Domestics are pretty much every cop’s nightmare.Not just because of what you’re dealing with—although that’s bad enough.I mean, the violence, the abuse, the fucked-up power dynamics, all the ugliest stuff two people can do to each other.But domestics are also bad because you never know what’s going to happen.These people are totally dysregulated.They’re both wildly out of control.Emotions are running high.And the fact is, you don’t know if the person you’re trying to help is going to stab you in the back while you’re trying to help them.It happened to Foley once, literally.He was arresting this piece of shit up in Smithfield.The guy had broken his girlfriend’s jaw.One of her eyes was swollen shut, and she couldn’t stand up straight.She ended up having about eight hours of surgery after they finally got her to the hospital.But when Foley went to arrest the guy, she picked up a pair of scissors and drove them into his shoulder.
Since Palomo and I are detectives, we aren’t the first line of response.Patrol handles the actual call-outs; detectives don’t get called in unless the calls are really bad—either repeat offenders we’re trying to prosecute, or felony-level shit.
This one is both.
I know because Palomo and I have already tried to nail Charles Small.A couple of times, actually.Every couple of weeks, he gets loaded, and he starts whaling on Lexi, and it gets bad enough that the neighbors call it in.Bad shit.Bad, bad shit.The last time, he’d used a clothes iron.
And we can’t make anything stick.
They live out in Paradise Valley, which isn’t a valley at all—it’s a trailer park.They’ve got one of those old single-wides they hardly make anymore, and the curtains are falling down in the windows.On the rickety four-by-four porch, Lexi’s got plastic daffodils in old Folger’s cans.Charles uses the same cans for his roaches.The trailer park has quieted down the way it always does when we show up.A patrol car is parked in front, radio crackling.
When we go inside, the smell hits me: the harshness of bad tequila, and some sort of hot, red, microwaved smell that almost brings up whatever’s in my stomach—that cheap-ass coffee, mostly.The place is a shit-hole; it’s always been a shit-hole, with a broken tiger-stripe sofa and a junker TV and carpet so filthy that it’s matted down and hard and shiny.There’s one lamp, and it’s on its side, making a cone of light against the far wall and leaving everything else in the flickering gray of the television.
There’s this disorienting moment when I see Sam.And it’s even more disorienting to see him in uniform, not in his shorts and tee, not with that little strip of grease on his nose.He’s standing next to the bathroom door; it’s open, and the overhead fluorescents are on, so I have a line of sight on the little window on the other side.That’s open too.
“He ran?”I ask.
Sam nods.“Before we even got inside.”
“All right,” I say.“Lexi?”
He nods toward the bedroom at the back of the trailer.“Nickels is with her.”
Palomo heads toward the back of the trailer without either of us having to say anything.
“All right,” I say.Sam’s got shadows around his eyes, and the way he’s standing is professional, but I can read the tension in him.There’s this part of me that wants to ask if he’s okay.But nobody’s okay after they step into shit like this, and anyway, that’s not really my place.It’s definitely not any of my business.So, I say, “Walk me through it.”
“We got the call-out at nine forty-seven.Got here a couple of minutes after ten.We were the closest unit, but it didn’t matter; he must have run as soon as he heard us coming.We knocked.Lexi wasn’t answering, so Nickels went around back, and she saw the open window.I kept knocking.I could hear somebody inside, so I announced that we were going to force the door, and that’s when she opened it.”
“She was giving him time to run,” I say.
Sam nods because he knows it too, but I want to make sure he hears it so he doesn’t blame himself.Not thatthat’sany of my business either.
“When she opened the door,” Sam says, “I cleared the residence to make sure he wasn’t here, and Nickels stayed with Lexi.She had red marks on her neck and throat, and she had a split lip.We took her statement.She said he hit her a few times and then tried to strangle her.She managed to get her hand on a knife, and she cut him.He let her go, but she says he was going to kill her, except a neighbor started pounding on the door and he ran.The neighbor called it in.After we took her statement, we called for detectives.I got some pictures while we were waiting, and then she wanted to pack a suitcase.Wouldn’t listen to us.Wouldn’t stay out here.So, Nickels went back there with her.”
“Okay,” I say.
“There’s a knife in that drawer,” Sam says, nodding toward the kitchen.“It looks like she tried to clean it, but there’s blood on it.”
I nod.“Hang out here.”
The smell of that microwaved red sauce is getting into my head, and my body feels like a tide is rising—like everything inside me is buoyant and floating and any second now, my feet are about to leave the floor.When I get back to the bedroom, Lexi isn’t packing a suitcase, but she does have a tote bag stuffed full of clothes next to her on the bed.Nickels is standing a safe distance away, watching, and Palomo has her arms folded and is glaring.Lexi is staring straight ahead like there’s nobody else in the room.
She’s a small woman with hair to her shoulders; it needs a trim, but it needs a wash first.White, late twenties.She’s missing a molar; that happened on a call-out a long time ago.A curlicue of blood has dried on her chin, and there’s a mark—probably the overlap of multiple marks—on her cheek that’s going to be a bruise.But the thing that makes that tide rise higher inside me, higher and higher, are the red prints of fingers on her neck and throat.The petechiae.All the signs that Charles was choking her.And if you work enough domestics, you know once they start choking, they’re serious about it—they’re trying to kill.
Her gaze flicks to me as I step into the room.“Will you tell these crazy bitches to get out of here?”
“Hi, Lexi.How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.That’s what I keep telling these fucking dykes, and they just stand there.I’m fine.I’m fine.Nothing happened.I fell.I don’t know why you’re making such a big fucking deal about it.”
She’s high—that much is obvious from her eyes and from the way she’s holding herself—but she’s notthathigh.
“Why don’t we go down to the station and talk about that?”I ask.
“Because I’m fine!”She screams the last word.“I want everybody to get out!”
I tip my head at Palomo, and we move into the hallway.Palomo shuts the door.
