When We Were Married Ch. 06C

She looked back up into my eyes.

"I wanted nothing more than to see Paul behind bars for the rest of my life right then but, after awhile, a few days, i had to call our kids. They couldn't believe it - I could tell how hurt they were and I - it wasn't Paul trying to kill me. It was somebody or something else. I didn't realize how badly I'd hurt him when he found out. He went crazy, that's all it was. Paul wouldn't have hurt me if he was in his right mind."

"I hate to tell you this but I think he's still crazy. I think he needs to be committed somewhere, for his safety and yours."

She shook her head.

"I can protect myself now. I can hire bodyguards, or friends like Hec will make sure he doesn't hurt me again."

"Why take the risk? You said you love him like an old family pet. You were going to leave him anyway."

"I was. We don't have a marriage anymore, haven't for a long time, but he didn't leave me, I left him. He hasn't done anything except be the same faithful, loving, dull and boring husband he's always been. I could see breaking his heart. He' s young enough that I think he'll be able to put himself back together. He's got friends and he's got a secretary...anyway he won't be alone."

She held my eyes again.

"I said I was a bad person. I've cheated and lied on him, planned on dumping him and loved other men more than him. I'd make him miserable for a few months or a few years until he finds someone else, and he may never, but I'm not going to send him to prison. I'm not going to destroy his career so he can never rebuild his life. I'm not going to watch his life turn into hell and see him lose the respect of our children. I'm a bad person, but I'm not that bad."

She stared into my eyes. I stared into hers. It should have been a warm, fuzzy, human moment.

"That is touching," I finally said.

She didn't say anything.

"A woman cheats on her husband, falls out of love with him, builds a second life that he has no part in, and she's planning to dump him as soon as the kids are gone for good. Yet there is still that ember of deep love and affection that will not die, therefore she will risk jail and punishment so as not to completely destroy his life. That is downright touching."

"Nothing is that simple, but I guess that sums it up correctly. Debbie treated you pretty roughly, but I guess from what happened at the FOP building the night you were shot, there's still something in her that has feelings for you. So it's not impossible."

"I could say that she isn't as big a slut and whore as you are, not in the same ballpark, but there's no point in insulting you, because you may be telling the truth."

She gave me a questioning look.

"May be? You don't believe me?"

"I'm not sure, to be honest. I want to. It's a compelling story. The romantic in me wants to believe in it. But, if you're telling me the truth, or most of it, you are a very smart woman who's used to playing men, using men for fun and profit. You're used to being in control. You didn't have much, if any, respect for your husband until the day he almost killed you. I tend to believe you about that day, because it matches what the first cops on the scene reported. I think your husband scared you to death that day. I think you really believed you were going to die, and that would shake anybody. Things were out of your control and they still are. Paul is still alive and he may get out. When he gets out, he'll be lurking somewhere. I think a woman used to controlling things would have a hard time living with that uncertainty."

She looked at me and she really looked like she didn't know where I was going, but she was a hell of a good actress.

"You could get to him in jail, of course, except I think he would be very hard to kill. I don't think you could simply hire your usual suspects and be confident they could actually take him out. Anyway, that leaves a trail and people that could talk and I think you're too smart to leave yourself vulnerable that way."

She bit her lip.

"But, if you get him out, the next time you find him - for closure - you could have somebody like Hec with you. No matter how dangerous Paul is, he's not bullet proof. After he was dead you've have a witness that he had attacked you again, and probably have a cop as a witness, which would make it even better."

I took her hand and squeezed it. She raised her eyes to meet mine.

"Then you'd never need to worry about him again - no more nightmares about his hands around your throat. You could tearfully tell your children that their father went crazy and you were just lucky to have a friend around, with a gun."

She pulled her hand away.

"It must be terrible to live in your world, Mr. Maitland."

"It's the real word, Mrs. Donnally."

"Is there anything I can say, anything I can do, to convince you that the first story is the true one. I'm a bad wife, but I'm not a monster."

