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And The Beat Goes On

By: StangStar06



Hi folks. As you read this AlleyKat06 and I are probably doing part 1 of our honeymoon. I'll still be here though to see how you view this one. This story is a moderate length one so it's a bit longer than the last two. Those of you who wanted longer stories will still be disappointed that it's not longer but I figured something in the middle might be good for most of you. This story is also strange because it's very, very dark. It's also a continuation of a story that many of you have never read. I did a recap during the story to bring everyone up to speed, so you don't have to have read the original story to follow it.As always if you don't like it, there will be something different next week. As always thanks to the incredible Mikothebaby for her editing and keeping me on the straight and narrow with this one.SS06

*  *  *  *  *  *

As usual, I had a headache. The fucking thing just wouldn't leave me. My doctor says it's stress. He says that maybe at my age I should consider slowing down and riding a desk. He says that I'd probably live longer if I did that. I think that I'd just be trading my normal eventual death for a slower more meaningless one. We're all going to die of something anyway aren't we?

What I do may not be the most important thing in the world, but it is necessary and God damn it, I'm good at it. I'm also far more appreciative of what I actually do this time around. I almost lost it because I let my small head do the thinking for the big head. One dumb assed decision fucked up a career that I'd worked years for. (Read the Beat for more clarification)

The funniest thing about it is that I never did get any pussy out of the deal but I did make a friend...eventually. So now, as I step lightly to avoid ruining my new shoes in the muck, shit and God knows what else of this alley, pussy is the furthest thing from my mind. The only things on my mind right now are my headache and my curiosity over whatever sick act some denizen of the lowest rung of humanity has done tonight.

My name is John Fogerty and I'm a cop again. After a couple of years back on the force after that initial fuck up, I'm even a detective again. I follow the gestures from a uni, that's slang for uniformed officers or patrol cops, and make my way to the scene.

The pounding in my head is like a fucking drum. I can barely think.

"Hey, Fogerty. Wait until you see this one," says Arnie Chang. He's the uni who waved me over to the scene. I looked around and noticed that the other unis were combing the area for any kind of evidence. There on the ground in front of Arnie is the body of a woman who looks to be in her seventies. She's a frail little thing. The only thing odd about her is the large angular crease in her head. Both blood and gray matter are seeping through the gaping crease. It makes her head look like the top of it is shaped like a "V."

"That's some sick shit isn't it, Fogerty?" asks Chang.

"Yeah Arnie, it's really sick. You find any ID on her?" I ask.

"We waited for the ME," says Arnie. "We didn't want to do anything that might disturb evidence or anything like that. Ever since all of those fucking CSI type shows have come on TV all of those ME types have become fucking prima donnas. They act like if we check the body or the pockets of the deceased's clothing, we'll spoil the case and the bad guy will get away. But in real life, the bad guys actually get away because we can't touch the body to try to identify it."

"As soon as we find out who Grandma is, I want to know about it," I snap. "I also want to know where she lived, who she lived with, and any financial information that might be pertinent," I said.

"You got it," he says.

"Arnie, I'm no CSI egghead," I begin. "But it looks like someone who was really fucking strong caved this nice old lady's head in with a fucking two by four. It took a lot of strength to do that and a lot of anger. I want that asshole off the streets." Arnie nods at me and the pounding in my head goes up another notch. I consider reaching into my pocket to pop yet another aspirin but my phone rings and saves me from doing it.

"Fogerty," I snap answering the phone. "Who's this?"

"It's your fucking boss, you fossil. What the fuck are you doing?"

"Well Stan, I think they call it working. I'm on the scene of that homicide on Lafayette Avenue," I said.

"Well, I'll pass that one off to someone else, I have something special I need you to look into," he says.

"Uhn unh Stan, this one is special too," I tell him.

"Dammit Fogerty, they're all special, but this one has to do with a friend of the mayor's so it's a lot more God damned special and I am your fucking boss," he yells.

"Stan," I say quietly. "Remember that girls group from the eighties?"

"You mean the Bangles?" he asks. "Shit, those bitches were hot; especially that little dark haired one. She looks a lot like that piece of ass you got staying with you. I'd..."

"No Stan, not the Bangles. I mean that other girl group; the one with the chubby girls. They had a cute little dark haired guitar player too though. They sang that song about their lips being sealed."

"The fucking Go-Gos?" he asks. "What does this have to do with the fucking Go-Gos?"

"What was their other big hit?" I ask. I start humming the melody.

"Vacation," he screams. "Fogerty, you are not pulling that vacation shit on me. Okay, I'll make a deal with you. Let the unis handle securing the scene and you go over to the address I'm texting you. You can handle both cases, but I need your head in the game on this case. I don't want the mayor coming down on the Commissioner."

"Stan, fuck the commish. He's an asshole," I spat.

"Yeah, but that asshole will put pressure on the chief, who will in turn, put pressure on me and pressure rolls downhill," he said. "Get my drift?" Then he hung up and my headache ratcheted up again. I couldn't believe I was being shifted to some other case that wasn't even a homicide, while the guy or guys who killed an old lady were allowed to stay free. Something other than pressure was rolling down hill and to me it smelled like bullshit.

As I made my way back to my unmarked police car, I lit my flashlight to make sure I didn't step into anything and ruin my fucking shoes. Melinda would have my ass if I stepped in something and ruined these shoes. Shit, Melinda would have my ass for something anyway. The bitch hated my fucking guts.

My light illuminated a bunch of rats. They scurried off into the night. They'd been eating away at the carcass of what looked like a dead cat. They were just a part of the circle of life in Detroit.

The pounding in my head grew worse. It was like a drum. Over and over again just one long, relentless fucking beat.

  *  *  *  *  *  *

The drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain. Oh, La dee da de dee. La dee da dee da. Murder's on the menu once again. Oh, La dee da de dee. La dee da dee da.

And the beat goes on. The beat goes on.

  *  *  *  *  *  *

  Melinda

  "I'm tired of your shit, mother," I yelled at her. "I know you don't want to do this but I have to. It's been too long. I have to get my husband back. So if I have to sell this house to get enough money, that's what we're doing. And you Daddy, what do you have to say?"

  The two guys who'd come to the house with me looked at me crazily. I guess they just didn't understand that I consulted my parents about everything. We'd always been close. In fact, if it hadn't been for their support, I probably wouldn't have survived Tommy's decision to divorce me.

  "What?" I snapped. "Fuck you Daddy. You always side with her. Look, I know you married her, but I'm your own flesh and blood. I was created from a part of both of you. You have to understand how much this means to me. You two are getting to be too old to be on your own anyway. Once the house sells, I'll just have some of the guys I've hired for my plan move you into the place I'm sharing with Fogerty."

  "It really is for the best. And I know that the two of you don't like Fogerty, but really he's just a means to an end. If my plan is successful, the five of us will be one big happy family in Tommy's huge house. Think about it. It will be Tommy and me, plus his adorable baby; she really should have been mine. But that disgusting, ugly, red headed cunt stole my husband out from under me and managed to get herself pregnant before I could do anything about it. That bitch has to pay and this time she's going to. It's my turn now. I've waited long enough. And you guys will get to live in the house with us. But only if you're willing to make a few sacrifices along the way. I'm not carrying any dead weight with me on this trip. So what do you say?" I noticed again that the two men were staring at me as I waited for my parents to answer me.

  "Finally, you see it my way mother," I said in triumph. "Does that mean that you're on board too Daddy? Of course I'm still your little girl and Tommy's always been like a son to you, so this changes nothing. Instead of us living with you, you'll be living with us."

  I walked over to the two men. "The buyer I've lined up for the house is a real estate developer. She'll deliver my check by day after tomorrow. She wants a quick sale and she's giving me until the weekend after next to get all of my stuff out of here. So we have two weeks. As soon as I get the check, I'll give you half of your money. You'll get the other half when this is done. Are we on?"

  The two large men looked down at me.

  "Uhm, what about the other part of it?" asked one of the men. "I just got out and it's been a while."

  "You're going to have to wait until later. I'll come by and visit you at your place after you do it. There's no way I can fuck you here with my parents here," I whispered. "Do you know how sick that would be?" Again I noticed how big his eyes got when I nodded my head towards my parents.

  "And really when you think about it, for the amount of money I'm paying you, you could get a hooker," I said. The look of disappointment on his face made me wet between my legs. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to give him a little bit of pussy just to make sure he was fully on my side. If my plan went shitty, having his loyalty might be a good thing. "I promise I'll meet you later," I told him. "We can't be too careful. The guy I'm living with is a cop."

  His eyes got bigger and the set of his mouth got firmer as I said that. I turned so that my body was between him and my parents and reached out and rubbed his dick through his pants. His wide eyed expression went up another notch and his mouth dropped open as he hardened at my touch.

  "Later, I promise," I whispered. "And it's going to be really good baby." The three of us left the room and slammed and locked the door behind us. I knew that my parents wouldn't mind. It would give them more time to talk about our future. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed a number from memory.

  "It's me dummy," I spat into the phone. "Are you on your way home?"

  "No I'm kind of stuck on a case," he said evenly. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

  "I'm just leaving my parent's house," I snapped. "I'm on my way home and I'm hungry."

  "Why didn't you eat while you were there?" he asked.

  "That's what you do, Fogerty," I screamed at him. "You do this every fucking time. I called you because I wanted us to do something together. I just wanted you to stop on your way in and bring me something to eat and you have to make it a federal case. Is there any wonder why we've been living together for three years and aren't having sex yet? You just keep screwing things up. I told you when we first got together that we weren't going to fall in love and we weren't going to have sex, right?"

  "Yes Melinda," he said obediently. It amazed me how pliant and subservient he was. Most men just gave up all sense of self respect for women. Fogerty was a big strong dominant man when he dealt with other men. But at barely five feet tall and barely a hundred pounds, I intimidated him. It was mostly because he'd fallen ass over tea kettle for me the first time he saw me. Even though I'm nowhere near as hot as I used to be, he's still under my spell. So when I want him to do something for me or I need to distract him, all I need to do is throw out the hint that I'd been thinking about giving him something that costs me nothing. And he just goes crazy.

