Joe Dillard: Reasonable Fear Part 8

"My name is Andres Luis Pinzon," Andres said as steadily as he could. "I am from Envigado, Colombia."

"That's some accent you got there, monkey boy. You know what we do to monkey boys who talk like you?"

Lips...o...b..took a step closer and began to unzip his fly. Before Andres realized what was happening, Lips...o...b..was urinating on Andres's pants leg.

Andres reacted instinctively. He heard himself mutter something in Spanish and launched himself at his aggressors. For the next thirty seconds, it was as though he had fallen into a dream. Everything was in slow-motion. He didn't feel his fist connect with Lips...o...b..s nose, didn't feel himself being grabbed from behind, thrown to the ground, and kicked repeatedly in the ribs. He didn't hear the teachers, who, after being summoned by the students that had been ordered to leave the bathroom, had rushed in to break up the fight.

Ten minutes later, after the adrenaline rush had subsided, Andres found himself sitting on a bench outside the princ.i.p.al's office. Across from him was Lips...o...b..and one of the blond boys who had attacked him. Both boys wore smirks on their faces. The second blond was on the other side of the door. They could hear the princ.i.p.al yelling.

"You got b.a.l.l.s, monkey boy, I'll give you that," Lips...o...b..said, holding a wad of toilet paper to his nose.

Andres looked at him fiercely. "If you keep calling me monkey boy, I'm going to punch you in the face again."

"What did you say to me?"

"I said if you call me monkey boy again, I'm going to punch you in the face."

"No, back in the bathroom, before you went all crazy, you said something about punta. Isn't punta some kind of Spanish cuss word?"

"It means wh.o.r.e," Andres said.

"You called me a wh.o.r.e?"

"No. I called you a son of a wh.o.r.e."

Lips...o...b..smiled and looked at his friend, then turned back to Andres.

"You know something, Colombia?" he said. "I think you and me are gonna get along just fine."

Chapter Sixteen.

The day after Bates and I returned from Nashville, I stopped at a grocery on the west side of town on my way home. Caroline had asked me to pick up some fresh vegetables and some dog food, and as I walked around the corner of one of the aisles, I saw a familiar figure leaning over in the beer section. I froze momentarily, shocked to see her in that particular section of the store. She was wearing khaki shorts, a black T-s.h.i.+rt with "AAA Bail Bonds" emblazoned in white letters across the back, and a pair of flip flops. She picked up a case of beer and loaded it into a shopping cart. Sitting atop the cart was my niece, Gracie, who was only eighteen months old. Sarah staggered momentarily, and my heart sank.

She was drunk. I turned around and walked back through the store and out into the parking lot, feeling a mixture of anger and sadness, hoping I'd find someone sitting behind the wheel of her car. I hadn't talked to her since Sunday morning I just hadn't had time and a familiar pang of guilt ran through me, the kind of guilt I knew I shouldn't be heaping on myself. Short of tying her up, there wasn't anything I could do when she decided to binge.

I knew I had to confront her, but I didn't want to make a scene in the store. Sarah was belligerent when she was drunk, and I knew I was in for a fight. But I couldn't let her drive away. I located her Mustang in the parking lot and stood several feet away, waiting for her to emerge from the store. She did so a few minutes later and began, with a great deal of difficulty, loading the beer and the baby into the back seat.

"Hey there," I said, walking up behind her.

She jerked, startled, and banged the back of her head against the roof.

"Dammit!" She rubbed the spot and looked at me angrily. "What're you doing here?"

"Just stopped by for some dog food. I saw you coming out and thought I'd say h.e.l.lo."

"Well, you said it. Goodbye." Her words were slurred and her eyes reddened.

"Why the rush?" I stepped closer to her and the smell of beer a.s.saulted me.

"Gotta go. . . cookin' supper."

She slid in behind the steering wheel and started fumbling with her keys, trying to get them in the ignition.

"Hold up there, Sarah. Can't I at least say hi to Gracie?"

"She needsa eat. Gotta go."

I reached into the car, s.n.a.t.c.hed the keys from Sarah's hand, and backed up toward the rear b.u.mper.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" she yelled. "Gimme my keys!"