"No, the trouble is, you're too good an actress and you're too smart."

She just shook her head.

"Impasse. You don't know what I'm going to do or why I've done what I've done but, Paul is still going to get out, or your friend is going to lose his wife and marriage, and I will get him out. No matter how good you are, I've got enough money to buy his freedom. If necessary, I will fuck everybody from the chief judge on down to the cleaning crews to give him his freedom."

I leaned back and motioned to the waiter hiding just around the corner. After he poured another cup of strong coffee and left, I sipped it. It was hot enough to burn the roof of my mouth. Just the way I liked it.

"I'm going to let him out, if I can talk him into leaving. He may not go. I'll do my best but, in case my suspicions are justified, and Paul winds up shot to death in the near future, or just dies in an accident, I'm coming after you."

"Nothing is going to happen to him, Mr. Maitland, not because of me."

"All that Angel of Death stuff is crap and you know it but, people with more money than you have wound up on death row at Raiford because they underestimated me."

I took another sip. The hot liquid felt good going down because even though it was still a warm Jacksonville October, I felt cold.

"I could just have you killed, Paula. I could do it with one phone call. But it would cost me more than I'm willing to pay. If, however, I wind up with cancer in a few years and my time is short, I think I would make that phone call. Or, if I have an accident, I'll set it up so the same thing happens. So if you do it and get away with it, you'd better pray that I stay healthy. Odds are I'll just wait and watch you. I know who you are now, and what you are. You can't go invisible or completely under the radar. Just go ahead and live your life knowing that I'm behind you somewhere, just waiting for you to make a mistake and everybody, no matter how smart they are, makes a mistake sooner or later.

"I won't forget and I won't get tired of watching you, because if you're doing what I suspect, you're using me as a Judas goat, a tool to kill your husband. His blood will be on my hands, because I let concern for a friend push him out to where you could get to him. I don't want to have that on my conscience."

I put the coffee cup down and stood up.

"Goodbye, Mrs. Donnally. I hope I don't see you again."

"Mr. Maitland...Bill..."

I was about to turn away from her but that whiskey/smoker voice stopped me.

She stood up and it was nice to be looking down at a woman for a change in my life. Her heavy breasts moved under her blouse as she rose and I couldn't help remembering they way they had bounced as she rode Dave.

"I'm not the person you think I am, Bill, and I'm not planning what you think I am. I know you don't believe me, but time will tell. Nothing is going to happen to Paul."

She looked down at my midsection and I realized that I had an erection so hard it was actually painful poking out against my zipper.

"You probably should do something about that erection before you walk out, Bill. It's kind of conspicuous. I'm flattered. Even though you won't admit it, because you won't admit you could be attracted to the kind of woman you think I am, you want me."

"It's a purely physical reaction, Mrs. Donnally. I saw you fucking Dave and Matthews. I saw those breasts bouncing. I like breasts. It doesn't mean anything more."

"Oh, I think it does."

She walked around the table and was close enough to me that the hard nipples that had to be an inch or longer poking out through the thin fabric of her blouse brushed my chest. She reached out with one finger and ran it along my lower lip. I had a very different feeling from the time that Myra had done almost the same thing, but it made me even harder.

"You are one of the good guys, Bill. Everything I got on you told me you were the real deal, an honest, honorable man who tries to do the right thing. You were faithful to your wife, tried to be a good father, a good tough prosecutor. You follow the rules. But..."

She smiled and her lips with some kind of purple-ish gloss or lipstick resembled bruised fruit. I suddenly knew how Dave could have fallen so fast.