  "I'm sorry Melinda," he said quietly.

  "I'll consider starting to think about it again," I said nastily. "But you're starting from square one. Now what time will you be dragging your ass home?"

  "Melinda, I have no idea," he whined. "I haven't even gone to the address yet. I don't know how long the investigation will take. I don't know how many people I have to interview..."

  "Stop that fucking whining," I said. "I just want to know when you'll be home and where you'll be so I can think of what you might be able to bring me home to eat. I'm going to take a shower and get cleaned up for you. I wanted for us to sit down and eat together. It would be almost like we were a couple, or dating or something." I could hear a sharp intake of breath coming from him over the phone. This had been the first time that I'd thrown out the "C" word since we'd been together. Unless, of course, I was talking about that woman who'd stolen my husband and then it was the other "C" word.

  "Are you still there?" I asked.

  "Yes Melinda," he said. He was trying not to give away how happy he was but to someone who'd seen him day in and day out for years and didn't give a fuck about him it was obvious.

  "So John, call me when you're on your way home. I'm taking my phone to bed with me so call that number just in case I'm asleep," I said.

  "Okay Melinda," he said. "But it'll probably be at least two hours," he warned.

  "Don't worry about it," I said softly. "I'll grab something to drink to take the edge off."

  "Melinda, no!" he said.

  "I meant like a soft drink, dumb ass," I snapped. "And I meant to take the edge off of my hunger." I hung up on him then. I guess he was right to be concerned. I'd nearly drunk myself to death after my divorce. I drank to the point where I'd begun to damage my liver. Lucky for me one of the therapists that I was seeing made me realize that drinking, though it numbed the pain, wouldn't ever come close to getting me what I really wanted.

  I've always had the ability to focus on one thing to the exclusion of everything else. My mother used to say that I obsessed over things. What I've obsessed over for the past few months is getting back what I want most in the world. I've thought about it for months. I've turned it over in my mind until I realized that I'd have to make certain concessions. Then I realized that what had happened was actually meant to be. It was nature's way of balancing the scales.

  My husband, Tommy, and I were perfect for each other. We always had been and we always would be. I'd had a moment of weakness and had gone over to the dark side. I had to pay for that in the most severe way possible. I had to be without Tommy for a while. But now, all of the things we needed were falling back into place. It was as if the planets were aligning so we could be together again.

  I had, without thinking about it, been conned into cheating on Tommy. He'd in turn, been conned into sleeping with and marrying that red headed witch. During my problems I'd discovered that I was pregnant. The combination of not taking care of myself and drinking caused me to lose the baby. The further degradation of my body has rendered me unable to carry a child.

  On the other hand, Tommy wasn't supposed to be able to have kids after one of his injuries during the war. They told him he'd need to have an operation, but somehow he'd managed to get both me and the witch pregnant. I'd seen pictures of Tamia, Tommy's daughter, and she was the cutest baby ever. With her dark hair she looked more like she was Tommy's baby with me than like the witch. I think that happened because I'm the one who is supposed to raise her. The only thing left to do is to get rid of the witch. Once I do that, Tommy will turn to me out of necessity. And while we're together he'll remember how good we are together. Then we'll be happy again.

  My phone call to that idiot Fogerty was just to find out where he was going to be for the next few hours. I really enjoyed yanking his chain. For a cop and a detective at that, he really had a blind side when it came to me. But I didn't leave anything to chance. I knew everything about him. I even knew where he went when he was so frustrated by my refusal to have sex with him that he sought out someone else. He had two sources. One was a Polish girl in Hamtramck. She was an old friend of his and his last resort. She was married to a much older man and the married part made both her and Fogerty feel guilty. The one he used most of the time was an African American prostitute with the unfortunate name of Ebony Hooker.

  A couple of times when I had the money, I'd paid Ebony not to fuck Fogerty. I did it just to give his chain an extra yank. But soon, all of this shit with Fogerty would be over. I'd be back with Tommy and Fogerty could fuck all of the hookers he wanted. Would I feel guilty about using Fogerty for all of these years? Fuck no. In order to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs. And that's what Fogerty was to me. He was just a fucking egg. He was hard on the outside, but once you crack his shell, he was all runny on the inside. I'd use a hundred Fogerties for a chance to get Tommy back. My plan had been in the working stage for months now. Most people would have been surprised to learn the lengths I'd gone to in order to have a shot at getting my husband back.

  *  *  *  *  *  *

  Fogerty

  I still had the headache as I pulled onto the street I needed to go to. I can't deny that my spirits were lighter, so maybe the headache just seemed to be milder. And to be honest, I'm totally willing to admit that the phone call from Melinda had a lot to do with lifting my mood. Just when I'd nearly given up hope, I was very close to achieving something I'd only dreamed of. It seemed as if my patience was finally being rewarded.

  As I walked towards the flashing lights on the driveway, I hoped that whatever this case was it wouldn't take too long.

  Two unis ushered me inside, They were already shaking their heads and wishing me good luck as I stepped onto the porch.

  Inside of the well-appointed suburban home, I marveled at how the people only a few miles south of this toney suburb lived in absolute squalor while barely six minutes away by the I-75 freeway all of the inhabitants were borderline wealthy. It made no sense.

  The carpet alone in this living room was probably worth more than the house the old lady had been dumped behind. There were several uniformed officers, one of them a female, talking to three people in the living room. Two of the people there were males and one was a nearly hysterical female.

  "Where's the fucking body?" I whispered to one of the unis. He just looked at me and laughed.

  "You're not getting off that easily Fogerty," he whispered back. "These people are all fucking loony. There's no dead body because this isn't a homicide. This is a rape case."

  "Start canvassing the neighborhood as soon as you get a description of the perp," I said.

  "Fogerty, calm the fuck down," he said quietly. "That's the suspect," he pointed at one of the men. I noticed that the man was quietly sitting across from the other two. The woman was loudly crying and telling everyone that she just wanted to take a shower and have the whole thing over with.

  The handcuffed man sat quietly not saying a word. He was no dummy. I was sure that he would lawyer up as soon as we got to the station. The other man was pacing the floor holding an icepack to the side of his jaw and loudly berating all of the officers in his vicinity.


And The Beat Goes On



He took one look at me and headed in my direction. "Okay, arrest this bastard. He raped my wife. I want him off the street, out of my house immediately," he ordered. He was obviously the type of man who was used to ordering people around and getting his way. Tact and diplomacy were obviously not in order with him.

  "Sit down and shut the fuck up," I snapped. His eyes ballooned open and his mouth snapped close. His surprise at the way I spoke to him lasted only minutes before his inflated sense of ego took over again.

  "Do you know who I am?" he sputtered.

  "Yeah," I sneered, getting even further in his face. "You're the asshole I'm going to book for obstruction of justice if you keep interfering with my assessment of the situation. Now I'm going to ask you to follow my directions one more time and then I'm going to have you cuffed, gagged and dragged downtown. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of this and I need you to be seen and not heard until I'm ready to speak to you. So do what I told you to do sir."

  He looked at me strangely; then he sat down.

  I went over and spoke to the officers that were taking statements from the parties involved. Apparently, the asshole I'd just interacted with was the home owner. He'd just arrived home slightly earlier than normal and found the suspect in his house. He'd come in through the side door because apparently he'd been trying to sneak a new set of golf clubs past his wife. His plan had been to smuggle them down into the basement and put the new clubs into his old golf bag and throw the old clubs out.  

  Unfortunately, his wife had been in the basement already with the suspect. They'd been engaging in a sexual act and the wife had started screaming rape as soon as her husband came in. The husband had gotten into it with the suspect and gotten his ass thoroughly kicked, hence the blackening eye, the swollen lips and the ice pack. The next door neighbor was a retired cop from the one nine precinct who'd been outside on his porch. When he heard the ruckus, he'd come over and helped to subdue the suspect. They'd called the police and that was where I came in.

  Another surprising detail that had recently come out was the fact that the couple's nine year old daughter was upstairs during the attack and hadn't heard a thing.

  I arranged for them all to be transported downtown so we could interview them all separately and find out what had happened. This just didn't seem right to me.

I followed the squad cars to the station. We had the suspect in one car, the husband in another and the woman and her daughter in the last car. The husband had originally wanted to go in the same car with his wife but I didn't allow that. I wanted to keep them isolated to make sure they didn't have a chance to get together and corroborate their stories.

We put all three into different interview rooms and let them wait for a while. I had a cup of nearly rancid coffee and watched a little bit of the Tiger's against the Yanks. With Verlander pitching, the boys from New York didn't have much of a chance. I watched the whole sixth inning and then headed for the interviews.

I spoke to the woman first. Her name was Suzanne Smythe. She was okay looking if you go for that chunky, Midwestern, housewife type woman. She was a little bit bigger in the gut than I like. I know there are a lot of guys out there who absolutely will not look at a woman unless she has a nice rack. I'm not one of them. But I personally can't stand a woman whose gut sticks out more than her boobs no matter how big or small they are. So Mrs. Smythe would not be winning any beauty contests if I was the judge.

She also seemed to buy her clothing a couple of sizes too tight. I could actually make out the seams in her panties through her jeans. Her make-up was smeared all over her face. Her lipstick looked like she was going for that insane circus clown look.

She looked up at me and started crying again as soon as I walked in the room. I gestured and got Charlotte Ayalla, a female officer to sit in on the interview with me.

"Good Evening Mrs. Smythe," I said quietly. "I know this has been a terrible evening for you. And the technicians who came over from the clinic to process your rape kit probably didn't make you feel any better. At least they were women so I'm sure they treated you compassionately. I'm going to try to make this as easy as possible for you under the circumstances. I just need to hear your side of what happened as you remember it. I want to remind you that we are recording this interview. Not that you've done anything wrong, but people sometimes misremember things later on. That's why it's so important that we interview you while the details of the event are still fresh in your mind."

"But I don't remember anything," she whined. "I guess I'm in shock...that's it, I'm in shock." She looked at me as if she was trying to measure my reaction to her story. Something didn't feel right here.

"Well, sometimes when something happens to us that is so terrible that it may do us emotional damage, our minds block out the details or the entire event to protect us. It's called spontaneous amnesia," I said.

