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“No, no, no,” Moira said in hushed tones. Her frantically waving hands belied the quiet timber of her voice.
Caleb remembered those hushed tones himself, the brittle edge of a half-whisper.
“Just go, honey,” the woman said. “Just—”
“Get back in your room!” the drunk bellowed.
Caleb saw red.
‘Is this how it is, Shelia?! I work all day, come home, and you got his fucking toys out every damn where!’ Always ‘his’ or ‘him’ or ‘the boy’. Caleb was never Caleb at home. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? Huh? How many? One time?’
The drunk swayed a bit on his feet but his rising anger seemed to buoy him. “How many times do I have to tell you, Moira? He stays—”
Caleb surged forward, toward the front door. The rookie paled. The asshole was too busy yelling to really notice.
“Why don’t you tell me?” Caleb snarled, charging through the screen door.
The drunk’s head jerked toward him, lower jaw slacked.
“Forget it,” Caleb told him, letting the door slam shut behind him. “I already know. You don’t let him play with his toys in the living room. Because you don’t want to be reminded he exists.” Caleb moved closer. He was a whole head taller than the drunk. He leaned down into his face, fighting the urge to wince at the man’s rancid breath.
“Why do you think that is?” Caleb said in a quiet voice that dripped with venom.
The man reared back. “This is my goddamn house!” he cried. “No one talks to me like that in my own goddamn house!”
Ignoring him, Caleb stepped closer, not touching the man but forcing him to back up. He teetered precariously on the edge of the top step of the porch.
“Officer Barnes,” the rookie called out, his voice tight with anxiety.
Caleb ignored them both. “Is it because when they’re around, they remind you what a shitty fucking man you turned out to be? Can’t feed your family. You all live in a rat trap. Do they remind you every day that you’re nothing but a fat, ignorant, dumb fuck of a drunk?”
The man suddenly forgot about the possibility of losing his balance and surged forward instead of backward this time. His fist curled and struck out, catching Caleb in the ribs. The vest absorbed the impact of the blow entirely. No knife this time. And that was damn disappointing, because assaulting a cop with a deadly weapon while drunk was a trifecta that would have landed this piece of shit in jail for a good long time. As it was, Caleb would just have to settle for simple assault, possession, and drunk and disorderly. He grabbed the drunk’s wrist and twisted it, spinning him around. The man stumbled on the step and lost his footing. Caleb let go of him and he tumbled down the cracked wooden steps and sprawled onto the lawn.
“Barnes!” The rookie yelled, but Caleb ignored him. He calmly descended the stairs himself, reaching for his cuffs.
“You’ve assaulted a police officer, sir. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you in,” Caleb announced in a tone that made it obvious he was anything but sorry. As he bent over the flailing man, he yanked one hand behind his back. Just then the front door banged open.
“Daddy!” the young boy squeaked, though his mother held him back.
“Sonofabitch!” the drunk shouted. “You can’t do this! You can’t come into my house and— Ow!”
Caleb yanked on the other arm and secured the steel bracelets to the man’s wrists.
“Barnes!” The rookie called out again in a tone that told Caleb he was siding with the drunk on this one. The younger man jogged down the steps and stopped short next to Caleb as he wrestled the drunk to his feet. “Come on, Barnes,” he said, lowering his voice and glancing over his shoulder at the woman and child standing on the porch. “This is crap.”
“Damn right it is!” the drunk snapped.
“Shut up,” Caleb replied, giving the man a slight shake. To the rookie he said, “He assaulted a police officer.”
The rookie gaped at him. “After you provoked him! And that search—”
“Was totally admissible,” Caleb reminded him.
The rookie glared at him. “Just by the hair on your nuts,” he grumbled.
“He can’t do this!” the drunk protested as Caleb took a step toward his cruiser.
The rookie jumped in front of them. “Come on, Barnes,” he repeated. “You want to do this? In front of the kid?”
Caleb glowered. He was doing the best thing for the kid, something no other cop who’d been called here before either cared enough or had balls enough to do: lock the asshole up.
“He’s got it rough,” the rookie whined. “From a broken home—”
Caleb laughed bitterly. “Broken home? And what? You think you’re going to fix it? With your Conflict Resolution bullet points? Let me tell you something, you can’t fix this kid’s broken home, but you can sure as fuck take out the trash.” He shoved the man toward the cruiser without looking back over his shoulder.
