Blood Ties

by JD Nixon

  “Thank you,” she said, mollified by the mention of the Sarge and took herself off with an air of importance about her, casting her eyes disparagingly in Young Kenny’s direction as she did.

  I went back to my cup of tea and had it to my mouth about to take my first sip when the phone rang. Sighing, I put the cup down and reached over to the phone.

  “Mount Big Town police station.”

  “Tessie, what’s this I’m hearing about Dorrie Lebutt trying to kill you with her car and Stacey Felhorn trying to shoot you? What the hell’s been going on over there this morning? Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay, Jakey. A bit sore, that’s all. The Sarge is going to take me to Dr Fenn later for a check up.” I quickly filled him in on what had happened.

  He swore under his breath. “I’m going to kill that woman next time I see her.” He was seething with anger, which wasn’t like him. “And where the hell was Sergeant Serious when all this was going on?”

  “He was moving in his furniture.”

  “So much for him having your back.”

  “That’s unfair, Jake. The second he turned his back, your little brother and cousin were trying to steal his stuff.”

  He never liked me pointing out inconvenient truths about his family, so we hung up and I returned to my tea. It was lukewarm by then and I ended up throwing half of it out. When Stacey had finished her tea, stopped crying and was completely calm again, I told her she could go home. To my surprise, she gave me a quick hug and thanked me for pushing her to safety when Dorrie drove at us. And it was amazing how much a rare and simple act of gratitude like that could lift my spirits, especially in this town. But when I went to return the Tim Tams to the fridge, I noticed that she had eaten all of them except one, and it had been a full packet. The greedy bitch!

  The rest of the morning passed uneventfully. I rang the two no-show reportees and left messages gently suggesting that they better get their butts down to the station by noon or I’d be recording them as absent. How hard was it for them to take ten minutes from their busy days of drinking, fighting, screwing around and playing computer games to check in with me once a week? It wasn’t as though either of them even had a job.

  I pottered around, spent another age waiting for the computer to log in again after it had gone into sleep mode, answered a few wrong numbers for the brothel, and tried to ignore the screaming pain from my hip.

  The bell rang and I went out to the counter. It was my two reportees, arriving together, as cocky and disrespectful as usual.

  “Gentlemen. Good to finally see you,” I lied and pulled out the attendance book. I looked at the first one, Jake’s cousin Garth Bycraft, barely twenty, on parole after eighteen months in jail for break-and-enter and destruction of public property. He’d broken a window at the primary school in a drug-fuelled frenzy, climbed in, spray-painted the walls with obscene graffiti and whizzed over all the library books, before smashing the computers to pieces. I hadn’t heard anything bad about him this week, so gave him a tick for behaviour, collected his signature and then turned my attention to the other man – the loathsome Red, my absolutely least favourite Bycraft.

  He leaned on the counter and smiled at me with lazy insolence, his eyes deliberately dropping down to my boobs. His tongue flicked out and slowly licked along his top lip. I resisted the urge to cross my arms.

  “Officer Tess,” he drawled, “don’t you look simply edible today?” Those menacing snake eyes on my face again.

  I stared at him, face stonier than a gravel path.

  He smiled. “You still showing our Jakey a good time?”

  “What have you been up to during the week, Red? Apart from roughing up Sharnee?”

  “You still sucking our Jakey off hard, Officer Tess? Still fucking him good? He told me you’re the sweetest, tightest little pussy he’s ever had and our Jakey’s tried a lot of pussies.” He was lying – Jake would never discuss our sex life with anyone, especially Red. “I believe him too, because you are one hot little whore. When our Jakey gets bored with you, he’s promised to hand you on to me.” Another lie. “It’s not fair if he’s the only one who gets to play with such choice pussy. And you know better than anyone how much Bycrafts love Fuller pussy more than any other.”