"That sounds like what I have," she spat.

"I just made that up Mrs. Smythe," I said. "Usually when someone doesn't remember the details of an incident immediately afterward, it's because they're trying to hide something."

"I want a lawyer," she hissed at me. "You can't ask me questions without a lawyer present. I have the right to an attorney. I've seen every episode of Law and Order, I know my rights."

"Mrs. Smythe, you don't have the right to an attorney," I said.

"Yes I do," she said. "Don't I?" I just shook my head.

"You're the victim. You haven't been charged with anything. So why would you even need one? All I asked you to do was to tell me what happened in your own words," I said.

"I'm nervous," she said. "It's the way you look at me. It makes me feel like I'm on trial."

"How about if I go and interview one of the others while you're making your mind up?" I said. "I really don't want to be here all night."

"I guess that's okay," she said.

I walked across the hall to interview the husband and was stopped by Stan who'd obviously been watching on the monitor and waiting for me.

"What are you doing Fogerty?" he asked me. "That's the victim. She didn't do anything wrong."

"That bitch is squirrely as hell," I spat. "Check her purse, I'll bet it's full of nuts. And Stan my gut tells me that her purse ain't the only thing around thing around her that's had a few extra nuts in it."

"Fogerty, please don't start any shit here," whined Stan. "This is an open and shut case. We caught the perp on the scene. We've got him for about two bazillion different charges including home invasion, assault and battery and criminal trespass in addition to the rape. The DA has already signed off on it. The bastard is being arraigned first thing in the morning. Even Judge Wedlow has agreed to proceed first thing in the morning. They're going to turn this into a media circus because they're all up for re-election next month and this will make everyone from the commissioner to the mayor, look good. Please don't fuck this up."

"Maybe you should put someone else on it then and just let me go back to my murder case," I snapped. "I didn't call you Stan. YOU called ME."

"Alright Fogerty," he hissed. "But if you fuck this up...you won't get a THIRD chance. And remember, when the judge, the DA, and the commissioner want to know who is responsible for whatever shit slinging soiree you unleash, I'll be standing right in line with them pointing my long tapering finger right at you, Fogerty. Why can't you just do this the easy way?"

"Sorry Stan," I said. "I only know how to do this the RIGHT way. I don't get to prejudge anyone or anything. I have to let the evidence decide who's guilty. Last time I tried to go with the way things looked, or pick the obvious wrongdoer, you guys hung me out to dry and I got my ass fired. So if it's my ass on the line, I'm doing this my way."

I left him there sputtering and balling up his fists while I went into the room. As soon as I walked into the room, Mr. Smythe jumped up. He was the male version of his wife. He was balding, pot-bellied and full of himself. He combed all of his hair to one side to cover up the fact that his hair was beyond thinning in the front. He had small, beady, piercing eyes and he liked to step up into people's faces and point his fingers at them.

His entire persona said,"I am important and you will listen to me." Anyone who had to be that much in someone's face obviously had hidden self-esteem issues. It was almost like he wasn't trying to convince other people that he was important as much as he was trying to convince himself.

"Did you throw that piece of shit in a cell yet?" he spat at me. Before I could answer him, he had moved even further inside of my personal space. "How much would a person have to... uhm...donate to get a few moments alone in a cell with that guy?" he asked. His volume was lowered but his tone was still obnoxious.

"I have no problem dropping you into a cell with him and letting him beat the fuck out of you...AGAIN," I said. I pointed my finger into his face the way he seemed to like to do to everyone else and he wilted. "That guy is younger than you are. He's stronger than you are and he's already beaten your ass once. He apparently did it in your own house. Why would the outcome be different this time?"

He looked at his feet. "Are you assuming that he'd be handcuffed still? Surely a big macho, alpha male like you, wouldn't derive any pleasure from beating on a man in restraints? Or is it just that you're so afraid that he'll beat your ass again that this is the only way for you to win?"

"Tell me Smythe, do you want to beat on this guy to make your wife feel better or just to soothe your own bruised ego? Are you afraid that if you don't do anything all of the other guys down at the little businessman's frat house will think you're a bitch?" He looked away from me.

"Back the fuck up Smythe," I spat. "Sit down in that fucking chair so I can ask you a few questions and decide whether or not we're going to press charges."

"Of course you're going to press charges. That animal shouldn't be allowed to walk free," he said loudly.

"I was talking about pressing charges against you," I spat. I was tempted to laugh as he started sputtering again and finally just slumped down in the chair silently.

"Alright Mr. Smythe, tell me what happened tonight," I said. "And just so you know it, we'll be recording this meeting."

"I had a rough day today," he began. "I kept butting heads with the fucking union stewards at one of my production plants. After that, I needed something to make me feel better. Just after lunch I played a round of golf with some friends and my clubs are just shitty. So I stopped off at Golf World and bought a new set of clubs. I knew my wife would bitch about it..."

"Why would your wife be upset? How old were your old clubs?" I asked.

"That's neither here nor there," he said.

"Answer the question," I said.

"Three months old," he snapped. My eyebrow went up. "What does that have to do with my wife being raped?" he asked.

"I'm just trying to establish the mood you were in," I said. "Go on. You knew the little lady wouldn't be happy that you'd bought new clubs so..."

"Oh yeah," he said. "So I decided that if she didn't know about it she'd never care. So I decided to sneak in the side door and swap out the clubs. I'd put the new ones in my bag and throw the old ones away. But when I came in the side door being as quiet as I could, I heard this sound. As I went into the room to get my golf bag I saw them."

"My wife and I made eye contact and she yelled, "Stop him, he's raping me..." he said.

I didn't say anything so he continued. "She started struggling and tried to get away from him. I went over to him and tried to grab him. I started screaming at him and Betty was screaming rape too. I took a poke at him, but I only caught him on his shoulder. He started trying to put his clothes on so he could get away. My first two punches hadn't done shit so I caught him while he was pulling his shirt over his head. He told me to back off because he was leaving. I was pissed so I took another swing at him. What would you have done?"

Again I didn't say anything. He looked to me for confirmation. I didn't want to give him anything so I did my best to keep my face neutral.

"I popped him on the chin and then he just busted me in the eye. He popped me again and caught me in the mouth. I turned my head because I tasted blood and he popped me again on the side of my jaw. By that time, my neighbor came in the side door and we wrestled him to the ground. All the time the guy kept saying he was leaving. It was all the two of us could do to hold him down until the cops got there. You know the rest," he said. 

I sat back and watched him. I remained silent. He, on the other hand, was nervous and jittery. Without saying a word I got up and left the room. A gem of an idea was beginning to form in my mind. I felt a familiar rushing in my ears but this time I was on the other side. I walked down the hall to a different type of interview room. This one had a thicker door that was locked. A uni standing by the door unlocked it as I approached.

I walked in and sat down. The man who occupied the room was pacing back and forth. His hands were still handcuffed but the cuffs were in front of him. Standard procedure was for the cuffs to be behind the suspect.

He looked over at me. I look at his cuffs and he in turn looked down at them too. "Sorry," he offers. "I couldn't walk with them behind me." He sat down in the chair and kicked one leg and then the other through his looped arms. When he stood again the cuffs were behind him.

"Why did you rape Mrs. Smythe?" I asked him. I watched his face goes through a host of emotions.

"I...I..." He stuttered. "Is that what she said?" He looked at me with confusion written all over his face. "I want a lawyer.

"Why?" I asked. "You haven't been charged yet. I'm only here for a talk. I'd like to hear your side of what happened tonight."

"Nuh Unh," he said, sounding even younger than he looked. "You said that I raped Pattie."

"Well that's what she and her husband claim. So until you tell me something different it's all I have to go on. To tell you the truth, I have no opinion here. I just want to know what happened. I've heard from the other two and I just wanted to give you your shot too. But if you don't want to talk that's fine," I said. I got up and acted as if I was ready to walk out of the room.

"Wait," he said.

  *  *  *  *  *  *

  Melinda

  I have to admit I was excited. Just thinking about the fact that the end game was near and I'd have my husband back after more than three years lifted my spirits. As I pulled into the parking lot in Fogerty's cheap, loud, noisy, ancient Nissan, I wondered about the sanity of most men. Why the hell did all of their cars have to make so God damned much noise. Tommy used to go on and on about the sound of his exhaust note. To me it was just too loud. But to him it was a pleasing sound. He'd sometimes lower the windows and turn off the radio just so he could listen to the sound of that motor as we drove.

  Sometimes he'd squeeze my hand and smile at me and I would just fucking melt. I couldn't believe that those days would be mine again, if luck was on my side.

  I parked in the middle of the lot and looked around for my guys. I saw them after a few moments and flashed my lights. Each of the guys had found a partner. Although I didn't know the other two guys, it would be better that way because if anything bad happened, they wouldn't know who I was either. The two guys that I'd actually picked were both two time offenders so they'd do anything they had to in order not to go back to jail. If they were caught again, they'd be in jail for good.

  It's a really strange situation when a guy can do his time for the things he's done and not have any kind of opportunities when he gets out. Society can lock these guys away but if they don't have a hope of finding any kind of job when they're done what choices do they have? That's part of the reason why there are so many repeat offenders. Of course, some of these guys are just wired wrong but I'm sure that there are many who would love to have the chance at a good job and a nice life.

  Two cars quickly flashed their lights back at me. One was a nondescript Honda that no one would ever notice or recognize even if they were sitting in it. The other car let me know that Lucas was out of his fucking mind. It was one of those new Chargers and it was blindingly white. I was going to have to talk to Lucas about his fucking choices.

  I got out of the car and walked into the hospital. Lucas and his buddy got out of their car at the same time. They walked faster than I did and went inside of the hospital. Josh came over and got inside after I did. We all took different paths so if anyone was watching us or videotaping us, they'd never associate us as being together. I walked up to the information desk and found myself in line about three people behind Lucas. I heard him ask where Radiology was. The woman behind the desk gave him directions. When it was my turn, I spoke to the woman in a really friendly way. She recognized me from all the times I'd been here during and after my divorce. "Where is Julia working today?" I asked her.

  "You're not going to start any trouble are you?" she asked.

