Final Justice

by Patricia Hagan

  Emma Jean went to the bathroom constantly in hopes of finding blood stains on her panties, but with each passing day her fears increased. She was about to miss her second period, and, if she was pregnant, there was no way of knowing whether the baby was Rudy's or Luke's. And what if it was Luke's? Would anybody be able to tell after it was born? Rudy would kill her and the baby if he thought it was somebody else's.

  She had tried everything she had ever heard of that was supposed to make a woman's period start: blackberry brandy, soaking in scalding hot water, running, jumping. She had even swallowed castor oil till it made her so sick she could hardly stand. She took heart, however, to recall that when she was pregnant before she'd had morning sickness only a few days after she missed her first period, and there'd been none of that. Maybe it was nerves. She sure as heck had enough to make her a basket case, what with having to constantly be on her toes to try and keep Rudy from getting riled.

  She decided to try whiskey. One of the girls she had worked with in Florida had told her any time she was late she'd get drunk and it would make her come around. She said something about the whiskey heating up the blood, and Emma Jean was desperate enough to try anything. Rudy was working third shift, so it was a good time.

  By her fourth drink, she was dizzy and had convinced herself in her stupor that the baby could only be Luke's. That was nicer than Rudy's, regardless of the consequences. She loved Luke. She was sure of it. She had loved him even before that night she would remember forever. But he was never going to love her back. Not her or any other woman. He had a wife, a daughter. He just wanted to cockaround.

  No, she thought blearily, that wasn't what Wanda Potts had said. Cockhound. That was what he was. She was a cock, and he was a hound, and he'd hounded her, and she'd cocked him.

  Cockhound.

  She giggled.

  Staggering and stumbling, she returned to the kitchen and tried to find the bottle of bourbon but couldn't because the whole world was spinning. She reached out to steady herself but fell, knocking the bottle over at the same time. It shattered when it hit the floor, and her arm landed on the jagged glass.

  "Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, oh, Lord." She struggled to her feet by hanging onto the back of a chair. Staring at the blood, she hiccupped, then giggled, "I'm bleeding, but not from the right place."

  She fumbled around and found a dish towel and wrapped it around her arm, then watched in horror as the towel turned crimson. So much blood. The towel began to drip with it.

  Dizzy, she knew she had to get help but froze after picking up the phone. Who could she call? Not Miss Bertha. She lived too far away. And not an ambulance. She'd be embarrassed to death to go riding up to the hospital in an ambulance, and she didn't dare risk driving herself because the room was spinning faster, and she felt like she was going to throw up.

  Hating to do it but unable to think of anybody else, she dialed the party line code to make Myrtle Letchworth's phone ring. Myrtle sleepily answered on the third ring, and by then Emma Jean was so scared she started babbling that she was bleeding to death and needed to go to the emergency room right away.

  Once it dawned on Myrtle it was Emma Jean, her first thought was that Rudy had beaten her again, and she didn't want to get involved. "I'll call the law for you," she yelled into the phone.

  "No, don't do that..." Emma Jean protested, just before the floor came up to meet her face.

  * * *

  It had been a long night, and Luke was exhausted and anxious to get home and go to bed. He was almost out the door when the phone rang but hesitated as Ned took the call.

  Ned listened, then said, "I'll get somebody over there right away, Miz Letchworth." He rolled his eyes at Luke. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I don't blame you. Nobody likes these kind of things. You just go on back to bed. We'll see it's taken care of."

  He hung up, checked the roster to see which member of the rescue squad was on duty, then started dialing as he told Luke, "That was Myrtle Letchworth. She said Rudy Veazey beat up his old lady again, and she thinks she needs to go to the hospital. Matt and Kirby have already signed off, so I guess you'd better run out there. I'm calling Jimmy Ledbetter. He's got the ambulance tonight."

  Luke felt like slamming his fist into the wall. Damn it, he would not, could not, get involved, not unless Emma Jean agreed to take out a warrant so he could arrest Rudy. Otherwise, if she wouldn't leave Rudy, then she'd have to stand the consequences, no matter how damn much he cared.

