Chapter 5

Danny wasn't real fond of the County lock up. I think he expected me to run right down and make bail for him just like I'd done the last time he'd been arrested. I had told myself I wasn't going to do that for him anymore. Danny had a bad habit of not learning from his past mistakes.

Kaitlyn had spent the night in the hospital, more bruised and upset than anything else. They kept her overnight to give her time to get calmed back down again. Kaitlyn was always an excitable personality, and when she was upset, she made sure that anyone within hearing range of her voice was upset as well. When she's in the middle of one of her anger tantrums, many people begin to doubt her mental stability.

Danny had worked her over pretty well, but he was also careful not to hit her face with his closed fist, and not to do her any permanent damage. No matter how upset with her he got, he still loved the woman, and he didn't really want to hurt her.

Bridget and her mother had stayed overnight at the trailer, watching the kids and calling the hospital, to try to find out how badly Kaitlyn had been hurt.

Danny would have gotten out on an OR release after two days in County jail if the probation department hadn't been coerced, by one of the assistant DA's, into filing against him for violating the terms of his probation agreement. If I'd had a suspicious nature, I might have suspected certain parties of using this as a way to get more money out of me. I did have a suspicious nature, and that was exactly what I was thinking as soon as I found out Danny had been placed on a probation hold.

I let Danny spend another two weeks in lock up before I finally broke down and phoned that guy I knew to ask what it would cost to make the probation violation go away. He said it would take ten thousand minimum, and I told him that it looked like Danny would have to do the time then.

"I can look into it for you, Mr. Masters, but when one of the DA's staff recommends a filing, that usually means they're serious and want to discourage the defendant from continuing on in this vein."

"His wife wasn't really hurt. More shaken up than anything. I can't really blame my brother for getting after her, not when she went out and got tanked up and then brought some guy home with her and practically screwed him right in front of their three small children. Danny is normally more tolerant than most, but he really couldn't put up with that without taking her to task over it."

"They usually treat and release victims that were just shaken up. As I was given to understand, they kept the women in the hospital overnight."

"Because she was a raving maniac of a screaming nut case, threatening everyone at the top of her lungs. They kept her there as much for her own protection as for anything else. In any case, I don't have enough money that I can afford to throw away ten thousand for him right now."

"Well, like I told you, I'll look into it and that will tell me more about what might be possible. Even if they do succeed in violating him, he'd probably get out in three or four months."

"I can handle him being gone this time. Before, it would have screwed a lot of things up for me if he'd been gone for years like he was looking at that last time. I learned my lesson from that, and I have people in place now that could take up any slack his being away might cause to my business. He's my brother though, and I'd like to help him if I could justify the expense of doing it. I really don't blame him for doing what he did. In his place, I'm not sure I wouldn't have done a lot worse to her."

He called me back a couple of days later to say it didn't look like anything could be done for less than the ten he'd quoted me earlier. I told him that was still too much for me to shell out. I thanked him for going to all the trouble to look into it for me, and hoped he wouldn't hold my inability to put up the money against me.

Every chance Danny had to get near a phone he was calling me collect, pleading with me to help him get out from under the probation violation. I thought it was very strange that he kept getting phone access like he did. I'd heard it was very hard to get to a phone down at the county lock up. Hard or not, I was getting one or two calls a day from Danny.

Danny's probation hearing was only two days away, and I hadn't called the guy who said he could help Danny back. I wasn't using not calling him as a ploy to get him to come down on his price. I was ready to let Danny do the three or four months if it came to that.

I was getting back from a run I'd made to deliver some galvanized steel pipes to a contractor in Palm Springs, when Kaitlyn called me on my business cell phone. Few people even knew that number. Kaitlyn was definitely not one of the people I'd given it to.

"Hello?"

"Jimmy, it's Kaitlyn. Danny keeps calling me from down at the jail. He told me to call you and tell you that he really needs you to step up for him on this charge they've filed on him. He said I'm supposed to tell you that you should sell our trailer, if that's what you need to do to get him out. I'm telling you what he said, because I promised I would. Please don't do it though. We'd have no where to go if you sold our home."

"I told him he'd only have to do three or four months, and they'd count the time he's been locked up since they arrested him. He might have only another thirty to forty five days after his hearing. That's if they decide to violate his probation. They might decide not to. I told him that he needs to hang in there and take his medicine."

"What about me and the kids? Are we supposed to starve while he sits in jail?"

"I don't know, Kaitlyn. Seems to me that none of this would have happened if you hadn't brought guys home to fuck, right in front of those kids you're so worried about now."

"It wasn't guys, and nobody has ever proved I even did what Danny thinks I did."

"I know three people who saw that fat Mexican coming out of Danny's trailer after spending the night shacked up with you. I got two phone calls from out at the park before his tail lights cleared the last speed bump before the exit. Don't even try to pretend that you didn't do something that was really wrong, Kaitlyn. You keep denying the truth and I'll get Danny all worked up just as soon as he gets out. I'll tell him you really need to be taught a lesson. He let you off a lot easier than I would have. I don't understand why he doesn't just kick you to the curb."

"What are you going to do about what Danny asked you?"

"I'm not selling the trailer. That wouldn't make any sense. I hope you find a way to keep up with the space rent though. I'd hate to see the four of you trying to live in that tiny apartment your mother and her knucklehead boyfriend are renting over there in Adelanto."

"I don't have any money. What am I supposed to pay it with?"

"Beats me. It isn't my problem is it? I'm getting pretty sick of having to step in and rescue you two every time one of you gets stupid about something. You guys are going to have to start looking around for someone else dumb enough to give a shit about you."

"We took you in and raised you when your parents died. This is how you repay us for that?"

"Fuck you, Kaitlyn! You think I don't know about the Social Security money you were taking in each month? Half the time when I lived with you, that Social Security check made me the biggest earner in the family. You were damn glad to have that money, and that's the only reason you agreed to take me in."

"We treated you good, Jimmy. You can't say we didn't either."

"Good by your standards maybe. You got paid to provide me with a place to live and food to eat. The money you got paid for everything you spent on me, and a whole hell of a lot more. You can't say I haven't helped you guys out since then either. I think I'm through doing that now though. You don't learn, and neither does my brother. You're both fuck ups and I'm tired of coming to your rescue all the time. You act like a whore half the time anyway. Maybe you should go ahead and turn pro and get the space rental dough that way."

I ended the connection and turned my damn phone off before she could call me back again. I loved my brother, but Kaitlyn had worn through any warm feeling I might have once had for her. Sure, Danny was a fuck up, but most of what he did to get himself in trouble was the result of something she'd done to provoke him. Kids or no kids, he should have gotten rid of her a long time ago. She was trouble, and she didn't even care about the consequences her actions kept causing Danny.