We had a … well, because my mother raised me right, we’ll call her a lady … in town.

Cute little thing. Not exactly pretty, but easy on the eyes.

Had a daughter, running about 13, maybe 14, at the time. Blonde, like her mother, been told all her life she’s not smart, so she believed it.

Son, about 8 or so. Proto-thug in training.

First two children were via the first husband. Hard worker, in the oil-field. Brought home decent pay, but spent a lot of time on the road. Family was never hungry, nor cold, and he always did his best for them.

Person or persons unknown (who ought to be horse-whipped around the courthouse square) encourage the lady to join a Prison Pen-Pal ring, and shortly thereafter, the lady starts pen-palling with a two-time loser whom we shall henceforth refer to as D. Critter.

Things go as they will, and along comes the time when D. Critter is due to be released on Parole. Lady promptly files for divorce from her husband and is waiting outside the Huntsville gate when D. Critter walks out.

*snort*

Somewhere betwixt Huntsville and town, they make a brief stop at a local J.P., and the lady hits the city limits as Mrs. D. Critter.

Her poor ex- doesn’t fight the divorce, and Mr. and Mrs. Critter wind up with the house, one of the vehicles and various and sundry others, which are quickly sold and/or traded for a falling-down double-wide trailer located in the Flats and a never-really-running, busted up El Camino.

The rest of the money went … well, we all know where the money went.

So. We start hearing rumours. Drug use. Physical and emotional abuse. And, although I have no definitive proof, I strongly suspect molestation of the daughter.

It all winds up with me responding to a frantic 911 call from neighbor in the wee hours of the morning to find Mrs. Critter with a six-inch laceration from just under her ear-lobe across and down to the front of her throat.

Barefoot, in a nightgown, 9-point-something months pregnant and bleeding like a stuck hog. The two kids are there, and everyone is just flat hysterical.

I get the ambulance called, get Mrs. Critter and the children off to the E.R. 60 miles away, and then I start hunting.

I go through the trailer-house, finding a serrated steak-knife with fresh blood in the bedclothes, a still-warm meth needle and set-up in the living room, along with the still-smoking joint he used to try to take the edge off the twitches after he shot up; but I don’t find D. Critter.

Now, the Flats have dirt streets, so I laid my lit Mag-Lite sideways in the dust and discovered a whole bunch of bare foot prints, but only one set which were big enough for an adult male.

Following the foot-prints led me to a pick-up truck which had been driven into a thicket decades ago and left to rot.

Lurking under the pick-up, in a scooped-out trench, I found D. Critter.

Now, it seems that D. Critter didn’t feel quite as froggy when faced with a monumentally-torqued-off deputy sheriff as opposed to a 5-foot-nothing sleeping woman, because my finding him led to my having to chase his dumb arse over hill and dale before pulling him down.

Of course, him being on parole and all, this little incident tended to violate said parole.

I showed up for the Parole hearing with a spring in my step and a song in my heart.

Yeah.

Mrs. Critter got up there and lied like a rug. D. Critter was the kindest, gentlest man she ever knew, the whole thing was a misunderstanding, and the Sheriff’s Office was just out to get him.

The kids got all big-eyed and weepy, and the boy actually had a tear in his eye when he begged the Parole Board not to revoke the parole of D. Critter.

And those schmucks bought it.

Seeing how the wind was blowing, I gave the D.A. a heads-up, just about the time that Mrs. D. Critter walked into his office and filed an Affidavit of Non-Prosecution.

Folks, I tried every trick I knew, and invented a couple, to get that sodding little honyock in front of a jury.

Didn’t work. D.A. dropped charges, and a short while later, Mr and Mrs D. Critter left town just after the daughter wound up preggers.

I relate this story, because I have recently been informed that Mrs. Critter has joined an Anti-Domestic-Violence/Womyn’s Rights Group and has been weepily relating her years and years of being stuck in an abusive relationship and how LAW ENFORCEMENT NEVER, EVER TRIED TO HELP HER.

*blink, blink*

Lying little tart.

LawDog