“Are you fucking her?”
Monica’s words struck Paul like four stabs in the back. She snarled the words as she sat ramrod straight inside her van parked next to his police motorcycle that day.
Paul played dumb to avoid a scene. “What’s wrong? Gosh, babe! That’s Kelley. You know Kelley.”
“No, I don’t.” Monica’s words spat bile. “We haven’t met.”
Paul had just left the police station to have lunch with Monica when Kelley Hatch, a local television reporter, stopped to ask for some facts about a car accident. Paul got out his clipboard and gave her the information. Monica stormed off to the van, slamming the door loudly.
He had a lot of explaining to do when he got in the van, believing that words that hurt you are imprinted in your memory. That a woman he considered so perfectly feminine and womanly could utter such language astounded Paul. As beautiful as everyone knew her to be, however, something seemed to bring out the green-eyed monster in Monica. She never seemed sure she really had Paul.
Their relationship began unraveling as their girls grew into their toddler years and beyond. Paul found that if he was going to keep peace in the house, he had to keep his mouth shut. If he wanted to resolve a problem, he learned the only way to do so was to swallow his grievances and forget about them. Although in the early stages of the relationship he had been content to spend all his time alone with Monica, now that they were a family, he felt things should be different. But Monica only allowed Paul and the girls to see those of whom she approved—her friends and family. Slowly, she had distanced Paul from his friends and family. Sure, one could say he let her. He had isolated himself from everybody, leaving no room in his life for anyone but her—her and those who met with her approval.
“I had to account for all my time,” Paul admits in retrospect about Monica’s authoritativeness.
In early 1990, Monica pushed Paul into being best man for her best friend’s fiancé. “I think he’s a jerk. I’d sooner kick his butt,” Paul griped. Monica said, “Do it for me.” End of discussion. He did it.
By the time the wedding took place, Monica had returned to her job at the courthouse, but Paul and Monica’s relationship had further deteriorated.
And if he ever so much as glanced at another woman, he never heard the end of it. Slowly, chip by delicate chip, Monica broke Paul’s self-esteem. “There were lots of good times, but always jealousy.” He thought, She’ll get over this, but she didn’t. Slowly, his spirit dissolved. Words, like acid, burned. Why did he let her do it? Paul cannot, to this day, answer that question.
“I felt like her property. I had to go here. I had to do this,” Paul said miserably.
Life at home was getting so strained; he just couldn’t handle it anymore. “Outwardly, it all looked normal. Inwardly, it was more than I could bear.”
Since Paul was a body builder with as many female eyes on him as male ones focused on his wife, Monica was ever vigilant. She wanted his entire attention focused on her alone. When Paul and Monica went out, for instance to the comedy club, she watched her husband like a hawk. If he even glanced at another woman, she exploded.
“Do you want her? Do you think she’s that great? Go get her!”
To avoid her condemnation, Paul found himself constantly looking down whenever he was with her so as not to inflame Monica’s jealousy by accidentally making eye contact with a member of the opposite sex.
Jealousy is a strange predator that boosts the ego at first, but slowly, ever so slowly, strangles its prey. “Initially, it’s flattering that your mate thinks you’re so attractive that she’s protective. After a while, it’s like ‘God, I can’t breathe!’”
But Monica’s jealousy of Paul’s glances at other women also shot an insecure Paul’s self-esteem through the sky. He felt Monica wanted him completely. No one else did, or so he thought. He needed her.
He also learned that she needed him when she told him she had been molested by a relative as a child. Not knowing much about sexual abuse survivors, he later decided this might explain why she had such trouble with issues involving love, sex, security and relationships. Monica had been convinced by her abuser that she must give in to his demands, because she was too beautiful for him to resist, that she was created to tempt men and she must submit. Monica told Paul he was the only one with whom she shared her experiences as a child sexual abuse survivor. It made him want to protect her all the more, but it didn’t stop them from fighting.
One day, Paul was lying on the couch in their home when Monica returned from baseball practice. Monica was an extremely good pitcher for a local team. She poured a soft drink into a heavy glass goblet and sipped from it, standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. They spoke about picking up his daughter April to stay with them for an extended period. Monica made a snide comment about April; Paul made a snide comment back.
In the next instant, using all the strength in her pitching arm, Monica tossed the glass goblet at Paul’s head. Paul threw his arms in front of his face as the goblet struck him. He ran to Monica and grabbed her.
“Don’t you ever do that again!” he roared.
Mid-sentence, Paul felt his thighs being kicked. He looked up and realized he had lifted Monica off her feet and up in the air. She kicked his thighs again as hard as she could. What the hell is happening to us? He thought. He reacted in panic and dropped her. Monica slammed to the ground and sprained her ankle. Paul feared his anger and what it made him do. He felt guilty about Monica’s spraining her ankle. He never knew whether Monica felt guilty about throwing the weighty glass at him. They never talked about the incident again.
Paul was determined, however, never to become angrily physical again. He tried to remain passive during the rest of their relationship and Monica mainly used the silent treatment when Paul angered her.
But perhaps the fight started bad habits. It was definitely battery and, yes, Monica started it. However, battery, according to New Mexico law, simply means a “rude or insolent” touching of another person. It doesn’t have to be a punch or a slap. A shove can be considered battery. Grabbing someone’s arm? That’s battery. Barring someone from leaving a room is battery. Whether or not Paul would admit it, he and Monica had committed battery against each other. On some level, because he knew the law so well, he also knew they had done so. Monica knew it, too.
By now they had stopped even trying to communicate, except for Monica’s heated declaration one night: “If you ever leave me, I’m going to destroy you and then I’m going to kill myself.”
Of course, he felt it was only her temper flaring. He didn’t believe her. But he grew more silent, more lonely.
Anita Harris and her friend were riding their horses along the property line separating Anita’s and the former governor Tom Bolack’s land when they saw Paul Dunn, his blue and white pickup truck parked nearby. Anita noted the Farmington Police badge on the dashboard inside the truck. Paul was chainsawing his way through a pile of wood.
“Are you a cop?” Anita asked, staring at the good-looking, muscular guy in front of her.
Paul nodded. “I’m a police officer, but I’m working part-time as a security officer for Mr. Bolack.”
Anita eyed the chain saw with a small, superstitious shiver, since it was All Hallows Eve. There’s something a little eerie here, Anita