  I clenched my teeth together but otherwise remained serene, ignoring his crude and cruel taunting. “I’m recording that you’re using offensive language towards me, Red, just like I write every week. I’m also writing that you were drunk and disorderly on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and had to be forcibly ejected from the pub both times. I’m also writing that you were involved in an altercation with your sister Rosie in public on Friday, where you physically assaulted her and that I was called to your place Saturday morning. Anything else you want to confess?”

  “Only my endless longing for you, lovely. I can’t wait for you forever.” He lifted his face and sniffed the air dramatically a couple of times. “I can smell that sweet pussy from here. So tantalising.”

  “Sign here,” I insisted coldly. He took the pen from me, making sure to brush my hand as he did. I tried hard not to react, but couldn’t completely repress the shudder of revulsion that swept over me at his touch. He laughed and suddenly grabbed my hand, lifting it to his mouth and running his tongue along the length of the back of my hand, from fingertip to wrist.

  “Damn you taste good, Tessie. Just makes me want some more.”

  I snatched my hand back in disgust and he laughed again loudly as he sauntered from the station, Garth in tow, sniggering at my discomfort. I put the book away and went straight to the bathroom to scrub my hands three times, wondering yet again how that repulsive family had managed to produce someone as wonderful as Jake.

  The rumble of the empty removalist van negotiating down the police house driveway drifted in through an open window and ten minutes later the Sarge turned up at the station in uniform. He stopped in surprise when he saw that Young Kenny was still sitting in the front area, presumably thinking that I was being slack in serving the customers.

  “Sarge, this is Young Kenny. He likes to keep me company every Monday morning. Young Kenny, this is Des’ replacement, Sergeant Maguire.” Young Kenny looked up at him, nodded and looked down again.

  The Sarge came out the back with me. “What’s the number for the prison? I want to ring them to let them know we’re coming over.” I rattled it off and he dialled the number.

  The bell rang and a booming baritone voice announced, “Mail.”

  I went out to the counter to take the mail and leaned on it chatting for a while with the town’s mailperson, a friendly woman who always made a point of bringing the station’s mail up to me instead of leaving it in the letterbox. She and her husband ran the town’s small post office/newsagency and had the contract to deliver the town’s mail as well.

  “The doctor can fit you in but we have to leave right away and –” said the Sarge, stopping both talking and walking when he got to the counter.

  I turned to smile. “Sarge, this is our mail-lady, Joanna. Joanna, this is Des’ replacement, Sergeant Finn Maguire.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sergeant. Welcome to Little Town,” Joanna said heartily, holding out her huge beefy hand. The Sarge took it warily, his eyes not leaving Joanna except to cut to me for a startled second. I suppose that I was used to her now, but I guess Joanna would come as a shock if you weren’t expecting to see a six-foot-five, large, unusually hairy woman wearing a pretty yellow summer dress complete with white straw hat and white sandals, in full makeup, delivering your mail. At first glance, she did look awfully like a man in drag.

  Joanna had unfortunately been born with the overly-muscular physique and manner of a pro-wrestler, teamed with an ultra-feminine fashion sense. Despite being a big strapping woman, happily married with four big sons of her own, she favoured dainty, lady-like apparel that would have suited a petite Southern belle far better than her own hulking mass. The more unkind people in town hinted that perhaps she hadn�
��t been born with her two X chromosomes and that she probably even left the toilet seat up. But of course nobody ever said that to her face. You wouldn’t dare.

  “We have to go,” the Sarge insisted, quickly recovering from his shock.

  “I have to see the doctor,” I explained to Joanna.

  “Because Dorrie Lebutt tried to kill you with her car?” she asked sympathetically. I nodded ruefully. “She’s a wild one, that girl. You should arrest her. You just can’t go around running over the police. It’s not right.”

  I agreed. “You can say that again.”

  “I don’t know who is worse sometimes – those Bycraft bastards or the brainless women who run around with them. They’re all nothing but a pack of stupid and vicious animals.”

  I laughed when she said that. She twigged to what she’d actually said and blushed a deep, unbecoming red. “Sorry, Tess. I didn’t mean you and Jake, of course.”

