First Offense (7 page)

Hank swept her up in his arms, whirling her in the air the way he did David. “Put me down,” Ann cried just before she started laughing.

“Okay,” he said, setting his wife gently back on her feet. “I’ve figured it all out. We can get a loan from the credit union for the down payment, then I’ll get an extra job working security somewhere on the weekends. We can do it, honey,” he said, smiling. “I’m going to buy you this house.”

Ann loved it when her husband smiled. His cheeks were full and he appeared almost jolly, not hard and cold as he did once the uniform and badge came out.

For the next ten minutes, Ann walked around the house, looking in all the closets, checking out all the shiny new fixtures in the bathrooms. “We could put our bed right against that wall,” she told Hank in the master bedroom. “Then we could put the television over there. You know, that fourth bedroom would be great for a study. Can you imagine, a real study? I could have a desk and everything.”

“Right,” Hank said, beaming. “And I could get some guys from work to help me put in a hot tub in the backyard.”

Ann let her gaze drift out the window to the yard, and the excitement began to recede. Nothing but dirt out there. No fence, no yard, no drapes. They’d need more furniture to fill up all the rooms. Ann could see the dollar bills adding up in her mind, see herself sitting at the dining-room table as she did every month paying bills—but if they bought this house, she wouldn’t have enough money to pay them.

“No,” she said, connecting with his eyes. “We can’t. Hank. We barely make enough as is, and we don’t even have a mortgage. The payments on this house would be close to a thousand a month.”

Hank Carlisle was not a money person. Before he’d married Ann, he’d spent every dime he’d made and had nothing now to show for it. Ann’s philosophy was diametrically opposed. People should never spend money they didn’t have. It was the first thing her father had taught her.

Hank’s face fell. “So what? I told you I’d work a second job. That alone would make the payment.”

“You’re not being realistic, honey,” Ann said to him. “They take out taxes, withholding. You can’t possibly make enough to cover the payment working a few shifts on the weekends. And you hate your job with the highway patrol. You’d detest being a security officer, even if it was only a few hours a week.”

Hank moved close and pulled her against him. “I want to buy you this house, a brand-new house, a house no one but us has ever lived in. I hate being a cop, baby, but only because I can’t buy you all the things you deserve. I don’t want to live the rest of our lives in that run-down shit hole of your daddy’s. It even smells old.” He stopped and raised his eyebrows humorously. “Also, you know, David’s getting older, and his room is right next to ours. We won’t even be able to have sex without him hearing us.”

“It’s not that bad, Hank,” Ann pleaded. “Please, we don’t want to go into debt, get in over our heads. We’d need extra money just for the move, and then there’s furniture, curtains, higher property taxes, God knows what else. No, Hank, we can’t.” And he would want even more goodies, like the hot tub he’d just mentioned. Ann knew her husband—he liked nice things. She pulled away in order to pin him with her gaze. “We can’t afford it. Hank. You don’t make enough money.”

Propped up against the pillows, Ann winced at what had come next, wishing she could block the bad memory out of her mind. A few seconds later, the phone rang and she grabbed it, more than ready to set the past aside. It was Tommy Reed.

“Did you know no one’s covering my caseload while I’m out?” she told him when he protested her return to work the next day. “Claudette’s even been trying to handle some of the cases herself.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Reed said. “Just worry about your health.”

Ann appreciated all the expressions of concern, she really did. Reed was only the sixth person who had made that statement: just worry about your health, get well, everything will work out. Sounds good, feels nice to say it, not so awful to hear it. Glen had even gone so far as to insist that she take David and go away for a few months, even told her he would foot all the expenses. But for all the good intentions, the people offering words of comfort weren’t looking at the situation through Ann’s eyes. For the past two weeks she’d been expending carefully guarded sick time with the agency—her paid leave. The county awarded her only a few days paid leave every month, and she had to stockpile it for emergencies. The situation was simple: Ann had no choice but to go back to work.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said to the detective, mustering up her customary bravado. “I’m going stir-crazy in the house anyway. Say, what do you think about that probationer stopping to help me? Jimmy Sawyer. They say if he hadn’t known first aid and stopped the bleeding, I might have bled to death. Of all the people, huh?”

Turning off the bedside light, she tossed the extra pillows on the floor, then turned on her side to talk in the dark. “I promised I’d take Sawyer back to court and get his probation switched to summary so he doesn’t have to report every month. Sort of like a reward.”