"Every saint has a dark side, Bill. You can't be that good, without having darkness to counter balance it. Your father died on you. He left you, for others. You loved him, but he deserted you. A little boy isn't going to understand the complexities of duty and honor. All you knew was that he walked out on you and your mother, and Debbie was a slut who fucked other men before and while she was falling for you and then, finally, fucked another guy with a bigger dick than you. That had to hurt. She was gorgeous, and you were just an ordinary guy. You loved your children, as best you could. When it came down to it, they took their mother's side against you. How did that make you feel. Not on the outside where you had to pretend to understand, but inside? After you are dumped and hurt by Debbie, you find another woman you think you love and she leaves to go back to her husband. Naturally, he's taller and better looking than you and he's cheated on her and hurt her, and yet she goes back to him instead of staying with the man that loves her. Why can't you hold a woman, Bill? You're thinner now, and you shaved off your hair for a new look, but underneath it, you're still that middle-aged romantic loser that can't hold a woman with his love, or his dick."

She had cut my heart out with a few quick slashes, exposed every fear, every hurt that I had hidden where no one could see, I thought. I knew there were tears in my eyes, but I managed to smile at her.

"You're good, and your investigators are better. That's a lot of dirt to uncover in a few days. But, you know, Mrs. Donnally, despite the hard on you've given me, and despite you're being so damned hot, I wouldn't stick my dick in your diseased cunt if it was on fire and the only water in the world was between your legs."

She smiled back.

"I hurt you, I know, but there's a whole world of pain inside you, and there's a part of you that wants to hurt back. I told you I wasn't going to kill Paul and you'll see that I'm right. When you do, I want you to remember this."

She reached down and because my back was to the kitchen I didn't think anyone could see what she was doing. She ran her fingers around and up and down my cock. It felt like the spidery touch of silk.

"You're a good guy and I'm a very bad girl. Deep, deep down, you want to fuck me and I want to fuck you just that bad. I like control, but there's a part of me that's submissive at the same time. I will ALWAYS be available. I'm going to call your cell and leave a number that will always get through to me. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing...you can call me, and you can fuck me, and whip me, and hit me if you want. You can let that anger out...that hurt. Treat me the way you could never treat that miserable bitch Debbie, and I'll take it. You can fuck me in the ass and make me suck you clean. You can tie me down. You can piss on me. You can do ANYTHING to me, and I'll come back for more."

Shit. I stood there and tried not to tremble as I came and came and squirted into my underwear. She looked down and smiled a little smile of triumph.

"You tell yourself you're never going to call and maybe you won't, Bill, but forever is a long time, and I think you will call me one day. I'll be waiting."

I made myself turn around, walk out of the restaurant and get into my car and start for the jail. I could have tried to clean up the still-liquid cum inside my underwear, but I let it stay. It'd dry. I just thought about the woman I'd walked away from. I had thought that Paul Donnally was about as scary a person as I'd ever run into.

But his wife was - I didn't even have the words. I just tried to convince myself that when I found her message on my cell, I'd immediately delete it without looking at the number she'd leave. I would. I would.

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October 10, 2005 -- MONDAY - 6 p.m.

I sat down in a chair across from Paul Donnally's cell. Red Butler was officially off duty but I'd asked him as a favor to hang around and he'd escorted me back to Donnally's cell. Donnally was sitting on his cot, waiting for me.

"They told me the judge had dropped the million dollar bail and the charges have been dropped?"

"Yes to the bond. The original charges have been dropped and replaced by a simple assault. There's a $5,000 bond, but it's on your own recognizance so all you have to do is sign and walk out. I've already committed to cover for you, if you do skip the country and don't come back. Whether you walk is up to you."

"Why, Maitland? I told you why I wanted to stay in here. Despite everything, I don't want to kill her and I can't stand the thought of my kids' lives after we're both gone. How do you put your life back together after your father murders your mother and then takes his own life? They'd be scarred for life."

I stood up and walked over to the cell bars. I motioned to Butler and he walked away. But there were still microphones recording.

"Letting you out is up to the discretion of my office. I've heard your story, and her story, and I don't believe you should be behind bars. More than that...in my position you have to weigh things. I have to weigh keeping you in here to keep you from possibly hurting your wife against the prospect of bad things happening to other people if I keep you in here against my better judgment.