  "That was a long time ago," I said. "She's married to my ex. We may as well be friends. I came to invite her and Tommy to my parent's barbecue this weekend. My parents still love Tommy and they miss him. We grew up together so just because we're not married anymore doesn't mean we can't try to be friends. If the two of us can't be together and he's happy with her, so be it."

  "Aren't you married to that handsome older cop anyway?" she asked smiling. I pretended to blush.

  "Well, we're not exactly married, but who knows. Maybe someday soon I will be married again," I gushed like a lovesick school girl. This woman was an obvious moron.

  "Julia is working on five today," she smiled. "Just to go the elevator and take it up to the fifth floor, then ask for her at the nurse's station."

  I thanked her and walked away. I smiled and nodded my head before leaving the desk. The reason I nodded my head was because I wanted to acknowledge that I'd understood her directions. I smiled because the woman was so sickeningly sweet that it made my teeth grate.

  After a few moments Lucas, Josh and I were all standing in front of the same bank of elevators. As soon as the door closed, I turned and snapped at Lucas. "What the fuck was on your mind getting a big blindingly white muscle car dumb ass."

  "It was the smart play," he said. "Josh got the invisi-mobile and since he's the one who'll actually be carrying the cargo he needs to be nearly invisible. My job is to cause a distraction so I needed a car that would attract a lot of attention. If Josh and I are both leaving at similar times, they'll never notice his car when I'm around."

  I nodded my head. It actually made sense. We all rode up to the fifth floor. I walked over near the nurse's station and saw Julia, my worst enemy on the planet. I hated that bitch with a burning passion. If she was on fire, I wouldn't piss on her. She was the worst scum of the universe. And she was an opportunist as well. As soon as there was the slightest difficulty in my marriage, she just swooped in and stole my husband. Well, things had come full circle and now it was her turn to lose him. It was all I could do not to run over to her and snatch all of that red hair out of her skull. I had to bide my time and eventually I might pull that hair out by its roots, but not right now.




And The Beat Goes On



Lucas and Josh were both heading for the nurse's station from different directions. I nodded towards her and they let me know that they knew which nurse I was talking about.

  Before Julia saw me, I left that floor. I got back on the elevator as if I'd gotten off on the wrong floor. It was all I could do not to smile as I rode the elevator back down to the ground floor. On my way out, I stopped and spoke to the woman at the information desk. "I couldn't find her anywhere. I asked for her at the nurse's station but none of them had seen her either. If you happen to see her, could you ask her to either call me herself or have Tommy call me?" I said. She nodded her head and wrote it down on a pad.

  I trotted away from the hospital happily. I drove away knowing that my guys would handle it. A few hours later I got a text. The text was from an anonymous phone. It read, "Done."

  I called a different number and spoke to Lucas. "Get your ass over here, now," I told him. Then I hung up.

  Ten minutes later, Lucas walked up to the door. He'd wisely parked his car or the car he had borrowed around the block so no one would see it in front of the house.

  "Did you get rid of the big, stupid, white car?" I asked. He nodded.

  "I wiped it down completely too," he said. "But they won't be able to track the car anyway since it isn't registered. We put a stolen plate on it and the car came from a dealership. My brother's best friend works at a Chrysler dealership. They keep all of their unsold new cars on a lot by the State fairgrounds. I gave the security guard there a hundred bucks and promised there wouldn't be a scratch on it."

  "Tell me everything," I told him.

  "Can I tell you afterward?" he whined.

  "First or there won't be anything for you to tell me after?" I snapped.

  "Okay," he said. "After you showed us which one she was, we had to figure out when to hit her. She was talking to one of the other nurses and telling her that she only had a little while to go before she got off so we decided that the best thing to do would be to catch her after she'd left the hospital. It would be far easier than trying to knock her out and move her through the hospital with all of those people around. We'd just let her do most of the work for us."

  "There was another problem," he said. "Josh took one look at her and fell in love with her. He started talking about how we shouldn't do it. He said you were crazy."

  "Crazy...me?" I asked. "Why does he think I'm crazy?"

  "I think part of it is you know...you talking to your parents," he said. "Anyway, we went through with it, so I think you owe me a little something extra. It was really tough to convince him. He just stood there talking about how pretty she is. He really didn't want to do it."

  "He thinks she's pretty?" I asked. "No wonder he thinks I'm crazy. He's nuts himself."

  "So when she came out, she waved at the guard and headed for her car. Josh got behind her and slapped the rag over her face. As soon as she'd breathed in a couple of times, that ether had her knocked out. She almost didn't have time to think about it. Josh and Fernando loaded her into their car and headed for the exit. There was only one guard at the parking lot's guard shack then, so when I started loudly revving the Charger's motor and did a burn out near the back of the lot he came running over to see what was going on. Jimmy went into the guard shack and opened the barricade to let Josh out of the lot while I kept the guard busy. The stupid guard came over and I told him my accelerator cable kept sticking. He helped me to fix it. Before we got done, he had a whole line of cars trying to get out, so he had to run back to the shack to open the barricade for them and log them out."

  "So there's no record of Josh and the invisi-mobile ever leaving the parking lot or what time it left. As soon as he got to the house, he called me to tell me that all was well. He'll call us again when she regains consciousness. That way, tomorrow you can go and talk to her," he said. I smiled. I'd been watching the news and as of yet there was no mention of it.

  Lucas looked at me hungrily. He wasn't a tall guy but he was big and muscular. I pulled my shirt over my head and his eyes got huge. I kicked my shoes off and he was on me. He started roughly pawing my chest and my nipples hardened. He pulled my sweat pants down and jammed one of his huge hands down the front of my panties.

  I leaned back and with a detached focus studied his movements. He rubbed my furry snatch and looked at me. He tried to stick one of his sausage like fingers in me but I was as dry as a bone. "Here," I said. "This might help." I handed him a tube of my favorite lubricant, "Easy Glide."

  He smeared some over his fingers and started rubbing again. His other hand kept rubbing my left breast. Maybe it was the friction or my general happiness that the first part of my plan had come to fruition, but my nipple did pop a bit.

  I watched him as he noticed it. He redoubled his efforts to get me ready. Inwardly I laughed. I had to do everything I could not to let him know that everything he was about to do to me meant absolutely nothing to me. Emotionally and sexually, I had died the day that Tommy left me. Sure I'd had sex lots of times since then, but I used sex as the coin of the realm. It meant nothing to me.

  Some of the things I needed for my plan to succeed were bought with money. Other things were bought, bartered or borrowed with a taste of my tight little pussy. I didn't give half a God damn about any of those guys, but like Lucas here, I needed to keep them on a string until I didn't need them anymore.

  It was very important that I let them believe that they rocked my world. Men are such fragile little creatures. A big part of the fun is in figuring what their weaknesses and needs are. Most men don't react favorably if they think that they don't satisfy you. It just destroys their ego. So I would play Lucas like a fiddle until he'd worn out his usefulness.

  One of the best ways to do that was to remain unmoved until he really got started. Then I'd slowly begin to react more and more until I was screaming like a porn star and he thought that he was the best fuck I'd ever had. After that, the stupid bastard would take a bullet for me. So as he rubbed and probed me and started to lick my pussy, I had to work to concentrate on what he was doing.

  He did lick my pussy pretty well, too well in fact. He licked off all of the lube gel and since I really didn't give a fuck about him, I had to imagine that it was Tommy doing it. My legs spread further and I started whimpering. I grabbed the tube of lube and rubbed more into and onto myself. He lined up his dick and started to push. His dick, like him, wasn't very long, but it was nearly as thick as a beer can and it really hurt going in. I told myself it was part of the price I'd had to pay to get Tommy back.

  I started moaning and rubbing my hands down his back and he pumped harder and harder.

  "It's so tight baby," he moaned. He was sweating all over me. I had to concentrate on my performance to keep from laughing in his face. All of that rubbing and moaning didn't mean shit. Luckily I had lots of lube and my pussy expanded to handle his size.

  "Do it baby," I moaned. "It's so good." That seemed to send him over the top. He started humping faster and faster. He was screwing his face up like he'd been sucking lemons and he started pounding me harder and harder. The bastard was so heavy that it was like an elephant kept doing squats on my stomach. His pure bulk started driving the air out of me on every stroke so I started to breathe outward every time he put his weight on me. I was kind of glad that happened because it made what I was doing more convincing. He mistook me having the air forced out of me for me gasping as I tried to cum.

  "I can't hold back much longer baby," he gushed out. He looked at me with a worried expression on his face because for some reason the dummy thought that I cared.

  "Let it go," I said. And he screwed his face up even more. It really looked like he was in pain. Then my brain kicked in and I remembered that all of the macho types expect for the woman to cum first. It's a blow to their pride to be out lasted by a female. I started screaming and thrashing my legs while inwardly laughing my ass off. "Ohhh...Oooooooooohhhh...ooooh, oooh,ooh,oh...shiiiiiiiiiitttttt!" I said. Then I let my head drop onto the bed. With a guttural scream he slammed his pelvis against mine one more time and I felt fluid between my legs. He must've been away from women for a long time because it felt like almost a pint of sperm.

  He let himself just collapse onto me. He was so heavy I almost pushed him off of me. "That was so good," he said dreamily. "It was the best ever." I didn't say a word.

  "Melinda, are you okay?" he asked. He gently tapped my cheek and I snapped my eyes open and stared at him.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  "I've never felt anything like that before," I said. "At first it seemed like you were going to split my pussy in half. Then It started to feel sooooo good. Then I think I passed out."

  He tried to act like he was concerned, but he was also grinning from ear to ear and I knew I had another sucker on the line. Another man who'd be willing to tear his own fucking arm off to help me get anything I wanted, even when all I wanted was another man. God men were stupid.

  *  *  *  *  *  *.

  Fogerty

  All I wanted was to go home to Melinda. But I found myself stuck at the station, answering questions for men who were far too stupid to be my superiors. God men are stupid, I thought. Somehow I wondered if Melinda was thinking the same thing. Maybe I should have played sick and went straight home to her. After all, this was, in fact, a breakthrough of some sort in our relationship. Well...what we had wasn't really a relationship, or was it?

