WHEN WERE MARRIED - BOOK ONE - THE LONG FALL

FOUR LITTLE WORDS Part 5

At that she did cry. Then she wiped the tears from her eyes, got off the bed and slipped her robe back on. There was real anger on her face.

"You are an asshole. I try to make love to you, to bring us a little closer because God knows we've drifted so far apart, and you accuse me of cheating on you. Fucking another man, to use your words. That you could say that, that you could even think it, shows me our marriage is in really, really bad shape."

I didn't say anything, because she had said it all.

"I'm going downstairs to sleep on the couch in the den, you bastard. I don't think I could stand looking at you or touching you tonight. And tomorrow, try to get out of here without saying a word to me or even looking at me. You think you can do that?"

"I think so."

And she was out the door.

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The next morning I got up early with the alarm set for 5. I'd already taken a shower. I grabbed a suit from our bedroom closet, slipped out the door without stopping for coffee and in other words, got out of Dodge while the getting was good. I didn't bother to turn on the light in the den but I could see a dark shade huddled under a blanket on the huge couch that is the main feature of our den. That along with the largest big screen television allowed under the law. As I walked past the door to the darkened room, I tried to remember the last time we'd made out on that couch. I couldn't remember.

When I got to work I quickly slipped into the usual routine. A wealthy Ponte Vedra trophy wife had apparently, according to her lover, faked her own kidnapping to extort 1.5 million from her elderly husband. I had to decide what charges to file.

A 74-year-old husband had been tearfully arrested after a coroner found five times the lawful level of painkiller in his dead wife's cancer ridden body. He swore he hadn't fed her the extra drugs to speed her end. We had to make the decision on whether to charge or not to charge him with mercy killing. Which is basically homicide with a good chance of mercy from the judge after a guilty plea.

The Jacksonville Sheriff was bugging the hell out of our junior assistants and working his way up to me pleading for a little mercy in the case of respected patrol officer who had shot his girlfriend's husband and two brothers-in-law to death when they showed up at his house trying to take the girlfriend home where they said she belonged.

Of course there were three of them, and the cop was pleading fear for his life, but he had blown them away with his Glock and they, unfortunately for him, were unarmed when they were shot to death. Oh, and one brother-in-law had two bullet holes in his back. Kind of hard to argue fear for your life when you shot a man in the back as he was running away from you.

But, there's a symbiotic relationship between cops and prosecutors and the Big Man who signed my checks and wanted to be Governor of Florida someday did not want the cops getting pissy with our office and subtly sabotaging our cases because we'd screwed one of Jacksonville's finest.

As one of the three top assistants under the Big Man – on paper, and in reality the top assistant - the case got dumped in my hands and I had to make a Solomon-like decision.

And, of course, all the while these fairly routine matters were on my mind, in the back of my head the thoughts and fears aroused last night kept swirling and swirling. As usual I didn't have time to get out of my office so I had a Camel Rider sub with cheese and chopped up hamburger and onions delivered to my office about 1 p.m.

When Cheryl, my secretary for the last five years, brought the lunch in, I told her to call the front desk and tell them that unless God called in with an emergency over the next hour, all my calls were to be held.

She stepped back into the office and looked at me expectantly. I never held calls like that. I looked her over. Five foot six, red haired, dressed demurely in a light red dress that was short enough to be provocative but not enough to be slutty and out of place in a work environment. She wore glasses and her hair up in a bun, but I'd been around a few times when she let her hair down, figuratively and literally, and I knew there was a wild mane of red hair almost down to her ass that was almost hypnotically strokable.

"Do you need anything else Mr. Maitland?" she asked.

"Take off the secretary hat, Cheryl, and I'll take off my boss hat. I'd like to talk to you for a minute."

She looked at me oddly for a minute, then relaxed. We'd been to a few office parties and I'd seen her on her ass drunk and even taken her home once and she knew I'd never touched her when I probably could have touched her anywhere I wanted. She'd never said anything overt, but I got the impression she admired me for not messing with her when I could have.

"What's wrong, Bill?"

"Something has to be wrong for me to talk to one of my favorite secretaries," I said, trying to smile.

"You never hold your calls for an hour, I can't remember the last time you asked me in here for some private time, and anyone in here can take one look at you and tell something is bothering you."

That hurt my pride.

"I'm that transparent? And I was priding myself on my poker face."

"Usually you are pretty inscrutable. But when you walked in the door this morning, I knew something was up. And knowing you, it's personal. You are too cool when it comes to legal stuff. So it's either the kids or Debbie, and if I were a betting woman I'd say Debbie. You guys have a fight?"

I looked down at the Camel Rider and tried to make myself acquire an appetite. I needed some food inside me.

"I wish."

FOUR LITTLE WORDS SHAKE A MARRIAGE TO ITS FOUNDATION. NEXT WEEK SEE IF BILL MAITLAND WILL BE ABLE TO HOLD THINGS TOGETHER, OR IS HE HEADED FOR AN INEVITABLE FALL