  “I sure hope nobody’s lumping Dorrie and me together in same category,” I said lightly before chasing both Joanna and Young Kenny from the station and locking up. At the patrol car, I eased my aching body down on to the passenger seat and did up the seatbelt.

  I spent the drive to the prison filling the Sarge in on my morning. We puzzled over Mrs Villiers’ peeper, wondering if it was connected to Miss G’s peeper.

  We turned into the prison. It was a complex for low-risk prisoners who were nearing the end of their terms and had displayed exemplary behaviour throughout their sentence. Less well known was that it was also the cushy place that politicians, sports starts, TV stars, anyone famous, spent any incarceration time that their expensive lawyers weren’t able to make disappear with their fancy weasel words.

  For a prison, it was a very agreeable place, with modern buildings, landscaped gardens, a sports complex with a pool and well-equipped gym, spacious, well-appointed cells, and decent catering. Jake loved living and working there. It was hard for someone like me not to look at it all without a touch of bitterness, thinking of our small, cramped station and ancient technology.

  I was well-known around the place, being Jake’s girlfriend and turning up as often as I could to watch the regular prisoners versus prison officers footy matches, as Jake was captain of the officers’ team. He was a popular colleague, being good-natured and friendly and always willing to assist by taking over a shift or giving a helping hand when somebody moved. My Jake was a great guy like that.

  We flipped our IDs at the reception area, the desk staff not even bothering to glance at them. I introduced the Sarge to the staff, stopping for a minute to lean on the counter for a friendly chat. They questioned me about Dorrie’s hit-and-run, and the Sarge marvelled at how quickly news spread in the town.

  “We’ve got phones out here, Sergeant,” teased one of the desk staff.

  “Really?” he responded, deadpan. “I thought it was all done with morse code and carrier pigeons in these parts.”

  Leaving them unsure of whether or not he was joking, I led the two of us down the familiar route to the medical centre. As we waited in the consulting room, a couple of Jake’s workmates popped their heads in to say hello to me. We were chatting when Dr Fenn arrived, an older man with wild steel-grey hair and a contrasting well-groomed grey moustache. He had a gruff manner, probably the result of years of dealing with malingering prisoners. He nodded at me brusquely.

  The prison nurse, a tall, thin man with neatly plaited waist-length brown hair, entered the room behind the doctor. “Tess, haven’t seen you here for a while. Heard you’ve been auditioning as a hood ornament,” he said.

  “Ha ha, Lindsey,” I said unappreciatively. “Still as big a smartarse as ever, I see.”

  He smirked in response and pulled out my thick file from the cabinet. He clapped his hands together, an anticipatory expression on his face. “Righto, Tessie, get your gear off then and let the Doc and me have a squiz at you.”

  I glanced around the examination room. There were five men in there with me, all of them watching me avidly. They didn’t see a lot of women out here.

  “I want everyone to leave except Dr Fenn. And that means you too, Lindsey. I don’t need a nurse.” They all groaned, except the Sarge, but dutifully turned to leave. “And I’m turning that security camera off as well.” They groaned even louder, their entertainment cruelly snatched from them. I had no doubt that any footage of me in my bra and panties being examined by the doctor would have been circulated widely among the prison officers and probably even the prisoners as well.

  I watched carefully while the doctor turned off the security camera, checking myself that it was off before I stripped down to my underthings.

  He tutted in disapproval. “Tess, you have bruises all over you.”

  “Jake’s female relatives ganged up and kicked the hell out of me yesterday,” I told him.

  “Right. And then Dorrie Lebutt hit you with her car today. You’re popular in town, aren’t you?”

  I shrugged. “That’s what happens when you try to bring some law and order to a bunch of thugs.”

  He quickly examined my bruising and my hip. “Luckily for you it’s just soft tissue damage. It’s bruising already and you’ll be very stiff and sore for weeks, but you were lucky. She could have broken your hip or your leg. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to go through that again.”