  At any rate, this was the first time that she'd ever even hinted at any type of intimacy between us. I supposed there was the chance that she was just leading me on again. She had a habit of pulling that kind of shit when she wanted something from me.

  But even then, she'd never hinted that we were a couple or that we might have sex. That would be too much for me to ever consider. Really, I'm in my fifties and Melinda is in her late twenties. Would that even be legal? Why the hell would she want me?

  Maybe the way I felt about her had finally begun to sway her. Maybe she'd finally realized that having someone who loves you in your life is simply better than being alone, even when he isn't the man you'd choose. Shit, maybe she was just horny.

  All I knew was that she wanted me after all of this time and I was stuck here trying to figure out what was going on between three people, none of whom were forthcoming with the truth and all of whom were hiding something.

  "How are things going between you and your wife, Mr. Smythe?" I asked him. "Are you hitting a lot of home runs in the bedroom?"

  "Why the fuck would you ask me something like that?" he asked, jumping to his feet. "What are you insinuating?"

  "Shit, I must've hit a nerve," I said. "Did I hurt your feelings Smythe?"

  "Hell no," he snapped. "Maybe things have slacked off a bit between the sheets, but I work so many hours and we've been married for a long time. Things do tend to get a bit dull. But Pattie knows that I love her. It happens to everyone."

  "So are you cheating on her, Smythe?" I asked. I instantly had my answer as shock registered on his face. 

  "How...how did you know?" he asked. "It was only a couple of times. I was...I'm going to end it, I swear."

  "So does your wife know about it?" I asked. "Maybe she was after a bit of revenge...?"

  "That isn't possible," he snapped. "She'd never..."

  "She probably didn't think you would either," I said.

  "But she was the one who screamed rape," he said.

  "Maybe she felt like she didn't have much choice," I told him.

  "If she cheated on me, it's over. I'll leave her ass penniless," he snapped.

  A few moments later I was inside the other room with Mrs. Smythe.

  "I have some interesting questions to ask you," I told her. "First off, why did it take you so long to scream rape? According to your husband it took a while before you started to struggle and you didn't try to push the guy off until you knew your husband was watching."

  "Why are you asking me this?" she asked. Her faced filling with emotion as her eyes filled with tears. I was glad Charlotte was in the room. "I'm the victim here," she spat angrily.

  "Maybe, "I said. "And maybe you're just willing to throw a young man under the bus to protect your own ass. So answer the question. Or wait, I'll give you time to think about that one. Why aren't you bruised anywhere? Why does Jimmy have no scratches or bruises on him? This must be the gentlest rape I've ever seen. Why the hell were both of you naked? How did he get into your house? And how the hell does he know the entire layout of your house. I showed this drawing of the layout of your house to your husband. I didn't tell him who drew it. He said it's accurate. How the hell does Jimmy know the layout of your house if he's never been there before?"

  "I didn't scream because above everything else, I'm a mother," she spat. "My baby was upstairs in her room. I didn't want her coming down there to see what was going on. I didn't want to take the chance that bastard might want to turn on her too."

  "Okay, bring them in," I said. "I'm tired of this shit." The door opened and both Jimmy and Smythe were escorted into the room.

  "Why the fuck is that bastard in here?" asked Smythe. He shied away from Jimmy as he noticed that Jimmy wasn't handcuffed.

   "I thought you wanted some time alone in a cell with him?" I smirked.

  Stan and the DA filed into the room and sat down. I smiled at them and they seemed to be confused. Another man, who I later discovered was a representative of the mayor's office, sat at the rear of the room taking notes.

  "Okay, before I read the formal charges I'd like to ask if either of you has anything to say?" I said.

  "Hell yeah," said Smythe. "Throw the book at that motherfucker. Let's get on with it. He raped my wife he deserves the death penalty. What a piece of shit."

  "Do you agree with that Mrs. Smythe?" I asked. "There's nothing you want to say?" She just looked down at her hands and shook her head.

  "I just want this over with," she said quietly.

  "Okay, it's over," I said. "Both of you will need lawyers. I'll go over the list of charges..." Before I could say anything else Stan jumped up and started screaming.

  "Fogerty, what the fuck are you doing?" he screamed. "I warned you." The DA cautioned him.

  "It's his ass Stan; he knows what he's doing. Let it play out," he said.

  "What are you charging me with?" asked Smythe loudly. "I'll admit I did take a couple of pokes at that bastard but he was raping my wife."

  "No he wasn't," I said. "Mrs. Smythe, you claim that you've never seen Jimmy before tonight. You also claim that he broke into your house. Neither of those was true. The fact that he was able to draw the entire layout of your house made me wonder. Obviously, he'd been there before. I actually didn't put this together alone. I had help." I pointed towards the screen and a video of an interview started.

  There on the screen I was talking to the Smythe's twelve year old daughter.

  "Are you okay?" I asked her. She nodded and smiled.

  "Are my mommy and daddy in trouble?" she asked.

  "No, we're just asking them some questions," I said.

  "So Uncle Jimmy is in trouble?" she asked. "What did he do?"

  "You've seen Jimmy before?" I asked.

  "All the time," she laughed. "He visits Mommy a lot."

  "Yeah, but I think your Uncle Jimmy snuck into your house tonight," I said. "That a bad thing."

  "He didn't sneak in," she claimed. "Mommy let him in. She probably forgot. She was really angry at him tonight. She told him he was late and they wouldn't have as much time as she wanted. She'd been forgetting a lot of things lately. She even forgot my lunch money the other day."

  I turned off the video just in time to see Smythe leap to his feet and start screaming. "You fucking whore," he bellowed. His wife just hung her head and cried. She looked up and away from her husband.

  "I'm sorry Jimmy," she said. "I was afraid. When he walked in I just saw my marriage and my entire life going by the wayside. Can you please forgive me?"

  "Yeah, you're sorry alright, bitch," screamed Smythe. "But not as sorry as you're going to be once my lawyers get through with you. Fuck you. Don't bother coming back to my house. I'll have your shit shipped to you. Call your sister and maybe you can stay with her. I'm outta here." He got up and was pushed back down into the chair.

  "Mr. Smythe you're charged with assault and battery," I said. "Your unprovoked assault on Jimmy means you're going to need that lawyer before you start on the divorce."

  "I don't want that whore in my house," he sneered.

  "She won't be going anywhere either," I said. "She's being charged with knowingly filing false charges."

  "Good," he said. "The bitch deserves it. I'm not paying for her lawyer."

  "Right," I said. "She's really guilty of doing the same thing to you that you've been doing to her. You two deserve each other." I walked out of the room and left the rest of it to the suits. "Book em Dano," I said as I got to the door.

  "Who the fuck is Dano?" asked Stan.

I told Jimmy that he was free to go and Smythe erupted.

"Why isn't he being charged with anything," he screamed. "Look what he did to my face."

"Yeah," I said conspiratorially. "And he also fucked your wife. He probably did that a lot."

"Exactly," said Smythe. "There should be some penalty for that shouldn't there be."

"Well, you're right," I said. "Let's look at this from a legal standpoint. He beat your ass, in your own home. He also did it in front of your wife didn't he? Shit, she was probably rooting for him." His frown deepened.

"The problem is that you hit him first, or uhm...tried to. There isn't a mark on him. You must hit like a little girl. You tried to pop him a couple of times didn't you. You were in there just a swinging, right?" He nodded.

"So you see what we have there is what's called SELF-DEFENSE. So we can't lock him up no matter how badly he beat your ass." He frowned more.

"But what about being in my house?" he volunteered. "That's trespassing. And he FUCKED MY WIFE!"

"Uhm, he didn't break in. Your wife invited him in, so he didn't trespass. And your house wasn't the only thing your wife invited him into. It's cheap and nasty and I'll bet you feel like shit. I'd also be willing to believe that you don't have too high an opinion of the little lady right now. But he hasn't done anything illegal, so I'm cutting him loose. Life's a bitch sometimes," I said.

I guess the reason that I came off sounding so cold and callous or like I didn't like Smythe was because I didn't. I had absolutely no use for self-important, stuffed shirts like him. He was the same as the pencil pushing politicians who ran the PD. They sat back in their offices and directed what good honest cops had to do on the street every day without ever putting their own lives at risk. More and more nowadays, the chief of police or the police commissioners were guys who were appointed by the mayor or the city council. More often than not, they weren't even lawyers or former cops and had no law enforcement background. The current police commissioner is a former accountant. The mayor appointed him mostly to get the police department's budget back in line.




And The Beat Goes On



Smythe's life was probably rough right now, but he deserved it. I moved through the building and ran into Arnie Chang. "So what did you find out so far?" I asked.

He looked at me and shook his head. "Nothing yet," he said. "We went from door to door and haven't found anyone in the neighborhood who knew her. We're still working on it."

"I'll be back on that case first thing in the morning," I said.

"What about your other case?" he asked.

"That one's all up to the politicians, now," I said. "I'm headed home for some TLC."

Since Melinda had my car, I ended up driving my unmarked police cruiser home. Just before I got to the car another car pulled into our parking lot. It wasn't a police car but I'd recognize the car anywhere.

The car was a one of a kind Mustang. It didn't look like any Mustang that had ever been made and, in fact, it hadn't been made by Ford. An Italian design firm had built the car as a prototype for what Ford's next Mustang might look like back in 2005. What Ford hadn't planned on was how successful their retro redesign of the Mustang would be. That Mustang, the Giugiaro Mustang, was never built and now Ford seemed to be going in another direction for the next iteration of their pony car.

This car was one of the prototypes that the Italians had built. There were three or four of them and only two of them were complete, drivable cars with drive trains and engines. Someone had paid an incredible amount of money to drive a car that no one else could. I knew that someone very well. I'd beaten him up once in an interrogation room, because I'd fallen for his wife. Nowadays he was one of my, if not my only, friend off of the job.

As Tommy pulled up to me, I was immediately on edge. Tommy, after a tour in the war and being wounded severely, then coming home to become a paramedic in one of the worst sectors of the city, was damned near unflappable.

Even when we first met, when I was determined to beat a confession out of him, he just took the blows I rained down on him and looked back at me with an expression that clearly said, "I can take whatever you dish out, and then some."

