finish, the sooner I can call for help. For all I know, you might bleed to death.”
“I swear to god, you’ll pay for this,” he yelled. He partially sat up, still holding his arm. Blood leaked from between his fingers. Crimson streaks and splatters stained a white pillowcase.
“I’m sure I will, Alton. I’ve paid for everything else.” She was standing, her knees at the edge of the mattress. She aimed at his leg, gripping the gun with both hands, dramatically closing an eye as she peered through the sight.
“I’m a piece of shit,” he recited. “And a failure as a man.”
“Say it again. Slower. Listen to yourself. Let it sink in.”
He repeated the words, and she called 911, told them she’d been attacked and was injured and had been forced to shoot her husband. “Please help me,” she sobbed to the operator, the hurt in her voice completely genuine and heartfelt, the catharsis so deep that no cop or attorney or juror could ever doubt her circumstances.
Alton located his pants in the den. Holding them as best he could with a bullet hole bored into his flesh, he hopped and wiggled them on but wasn’t able to hook the clasp at his waist, and with the cuffs still below his heels and his shoes left behind, he scrambled through the door, realizing there wasn’t much hope of explaining away his battered, beaten wife, especially when he was full of booze and had brazenly lied to the building’s new manager to get inside Meg’s apartment. She told the police he’d tried to rape her and, somehow, thank the Lord above, she’d been able to grab her pistol from the nightstand drawer and wound him in the arm. As simple and horrific as that. His partial handprint was visible on her cheek when the cops interviewed her, a lowlife’s pink abuse.
Despite the fervent urgings of well-intentioned volunteers and the warnings from a slew of professional advocates with catchyacronyms—S.T.O.P., CAFV, WEAVE, NOW—on their business cards, Meg declined to cooperate with her husband’s prosecution. “I have my reasons,” she informed an assistant commonwealth’s attorney in Alexandria.
The attorney, an office veteran named Andy Minchew, removed his glasses and twirled them a time or two and didn’t show any emotion. “Your decision,” he said. “We can still go to trial, you understand. We can subpoena you and call you as a witness. Put you under oath and make you testify. I’d do that if I thought it was the wisest choice. If I thought it was in your interest.”
Meg scooted her chair forward. The gray, public-servant carpet snagged one of the legs, so she ended up closer to the desk but slightly crooked. “Alton Gold,” she said firmly, “is a bastard who has beat me and threatened me and stolen my money. He’s a drunk. A womanizer. He used our credit card to pay for another woman’s abortion. Ruined years of my life. He views legal proceedings, this whole world of yours, Mr. Minchew, as a chance to manipulate me. To prolong these awful things. To have me badgered by his high-priced lawyers. In a strange way, he’d probably enjoy court. Might even make him—how to say it?—more determined. He’s not afraid of lawyers and judges—he has nothing to lose.” She leaned in Minchew’s direction. She put her elbows on his desk. She laced her fingers, touched her chin with her thumbs. “But right now, sir, he’s afraid of me.” She bent her neck enough to talk around her hands. “I don’t want that to change. And I don’t really want to spend a lot of time on the details of, you know,
how
he was shot.” She untangled her hands but kept leaning toward Minchew. She never quit looking at him, never broke off.
Minchew returned his glasses to the bridge of his nose and closed a file on his desk. “Good for you, ma’am. I see your point. Good for you. Well handled. Best of luck to you.”
She didn’t say anything else, nor did he. He sent her a wink when she hesitated at his door to thank him, and
“I swear to god, you’ll pay for this,” he yelled. He partially sat up, still holding his arm. Blood leaked from between his fingers. Crimson streaks and splatters stained a white pillowcase.
“I’m sure I will, Alton. I’ve paid for everything else.” She was standing, her knees at the edge of the mattress. She aimed at his leg, gripping the gun with both hands, dramatically closing an eye as she peered through the sight.
“I’m a piece of shit,” he recited. “And a failure as a man.”
“Say it again. Slower. Listen to yourself. Let it sink in.”
He repeated the words, and she called 911, told them she’d been attacked and was injured and had been forced to shoot her husband. “Please help me,” she sobbed to the operator, the hurt in her voice completely genuine and heartfelt, the catharsis so deep that no cop or attorney or juror could ever doubt her circumstances.
Alton located his pants in the den. Holding them as best he could with a bullet hole bored into his flesh, he hopped and wiggled them on but wasn’t able to hook the clasp at his waist, and with the cuffs still below his heels and his shoes left behind, he scrambled through the door, realizing there wasn’t much hope of explaining away his battered, beaten wife, especially when he was full of booze and had brazenly lied to the building’s new manager to get inside Meg’s apartment. She told the police he’d tried to rape her and, somehow, thank the Lord above, she’d been able to grab her pistol from the nightstand drawer and wound him in the arm. As simple and horrific as that. His partial handprint was visible on her cheek when the cops interviewed her, a lowlife’s pink abuse.
Despite the fervent urgings of well-intentioned volunteers and the warnings from a slew of professional advocates with catchyacronyms—S.T.O.P., CAFV, WEAVE, NOW—on their business cards, Meg declined to cooperate with her husband’s prosecution. “I have my reasons,” she informed an assistant commonwealth’s attorney in Alexandria.
The attorney, an office veteran named Andy Minchew, removed his glasses and twirled them a time or two and didn’t show any emotion. “Your decision,” he said. “We can still go to trial, you understand. We can subpoena you and call you as a witness. Put you under oath and make you testify. I’d do that if I thought it was the wisest choice. If I thought it was in your interest.”
Meg scooted her chair forward. The gray, public-servant carpet snagged one of the legs, so she ended up closer to the desk but slightly crooked. “Alton Gold,” she said firmly, “is a bastard who has beat me and threatened me and stolen my money. He’s a drunk. A womanizer. He used our credit card to pay for another woman’s abortion. Ruined years of my life. He views legal proceedings, this whole world of yours, Mr. Minchew, as a chance to manipulate me. To prolong these awful things. To have me badgered by his high-priced lawyers. In a strange way, he’d probably enjoy court. Might even make him—how to say it?—more determined. He’s not afraid of lawyers and judges—he has nothing to lose.” She leaned in Minchew’s direction. She put her elbows on his desk. She laced her fingers, touched her chin with her thumbs. “But right now, sir, he’s afraid of me.” She bent her neck enough to talk around her hands. “I don’t want that to change. And I don’t really want to spend a lot of time on the details of, you know,
how
he was shot.” She untangled her hands but kept leaning toward Minchew. She never quit looking at him, never broke off.
Minchew returned his glasses to the bridge of his nose and closed a file on his desk. “Good for you, ma’am. I see your point. Good for you. Well handled. Best of luck to you.”
She didn’t say anything else, nor did he. He sent her a wink when she hesitated at his door to thank him, and
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