[Ramesh_Rocky]

OCTOBER 10, 2005 -- MONDAY - 9 A.M.

I had hit the gym early in the morning and got in only at 8:45 a.m. I was involved in paperwork on four upcoming cases when Dave Brandon walked in. He seemed a little nervous, but otherwise the same old Dave I’d known for more than 10 years.


“You didn’t e-mail me or call me, Dave. I was expecting to hear the outcome of your meet. Was she lying through her teeth or do you think she might have faked the charge?”
“Gary and I did our damnedest to shake her. I threatened to have her taken out in handcuffs after we arrested her for filing a fraudulent criminal charge, told her it was a felony, that we made an example of people that filed those kind of fake charges and that she’d serve AT LEAST a year in the county jail - nothing! She swore up and down she had faked it, gave us the name and phone number of the guy she said she had called who came by and did the fake strangling.
“We grilled her for two hours and still couldn’t shake her. She’s either a complete sociopath who has no concept of the difference between truth and lies, or she’s the greatest actress in the history of the world.”
“So you believe her?”
He sat across from me, rubbed his chin and thought about it. Then he grabbed his ear and tugged it as he thought some more. He hadn’t come to any snap judgments. This was something he had thought about. There was something else, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe he had doubts about what he was going to say, or second thoughts.
“Yeah, bottom line, Bill, I guess I do. I, uh, in a way I guess I wouldn’t blame the poor bastard if he had tried to kill her. You’d have to see this woman, Bill. I always thought Debbie was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, except for Myra Martinez of course, but Paula Donnally is - I don’t even know if a description would do her justice. You’d have to be in the room with her. She has a, presence, I guess, that’s hard to describe.”
I looked at him in amazement. This didn’t even sound like the man I’d worked with for a decade.
“You didn’t fall in love with her, did you?”
He almost physically jumped when I said that and gave me a guilty look.
Jesus Christ! She HAD gotten to him.
He laughed and even the laugh sounded fake.
“No, of course not. If anything, I might have fallen in lust for a few hours. I’ve never even thought about, other women, like that. Except, but if I wasn’t married, God knows if I wouldn’t have hit on her. But, what I was trying to say is, I can understand that poor bastard being devastated when he learned what she’s been up to, for almost a decade, she said. She said when she finally faced him and admitted what had been going on, he didn’t get violent. He went catatonic, she said, just froze and wouldn’t talk to her, then walked out.”
“So why would he confess to trying to kill his wife and ask to be kept behind bars.”


“She said he found out what was going on almost a month ago and she’s been trying to meet with him face to face to talk, to put an end to their marriage. She said she wants out, but he’s been ducking and dodging. He managed to avoid her until this past weekend and it’s like he blacked out and just wouldn’t listen to her tell him she wanted out, wanted a divorce. I think he’s using us as just another way to avoid facing the truth about his wife and his marriage.”
I leaned back in my chair, watching him.
“I don’t know if we shouldn’t help him out, for a little while. He’s too dangerous. Even if he didn’t attack her, he could kill her in a few seconds if he wanted to.”
He shook his head again.
“He might be dangerous to others, but you heard what August said. The guy has NO criminal history. He’s never raised a hand against anybody, until the other night in the jail - and that was in self-defense. Paula says that he never even looked like he was going to attack her that night. She said he just pissed her off so bad when he walked out on her that she lost it and decided she was going to fry his ass and get him tossed into jail on that fake assault charge. She’s not worried about his actually physically attacking her.”
So now it was ‘Paula’ and not ‘Mrs. Donnally.’ Now I was beginning to regret that I hadn’t sat in on the meeting. This woman had to be something else to affect a man like Dave Brandon, and his theory that Donnally had never lifted a finger against anyone else was horse shit, but I couldn’t tell him about the day that Doug and I had our little go-round at UNF.
“Bottom line, I don’t think he’s any danger to his wife. I think the charge was faked, I think we’re incurring legal liability the longer we hold him and I think we ought to get Martin to immediately lift the million dollar cash bond. Paula said she’d bond him out the minute we do that. All she wants is to sit down with him, and he can have an attorney hired by his friend Gil Tucker. She just wants to get some closure on her marriage, get him to agree that it’s over.”
“What should we do about Mrs. Donnally? She’s admitting to filing a false security officer report and that’s what started this whole mess?”
He looked at me and grinned.
“If you can guarantee me a jury of 6 women, all of them straight, I might take her to trial, but if you have one straight guy and/or lesbian, I don’t think you’ll ever convict her.”
“She’s that hot?”
“You’d have to have seen her in person, but yes.”
“You think Matthews would agree with your assessment?” “Yes, we talked after she left the office.”
“What time did she leave?”