2023/10/31 - Karen Coe, P.I. Ch. 01

How many of the mistakes we've made in life happened because we were bored? I went someplace I shouldn't have gone or hung out with someone I shouldn't have given the time of day, all because I was bored. Sometimes it's a little thing. I slagged off school or work for the day and drank too much because I was bored. Sometimes it's not such a little thing. I cheated on my wife and destroyed my family, just because I was bored. Some folks have the gift of self-reflection. They can see the problem when it's small and do something about it before they end up with a huge problem. Too much time on my hands? I can volunteer at the library or homeless shelter. Or I can score drugs and rob a bank. If you can tolerate a cautionary tale about where boredom unaddressed is capable of leading, then read on.

This story is listed in the "Non-Erotic" category, although there is some sex in it, but only in passing. There is definitely a Romance brewing in there somewhere but I would feel fraudulent to post this under that heading. If there was a "Crime" or "Who-Dun-It" or "Police Procedural" category available, I'd have gone straight for that. Alas, it must remain "Non-Erotic." There are so many aspects to this story that I'm hoping the "Tags" will do a better job of categorizing it. Unlike some of my other stories, which have at least some of their origin in the files of my sex therapy practice (NAST), this one is pure fiction start to finish.

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Karen Coe did not like to play by the rules. She was born Karen Elena Colangelo, but in her line of work, the name Karen Coe was more direct and to the point. Her dad's grandmother had arrived at Ellis Island as a young girl way, way back, with the name DeStasio. The first thing her father did was shorten their name to Dest. It was hard to get ahead in America back then if you were too "ethnic." Karen liked the idea, plus it fit her habit of trimming the fat and getting right to it.

Her traditionalist parents had it all planned out for her. Have a big Catholic family and put 20 pounds on her frame. Four generations under one roof. Wait on everyone hand and foot. But Karen Coe did not like to play by the rules. So now she was 18, and it was expected that she'd be planning a wedding. I mean, high school was over and done. What else was there? College? Ha ha, college.

Karen didn't like to study, and had graduated high school by the slimmest of margins. Not that she was stupid. Hell, she was smart as the crack of a whip. She didn't study because she liked what she liked. A curriculum meant doing "their" thing. Ok, no wedding being planned. Howsabout at least an engagement? Nope. Karen had torn through a roster of "boyfriends" if you want to call them that. The word "steady" did not exist in her vocabulary.

Her virginity vanished in the night a lot sooner than it should have. She was having a smoke during halftime at an October football game, and a guy she just about knew from her sophomore Spanish class asked her if she wanted to go make out. She flicked away her cigarette and made her way to a discrete location. Of course he bragged to his buds, and suddenly she had a reputation. She didn't give a rat's ass. She had better things to do than worry about what the local yokels thought. So, a few weeks after her 18th birthday, she packed a bag, called a cab, said goodbye to her parents, and left home.

Within weeks she was in basic training with the Army. She excelled at everything except playing by the rules. She went overseas, and distinguished herself in every way. Bravery, initiative, smarts. She had a way with explosives. Good marksmanship, too. Relationships were still not her thing, though. The first time a comrade in arms hit on her, she was uncharacteristically indecisive. Shitting where she ate, and all that.

And of course, he didn't take it well. "Whatsamatter honey...still a virgin?"

"A virgin? Do I look like I'm 14?"

"How many teen? Holy shit! My second guess was going to be lesbian!"

"Oh, so you're hoping I'm a lesbian! You got a pussy you need licked?"

"Fuck you, Colangelo. I'll show you what I need licked." He showed her. She flicked away her cigarette and followed him to his tent.

She developed her taste for whiskey during her deployment. At first she had trouble holding her liquor, and was deemed to be a renegade by Lt Waterhouse, her commanding officer. But once she got a grip on things, she was the unit's shining star. Alas, with good performance comes notice. And once you get noticed, the bad stuff gets noticed along with the good. The heroism and the drunkenness. The brilliance and the chain-smoking. The loyalty and the promiscuity. Command learned what everyone else had always known. Karen Colangelo did not like to play by the rules. She was being passed over for promotions and was at a dead end. For a restless soul like Karen, that simply would not do.

