Passion In James County X
Badge of Dishonor
By D.C. Roi
Chapter seventeen
Rod Billingham sat in his cruiser, running radar. Traffic was light, so he had plenty of time to fume about what had happened in his home the night before. "Who does that bitch think she is?" he mused as he recalled what his wife, Lise, had said and how she had acted. "Does she really think she's going to get rid of me that easy? No fucking way! She's my wife, and she's damn well going to stay my wife! And I'm damn well not going to see any fucking shrink, either!"
The warning tone on his radar unit sounded. He glanced at the radar unit and saw the speed readout. The car that had just passed him was going seventy-five. He put his cruiser in gear, pulled out onto the highway, and accelerated after the car he'd clocked. When he caught up with the offending vehicle, Rod flipped the switch which activated the blue light bar on the roof of his car. Immediately, the car in front of him slowed, the right turn signal came on, and it came to a halt on the side of the road.
Rod pulled in behind the car, placing his cruiser according to procedure. He picked up his radio mike. "321 to Jamestown," he said. "I'll be 10-75 with a late model Toyota, color blue, single occupant, plate number Victor-victor-adam, four-five-seven, Freeway nine, near mile marker fifty."
"Copy, 321," the dispatcher responded, and repeated the information Rod had given her to confirm that it was received and understood.
Rod climbed out of his cruiser, put on his hat, and walked up to the car he'd stopped.
"What's the problem, officer?" the driver asked.
Rod looked down at the driver. She was an attractive woman wearing steel-rimmed round glasses who, he estimated, was probably a few years older than he was. Her brown hair had traces of gray in it and there were small wrinkles around her eyes. She was wearing a denim dress that had buttons down the front, and her hair, straight and fluffy, fell around her shoulders.
"I clocked you at seventy-five," Rod snapped. "Speed limit here is sixty-five. I need your license, registration, and insurance card."
"Of course, officer," the woman said, frowning a bit. She got the papers he'd asked for out of her purse and glove compartment and handed them to him. "I suppose there's now way I can convince you to let me off with a warning," she said. "I'm really sorry I was speeding. I...I don't usually drive fast, it's just that I was late for an appointment and..."
"You should have left earlier," Rod said. "If you had, you wouldn't be risking people's lives by speeding. Wait here, I'll be right back." He took her papers, returned to his cruiser, and called the information in to dispatch while he filled out the ticket form.
The dispatcher confirmed what the license and registration told Rod about the driver, and apprised him that she had no prior convictions for traffic offenses. The woman's address indicated that she lived in a town on the other side of the state, and Rod wondered what she was doing in Jamestown. He finished filling out his forms, then got out of his cruiser and walked up to the car where the woman sat waiting.
"Please sign this, ma'am," he said, handing her the clipboard which held the ticket. "Signing it isn't an admission of guilt, it's just a confirmation of the fact that I issued this citation to you."
"Will I have to appear in court?" the woman asked. "I'm in town on business, and I'll be leaving in a couple of days. I'm staying at the Jamestown Motor Inn. It's very nice."
Rod wasn't surprised by the woman's babbling. Lots of people he stopped were so nervous that they couldn't shut up.
"You don't have to appear in court unless you plan to plead not guilty, ma'am," he told her. "If don't intend to contest the ticket, there are instructions on the back of the citation on how you can handle this through the mail."
The woman signed the citation and handed the clipboard back to Rod. He tore off her copy and handed it, her license, registration, and insurance card back to her. "There you go, ma'am," he said. "Try to keep your speed down." He turned and walked back to his car, got in, and sat there watching the woman drive off.
Rod went back to running radar, and wrote several more tickets before the end of his shift. The closer end of shift came, and the more he thought about the fact that he wasn't going to be able to go home, the angrier he got. He drove back to the office and went in to finish up what paperwork he had to file for the day.
When his paperwork was finished, he tried to figure out what he was going to do that night. He couldn't go over to Wanda's house, it was her husband's day off. He picked up the phone and dialed Nancy Burke's number.
Nancy answered after three rings. "Hello?" she said.
"Hi, baby, it's Rod," he said. "You busy tonight?"