"How much have you had to drink?"

"What are you? A cop?"

"I can smell it all over you."

"Gimme the keys."

"Sarah, there's no way I'm going to let you drive this car drunk, especially with Gracie in the back."

"Gracie's fine. I'm fine. Lemme alone."

"C'mon, I'll drive you home. We'll pick up the car in the morning."

"I'm not leaving my car here! Now gimme the d.a.m.n keys!"

At that moment, I noticed a Johnson City police cruiser coming slowly toward us. He pulled up behind Sarah's car, stopped, and rolled down the window. He was a young guy, typical of the police officers today, with a thick neck and a shaved head. He peered at me with dark, steady eyes as I walked to his car.

"Evening, officer," I said.

"Evening. Everything alright here?"

"Everything's fine."

"Gimme back my keys!"

I turned to see Sarah climbing out of the Mustang. The officer put his car in park and got out. He was about my size, roughly six-three and two hundred pounds. He put his hat on and pointed at Sarah.

"Miss, I'm going to need you to stop right there," he said. She was leaning against the car with one hand, using it to balance herself. She ignored his command and grabbed me by the arm.

"My keys! Now!"

"You two know each other?" the cop said.

"She's my sister."

I saw a young woman approaching from my left. She was wearing a smock and a baseball cap with the store's insignia.

"That's her, officer," she called, pointing at Sarah. "She's the one. She has a baby in the car."

Sarah turned and glared at the girl, suddenly even more enraged.

"Shut your mouth, you fat pig!" she bellowed. "Go back inside and mind your own business!"

She still had ahold of my arm with her right hand, and she continued to use her other hand to steady herself against the roof of the car. The situation was quickly deteriorating. The police officer keyed his microphone and spoke quietly into it as I tugged on Sarah, trying to get her attention off of the store employee. A small crowd was beginning to gather, and thirty seconds later, two more cruisers pulled into the parking lot.

"This is great, Sarah," I said. "This is just great. Now you're going to wind up in jail."

"Get your hands offa me."

She was tugging and twisting, trying to break loose. She even tried to kick me in the s.h.i.+n. I looked over at the newly-arrived cops and was relieved to see that I recognized one of them, a stocky, mid-thirties s.h.i.+ft supervisor named Bob Dempsey. He and the other two officers formed a semi-circle and moved toward Sarah and me.

"Dillard?" Dempsey said. "What are you doing in the middle of this?"

"Just lucky, I guess." Sarah was still fighting and cursing. I'd seen her go into alcoholic rages before, and I knew there wasn't much hope of calming her down anytime soon, at least not without the aid of some kind of sedative.

"So this is your sister," Dempsey said, "I've heard a lot about her."

"Yeah. Could you guys help me out here? My niece is in the back seat of the Mustang."

"You want me to cuff her?" Dempsey asked.

Before I could answer, Sarah managed to get herself into position to knee me in the groin, and she did so with all the force she could muster. I felt the sensation of pain and nausea rise into my stomach and staggered away as the officers closed in on her. My mind clouded with the pain, causing Sarah's screams to sound as though they were coming from inside a metal dumpster. I bent over and wretched while the officers grabbed Sarah, lifted her off the ground, and carried her to one of the cruisers.

By the time the nausea pa.s.sed, Sarah was in the back seat of a police car, beating against the windows and screaming. Had she been anyone else, she would most certainly have been pepper-sprayed, maybe even tasered. I walked over to her Mustang. The door was still open, and I looked into the back seat. Gracie was in the car seat, calmly looking out the window in the other direction.

"Hi sweetie," I said.

She recognized me immediately and grinned. "Unka Joe!"

I flipped the driver's seat forward, reached across her, picked up a blanket, and tucked it snugly around her.

"I'll be right back, sugar. You're going to come spend the night with me and Aunt Caroline."

"You gonna live?" a voice behind me asked. It was Dempsey.

I winked at Gracie and turned to face him. "I think so."

"We have ourselves quite the little situation here."

"Looks like it's under control now."

"I called the paramedics," he said. "They're on the way. What I'm worrying about is what I'm going to do with her after they get her to the hospital and she calms down."

