Two ~ The Sentimental Trooper
Reggina York stirred and mumbled groggily, still clinging to the drug-induced slumber. "Ivy! Get the door! I'm tryin to fuckin sleep here!" She groaned, pulling a pillow over her head.
'Bang, bang, bang,' The fist of the police officer hammered on the door again. "Mrs. York! Police department!" He thundered.
"IVY!" Reggie shrieked, but was greeted by silence, save for the relentless pounding on the front door. "Shit..." She sighed, rolling out of bed.
"I'm comin, Godammit!" Reggie shouted, weaving her way to the front door.
As she drew nearer to the door, the shouts, shrieks, and excited voices could be heard coming from the road in front of the trailer. Wrenching the door open, she gazed blearily into the face of a huge Hispanic Arizona State Trooper, with the name, "Sanchez", tacked to his broad chest.
"What is it now, Sanchez?" She asked in a routine manner, as if she had done this only days before. "What did Scott do this time, and where is he being held?"
The blood drained from his face, as it contorted with a cold fury. For his entire career, he had never witnessed a case of Child Abuse this appalling; and here was the mother of a child that probably wouldn't survive the night asking about filth first.
Resting his large hand upon the rubber Pachmayr Combat grip of his Colt Python .357 Magnum, he entertained the idea of shooting this piece of shit in the face, point blank. Just blowing her brains all over this foul smelling house. However, as his fingers closed around the grip, an image of his own children, growing up without a father, stopped him. Breathing deeply, he removed his hand from the weapon, and let his arm fall limply at his side...
Desperately trying to keep his composure, and frantically searching for his voice, Seargent "Tito" Sanchez took several more deep breaths, then spoke...
"R-Reggie..." He hissed dangerously. "The very LAST thing you need to worry about is that guy. Already heaved that piece of garbage into the meat wagon. I'm quite sure you wouldn't want to pick him up this time..."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Reggie snapped, suddenly looking a bit more alert. "What are trying to tell me?"
"He's DEAD!" Replied Sanchez triumphantly, with a heavy emphasis on the word 'dead', and a sadistic smile curling his lips. "Your neighbor's dog nearly took his head clean off... Well, just between us," he whispered, leaning in closer, "I probably could have saved him, since I was cruising by when old Mrs. Berkson flagged me down, but I was a hell of a lot more concerned with your daughter. And to tell you the truth, hearing him scream like that before the dog severed his windpipe was music to my ears. We haven't been able to find the animal, but when we do, I'm buying him a fat steak!" Finished, he stepped aside so that Reggie could see her daughter sprawled on the driveway, her left arm twisted into a grotesque angle, wheezing raggedly, and wetly coughing up blood.
Seizing Reggie by her hair, he pointed to the broken little girl and boomed into her ear savagely, "WHERE IN THE FUCK WERE YOU, WHILE THAT MONSTER DID THIS TO YOU LITTLE GIRL?!"
"I-I-I..." She choked, hot tears burned their way down her cheeks. "Ivy?" She muttered feebly.
Now, seizing her by the chin roughly, he thrust his face so close to her's that their noses nearly touched, and his hot angry breath reminiscent of a dry Arizona mid-day gust, huffed into her dead eyes mercilessly.
"That's right..." He hissed. "Ivy... Your little girl... Where were you? Why was that man allowed to break that little girl? WHY?!" He roared.
Mouthing silently, Reggie squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
"So help me God..." Sanchez breathed, pushing her face away from his in disgust. "It takes a great deal of self-control not to kill you where you stand. In fact, the only thing that is saving your wretched neck is MY little girls... You're every bit as much a monster as he was, and maybe worse. How many fucking Domestic Disturbance calls have I PERSONALLY answered here, Reggie? thirty? More? YOU KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN!" He snapped.
Sanchez paused, desperately fighting the urge to snap her neck like a dried twig, then said with a cold whisper, "If that little girl dies, so help me, I will not rest until I have seen that justice has been served. You look like a fucking haunt. Let's have you get some proper clothing on," he said, eyeing her with revulsion, "and take a ride to the place where, if I have any say in the matter, you'll spend a good many years..."
Silently, with a slackened face, she turned and led him back to where her bedroom was located, and made to close the door, but was stopped short by one of the trooper's boots.
"Lady..." He said, effortlessly yanking the door from her grasp, and tearing the lower hinge away from the jamb. "You couldn't pay me enough to look at the wares you peddling. Just get dressed, I'll be by the front door. Try to run, and I'll empty my revolver into you, got it? You have five minutes. Let's get a move on..."
Backing slowly toward the front door, Sanchez rested his right hand on the butt of his Python, readying himself, should the need arise to jerk it free of it's holster. He figured that Scott might have kept a gun in the bedroom, and judging from that deer in the headlight look this horrifying excuse for a mother possessed, she might be fool enough to attempt using it on him. At least that's what he was hoping for, as visions of the battered and broken little girl laying shattered in the driveway tortured his mind's eye...
Reaching into his breast pocket, he pulled a tin of Skoal Bandits free, seized a pouch, and popped it into his lower lip. Just as he had finished slipping the tin back into his breast pocket, he heard the loud crack of a gun, and the unmistakable thump of a body hitting the floor...
"Seargent Sanchez!" Came another officer's excitedly from his radio. "Shots fired?"
Yanking his own revolver loose and crouching low, he inched slowly toward the bedroom, business end of his revolver pointed at the doorway.
"Affirm..." Sanchez replied evenly. "Shots fired, rear of domicile. Clear to rearmost bedroom..."
"Copy..." Answered the other.
"Reggie?" Called Sanchez loudly, glancing back quickly, as two other officers burst through the front door.
Waving his left hand for attention, Sanchez motioned for one to stay at the front door, for the other to move around to his left, and pointed to the bedroom. Continuing his deliberate trek, he had now closed the gap to five feet, and caught scent of the tell-tale coppery and metallic smell of fresh blood permeating the air thickly.
His first glimpse into the bedroom caught sight of Regina York, less most of her head and it's contents...
Nodding to the officer on his left, Sanchez took a good pull on the plug between his cheek and gum, spit on the floor, and said through a bemused smile, "Well, it looks like this one saved the taxpayers of this fine state a few bucks. Somehow, I don't think many folks will miss her... What say you Kline?" He finished, eyeing the ashen-faced rookie trooper on his left.
"Uh..." Kline replied, and promptly vomited.
"My sediments exactly..." Said Sanchez, with a nod, holstering his pistol again. "Stebbins..." Sanchez called to the other trooper at the door.
"Sir?" Stebbins replied.
"You and the kid here get this wrapped up, would ya?" Sanchez said, delegating the work detail. "I'm gonna head back and get started on my reports. Any word on that little girl?"
"No sir..." Said the other. "She flat lined twice, but she was still hanging on when they loaded her up..." He finished hopefully.
"Alright..." Sanchez sighed, turning away from the mind-blowing scene, he made for the door, and was very nearly beheaded by something large and grey, sloughing off a little girl's Polly-Pocket blanket. Throwing himself to floor, he quickly looked up and caught sight of something you didn't see everyday...In broad daylight...In the Arizona Desert: An ancient looking, large and grey barn owl, taking graceful flight into skies high over head...
