“Yes! She was a beast! She was awful!”

“Officer Rhoad,” Tittle said in a hard tone. “Bestiality means screwing animals. No probable cause.” He tossed the arrest sheet in a to-be-shredded basket. “Let’s see.” He continued. “Keeping, residing in or frequenting a body place.”

“She wouldn’t let go,” Rhoad said, the memory clearly smarting.

“B-A-W-D-Y, not B-O-D-Y,” Tittle said slowly and deliberately as he tossed the report in the basket. “Entering property of another for purpose of damaging it.”

“Same thing. She touched my property, sir.”

“What property, Officer Rhoad?”

“Well, my privates. She tried to damage my privates.”

That report went into the basket with the others.

“Trespass after having been forbidden to do so,” Tittle read.

“I told her to stop.”

“Aggravated sexual assault. How did you arrive upon that one?”

“Because it was my privates she went after,” Rhoad reminded him.

“I suppose attempted rape is for the same reason.”

“What if it were you?”

“Sexual battery, rape. No probable cause,” Tittle said, strained. “And oh. Here we have threatening the governor or his immediate family?”

“She said, ‘I’m going to find the governor or his wife or children or relatives. And then you’ll be sorry!’ ”

Rhoad averted his eyes. He wasn’t really sure of this one. So much was a blur now. Tittle balled up the arrest sheet and tossed it on the floor.

“Oral threats. Bodily injuries caused by prisoners. Assault and battery. Malicious bodily injury. Aggravated malicious wounding.”

Tittle balled up each sheet, pummeling them at the trash basket.

“Shooting, stabbing with intent to maim, kill. Failure to obey order of conservator of the peace. Treason. Treason?”

“Subject did resist the execution of the laws under color of its authority,” Rhoad cited. “She levied war against the Commonwealth when she attacked me.”

“You need a therapist.”

“I’m a citizen of the Commonwealth, aren’t I?” Rhoad argued.

“Why did this woman grab your genitals, Officer Rhoad?” Tittle had never met such an idiot in his life. “Did she swoop in out of nowhere? Was she provoked? A spurned lover?”

“She tried to stop me from putting a parking ticket on her car,” Rhoad explained.

“I don’t buy it.”

“Well,” Rhoad said, “I’d done it a few times before.”

Brazil was wise enough to ask Governor Feuer to drop off his guest passengers a block from the police department, thus avoiding a scene that would be difficult, if not impossible, to explain.

“I’m going to take you to MCV,” Brazil said to Weed as they walked along the sidewalk. “Then let’s get your mother to come for you. You don’t want to be locked up all night.”

“Yes I do,” Weed told him.

Brazil noticed Weed was very agitated, looking all around as if afraid someone was following them.

“You’re not making any sense to me,” Brazil went on. “And you know why?” He opened double glass doors on the lower lot of headquarters. “Because you’re not telling me everything, Weed. You’re holding back.”

Weed had nothing to say. Brazil checked out a car and let the radio room know where he was going. He and Weed sat in MCV’s emergency room, where Weed could not be treated without one of his parents being present. Weed’s mother didn’t answer the phone and she wasn’t at work. Weed’s father was out cutting grass somewhere and didn’t return Brazil’s call. Brazil’s radio would not transmit from inside the hospital. He felt cut off from the world, angry, helpless and miserable.