much, that it got to be a running joke which person's turn it was to go. "Maybe, now that we're getting that new computer system, they could set something up so we'll know which one we should be taking."
"Yeah, right," Luke laughed, "Why don't you suggest that to the new boss in Support Services? I bet he'll love it."
"Operations to James County Nine," the radio said.
Jonas picked up the microphone. "James County Nine, go ahead," he said.
"The highway patrol is requesting assistance for prisoner transport," the dispatcher said. "We don't have a transport unit available. Meet 305 at the intersection of County Road and Lincoln Avenue."
"Copy, Operations," Jonas said, "we're rolling."
"Doesn't look like we're going to be doing a lot of police work today, does it?" Luke commented. "I hate doing taxi duty for the patrol."
"It's all part of what they pay us to do," his partner said.
Luke was right. Their shift was quiet for once. There was so little to do, they wound up spending most of the afternoon on speed enforcement, a part of the job Luke liked even less than transporting prisoners.
"Well, I think we've issued enough tickets today to hold us for the month," Jonas said as Luke wheeled the cruiser into the Sheriff's Office parking lot at the end of their shift.
"I think we made our quota for the next two months, actually," Luke said. He thought about going home and he found that he felt nervous. He wasn't sure what would happen when he got home today. His landlady had the whole day to think about what had happened the night before. Would she want to continue it, would she want him to move out, what would she want? Actually, Luke wasn't sure what he wanted to have happen when he got home.
"Hey, partner!" Jonas said. He had leaned back in the cruiser, startling Luke, who'd been sitting behind the wheel, lost in thought. "You going to go home or are you going to stay in the car all night?"
"Ah...I'm going home," Luke said.
