25-09-2026, 03:48 PM
OCTOBER 7, 2005 -- FRIDAY - 3 P.M.
David Brandon, one of the other two ASAs equal to me (on paper) in the State Attorney food chain walked in without knocking. There were only three people in the department who could do that. Even though I carried the most weight in the office, Brandon had been here longer, had taken my leapfrogging him to head the office under the Big Man with good grace, and basically was an all-around nice guy.
“I wish to formally rescind my previous request that my husband, Paul Donnally, be held in the tightest custody possible. I would like to request that he be released as I am formally withdrawing my complaint against him.
“I know that formal charges have been filed against him for assault, but those charges are not valid. We had a fight and I attacked him with a knife and he was defending himself. If anybody should be in jail it should be me, not him. He took the blame for the assault because that is the kind of man that he is. I accused him of choking me in anger over a fight we had and faked the injuries. I had a friend choke me after my husband left our home to leave marks and he accidently choked me harder than he realized.
“I will not testify against my husband, regardless of what action the State Attorney’s Office decides to take against me. I regret the actions I have taken and am ready to take responsibility and any legal punishment that may result from this letter.”
“Sincerely, Paula Donnally.”
“Are you believing that crap?” Dave said, shaking his head.
“Not really. I wonder if she knows that he’s already shown how dangerous he is and that there is no way in hell anyone is going to believe her story about her faking those injuries.”
“I know. I talked to the officer who took the call. She was terrified when they showed up. She could barely breathe and she was trembling and hyperventilating. The officer is a veteran and he said no way was she faking. She was scared shitless.”
“So why would she try to retract her testimony, get the husband who came within an eyelash of killing her out of jail, and face prosecution for faking an assault and a criminal charge? Does any of this make any sense at all to you?”
He shook his head.
“No, but you know that at this point if Donnally wanted to walk, I’d probably suggest that we let him. If she’s serious about retracting her accusations, even if we have physical evidence, we’d have a hard time winning a case. It’s hard to overcome a weeping wife testifying that she lied to get her husband in trouble after a fight. As to the jail, hell you know that we’d face liability there. I think the Big Man would tell us to let him go before we piss him off enough to take us to court.”
I couldn’t argue with his conclusions, but something in me rebelled at the thought of turning Donnally loose on the world. I needed to look into the attack on the wife try to figure out what was going on before I did anything I couldn’t take back.
“Anyway Bill, she called about an hour ago and asked to come in to talk with us about the case. I figured we could work something out and maybe make this whole thing go away.”
“I don’t know Dave. Maybe I should sit in on-“
“Shit, Bill, you put in about 90 hours a week as it is. You’ve got other stuff on your plate. Look, I’ll have Gary Matthews sit in with me and I won’t do anything. I’ll call or email you over the weekend and tell her we can’t do anything until Monday, so you’ll have the final say if you really have doubts about all this. Okay?”
I did have a hell of a lot of other stuff to wade through. I was a little bit curious about Paula Donnally after what Gil Tucker had said, but I guess after you’ve seen one cheating slut, and I had been married to her, you didn’t need to see any more. Alright, I know that didn’t apply to my former wife exactly, but there were still plenty of times when I felt like it did. However, if Gil Tucker was right, Paula Donnally was in another category altogether.
“Okay, hey, didn’t your kids have that softball game this evening. I thought you said you had promised Darlene that you’d get off on time for a change.”
If there was anyone in the world who was more married than I had been, it would have to be Brandon. His wife wasn’t the hottest woman I’d ever seen. She’d put on weight after three kids, but love is blind. Brandon doted on her and his 16-year-old son and two seven-year-old twin girls. Just knowing there were marriages like his around made me feel better.
“I’ll make it in plenty of time. The game is under the lights and it doesn’t start until 6. I’ve been promising Darlene I’d get off earlier. It shouldn’t take more than an hour, two hours to finish up with Ms. Donnally and then I’ll be out of here.”
I finished by 7:30 p.m. and called down to Brandon’s office but there was no answer. I had gone by Myra’s earlier but she had plans with—female—friends she’d already made.
“I’m a little hurt that you’d go out with female friends when you have a chance to be wined and dined by an internationally famous legal superstar,” I told her, making sure to smile so she’d know that I knew this was all bullshit.
“These are two of my oldest friends, Bill,” she said, bending forward to make sure I got a nice view of world-class cleavage. “I don’t have many female friends, for obvious reasons. I know you better than to think you don’t understand that. They’re in town this weekend so can we have a rain check till next week?”
Thinking of Lew Walters and Gil Tucker, and how empty my life would have been if there had been nobody like one of them in it when my life crashed and burned, I said, “Yeah, I do understand. Have a good time. I’ll just take a lot of cold showers.”
By the time I made it by the gym and got out and grabbed a late coffee it was past 10 p.m. I hit the Liberty Street condo, I could never call it home, and watched a little late night television. It would never be home, but it wasn’t the empty Hellish chamber it had once been. or maybe it was just me that had changed.
Saturday I popped over to the Bascombs, had coffee with Cathy and Roy and talked Kelly into going out for breakfast at an IHOP. I built up at least a three-hour exercise debt I needed to pay to work off the calories, but it was worth it. We could talk now and I learned a little about all the terrible and wonderful things that were happening in a beautiful 18-year-old’s life. Oddly, I felt closer to her than I had when we had been living under the same roof.
David Brandon, one of the other two ASAs equal to me (on paper) in the State Attorney food chain walked in without knocking. There were only three people in the department who could do that. Even though I carried the most weight in the office, Brandon had been here longer, had taken my leapfrogging him to head the office under the Big Man with good grace, and basically was an all-around nice guy.
“Hi, guy,” he said, extending a letter to me across my desk. “Hey Dave, what is this?”