Seeing Tommy out of sorts was an experience. I knew that only two things could do it. So when he stopped the car and reached into the back seat to check on something, I crossed one of them off of my list. Seeing the three year old sleeping in her car seat, let me know that I was right on that score. Although some would consider the car seat in the back of the Mustang sacrilege, I knew that Tommy didn't care. He loved his Mustangs, but he loved his wife and daughter more.  

"What's wrong with Julia?" I asked. "Is someone at the hospital making threats?"

"She didn't come home tonight, John," he said. "She should have been home by eight. She's never late. Julia just enjoys being home with us far too much for that. I went back by the hospital to check on her after waiting for a couple of hours and found her car still in the parking lot. I used the spare key to get in and it started right up. There's nothing wrong with the car so she didn't have car trouble, but she didn't call or anything. It's just not like her. I didn't want to bother you, but when I called the police they told me that there was nothing they could do until she's been missing for twenty four hours. By that time, who knows what could have happened to her?"

Tommy was distraught. He was talking at a mile a minute and looking wild eyed. I've seen this guy drive into sections of the city during gang wars and just walk up to a body and pull it behind his ambulance and start working on stabilizing his patient while bullets are still flying all around him. He also does this not because he has to, but because he believes it's the best way for him to make the city better.

Tommy got over twenty million dollars when his lawyers sued the city over what I did to him. Yeah, that was me. Tommy had saved a bunch of the guys in his platoon after being heavily wounded during the war. He'd been so severely wounded that he was sent home. Once here, he became a paramedic. He had all kinds of medals and awards for his service over there, but what he did over here went largely unnoticed. So yeah, I chained a war hero down and beat him, for something that he'd never done. I did it because I broke the rules.

There's an old joke among cops. "What's the difference between a police officer and a criminal?" the answer is, "One bad decision." Tommy was mine. I jumped to the wrong conclusion and I've always been a hot head. I responded with my then partner to a call on the city's west side. The call came from neighbors who were complaining about noise. My partner and I ran up a couple of flights of stairs and ran into an absolutely beautiful woman banging on a door and screaming at the top of her lungs.

I took one look at her and have belonged to her ever since. Melinda isn't classically beautiful. She's more a modern beauty. She has that short Pat Benatar type of haircut and extremely beautiful eyes. Her lips could launch a thousand ships just by arcing into a smile. She's tiny and has no breasts but somehow still manages to be so sexy that I have trouble understanding how any man can resist her. In fact, to this day, I haven't run into any man that could. No man, except for Tommy that is.

So that day, when I saw her, heavily pregnant and with a black eye, I immediately saw red. Although she was the one banging on the door and screaming, I ASSUMED that she was the victim. When she started screaming about Tommy always hurting her, I jumped to yet another conclusion. And then when Tommy opened the door and it was very obvious that he'd been having sex with someone else, my rage just took over.

I am not attractive. I'm old, gnarled and have a really shitty disposition. My hairline is at least an inch from where it was when I was young. I've eaten far more donuts than I should have and haven't exercised nearly enough. So I have a spare tire around my waist that has taken up permanent residence. Not even an act of congress could get me back into a size 32 waist pants.

In other words, as big and imposing as I appear, I'm invisible to hot women. Here I am one of the men who keep the city's streets safe, but no woman like either of these two would ever piss on me if I was on fire. Meanwhile, this little guy whose hair was too long and who looked like he was high had two of them arguing over him. I assumed that he was either a drug dealer or a pimp. His whole expression just said that he thought what was going on was funny.

One of the problems with being a cop is that most of your time you're surrounded by criminals. You begin to treat everyone who isn't a cop as if they were a criminal. I hate to keep saying this but it's like that old joke about carpenters. "If the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, you treat everything like it's a nail. I took one look at Melinda and assumed that it had been Tommy who beat the shit out of her, when it wasn't.

And like a cop, I used every bit of circumstantial evidence to try him and convict him in my own mind. Melinda's statement, "Why do you keep hurting me?" only added fuel to the fire. The red headed hottie who was only partially dressed and hanging all over him, made me want to kill him or at least put him away for a long time. So by the time I got him downtown and into a holding cell, I was ready to beat the shit out of Tommy. I was sure that he'd gotten Melinda pregnant and ran out on her and was doing it to yet another woman who was too stupid to realize what a piece of shit he was. I was also sure that he'd beaten Melinda up to get her to back off, but with her being true to herself she was determined to fight for her man; whether he deserved her or not.

  I took him into one of the cells that we restrain the worst and most hardened criminals and tried to beat a confession out of him. The problem was that Tommy hadn't done anything. Melinda had been his childhood sweetheart. He'd gone off to the war so the army would pay for him to go to college so he could marry her and make a better life for her. He'd come back severely wounded but functional. He was a true war hero. He had his picture in the paper and everything. The problem was that Melinda, I still don't understand how or why, had cheated on him repeatedly with multiple men and Tommy had found out about it. He hadn't laid a finger on her, but it broke his heart. He'd simply left her and started his life over. He tried to do the honorable thing and divorce her but Melinda wouldn't allow it. She'd fought tooth and nail to keep him. She'd nearly bankrupted her parents trying to block the divorce.

   Melinda seemingly didn't care about burning through all of the money that it had taken a lifetime for her parents to save. Their retirement be damned; all she wanted was to hold onto Tommy. Tommy didn't want to see her parents ruined financially, so he dropped the divorce petition. Not because he intended to stay with Melinda or go back to her, but because he'd been so destroyed by Melinda's betrayal that he didn't think he'd ever want to be with anyone, so the divorce didn't matter.

  Melinda had stalked him and followed him around so when Tommy met Julia, she'd swooped in to try to protect her broken marriage. She'd attempted to threaten Julia at the hospital and had been repelled by the nurse. I never did find out just who it was that beat Melinda's ass but it wasn't Tommy.

  When it came out what I'd done to Tommy and why, I was thrown off the force. Tommy later won a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the police. He and Julia settled down together and I don't know how, but Julia convinced Melinda, or as Melinda puts it, tricked her into giving Tommy his divorce. Tommy and Julia got married and Mel and I moved in together. I don't know which one of us is the craziest. Melinda refuses to acknowledge the fact that she and Tommy are divorced. She also refuses to recognize that he has moved on, gotten re-married and even has a child with another woman. Mel is nuttier than a squirrel's pantry. But I might be there with her because I AM there with her. How sane is it after all, to allow a woman who loves another man to the point of obsession to move in with you? How sane is it to hope and dream that one day, she'll take notice of the fact that you've always been there for her when she's always told you that you'll never be a couple and that you're never going to have sex with her? Not fucking very, is it?

  (okay, I just recapped most of the beat for you)

  Like I was saying, Tommy isn't easily rattled, but I could see that Julia not coming home had him afraid. And suddenly my constant headache, though it didn't go away, was drowned out by a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's that thing that cops call a gut feeling. I knew in that moment that something was going on too. I mean, I've seen the two of them together and neither of them would ever think of leaving the other. It was like they were a pair of those love birds. Once they're mated, they're together for life. If one of them dies, the other one passes on soon afterward because they just can't be apart. I'd often hoped that someday Melinda and I would be that way too.

  "Tommy, I'll find out what's going on," I said. "I'm going to need to ask you some questions so I'll be by to see you tomorrow. Julia works the day shift at the hospital so we can't question her co-workers until morning. I know that this is a tough thing to ask you to do but I'm going to need you to go home and take care of Tamia. With her mommy not home, she'll need her daddy even more. I will get to the bottom of this and we'll find out where she is." He looked at me as if he was going to say something.

  "Tommy, you have to look at this reasonably," I began. "I can't think of anyone who doesn't like Julia. Realistically, the only thing I can think of is the fact that the two of you are known to spread your money around. You're always making donations to this or that. You guys give away more money than people who are far richer do. Remember last year when you paid eight hundred thousand dollars to keep the rec center open for that PAL team that a lot of cops' kids played on. Not only did that help the kids, think about all of the people who worked there and their families."

  "You guy are too good to people. But there are a few twisted people out there who probably just look at it and see the money. They figure that you'd probably be willing to pay anything to get Julia back..."

  "And I would," he practically yelled.

  "Well, what if someone did take her and they can't get in touch with you because you're not at home? Tommy, your job is to stay home and try to review everything you've heard her say lately. Maybe she mentioned someone at work or somewhere else that creeped her out or was too interested in her. Maybe it was someone who made her feel uncomfortable. Maybe there's someone who was even following you around but decided that Julia might be an easier target. Tommy, you need to let the people who do this for a living handle it." He nodded his head and it was like a light bulb lit up.

  "Okay Fogerty," he said. "Thanks. And please call me if there's anything I can do or anything comes up."

   *  *  *  *  *  *

Melinda

Puppies are amazing. If a puppy is well trained it will be fiercely loyal to its owner, even when that owner fucks up. Another thing about puppies is that even when they grow up to be the biggest, scariest, fucking dog in the neighborhood, they still think they're puppies and act the same way.

After Lucas fucked me, we talked while he recovered. I made note of the fact that my Tommy never needed a lot of recovery time. He would just continue rubbing me and stroking me and kissing me and then he'd fuck me again. But it was always so natural and so filled with love that I never got enough. We made beautiful, slow yet passionate love. I've never experienced anything like it. I'd do anything...anything to feel that again.

I have so few memories of anything pleasant in my life. And most of them are during my time with Tommy. It also seems like all of those good memories ended when Tommy left me. I don't have a single good memory since the night he walked out on me. All I have left is pain and emptiness. I was thinking about that as Fogerty walked into my room.

I must have fallen into an almost daydream-like state from thinking about Tommy. I looked up at Fogerty and waved my hand at him. "Hey, John," I said casually. His eyes moved past me and settled on the slumbering form of Lucas who slept next to me, still exhausted from the pounding he'd just given me.

I looked up at Fogerty and didn't bother to cover myself up. I figured he deserved some kind of reward or treat for the pain I'd probably caused him. His face went through the gamut of emotions, starting at the smile on his face when he first saw me to shock, pain and finally anger and rage when he noticed that though I was naked and in a bed in his home, I wasn't naked for him. I watched as he controlled the rage and awoke Lucas.