  "Hell, no," he said finally, angrily. "I'm not going to waste my time. That's what she gets for staying with the son of a bitch."

  "Well, don't you think somebody needs to check it out?"

  "Why? It's the same old shit. She won't press charges. He'll say he's sorry and won't do it again, not till he gets drunk. So why worry about it? It's her problem."

  His chest was heaving, and he wanted to kick himself for blowing up because Ned was looking at him like he had lost his mind. Maybe he had. Hell, he didn't know anything anymore except that he wished he were anywhere but Hampton, Alabama. He walked out with Ned staring after him and went to the cafe.

  Hardy Moon was sitting at the counter, but at the sight of Luke called to Clyde, "Hey, cancel that burger. I don't think I should eat this late after all. It'll give me heartburn. See you." He slid off the stool and rushed out the door.

  Luke no longer felt like going home. He knew he would never get to sleep, anyway, not when he was sick to the core thinking about Rudy beating Emma Jean so bad she needed to go to the hospital. It was all he could do to keep from finding the little piece of shit and beating him into the ground.

  He managed to make small talk with Clyde, all the while wondering just how bad she'd been hurt. When Jimmy Ledbetter came in an hour or so later, he struggled to hide his anxiety as he asked how she was.

  Jimmy snickered. "Well, it wasn't her old man that put her in the hospital this time. It was whiskey." He took the lid off the donut plate and helped himself. Around mouthfuls, he described the scene when he got to the house. "She was laying on the kitchen floor, drunk as a skunk and blood all over the place. Looks like she dropped the whiskey bottle and then fell on top of it. Cut her arm real bad. I took her to the emergency room. The doc said he'd sew her up and let her sleep it off."

  But Luke wasn't buying that story. Maybe Rudy had cut her and then run. If so, he didn't need a warrant to arrest him. "I think maybe I'd better have a talk with Rudy."

  Jimmy helped himself to another donut before calling after Luke as he walked towards the door, "Oh, he ain't home, sheriff. He's at work. She managed to tell the doc that, and the doc said he'd wait till morning to call him since he was gonna keep her a while."

  Luke was relieved, but it needled him to think she'd been drinking so heavily. He hadn't got the impression she was the type, but then what did he really know about her?

  "Funny thing, though," Jimmy added as he licked chocolate off his fingers. "She kept moaning she was bleeding from the wrong place. Hell, is there ever a right place?"

  He glanced at Luke to share a laugh; only Luke wasn't laughing.

  "Don't make sense, does it, sheriff?" Jimmy remarked.

  No, it didn't, Luke thought with a jolt, unless she wanted to be bleeding from somewhere else so she'd know she wasn't pregnant. And if that were the case, then maybe she had actually tried to kill herself.

  * * *

  Luke swallowed a groan seeing Maude Dupree on duty in the emergency room. She had a big mouth, and the story about Emma Jean would be all over town.

  Maude gave him a hard time. "She's asleep. You'll have to wait till morning to ask her anything, but I don't see the need, anyhow. All she did was get drunk and fall down and cut herself." She gave a scornful sniff. "Besides, Matt was here a while ago. I told him the same thing, but he insisted on sitting with her for a spell."

  So Ned had decided to send a deputy to check things out, anyway. Good. He shouldn't have acted like such a hard case when he first heard about it and gone h
imself. Without a word, Luke brushed by Maude and located Emma Jean in the last cubicle. Drawing the curtain closed after him, he was a tornado of emotions.

  Her face was white as the pillowcase. A sheet was pulled up to her chin, and her injured arm, thick with bandages, rested on a rolled-up towel at her side. He saw that her brow was furrowed, like she was hurting, and he wondered if it was because of her injury or the reason behind it. He did not know, but he cared a lot. He didn't want to, but he did, and no matter how much he argued within himself, he could not help it.

  He touched her cheek and whispered her name. He waited a few seconds, then gave her shoulder a gentle shake.

  "I don't want to ever wake up," she mumbled.

  "Sorry, but I have to ask a few questions."

  Her eyes flashed open. "What are you doing here?"

  "I want to know how you got hurt."

  She turned her face to the wall. "I fell. That's all."

  "You were dog-assed drunk. Why?"

