The argument stopped and footsteps pounded across the floor. Somewhere deeper inside the house a door slammed. A burly man with graying blonde hair tied in a ponytail came to the door. His face was red and drenched in sweat; his dark blue tank top was stained around the armholes and in the middle of his barrel chest.
“Who called?” Mark Roberts growled. “I s’pose it was the Eastlunds again.” In the background Pam heard sobbing and another door slammed.
“No one called. I could hear you arguing from the road.”
“Bullshit!” he snorted, the smell of beer heavy on his breath. “Someone called to turn us in. What’s going on here is no one’s business. You can leave.”
“I want to talk to your wife. Either let me in or ask her to come to the door.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now,” Roberts said, barring Pam’s view of the entryway behind him. “You might as well leave.”
“I’m talking to her before I leave. Ask her to come to the door.”
Roberts’ eyes narrowed as he studied Pam. He was obviously sizing her up, trying to determine what a tiny deputy would do if he refused her entry to the house. “She’s not coming out, and you’re not coming in.”
“Okay, we’ll do it the hard way,” Pam said. “We’ll get all the available deputies here. We’ll arrest you for interfering with a deputy. Then, I’ll spend the rest of the shift filling out reports while you sit in the county jail waiting for a bail hearing. Nobody wins.”
“Fuck you, Blondie.”
Pam took the radio from her belt. “Every available Pine County unit, please respond to a domestic.” She relayed the fire number and gave the county road and the nearest crossroad.
It took less than five seconds for the dispatcher to relay the message over the airwaves and three units, including Floyd and a state patrol trooper, responded with their estimated arrival times.
“Why don’t you just come in here and see if she wants to talk,” Roberts said, pushing the screen door open. The smile on his face was an obvious challenge.
“Step away from the door, and back down the hallway,” Pam said with her hand on the butt of her pistol.
“What’s the matter, Blondie?” Roberts said, stepping into the doorframe so his height and weight advantage over Pam were more intimidating. “Are you afraid I might play grab-ass if you try to walk past me?” He gestured as if he were squeezing buttocks with his hands.
A siren whined in the distance and Pam took a deep breath. “Give it up before you make a bigger fool of yourself. So far, all you’ve been is obnoxious. I’d hate to see you arrested for assaulting an officer.”
“Ooh, I think you’d love it,” Roberts said, licking his lips lasciviously. “Maybe I could get a peek at whatever you’ve got hidden behind that bulletproof vest. I bet you’ve got some interesting bikini lines, or do you tan in the buff?”
Another door slammed inside the house as the first siren turned off at the end of the gravel driveway. Footsteps padded across the linoleum floor and a petite woman peered around the corner. Pam’s first impression was that the woman’s complexion was ashen until she realized that she’d applied heavy makeup, probably to cover bruises. She pulled a flowered housecoat tight at her neck and chest.
“Mrs. Roberts,” Pam said, looking past the man, “please come to the door.”
“Get back in there!” Mark Roberts commanded the woman. “I got this under control.”
Floyd’s unmarked cruiser pulled next to the sidewalk and he trotted to the door. Two more sirens wailed nearby.
“Jesus, Mark,” Floyd said, “what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The sour look on Roberts’ face said he and Floyd had a history. “I was talking to this sweet young deputy of yours about her bikini lines. I was just holding the door so she could come in and show them to me.”
Floyd looked at Pam’s stance, with her feet set wide and her hand on the butt of her gun. “I think you’d better step back, Mark. Walk ahead of Deputy Ryan into the house and keep your hands where she can see them so she doesn’t have to shoot you.”
“She ain’t shooting no one. I haven’t threatened her life or anything.”
“You’re twice her size, and you’re drunk. If you tried to lay a hand on her there isn’t a grand jury in the state who wouldn’t agree that she’d have shot you in self defense.” When Roberts didn’t move Floyd added, “Look at her. She’s got her hand on her gun and if you take one step toward her she’ll have the gun pointed between your eyes with her finger on the trigger.”
Roberts looked at Floyd and then looked at Pam’s gun. A highway patrol cruiser rolled to a stop behind Floyd’s car and the trooper sprinted to Pam’s other side. Seeing Pam’s stance, the trooper drew a can of Mace from his belt and held it at his side.
“You guys got no right to come and threaten me in my own home.”
“There was a domestic assault going on when I arrived,” Pam said. “The law says we have to make sure both parties are safe before we can leave the scene. You won’t let your wife come out, so we have to do whatever is required to enter the house to assess her safety.”
“Who made you a fucking lawyer?” Roberts said, spraying spittle as he became more agitated. “This is my fucking house and you have no right to come in here.”
“Settle down, Mark,” Floyd said, trying to drain some tension from the situation. “We don’t need to come in the house. We need to talk to Sue. If she’s okay we get back in our cars and drive away quietly.”
Another Pine County cruiser raced down the driveway and parked behind the highway patrol car as a cloud of gravel dust engulfed it. Sergeant Tom Thompson sprinted to the group and stepped behind Pam.
The afternoon sun pounded down on them in the ninety-degree heat. The armpits of Pam’s tan uniform were soaked and a trickle of sweat ran down her temple and into her shirt collar. Floyd mopped his forehead with his arm before sweat ran into his eyes.
“Tom,” Floyd said, “see if the other door is open and if Mrs. Roberts will come to the door.”
“Sue!” Roberts shouted over his shoulder. “You lock yourself into the bedroom! Don’t you come out for anyone but me!”
Thompson eased away from the group and walked around the corner of the house.
“You listen to me,” Roberts said, “Sue and I were having something out that doesn’t concern the county. You can all go away and everything will be fine.”
The sound of Thompson knocking on the door echoed through the house. “Mrs. Roberts, this is Sergeant Thompson. It’s safe to come to the door.”
Mark Roberts spun and ran into the house with amazing speed, lurching toward the steps leading into the kitchen.
Floyd yelled, “Look out, Tom, he’s coming through!”
Pam was first through the outer door, and was a few steps behind Roberts when he stumbled on the top step of the entryway. She grabbed his belt, but was brushed off with the sweep of one huge hand. As she lost her balance, the trooper, who was following her, stepped on her heel and the two fell to the floor. Tom Thompson rushed through the other door holding a can of Mace, spraying Mark Roberts full in the face before being bowled over.
In the haze of pepper spray Roberts misjudged the corner to the hallway, stumbling into the wall and staggering just enough to allow Floyd to throw his shoulder into Roberts’ kidneys, propelling him face-first into the wall. Roberts let out a roar of pain as his knees buckled and he clawed at his burning eyes. The four officers pounced on his back and struggled to pull his muscular arms into a position where they could be handcuffed. By the time they were done, all the officers’ eyes were burning from the pepper spray and their clothes were soaked with sweat.