"Just let her go," I said. "I'll take the baby home. I'll pick her car up, and I'll pick Sarah up at the hospital later. I'll make sure she doesn't cause any more problems."

"You sure about that? Because I don't think it's such a good idea. What I've got here is a DUI and endangerment of a child. And who knows what I'll find if I search this vehicle? We've got a crowd of people watching and two rookies who know who you are but don't know much about you. What I'm saying is that people are going to hear about this, you know what I mean? People like my boss, county commissioners, lawyers, judges, you name it. This is going to get out."

"So?"

"So giving a break to the district attorney's sister, especially one with a prior history like hers, isn't exactly great for my reputation in the law enforcement community."

I took a slow breath and tried to think. The pain in my groin was starting to subside, but I still felt thick and sluggish. What Sarah had done was stupid, no doubt. But she was in a lot of pain, and in my mind, I rationalized that she hadn't hurt anyone.

"Look, Dempsey," I said. "You can't make a DUI case because you didn't see her driving the car. She wasn't in legal control of the car when you got here because I had her keys. For all we know, her boyfriend drove her here, they got into an argument, and he walked away. The point is that unless you have a witness who saw her pull into the parking lot and get out of the car, you have no case."

"I'll bet you a month's salary that camera sitting up there on the roof will show her driving the car." He nodded his head at a security camera and I looked up. It was perched on the southwest corner of the building, an all-seeing eye of modern technology.

"You don't really want to go to all that trouble, do you?"

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to. I like you Dillard, always have. But there's a child involved here. I can't just let it slide."

I moved closer to him and lowered my voice.

"There are some things going on that you don't know about," I said. "I don't want to pull rank on you, but I'm the district attorney. She's my sister, and I'm not going to prosecute her. If you think you need to tell somebody about it, then do what you have to do. You can even arrest her if you want to, but the bottom line is that she isn't going to get prosecuted for this."

I looked at him steadily, waiting for him to make a decision. To my relief, he began to nod his head.

"Alright," Dempsey said. "I'll fix it with these guys, but you owe me."

I reached into my wallet and pulled out one of my business cards, jotted my cell number on the back, and handed it to him. "Call me if you need anything. I mean anything."

I heard the rumble of a diesel engine as the ambulance pulled in. The other two patrol officers were standing outside the cruiser watching and listening as Sarah made a complete jacka.s.s of herself. I reached into the back seat of the Mustang, unstrapped the car seat with Gracie still in it, and transferred it to my truck.

The last image I saw as I pulled out of the parking lot was Sarah. She'd stopped trying to kick the windows out just long enough to give me the finger.

Chapter Seventeen.

As soon as I left the grocery store, I drove home and picked up Caroline. We went back to the grocery store parking lot, and Caroline drove Sarah's car to the house Sarah had inherited from my mother while I went to the hospital and gave them Sarah's personal information and health insurance card. One of the emergency room nurses came out and told me that Sarah had been sedated and would be admitted overnight. She gave me a phone number in case I wanted to call and check on her later.

After that, Caroline, Gracie and I went out for pizza. We'd spent a great deal of time with Gracie, so she was comfortable and happy. She fell asleep in my lap a little after nine that evening, and I put her in our bed where she spent the night with Caroline, Chico and me. Rio slept in his usual spot on the floor at the foot of the bed.

I wanted to get to the hospital early enough the next morning to catch whichever doctor would be caring for Sarah on rounds, so when I arrived at the Johnson City Medical Center hospital, it was still dark. I found Sarah's room, looked in, and saw that she was still asleep. Her chart was sitting on a work station just outside the door, so I picked it up and looked at it. I was particularly interested in the toxicology screen, and I was relieved to see that there was no trace of drugs in her blood. Her blood-alcohol level, however, was another matter. It was .029, more than three times the legal limit, definitely dangerous. I shook my head in disgust, set the chart back down, and walked back into the room. I sat down in the recliner next to the bed and closed my eyes, trying to decide exactly what I was going to say to her when she woke up.

About fifteen minutes later, a middle-aged nurse with a round face and stiff, brown hair flipped on the light. She began removing something from Sarah's wrist.