  "It's not important."

  "It is to me."

  "Why?"

  The words slipped out before he realized it. "Because I care."

  She turned to glare at him. "Well, you could've fooled me. I haven't heard a word from you since that night six weeks ago."

  "I thought it was best for both of us."

  "For you, maybe. Not for me." She turned away again before adding, "I feel like such a fool to think you could have cared anything about me, anyway, since you're nothing but a cockhound."

  "A what?"

  "Cockhound. That's what Wilma Potts said."

  "Wilma Potts doesn't know beans about me, and neither do you or you'd have realized I stayed away because I do care about you, Emma Jean. I don't want to. God knows I've tried not to. But I do." Oh, Lord, what was he getting himself into? All resolve had scattered like a dandelion in a summer breeze.

  He reached for her hand and squeezed, all the time telling himself he was messing up big time and should get the hell out of there fast. His feet might as well have been planted in concrete.

  Slowly, she faced him, a glint of hope in her eyes. "Do you really mean that, Luke?"

  He drew a breath of resignation. "Yes, I do. But you've got to understand it's a dead-end street. I'm married. You're married. It can't go anywhere. We can't go anywhere."

  She did not speak for a moment, mind spinning, then said, "But we can be together, you know, whenever we can, when we have a chance. I wasn't expecting more than that. I know how it is." She paused to swallow. "I was just looking for a little bit of happiness. That's all. I thought that's what you wanted, too."

  "I did, and I do. But we both have to understand it can't ever be more than it is."

  Suddenly her world seemed brighter, and she was able to quip, "Which is a quickie, right?"

  He grinned. "I seem to recall we had a longie." Glancing around to make sure the curtain was still closed, he brushed his lips against hers. "We're going to have to be real careful."

  Her head bobbed up and down. "Real careful."

  "We can't take any chances."

  "Absolutely not."

  "And we won't be able to see each other as much as we might like to."

  "I know."

  She withdrew her good arm from beneath the sheet. She had to touch him, had to be sure she wasn't still drunk and only imagining he was there because she so desperately wanted him to be. She touched his cheek. "You are real."

  He caught her fingers and pressed them to his lips. "I'm very real. Now how about telling me why you were drinking so heavy."

  "I was worried I was pregnant."

  He tensed. "Are you?"

  "No, thank goodness. I remember telling the doctor I might be, but I didn't let on that I didn't want to be. I just said I wanted to make sure so that he didn't give me anything for pain that might hurt the baby, so he examined me and said it looked like I was fixing to start my period.

  "Well, it would've made Rudy happy if you were."

  "Not if it was yours."

  "Did you think it might be?"

  A tear slipped down her cheek. "God forgive me, Luke, but I was hoping so. I don't want a baby by him. Not ever."

  "And you can't have one by me, so as soon as we can work it out, I'll take you to Birmingham and find a doctor to fit you with one of those diaphragm things."

  "Oh, Luke, that would be so wonderful. I've wanted to do that but just never had the money. It'll be great. Rudy won't know I'm wearing it." She reached to pull him close enough to give him a quick kiss before happily exclaiming, "It's going to work out for us. You'll see. And nobody will ever find out. We'll be extra careful. We need each other, Luke. Because just knowing you're out there thinking about me, caring what happens to me, will help me through the bad times."

  "And I will be," he promised,, knowing then and there he could no longer fight it. He had to have her, had to be with her whenever he could.

  "I've got to go," he said reluctantly. "Or prune-faced Maude Dupree in her orthopedic shoes might get suspicious."

  "I'll have to work tomorrow even though my arm is hurt. Bert's out of town. Will you call me?"

  "You bet."

  Chapter 17

  Again Luke was hiding in Milburn Smith's azaleas, but this time he wasn't there to spy on the funeral home. Instead, he was waiting for Dennis Blum to bring Murline Pruitt home from bowling. Her driveway ran alongside Milburn's hedges, giving Luke a good view. When they arrived, Dennis switched off the headlights before turning in so Murline's husband, Thurman, wouldn't know they were there.

  Luke could hear everything going on because the car windows were down. Murline was giggling. "Oh, Dennis, you're such a bad boy. You know we can't do it here. Thurman might see the car."