I felt almost sorry for Lucas. It must have been quite a shock waking up with a gun in your mouth and a pissed off man who was bigger than you are on the other end of it. It was especially bad for Lucas being an ex-con who was on parole and knowing that the man on the other end of the gun was a cop.

Lucas also found himself in the cop's home and doing something he knew the cop wouldn't like. "Let me grab a shower while you boys talk," I said. Poor Lucas, his eyes were as big as saucers and he was afraid to breathe. Lucas was muscular and kind of big as I've said but he screamed like a girl when Fogerty snatched the gun out of his mouth suddenly. The site or something on the gun snapped off one of Luke's teeth on its way out. But Fogerty wasn't done. He'd snatched the gun out with his left hand and in a sudden moment just as the gun drew free and the tooth or part of it spiraled through the air, Fogerty's fist pumped piston-like and caught Lucas in his right eye.

Luke's head snapped back so hard I thought his neck would break. His eye started to swell immediately, but realistically, I didn't care much. I was done with him any way. Josh and his partner would handle the rest of the job. I actually kind of liked watching what Fogerty would do for me, or for jealousy over me. I might just need that devotion some day. Lucas was out like a light, so Fogerty just started slapping the shit out of him to wake him up.

"Get the fuck out of my house now," said Fogerty. Lucas didn't need to be told twice. He was up and grabbing his clothes with a speed I'd never seen out of him. "Leave the wallet," said Fogerty. "In case I have to track you down later." Lucas dropped his wallet on the table.

I didn't like the idea of Fogerty being able to track Luke down or identify him. So I spoke up.

"Can't you just let him go, John?" I asked. It was the wrong thing to do. Fogerty was just barely controlling his rage. He turned to me and I smiled at him. His look got even angrier, but not because I smiled. I followed his gaze downwards and noticed a line of semen running down my leg. Fogerty leaped at Luke's retreating back and kicked him in the ass so hard it lifted Luke off the ground. I swear to God I heard something snap. I wouldn't learn for a while what it was, but I'd been right. Fogerty had kicked him so hard he'd broken one of his own toes."

Even as Lucas left the house, Fogerty launched himself after him. "Fogerty, what are you doing?" I yelled. The sound of my voice halted him where he stood.

He turned back to face me, the rage on his face morphing to pain even as he stood there. I thought I could see the fight in him, only it was a different type of fight. The huge man who'd just beaten and humiliated a large muscular career criminal was involved in an even tougher fight to make sure I didn't see him crying. It almost touched me.

"Why?" he screamed. "Why would you do that? Why couldn't you let me have just one thing...just one day of happiness?"

"Why did you chase my friend away?" I countered. "He didn't do anything wrong. I guess I'm not allowed to have friends. You're always telling me that this is our place...our house. You always claim that I can do whatever I want, but the first time I do...you over react. Fuck you Fogerty. Maybe it's time for me to move on. I'll move back in with my parents. I'll go and pack my things now. I'll be out of here in under an hour." Of course, I was bluffing. I'd already arranged to move my parents in with Fogerty and me, so I wasn't going anywhere. I started to walk away slowly counting in my head. One...two...three...four.

"Wait," he said slowly. I could feel the pain in his voice. The similarity between the way Fogerty sounded now and the way Tommy sounded when I first spoke to him after what happened to me was unmistakable. That touched me more than anything else. "Holy shit," I thought. This fool loves me. Maybe even as much as Tommy did. It is such a shame that I'm simply not capable of returning it.

"Melinda, I don't want you to go," he said. Every syllable he uttered was wracked with pain. "Please don't go," he said. "I...I just thought that...you wanted...that we..." his voice broke and he walked away leaving me standing there.

Can I train a puppy or what? Of course I had fucked up this time. Falling into a Tommy induced daydream while that moron Lucas slept off his fuck was a major mistake, but when you came right down to it there'd been no harm done. Of course, I would have to stroke Fogerty's ruffled feathers a bit. I couldn't let him go off and sulk for too long. Though I didn't really need Lucas any more, I still needed Fogerty.

So about thirty minutes later, I went into his room. It was dark and he was sitting there drinking from a bottle. He just looked at me. In a slice of moonlight that came in through the curtains, I could see his eyes following me.




And The Beat Goes On



"What now?" he asked. His voice choked out raw and wavering as if the words had been ripped from the shards of his broken heart whole.

"Why do you always have to make it so hard for us to get along?" I asked.

"Why do you?" he snapped back with a spirit that I thought I'd long ago taken from him. I'd been right in my assessment of his status. I'd pushed him too far. If I didn't handle this correctly, I could lose him. I wished then that I'd taken that shower but I'd have to push on anyway.

"John, I meant what I said earlier. I meant all of it, but then I started thinking about it. It's been so long for me that I don't know how to do this anymore, any of it," I said.

"You don't know how to do what?" he asked.

"All of this relationship crap," I snapped. "John, I've been in one relationship for my whole fucking life. I've had to realize that it's gone...done with...over...finito. Tommy has moved on with his life. I no longer matter to him. I don't factor in his decision making process at all. It's time for me to move on too. Only the whole thing confuses me. There are soooo many things that I don't understand. I don't really have any idea of what I'm feeling. I know that I feel closer to you than to anyone else but I don't really know how to classify those feelings." He snapped his eyes towards me then and I knew I had him back on the hook.

"That's why I told you all of that stuff on the phone, because I really wanted to see where we fit. I mean, I know what I hoped for but I don't know how you feel," I said. I could tell he was eating this shit up with a spoon.

"Melinda, you've always known how I feel about you," he said softly.

"BULLSHIT!" I yelled. He was so shocked by me screaming that he turned to look at me. I snapped the switch on and flooded the room with light. "That's the same fucking thing that Tommy told me for most of my life," I screamed. "And where the fuck is he right now? He's probably at home in that mansion of his with my dick buried in that red headed whore. I loved him for most of my life, Fogerty. I gave him everything I could and I made one mistake and he kicked me to the curb. I'm not perfect Fogerty. I'm just a normal human woman. I fuck up from time to time."

"Melinda, we're all human. We all make mistakes," he said. "I'd never..." he began.

"You already did, Fogerty," I said. "You judged me by what you thought you saw tonight. You never even tried to find out what was going on."

"I was hurt," he said.

"And you deserved to be," I snapped. I had him on the defensive now. It was time to push home my point.

"Fogerty, do you know what the most important thing in a relationship is to a woman?" I asked.

"How the fuck would I know that," he asked.

"Take a guess," I said. Before he could answer, I cut him off. "It's feeling loved. Then comes feeling sexy or desired by her mate." I let the words sink in.

"Fogerty, to a man, sex comes before all of those things. I haven't had sex in over three years and even then except for what happened outside of that club the only man I'd ever slept with was Tommy. You've been fucking that whore every once in a while and that Polish woman too. Neither of them looks like me." I saw the shock on his face that I knew about his sex life.

"Fogerty, both of those women are large breasted and I'm not. I'm also out of practice. I just needed to find out if I could still turn a man on. And I needed to do it before you and I uh..." His sharp intake of air let me know I'd scored big points.

"You've built this thing with us up in your head so much that I just felt like if I didn't knock your socks off you'd feel like all of the time we've been together was wasted," I said. And then I turned on the water works and started bawling. He crossed the room like a beam of fucking light to start hugging me and brushing my tears away.

"It's okay, Honey," he said softly.

"No it's not," I cried. "All of the women you fuck have big tits and big asses. I won't measure up."

"You more than measure up," he said. "You've got something that none of them have. Melinda, you have my heart. You always have and you always will."

"Are you sure?" I asked. He nodded.

"I'm very sure," he said. "There are no doubts in my mind." I reached up then and kissed him. It was the first time we'd ever kissed. And I felt nothing. I have a framed picture of Tommy that I keep in my dresser drawer. I took the picture two years ago just after he married that whore. It was from a distance away and taken with a telephoto lens, but I kiss that picture every night. I got more aroused from kissing that picture than I had from Fogerty or from Lucas for that matter, but Fogerty was all in.

"Take me Fogerty," I whispered. "Wipe my memories out. Make me yours." He started licking my breasts, what there were of them. Men are so easy to read. He started from my tiny tits because he wanted me to know that it didn't matter to him that they weren't big. He licked and sucked my sweaty little body all over.

"Eat me Fogerty," I gushed, pretending that I was overcome with lust. Actually, I was becoming aroused thinking about how nasty it was to make Fogerty eat me while the remnants of Luke's sperm were still in me. I wondered if he'd really do something that nasty.

Even as his head descended towards my pussy, I knew he would. He was inches away from it and then he looked up at me. I knew he had to be smelling a very foul combination of stale pussy juice, sperm and sweat. "Mel, maybe you should take a shower first," he said quietly. "Uhm, his stuff is still in you."

I was pissed. "Fuck you, Fogerty," I screamed. "We couldn't have a nice first time, could we? You had to go and ruin it." I got up quickly and ran back to my room where I slammed the door and pretended to cry.

"I'm sorry, Melinda," I heard Fogerty saying through the door. "I'll do it." I was laughing my ass off. Over the next few days, Fogerty would be kissing my ass trying to get back in my good graces. And I, of course, would let him. Training a puppy is so hard sometimes, but it is rewarding.

  *  *  *  *  *  *

  Fogerty

  As usual, it was the headache that woke me. That relentless pounding in my temples only seemed to have worsened after last night's drama. Sometimes I wondered why the fuck I bother to open my eyes when it would be so much easier not to. I lay there thinking about that and other things.

  The one person I thought I could someday count on, my hopes for a future someday, was not only bat shit crazy but had other issues as well. I'm not sure how much of her routine I bought last night but I told her what she wanted to hear. This is all like some twisted dance we do, each of us responds to the other's moves and then we circle to watch the results of the latest play. Was it even remotely possible that Melinda was telling the truth last night? Or was she simply playing some kind of head games with me?