When she mustered out at the end of her tour, she left with an honourable discharge and a handful of marketable skills. She took all that stateside and entered the police academy. She was 22. Her nature was better suited to police culture than to military life. The stereotype of the hard-living, hard-drinking cop is a product of the old school. Frowned on but tolerated with a nod and a wink. Karen got in toward the tail end of that heyday. Let's face facts. It's harder to be a female cop. If it's any better now, that's only because it was worse then. Any gal who could act like "one of the boys" had a relatively smoother time when it came to gaining grudging respect from the old dogs. For Karen it came naturally.

She excelled at going under cover. She could dress like a whore and do prostitution stings. She had enough jagged edges to make it look convincing. But with a different wardrobe and a different makeup palette, she could soften up enough to pass for an accountant. Her hand-to-hand training in the Army served her well on the force. With her bare hands, she could take down a knife-wielding perp. She worked her way through the ranks, and she did it all. Traffic cop, foot beat, patrol car. Took the sergeant's exam. Made detective. All by the age of 27. She kept a lid on the alcohol and the promiscuity. Not to say that she was a changed woman, but rather that she had learned to function with her vices.

Also at the age of 27, she met Clark Mathers. He was a 30-year-old professor of Spanish history. Detective Colangelo found herself investigating a murder on campus. A teaching assistant from his department was stabbed to death while working one night in the department building. Two days later, Professor Mathers flew in from his annual vacation-slash-research trip in Spain. Karen had to talk to everyone who knew the vic, and the professor was one of the loose ends. She had his photo. She knew what he looked like. She liked how he looked. This would be fun.

She waited for him to arrive as she stood outside the entrance to his office building. She had just lit up a smoke when she saw him exiting his car. She grabbed a few more drags as he gathered his papers, loose folders and briefcase under one arm and locked the car with the other. She blew out the smoke, peered at her reflection in the building's glass door, fussed a bit with her hair (wavy blonde from her Polish mom) and straightened her blazer. She turned around as he approached and they met eyes (hers were dark, courtesy of her Italian father).

"Professor Mathers! Hi, I'm Detective Colangelo, Providence Police Department. You're a hard man to find, Professor."

"Ha ha detective, well here I am. And feel free to call me Clark."

"Clark? Really? You sure you wouldn't rather have me call you Professor?" This was a test. Karen liked to keep a guy off balance. Insecure assholes got super defensive. Fuck them. Confident guys who were comfortable in their own skin could laugh it off. A guy who had just a pinch of self-depreciation could go a long way with her. Sadly, she'd run through a never-ending supply of muscle-bound little boys whose feelings got hurt if you didn't tell them that theirs was the biggest dick you'd ever seen. But not this guy.

"Yep, Clark! Can you believe it? I'd like to say I was conceived while my parents were watching a Superman movie, but it was probably just a Chevy Chase vacation movie. Yeah, so just call me Professor. My good friends even call me Prof."

Karen giggled and tucked her hair nervously behind her ear. "Well Prof, can we chat in your office?" Clark stood there, arms loaded with crap, and said "Please forgive me, but I usually open a door for a lady." "Ha," she thought, "a lady...if he only knew." "Here we go, let me get that for you, Professor." They stepped into his office. He looked her over and smiled. She liked his smile. "So. Professor. What can you tell me about Laurel Tischler? I mean, nobody seems to know much about her, and believe me, we've asked around."

"Whew, detective, not much. I only brought her on board a week before I left, and I was gone for one week beyond that. Didn't you get anything on her?"

"The consensus is that she kept to herself, had a low profile, almost didn't want to be seen. Do you have a file on her?"

He started leafing through a disorganized stack of papers, "Detective Colangelo, I have nothing but loose notes at this point. I was busy getting ready to leave and never... uh, got the chance... here... let me see. Says here she transferred in a month ago. She was a TA at her old school. Um.... had to leave. She left an abusive boyfriend there. A stalker type." Well that was something nobody here knew.

So Karen and her partner Detective Frank Mulvey paid a visit to Laurel's old school and everyone there knew the story. That evening the boyfriend was arrested and he confessed. That was the quickest investigation and collar of her career. The next day, she showed up at Clark Mathers' office to share the good news. Something she typically didn't do. She darkened his doorway and brightened up his office.