“Oh, yeah?” Reed said. “I don’t think that’s going to work out too well. That’s what I called you about. Glen Hopkins is preparing a warrant right now for his arrest.”

Ann bolted upright in the bed. “What happened? Did he get busted again for drugs?”

“Hopkins thinks Sawyer was the one who shot you.”

“No.” Ann had to stop short, think about this. “That’s ridiculous, Tommy. Why would the man shoot me and then stop to give me first aid? When did Glen tell you this? You don’t know Glen that well. He must have been joking. I just talked to him today, and he didn’t say a thing about Sawyer or a warrant.” Ann reached over and turned the light back on.

“Look, I’m just repeating what I heard. He believes Sawyer shot you so you wouldn’t execute the search terms. You know, Ann, Hopkins might be right. Maybe Sawyer had a big stash in his house and panicked when he realized you could just walk in and bust him. Abrams said your car…”

Reed kept on talking, but Ann wasn’t listening. Her hand holding the phone was trembling, her heart racing in her chest. She’d accepted this terrible event thinking it was a random act. Now Reed was telling her it was premeditated.

Reed said, “Did you hear me?”

She had the phone clasped with both hands now. “But you said it was a drive-by. Even Noah said it was.”

“That was what we originally thought. Like I was saying, Abrams told me today that your Jeep was disabled. The ignition wires were cut, Ann. That doesn’t mesh with a random act like a drive-by.”

“Then I was set up. Ambushed. That means they wanted me. Tommy. They weren’t just shooting for the hell of it. They were shooting at me.”

The detective paused, trying to gauge her mood. “Listen, Ann, why don’t we discuss this another time? I don’t want to upset you.”

“No,” Ann yelled in the phone. Then she lowered her voice, remembering David. “Tell me everything you know, Tommy. I have to know.”

“Okay,” he said, sighing. “Glen Hopkins believes Sawyer decided to shoot you the minute the judge issued the order. If you don’t believe me, ask him.”

Ann was staring out over the room, reliving the shooting. Every single second was frozen in her mind. As hard as she tried to forget it, suppress it, she knew it would always be there. One word, anything, and the whole night reappeared in blazing color.

“Ann,” Reed said, “did you and Hopkins go somewhere after Sawyer’s hearing and then come back to the courthouse for some reason?”

“No,” she said, puzzled. “We’ve already gone over how this went down. Didn’t you read the statement I gave Abrams?” When the detective didn’t respond, Ann recapitulated the events for him. “Okay, the hearing lasted maybe thirty minutes. It was supposed to start at four, but Sawyer was late, so that means it must have been around four-thirty when I left the courtroom with Glen.” She paused, not wanting to tell him what had transpired in the stairwell. “Then I went back and dictated my report. Everyone had left for the day by the time I finished, so I’m guessing it was after five by then. I killed some time in the parking lot trying to decide what to do about the car and then started walking. I assumed Glen had already left, or I would have asked him to drive me home. That’s when I was shot. Glen must have spotted me on the sidewalk with Sawyer on his way out of the complex. He told me he stayed late to work up his notes on a case.”

Reed started to tell Ann the truth, that the hospital had conducted a rape exam and established that she had engaged in sexual intercourse on the day of the crime. Then he stopped himself, knowing it would only embarrass her. He had to assume that she had met Glen for lunch that day, and they had snuck in a little afternoon delight. She’d evidently been so heavily drugged the night in the recovery room that she didn’t recall him mentioning their original belief that she’d been raped. Once Ann had denied it, there’d been no reason to bring it up again.

“Why did you ask if I left the courthouse?” Ann asked, not certain where he was going with this line of thought.

“Forget it,” Reed said quickly, his tone indicating that he was sorry he’d brought the subject up.

Ann said goodbye, slowly replacing the receiver. She didn’t agree with Glen’s suspicions about Jimmy Sawyer, but that didn’t trouble her. What had her stomach in knots was the fact that the person who had shot her had intended to shoot her, not just anyone, but her. Would whoever it was keep trying until he succeeded?

Feeling a chill, Ann pulled the covers up to her chin and stared up at the ceiling.

From out of the silence erupted David’s pleading voice.

“Come back, Dad,” he cried. “Don’t go away. Don’t leave me.”