  While she was in therapy, her doctor had confided in me that the breakup of Melinda's marriage had been a very traumatic experience for her. It had been far more damaging to her than under normal circumstances. Most experts believe that the stress of losing a spouse to divorce is, in some cases, as severe as losing them to death. Melinda's well-being had been tied to Tommy for most of her life. Even in therapy, he had been unable to convince her that it was necessary for her mental state to accept the fact that she and Tommy were no longer together.

  Melinda had complained that she didn't like the therapist and moron that I am, I decided to let her opt out of further counseling because she didn't think it was necessary any longer. It had been true that the main thrust of the therapy had been to stop her from drinking, but obviously there were still issues there that needed to be resolved.

  I just needed to figure out what she'd been trying to tell me. Was last night's performance, her way of letting me know that she could get another man if she needed to? Or was it something else?

  I never got to think about it any further because the ringing of my cell phone seemed to mix in with the pounding of my headache and the combined cacophony forced me to open my eyes and give the phone the attention it sought.

  "Hello," I said. The raspy sound in my voice should have been enough to dissuade all but the most determined of callers from bothering me.

  "John, It's me. I'll meet you at the hospital in twenty minutes. And uhm... you may be getting a call soon," he said.

  "What call Tommy?" I asked. Before he could answer my door opened and Melinda stood there wide eyed. So much for her getting over him.

  "I'll fill you in on what's going on while we're at the hospital," he said. "I'll wait for you there."

  "Tommy, don't speed trying to get there. The last thing you need is an accident," I said. "Take your time and get there safely."

  "Fogerty, I've been here since six this morning waiting for the shift to start," he said. "I couldn't just sit around and do nothing. I've tried to think about everything she told me over the past month or so and there's been nothing. I can't think of anyone who doesn't like Julia."

  "I'll see you there in a few," I said. I could tell by his voice that he was distraught. At the same time, he seemed to be extremely focused. I think that had more to do with his military training kicking in. Tommy was in mission mode now and he was trying to get things done. I was sure that he hadn't gone home and just took care of his daughter. Tommy was very motivated to solve this and get Julia back.

  "Were you just talking to Tommy?" asked Melinda. She was trying to cover up her interest, but the way she'd burst into the room told me everything I needed to hear.

  I nodded my head. "What's wrong with him?" she asked. "Did he get robbed or is he just donating another building or something?"

  "Melinda, you know I don't discuss open cases with anyone," I told her.

  "Fuck you Fogerty," she spat. "Every time I try to do something to bring us closer like discussing your job, you push me away." She stormed off.

  Twenty minutes, a shower and two donuts later, I arrived at the hospital. Tommy's one of a kind Mustang was there and it was parked next to his red Mustang GT. Julia usually drove the red one. As I got near the car, Tommy got out and practically ran over to me. I could tell that he hadn't been asleep at all since I last saw him. It made me feel kind of lazy.

  We went into the hospital and started talking to the staff. The last person to have seen Julia was one of her best friends at the hospital, Kate Case, the director of nursing.

  Kate was an older woman who'd been an army nurse and had done several combat tours. She was short and thick with short black hair and piercing blue eyes. She took one look at Tommy and her serious visage went away.

  "Are you coming in here to tell me that you think you did it? Or are you coming in here to tell me that Julia has decided to retire and just be a rich wife?" she asked.

Tommy smiled back at her and was trying to be polite but I could tell there were things he had to know. "This is Detective John Fogerty," he said introducing me. The woman looked at me and something passed between us. She wasn't a raving beauty. As I said before, she was short and thick but she wasn't unattractive. Her short hair actually framed her face rather well. She was probably in her early fifties and..."

"Earth to Fogerty," yelled Tommy.

"Oh uhm, where were we?" I asked.

"I was just telling Kate that we were going to need to ask her some questions," said Tommy.

"Oh yeah," I said. "When was the last time you saw Julia and what kind of mood was she in?" Tommy looked at me strangely.

"Sorry Tommy, but I need to establish the frame of mind she was in when she disappeared. Who knows, when you work around sick people and dying people all day long it has to do something to you. Maybe she was depressed," I said.

"You're saying she was so depressed that she just walked off and left me and our child?" yelled Tommy. I was shocked. It wasn't like him to get upset.

"Well, gentlemen," said Kate. "I can assure you that isn't the case here. Julia loves what she does here. She helps to make sick people well. And yes, there is some sadness when we occasionally lose a patient, but for the most part we get to see people get better. We also get to see babies come into the world. We get to see a lot of joy as well as the pain." She looked at me in particular and I found it hard to turn away.

"Detective...Fogerty was it?" She asked and I nodded. "Julia wasn't even slightly depressed. When she left here yesterday, she waved at me when she passed my office and stopped to talk for a moment. She had that same smile she always had on her way home. The smile that let you know that she couldn't wait to get there. Her last words to me were that she was going home to fuck her husband's brains out and start on another baby. That doesn't sound depressed to me."

I noticed that Tommy's face was turning red.

"Relax Tommy, everybody already knows that you and Julia are doing it. You're married for heaven's sake, it's a good thing," I said.

Tommy's cell phone rang then. I heard part of the conversation before he lowered the volume. I had heard something about the slowest, dumbest cop in the universe before he covered the earpiece.

He looked back at me and shrugged his shoulders. "Thanks Kate," he said and he got ready to leave. I was confused.

"Uhm Thanks, Mrs. Uhm..." I began.

"You can call me Kate," she said.

Tommy was insistent. "Come on Fogerty. We have to go," he said. He pulled me out of the room and back into the elevator. We walked through the building and out into the parking lot. We went back over to his car. His hands never went into his pockets but as he got near the car the doors popped open. I just looked at him.

"Jeezus Fogerty, it's a proximity fob. I keep it in my pocket. As soon as I get near the car, it responds to it. If I move away from the car it locks again and arms the alarm. Get in. There's something coming. "

We got into the car. It was the thickest softest leather I've ever touched. The carpet in that car was nicer than the carpet in my fucking house.

"What's with you and Kate?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"She smiled at you," he said. "She was practically flirting with you. I've never seen her do that before."

"She's a nice lady," I said. "And she's kind of cute." He looked at me like I was on drugs.

"Don't you already have one woman at home?" he asked.

"Tommy, are you still carrying a torch for Melinda?" I asked.

"Of course not," he spat. "I'm happily married, but Melinda was my first love so there will always be something there."

His phone beeped and then beeped twice again. I looked at him for clarification. "I just got the email we've been waiting for," he said. "My phone and my car are linked. The second beep was the car telling us we can open the email on the screen."

He opened the email and scrolled over to an attachment. He nodded his head and viewed the attachment. It showed the hospital and then the parking lot that we stood in. In the top right corner a counter gave the time the video was shot.

The video showed two men dragging or carrying a sluggish woman and putting her into a car. The woman was sluggish as if she'd been drugged but clearly still alive. The screen split into two pictures and I pushed the pause button.

"Tommy, where the fuck did you get this? This is the hospital's security footage. Someone went through it and pulled out exactly what we need. I can't get this footage without a warrant unless the hospital is extremely cooperative," I said. Tommy looked at me and just shrugged his shoulders. He obviously wasn't talking. I started the video again.

The split screen rendition of the video was incredible. It scanned and located the faces and blew them up. In front of one of the men's faces it read no record found. It captured the second man's face and immediately identified him and gave details from his prison record. I could easily track him through the police files now that I had a name. I recognized the software that did this. No police department in the country had software like this. This was FBI/CIA type stuff. I wondered who the fuck Tommy had working with him. The comment the guy made over the phone about the slowest, dumbest cop in the universe came back to me. Shit, if I had access to stuff like that, I'd be better and faster too.

"I'll track this guy Josh through his police record," I said. Tommy nodded. "Look Tommy, they're obviously keeping her alive. I don't know why they haven't contacted you about a ransom or any demands yet. Maybe they're trying to make you sweat. But I guarantee you with this kind of information...this was a big break. We'll find her."

"Fogerty, I'm trying to do this the right way," he said. "That's why I called the police in general and called you specifically. The first call I made to the department, they told me I had to wait twenty four hours before they could do anything. We still have almost eight hours before they'll begin the search. You're on the case and working already. But I can only give you a couple of more hours. After that, who knows what will happen. But I can guarantee you it won't be nice. And if she's harmed in any way..."

Tommy was still very calm as he looked at me and as he spoke. I also realized that he meant every word he was saying. Then something came back to me that I'd forgotten about. Back during the time that Tommy and Melinda were going through their divorce there were a bunch of random men killed. They'd been killed, but in a variety of different ways and with different weapons. Just tracing the bullets showed that not one of them had been killed with the same gun or type of gun. Some were killed at close range, others from a distance like a sniper would do. All of the evidence pointed towards different individuals. We'd been thorough but Tommy was in custody during one of the killings and in court during another, so his whereabouts proved that he hadn't done either.

But with his military background, it wouldn't be very hard to imagine that some of his former military buddies might have done it for him. And in this case, maybe some of those military buddies were either working for the intelligence community or just had access to their tech. Some of those guys were whack jobs, there's no telling how far they might want to take this.

I realized, all of a sudden, that Tommy wasn't asking me to hurry up and try to solve this in a couple of hours because he was going to go crazy. He was already crazy with worry over Julia. He was warning me that in a couple of hours he was going to let his dogs loose.

I shuddered to think of what could happen on my streets with a bunch of possibly rogue military types turned loose. Tommy wouldn't care about collateral damage or who got caught in the crossfire. He wouldn't care about due process. He would only care about getting Julia back at any cost. He would only care about his daughter getting to see her mommy again. What I'd originally thought was Tommy pleading with me to solve the case quickly was actually a warning. Somehow, the warning also seemed to be directed at me personally.

He had looked directly at me and told me that he could only give ME a couple of more hours.

My headache got worse. I was sure that anyone looking at me could see the pulsing in my temples. I got out of the car and told him to just hold on. I told him I'd do the best I could. As he closed the door and drove off, my mind was whirling in a thousand different directions all at the same time.

Why the fuck would Tommy come to me specifically? With his money, his juice and the fact that the city's top lawyer was a personal friend of his, he could have had all of the cops on the force walking the streets looking for Julia. Tie that in with the fact that with all of the donations he and Julia had given the city and the PD and Fire departments over the last few years, everyone would want to pitch in.