"So detective! What brings you back?"

"Well, Prof, two things. First of all, that bottle of Jack Daniels you keep on that shelf."

"OK, you came back for whiskey, ha ha. Did you also come back to give me news about the case?"

"Three things, then." He stood leaning back, almost sitting on his desk. In addition to his bottle of whiskey, she noticed him. His twinkling eyes, his boyish grin, his nice body and, working her way down, his bulge. She stood across the room from him but slowly closed the distance. She saw two things she liked. Whiskey and dick. And in short order she was filled with both.

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Karen's change of career was the product of shifting alliances. As we have seen, Karen did not like to play by the rules. For her supervisors, keeping Karen in line was like herding cats. A lot of stuff got overlooked because she produced. Her closing rate was off the charts. She cheerfully took the assignments and shifts nobody wanted. She didn't balk at being partnered with Frank Mulvey, even though nobody else wanted to. Mulvey was cut from a lot of the same cloth as Karen. A pain in the ass when it came to discipline. They were a pair of loose cannons.

But Mulvey was old, tired and unproductive. He was phoning it in until he had enough years on the job to put in his papers. Karen liked him because she knew what made him tick. Where a lot of the old boys treated the girls poorly, Mulvey was won over early on when he realized that Karen's willingness to do the heavy lifting would allow him to coast. Karen was a kick-ass whiskey cop. Mulvey was a clock-watching doughnut cop. Along the way, Mulvey recognized her as a good cop and gave her grudging respect. Theirs was not a balanced equation. As hard as Karen worked to keep Mulvey afloat, his deficiencies pulled them down.

Karen had her own negatives. It was hard enough to keep her own head above water without always having to rescue Mulvey. He played fast and loose with confidential informants and worked off-book with local private investigators. He traded info with PI's. They helped each other with resources, closed each other's cases. Mulvey got cash under the table. He seemed closest to one PI called Jimmy Boyle. Boyle lived a charmed life and kept his PI license by the skin of his teeth. What Mulvey was to his profession, Boyle was to his. Left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Karen got dragged into the swamp. At first, the stink she picked up was just a matter of proximity to the whole Mulvey-Boyle mess. But when any case that Mulvey was working benefitted from Boyle's off-book assistance, Karen benefitted, too.

By the time the heat from upstairs got to the partners, Frank Mulvey had enough years on the job to put in his papers, one step ahead of Internal Affairs. He would get his pension, and the PD would be rid of one of their two biggest headaches. Karen Colangelo did not have enough years in. She saw the writing on the wall. It was time to keep her head down and work on her résumé. Also keeping a low profile was Jimmy Boyle. His irregular dealings had not escaped the notice of law enforcement. Mulvey had been able to run interference for Boyle with PPD. But now with Mulvey out of the picture, Boyle began to look to Karen.

And she sought him out as well. They took each others temperature. He wanted to know the extent to which he and Karen would be able to keep the old arrangements he'd had with Mulvey and, if so, the extent to which she was capable of being discreet. He also wanted to get a sense of just how much the police knew of his activities. Karen wanted to know about his business in a more general sense. How he got into it. What it entailed. What the procedure was for someone looking to enter the business. What his exit strategy was in terms of retirement.

She distanced herself from him enough to lower the heat a few degrees, buying each of them some much-needed time. But she kept up a minimal amount of contact. Enough to keep him on her radar and know what he was up to. After a number of months, she made her move. She invited him to dinner. A nice place. She paid. "Hey there, Jimmy. You're looking well. You look like a man who is finally looking at a prosperous and peaceful future."

Jimmy was confused, "Well Karen, you look damn sharp yourself. Still got the best set of legs on the force."

"Ah, whatsa matter Jimmy, I always had you made for a tit man. I was half expecting you to stare at my cans all night."

"Guilty as charged, little girl. But what's all this about peace and prosperity in my future?"