"This doesn't just involve you and her. There are other people's lives, and those lives can be damaged or destroyed if you remain behind bars on what I think is an unjustified charge of attempted murder."

"Do I read you correctly, Maitland, that you want me to sign those papers and walk out the door of the jail? You think that would be the best thing for....everybody?"

"Yes. I honestly do. I believe that you will find friends that will help you get your feet under you. I think you can walk back into your job because my office will make it clear that you face no formal charges and there will be no record of the arrest, other than you got into a domestic disturbance with your wife and police were called. The institution could dismiss you, but since the charges are being dropped and you will have no criminal record, I don't see why you can't walk back in."

"But you, personally, want me to walk out of here?"

"I'm making a professional judgment, but, yes, I personally would feel guilty about keeping an innocent man behind bars."

He rubbed his chin.

"You know what could happen?"

"I'm more aware of the possibilities than you are but I don't think that hiding in here is going to make anything better."

He got up and started collecting the paperbacks into a carrying bag that Tucker must have used to bring them into the cell. When he'd gotten them all and collected a toothbrush and some toiletries, he nodded at me.

Red Butler and I walked him to the desk where he received his personal effects, signed the bond papers and gave them to a woman representing the bonding agency which had its offices only two blocks away. I walked with him out to the back of the jail.

Gil Tucker lounged against the side of a black SUV in the parking lot a hundred yards away. He just looked at us standing on the raised bay that led to the entrance to the jail.

"You're giving in to her blackmail?"

"I had to make a decision and I didn't see any way around it. There are too many people -- a husband and father and children - that would hurt badly if you didn't walk out of here."

"And you gave in to her? That doesn't sound like the Maitland I've heard about."

"If I knew -- for a certainty -- that you were going to kill her, or that she was going to have you killed, no I wouldn't be doing this, not even to save a friend. However, I'm not God and I can't be sure what's going to happen."

I looked up into his dark eyes and I didn't see the shadow that had passed behind them in Doug Baker's office, or in the jail for a second.

"You don't know what you're letting loose, Maitland. You don't know what I am. I am going to try to stay away from her, but I don't know that I can keep her away from me. I've found out a few things this last month. She has a lot more money and a lot more power than I ever dreamed of. She's not the woman I've lived with for 20 years. I think she will come after me, God only knows why, and when I face her again...."

"Paul, I don't know you. You and your wife, to be honest, are the strangest and scariest people I've run into -- ever. But I know this. You've been a good, law abiding citizen for at least 20 years. You've raised two children. You've got friends who care for you. You were willing to give up your freedom to save your wife's life. I don't know what you did when you were a kid. I don't know how bad it was, or how bad you were, but I know the Paul Donnally I'm looking at today. I'm looking at a man who was willing to sacrifice himself for his cheating wife and his children. I'm looking at a man with a friend willing to go to the wall for him. I don't think a monster would do those things, or have a friend like Gil Tucker."

I pointed to Tucker.

"Go with him and try to get your head straight. Get some professional help. Maybe you did get it years ago, but you obviously need some more help today. If you want, I've got a good man that probably could help. Call my office and I'll give you his name and if I call him I think he'll see you.

"Oh...and be careful. If you wind up meeting with her...make sure you have a friend along. And make sure she knows you won't meet her alone."

He just stared at me and then shook his head.

"No, even now, I won't believe that. No matter how much she's changed, she wouldn't do that."

I extended my hand and after a moment, he shook it. His handshake felt like a normal handshake.

"Good luck, Paul."

He was walking toward Gil Tucker when I said, "You remember what you told me that day -- in Baker's office?"

He had looked back at me curiously.

"We always have a choice. You have a choice. I hope you make the right one."

He nodded and I saw Tucker give him a bear hug and then wave at me.

They were gone and I prayed with everything in me that I never saw or heard the name Paul Donnally again. I wanted to pray the same thing about Paula Donnally, but I couldn't deny mixed feelings there.