  I shook my head swiftly – I sure wouldn’t. He was referring to another hit-and-run I’d been involved in about four years ago when I’d been home visiting from the city. I’d ended up with a badly broken leg, but that had been the least traumatic consequence of that accident for me. Of course it had been a Bycraft behind the wheel and I reminded myself with grim satisfaction that he was currently serving some time for it up in the maximum-security jail near the city.

  The doctor had continued speaking, unaware that I’d been daydreaming. “– and I hope you’re going to throw her in jail. People can’t get away with doing that to law enforcement officers.” He handed me some strong painkillers.

  “We’re going to go and arrest her now. Can you take some photos of me for evidence please?” I indicated the old film-based camera we kept in the patrol car that I’d brought in with me and placed on his desk.

  He turned his nose up as he picked it up and examined it unenthusiastically. “Why don’t you just let me use the digital camera we’ve got here? This thing must be a hundred years old,” he complained.

  “It probably is that old. But if I let you take photos of me with a digital camera, then I just know that those photos are going to end up in everybody’s email inbox about two minutes after they’re taken, and I’m not having photos of me in my underwear circulating around town.”

  He grumbled some more but finished off the reel of film. Then he promised to write up his report on my injuries and email it to me also for evidential purposes. I speedily dressed and thanked him before collecting the Sarge from the waiting room and limping off back to the car.

  “Hey, don’t let Jake forget he’s back on duty tomorrow,” one of his workmates yelled after us.

  “He knows,” I shouted over my shoulder. “He’ll be back tomorrow morning. I want to keep him for one more night though. I have some things I need him to do for me.”

  “Things you need him to do to you, more likely,” yelled one wit in response, and I smiled cheekily at the hoots and catcalls that comment provoked, winking back at them. Poor Jake, I thought cheerfully. He was going to cop it from his workmates tomorrow.

  Chapter 13

  “What did the doctor say?” asked the Sarge, nosing the patrol car out on to the highway again.

  “Exactly what I thought. Lots of bruising and pain, but nothing’s broken. I asked him to take some photos for evidence, but this camera’s so old and he didn’t look very confident taking them. I’m worried they won’t turn out.”

  “I have an excellent digital camera. I could take some for you,” he suggested.

  I was torn. I did want to have photos for evidence,
but I didn’t want the Sarge to see me in my undies.

  “Maybe,” I replied, noncommittally. I wasn’t a prude and acknowledged with self-mockery that I’d probably parade around in front of him at the beach in my bikini without thinking twice, but it was my undies for heaven’s sake, up close and personal. It was all about the context, I convinced myself. I decided then that I wouldn’t take up his offer, no matter how much goodwill he’d shown in making it.

  Back in Little Town, I directed him to the cramped house on Kwila Street that Dorrie shared with her mother Cheryl, her younger sister Kym, and their five young kids. I found it hard to remember sometimes who the mother of each kid was, but I was pretty sure that three of them were Dorrie’s and the other two were Kym’s. The kids all looked the same, with the unmistakable golden features of Bycraft brats.

  I checked my utility belt – gun, spray, baton and cuffs all ready for action. For the millionth time I wished I had a taser as well, but there was Buckley’s chance of the good officers of Little Town ever being issued with that expensive and carefully rationed piece of equipment. They only had a handful of them in Big Town to go around and we weren’t even on the priority list, let alone close to the top. I took off around the back of the house while the Sarge walked up the front stairs and banged on the door loudly.

  “Police!” he called out. At the rear of the house I could hear scuffling inside and panicked voices. The back door was flung open suddenly and Dorrie made a run for it straight into my arms. I clasped her in a bear hug, but she was struggling like a demon to escape, kicking out at me wildly. Her mother and sister watched impassively from the back door, not offering to help either of us. Dorrie wasn’t anyone’s favourite daughter or sister.

  “Sarge! Around the back!” I yelled in my loudest voice and could hear him pounding up the side.