“Read it and be astounded.” I opened it and read.
“Mr. Brandon,“I wish to formally rescind my previous request that my husband, Paul Donnally, be held in the tightest custody possible. I would like to request that he be released as I am formally withdrawing my complaint against him.
“I know that formal charges have been filed against him for assault, but those charges are not valid. We had a fight and I attacked him with a knife and he was defending himself. If anybody should be in jail it should be me, not him. He took the blame for the assault because that is the kind of man that he is. I accused him of choking me in anger over a fight we had and faked the injuries. I had a friend choke me after my husband left our home to leave marks and he accidently choked me harder than he realized.
“I will not testify against my husband, regardless of what action the State Attorney’s Office decides to take against me. I regret the actions I have taken and am ready to take responsibility and any legal punishment that may result from this letter.”
“Sincerely, Paula Donnally.”
“Are you believing that crap?” Dave said, shaking his head.
“Not really. I wonder if she knows that he’s already shown how dangerous he is and that there is no way in hell anyone is going to believe her story about her faking those injuries.”
“I know. I talked to the officer who took the call. She was terrified when they showed up. She could barely breathe and she was trembling and hyperventilating. The officer is a veteran and he said no way was she faking. She was scared shitless.”
“So why would she try to retract her testimony, get the husband who came within an eyelash of killing her out of jail, and face prosecution for faking an assault and a criminal charge? Does any of this make any sense at all to you?”
He shook his head.
“No, but you know that at this point if Donnally wanted to walk, I’d probably suggest that we let him. If she’s serious about retracting her accusations, even if we have physical evidence, we’d have a hard time winning a case. It’s hard to overcome a weeping wife testifying that she lied to get her husband in trouble after a fight. As to the jail, hell you know that we’d face liability there. I think the Big Man would tell us to let him go before we piss him off enough to take us to court.”
I couldn’t argue with his conclusions, but something in me rebelled at the thought of turning Donnally loose on the world. I needed to look into the attack on the wife try to figure out what was going on before I did anything I couldn’t take back.
“Anyway Bill, she called about an hour ago and asked to come in to talk with us about the case. I figured we could work something out and maybe make this whole thing go away.”
“I don’t know Dave. Maybe I should sit in on-“
“Shit, Bill, you put in about 90 hours a week as it is. You’ve got other stuff on your plate. Look, I’ll have Gary Matthews sit in with me and I won’t do anything. I’ll call or email you over the weekend and tell her we can’t do anything until Monday, so you’ll have the final say if you really have doubts about all this. Okay?”
I did have a hell of a lot of other stuff to wade through. I was a little bit curious about Paula Donnally after what Gil Tucker had said, but I guess after you’ve seen one cheating slut, and I had been married to her, you didn’t need to see any more. Alright, I know that didn’t apply to my former wife exactly, but there were still plenty of times when I felt like it did. However, if Gil Tucker was right, Paula Donnally was in another category altogether.
“Okay, hey, didn’t your kids have that softball game this evening. I thought you said you had promised Darlene that you’d get off on time for a change.”
If there was anyone in the world who was more married than I had been, it would have to be Brandon. His wife wasn’t the hottest woman I’d ever seen. She’d put on weight after three kids, but love is blind. Brandon doted on her and his 16-year-old son and two seven-year-old twin girls. Just knowing there were marriages like his around made me feel better.
“I’ll make it in plenty of time. The game is under the lights and it doesn’t start until 6. I’ve been promising Darlene I’d get off earlier. It shouldn’t take more than an hour, two hours to finish up with Ms. Donnally and then I’ll be out of here.”
I finished by 7:30 p.m. and called down to Brandon’s office but there was no answer. I had gone by Myra’s earlier but she had plans with—female—friends she’d already made.
“I’m a little hurt that you’d go out with female friends when you have a chance to be wined and dined by an internationally famous legal superstar,” I told her, making sure to smile so she’d know that I knew this was all bullshit.
“These are two of my oldest friends, Bill,” she said, bending forward to make sure I got a nice view of world-class cleavage. “I don’t have many female friends, for obvious reasons. I know you better than to think you don’t understand that. They’re in town this weekend so can we have a rain check till next week?”
Thinking of Lew Walters and Gil Tucker, and how empty my life would have been if there had been nobody like one of them in it when my life crashed and burned, I said, “Yeah, I do understand. Have a good time. I’ll just take a lot of cold showers.”
By the time I made it by the gym and got out and grabbed a late coffee it was past 10 p.m. I hit the Liberty Street condo, I could never call it home, and watched a little late night television. It would never be home, but it wasn’t the empty Hellish chamber it had once been. or maybe it was just me that had changed.
Saturday I popped over to the Bascombs, had coffee with Cathy and Roy and talked Kelly into going out for breakfast at an IHOP. I built up at least a three-hour exercise debt I needed to pay to work off the calories, but it was worth it. We could talk now and I learned a little about all the terrible and wonderful things that were happening in a beautiful 18-year-old’s life. Oddly, I felt closer to her than I had when we had been living under the same roof.
BJ was off on an overnight with a friend so I was at a loose end. I called Heather McDonald and Meagan Whitcomb but couldn’t reach either of them, so I wound up driving over to St. Augustine. I walked the beach, threw popcorn to the seagulls until an avian riot broke out, and sat in the dunes that night watching the stars, wondering exactly where Paris was on the night horizon in front of me.
I was back to the condo by 11 p.m. As I turned on the television and grabbed a Diet 7 Up, it hit me. I looked around the small and by now familiar rooms as I had the night before. It would never be home, but it was really me that was changing. I was getting used to this life, this lonely life. Deep down I’d never really thought that would happen, yet it had. I didn’t know if that made me glad, or sad.Like, Comment and Give Rating.