Grabbing her robe off the foot of the bed, Ann raced down the hall to her son’s room. “Wake up,” she said, shaking him gently by the shoulders. “You’re having a nightmare, honey.”

David bolted upright in the bed. His pajamas were soaked in perspiration, and his dark hair was dripping wet. “He was here. Mom,” he said, his eyes searching the shadows around the room. “He was standing over my bed. I saw him. I really did.”

Ann sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her son into her arms. She could feel the dampness beneath her and smell the odor of urine. God, she thought, consumed by anguish, why did her child have to suffer this way? “It’s okay, honey,” she said, stroking a thick clump of wet hair out of his eyes. “You had another bad dream.”

“No,” he insisted, clawing at the edge of his mother’s robe. “Dad was here, really here. He said he was coming back. He said I had to stop you from marrying Glen.”

“Oh, baby,” Ann said, her heart in pieces. “I’m not marrying anyone, okay? Come on now, let’s get you out of these wet clothes, and I’ll put some dry sheets on the bed.”

Ann was reaching over to turn on the light when she heard her son quietly sobbing. Instead of putting him through the embarrassment of changing his sheets, she went to the bathroom and got a large towel, making him move so she could put it over the wet spot. Most of the time he got up and changed the sheets himself, placing the soiled ones in the washing machine the next morning.

Climbing into bed with him, Ann pressed his head to her chest. “I’m going to stay right here, honey,” she whispered, her voice soft and comforting. “Shut your eyes and think of happy things.”

“Dad’s going to think I’m a baby,” the boy sobbed, his entire body shaking. “He’s going to know I still pee in my bed. I have to stop before he comes back. Mom. I just have to.”

Ann held her son, stroking his back gently until the crying stopped and his breathing slowed. After some time the dampness soaked through the bath towel, and she felt as if she were sleeping on a sheet of ice. Pulling the blankets over them, Ann finally closed her eyes and let her exhausted body find sleep.

Chapter
4

C
laudette Landers was on a tear, her booming voice bouncing off the walls when Ann walked into the office. “Get on outta here,” Claudette was yelling at someone. “I don’t want to hear any more pansy-ass complaints.”

Ann grabbed a cup of coffee from the small kitchenette, waited until she saw the offending probation officer scurry off from Claudette’s office like a field mouse, and then stepped inside. They called their work spaces offices, but they were constructed out of fabric-upholstered partitions in one enormous room. As a supervisor, Claudette at least had a partitioned area of her own. Ann had to share hers with another probation officer. Phone conversations, business or personal, filtered from one cubicle to another. There was no such thing as privacy.

As the supervisor over adult investigations, Claudette assigned cases to investigators as they came in from the courts, conferred with them on cases—basically approving their assessments and recommendations—and acted as the intermediary between the courts, the district attorney’s office, the public defender’s office, and other related agencies.

“Well, I’m back,” Ann said. “Got a minute?”

Claudette smiled. “Man, am I glad to see your pretty face. I’m not foaming at the mouth yet, but soon…soon. Sit down. How you feeling? You sure you should be back here already? Did the doctors give you clearance to return to work?”

Ann lowered herself into the chair; she didn’t lean back, for her shoulder was still too painful. “I’m weak…still sore, you know?” The two women knew each other well enough that Ann didn’t have to explain. Yes, she was still in pain, her eyes said. Yes, she was scared. Yes, she had no choice but to return to work.

The contact broken, Ann quickly changed the subject. “So, what’s the problem with Rogers?”

Claudette was a good friend, a fine woman, and one tough cookie. There would be no more talk of Ann’s injury, no more gratuitous expressions of concern. At thirty-five, Claudette Landers was a large woman, most of her weight carried in the lower half of her body. Of African-American descent, she was intelligent and articulate, thoroughly respected throughout the county as an outstanding supervisor.

“Little shit is such a bitcher,” Claudette said. “Every time I assign Rogers a case with more than one count, he cries like a damn baby. Doesn’t even know what a bingo sheet is yet and refuses to learn. You hear me, Rogers?” she yelled over the partition, her voice as big as Texas. “Your mommy should have whipped you when you was a kid, stopped all this complaining shit. Look at Ann here, already back on the job. Now, that’s the kind of people we need around here, not a bunch of sniveling crybabies.”