  "He didn't the last time."

  "But..."

  "Didn't you tell me he stays so glued to the television he wouldn't hear a freight train going through the yard? Now come on, sugar pie. You've been teasing me all night long, shaking that cute little bottom of yours when you got up to bowl, 'cause you know it drives me crazy..."

  It got quiet, except for sounds of heavy breathing, then fumbling noises as they maneuvered for just the right position. Dennis cursed when he jammed his butt against the gear shift, and Murline complained he was breaking her neck by pushing her so hard into the door.

  Luke's eyes were adjusted to the darkness, and he was able to see one of Murline's feet sticking out a window. Something hit the ground, and she said, "My shoe fell off."

  "Get it later."

  The car was rocking, Dennis was grunting, and Murline was moaning. They were too lost in each other to notice Luke as he crept through the hedge to retrieve the shoe. Never in a million years would he have thought Dennis was ballsy enough to screw Thurman's wife right in the man's own driveway. Square from the word go, everything about Dennis was straight-laced. He was pushing forty, had never been married, and lived with his widowed mother. His clothes were dull and plain, he combed his hair back slick, and his glasses were thick as the bottom of a Coke bottle. He had never missed a day's work behind the pharmacy counter at Dixie Drugs. His only recreation was bowling every Monday night, and, so it seemed, humping Murline Pruitt.

  Luke was also surprised at Murline because there had never been so much as a breath of scandal about her that he knew of. They had gone to school together, and all he remembered about her was that she always made the honor roll. He couldn't recall her ever going out with anybody, but it stood to reason she and Thurman, who was dull as she was, would wind up together. He ran a radio and TV repair shop. They had one kid, a boy around six. They attended the First Methodist Church where Murline sang in the choir and Thurman was a deacon. She was active in the PTA, and he went fishing a lot. They were the picture of a wholesome, happy family, except...

  * * *

  As part of the Hampton family's effort to appear magnanimous to the common folk, the mill awarded a scholarship to a business college in Birmingham every year. Murli
ne had been one of the winners and had gone to work in the steno pool at the mill after graduation. Eventually she worked her way up to become Buddy Hampton's private secretary, and, thus, the reason Luke was now interested in her personal life.

  The car was still rocking, and the groaning was getting louder. At last, the car stopped moving, and so did Murline and Dennis. Luke heard them gasping, then Murline said, "I'll bet I look a sight. I hope Thurman fell asleep in his chair. I don't want him to see me like this."

  "Just comb your hair, and you'll be all right."

  "I've got to find my shoe. Help me look for it."

  "Honey, I don't have time. Momma will be wondering why I'm so late. I've got to go."

  Silence.

  Probably kissy-kissy goodnight, Luke figured.

  The door opened and closed, and there was a brief flash from the dome light.

  "Don't forget Saturday," she said, adding, "if I don't have to work. It'll be so nice to have an afternoon in a bed, Dennis. We can go to that little motel on the other side of Birmingham. I always feel safe there."

  "Yeah, if I don't have to take Momma shopping."

  "But you only get one Saturday a month off. It's the only day we can sneak off together."

  "Yeah, well, it's not always my fault when we can't. Buddy makes you work a lot of overtime."

  "I know. But try, won't you?"

  Dennis sighed. "I've really got to go, Murline."

  "Well, promise you'll tell your mother you've got plans of your own."

  "I don't know. She really likes to go to Birmingham on Saturday." He backed out of the driveway but waited till he was farther down the street before turning the headlights on.

  Murline walked around for a time, swinging her feet about in the grass in search of her missing shoe. She finally gave up and went inside, no doubt planning to return at first light to try and find it.

  No need, Luke smiled to himself as he crept away and into the night. He would see she got it.

  * * *

  Saturday morning Luke was sitting in his patrol car on the shoulder of the Birmingham Highway, sipping coffee from a paper cup, when Dennis Blum drove by. His mother was in the car with him, so that meant Dennis would not be meeting Murline for afternoon delights in a motel room. Luke tossed out the rest of his coffee and hurriedly drove back to town.