At this point, Karen the actress came out. She gave a sad smile and lied through her teeth. "Jimmy Boyle, I'm here for two reasons. First, the shit is about to come down," she said as she called the waiter over for a couple of Johnny Blacks, doubles, "I've been doing everything in my power to slow-walk the investigation and to keep my ear close to the ground to see how soon they'll be pulling the trigger on your case. But I can only soft-shoe this thing for so long. Bottom line? You need to get out of the business, retire, and go lie in the sand somplace sunny."

"Well, girlie, I been giving it some thought but I can't say as I've got all my ducks in a row moneywise."

"Not a problem Jimmy. This brings me to the second reason I'm here. You have files. Clients. Informants. Basically the two things I need most as a detective... names and information.... dates and places, OK that's four things. You got 'em and I want 'em."

"Why, Detective, do I smell a rat?" Here, she almost faltered. Was she a better actress or was he a better bullshit detector? Each was well-versed in their skill set. Some guys will take their eyes off the ball if the distraction is right. So she took a sip of her whiskey, intentionally dribbled a little down her chin, giggled, picked up a napkin by one corner to dab at her face, let the other corner fall across her chest, just far enough to be able to reach underneath it unnoticed, and undo the top button on her blouse. Then she leant forward enough to give him a bird's-eye view of those cans. "I've got a proposition for you Jimmy."

Now his eyes got big as he focused in. "Whoa, easy, cowboy! Ha ha I'm talking money." OK, now he definitely had taken his eye off the ball. Tits and money. Now he was thinking with his dick and his wallet. She had him. "Jimmy," she pulled a pen from her purse, "I'm prepared to take it all off your hands. The files, the client list, the lease on the office, the phone bill, the money you owe to Paulie Provalone," she wrote a number on a napkin, "Instead of an indictment and jail time, you get to lie under a palm tree, holding a drink with a little umbrella in it, and you get this." She slid the napkin to him and waited.

"Girlie Girl, where you coming up with that kinda scratch?"

"Now. you just leave that to me, honey. You don't need to know. You can be on a plane by tomorrow if you like. Check in at the swankiest hotel in the Caribbean before the snow gets here. I'll meet you at your lawyer's office tomorrow morning, and I'll bring mine. Let me know how you want it. A bank cheque or I can wire it straight into your account. You can sell your house up here from down there. Before the authorities seize it. Add that to your bank account. Jimmy Boyle, sitting pretty and living large. Beats a prison cell any day. where I'm from."

The following morning Jimmy Boyle left his lawyer's office and boarded a plane to the Caymans. What Jimmy never needed to know was that Karen had not acquired his operation to enhance her police career. Over the previous months, Karen Colangelo had secured her own private investigator's license. She simply took over his office and his business and his phone number. The business was ready to run the day after Jimmy left town. She tendered her resignation at the police department. Turned in her badge and service weapon. Walked out the door. Had the "James Boyle, Private Investigator" signage removed from her new office, and put a new name on the business.

Remembering how her ancestors, the DeStasios had changed their name to Dest, that day, at the age of 28, Karen Colangelo became Karen Coe. Karen had one more stop to make that day.

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"Professor Mathers, it's been a while."

"Detective! Back for some whiskey, are we?"

"Baby, as I recall there was some good dick floating around this building somewhere. I'm trying to remember just where." In a flash the door was closed and memories were refreshed.

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There had always been a love-hate relationship between Karen and her former colleagues. On paper she was not the kind of gal you'd want to associate with. She was coarse, foul-mouthed and promiscuous. She smoked and drank far more than most people were comfortable with. She had a habit of getting a bit too straight to the point, circumventing the customary niceties and sugar coating that made discourse pleasant.

But if that was all you saw, and believe me those were the first things you'd see, you'd miss out on what made her special. She was a good-looking woman. Sorta pretty but a bit rough around the edges. Attractively built but with a bit of trash on the veneer. But sharp as a tack. Brave and selfless in the field. Never stingy about sharing the glory. She knew her stuff, so professionally speaking, she always had something that you'd want. People wanted to network with her. Commanding officers in the both the Army and the police force who once were nervous about having her under their command, now wanted her close at hand when it could benefit them. The fact that Karen Coe did not like to play by the rules was no longer their problem. So, as a result, she had a long list of ex-colleagues with whom she was now on good terms. Bad Karen was forgotten, and her many talents were now fondly remembered.