Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

"Will do, sir." With that, the line went dead.

"You gonna meet the girl?" Tate asked.

"Yeah. Eight. At Ray's." I shook my head. "Guess what they talked about at lunch?"

"Yeah. One lie leads to another. Always does." He grinned. "So, Shilshole for dinner?"

"Yeah."

"You're gonna put on ten pounds today."

I looked down at my stomach. It was still flat -- except when I sat.

"I gotta take a nap," I said. "Been up for two days."

"Okay if I sit here?"

"Sure." I went forward and crawled in my bunk; I think I was out before my head hit the pillow.

+++++

Someone was shaking me, shaking me from somewhere far away.

I opened my eyes. "Fuck," I think I said.

"What?"

"I said fuck. As in, 'why is that whenever someone wakes me up it's not an insanely gorgeous redhead wanting to sit on my face.'"

"Ah. Yeah, I pretty much have the same problem. It's called getting old, Dickweed."

I sat up, rubbed my eyes. They burned, burned like someone had thrown acid in them. I reached over and grabbed some eyedrops, asked Tate what time it was while I struggled to put them in.

"Six-thirty. You got time to take a bath."

"Thanks. What have you been up to?"

"Looking through your porn stash."

"Hah-hah."

"I was reading a book. 'Cruising in Serrafyn,' by a couple named Pardey. Pretty cool stuff."

"Yeah, I met 'em at the boat show a couple years back. Nice people."

"Well, I get it now. The boat thing."

"Right. Well..."

"Oh, shit, excuse me..."

I shut the head door behind him and hopped in the shower, looked in the steamed up mirror when I got out and freaked when I saw that stranger in there again. Man, getting old hurts in all the wrong places.

We locked the boat and went up to the parking lot; the black Fords were nowhere to be seen. Spooky.

"Okay. You sure you don't want to come?"

"No. I'm gonna go home. Got to feed my cat, commune with some Hustler magazines for a while."

I laughed. "As long as you keep the two activities separate!"

"That's just gross, Woody."

"Well, it's nice to know you're still getting some pussy."

He stared at me, then shook his head. "You need to get out more."

"Hey, where do ya think I'm going?"

"This ain't a date, Woody. Don't forget that. Anyway, she sounds like damaged goods to me."

I nodded. "Probably right."

"I'll keep my phone on," Tate said.

"Right. Be careful."

"You too."

We got in our cars and I took off toward the bridge, then retraced my earlier route out past the locks and pulled into Ray's. The lot was nowhere close to full; I wondered where the Feds were, and I was worried about Tate...

Mary-Jo pulled into the lot and parked; I got out and walked over, opened her door and helped her out. She'd gotten dressed for the occasion -- my khakis and boat shoes were a little shabby next to her rig. I held out my arm and she slipped hers in mine and we walked in, checked-in and went to the bar.

"You look fantastic," I told her. And the truth of the matter was she really did look great. In fact, she didn't look anything like she had earlier that morning: her hair was down now, her face was made-up discreetly, the dress... well, classy described it well. Black, low-cut in front, and her legs were simply stunning -- and there was a lot to see, too; I felt myself responding to her before I knew what was happening. We ordered drinks and looked out over the Sound -- a ferry was making it's way across the water to Bainbridge Island. The snow-capped Olympics across the Sound lay beyond the ferry, and I suddenly wanted to get away from all the ugliness in this world and leave it all behind -- while I still could.

"What are you thinking about?" Mary-Jo asked.

"Out there," I said, pointing.

"What about it?"

"I think I'm ready to retire."

"What? Out there?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, right. The boat."

"So, have a look at this." I pulled out the image of Tottenham and handed it over; she unfolded the paper and looked at it for a split second then folded it back up and gave it back. "Is that him?"

"Yup."

"What can you tell me about the club? Where you two met?"

"He called it the Hole in the Wall, but it doesn't have a name on it. Anywhere. It's a red brick building over on Leary."

"By the docks?"

"Yeah. I don't know the address but I could take you there, show you where it is."

I nodded. "Tell me about the people there."

"Like what?"

"Anything that comes to mind. Rich, poor, black, white -- whatever."

"Well, I'd say mainly middle-aged white people, probably pretty educated group as a hole. Some nights they have erotic poetry readings, other nights erotic art shows."

"Do people just hook-up there, or do people have sex there as well?"

"To tell you the truth, Woody, I'm not sure. I think the place is pretty big, but I'm not sure. I've only seen a few rooms, but I think it's like an old warehouse that's been redone."

"Is there a bar?"

"Oh yeah."

"Any people doing drugs? You know, out in the open?"

"I saw some guys doing lines off the top of a girl's thighs. Does that count?"

We laughed.

"Probably so." I looked her in the eyes now: "How many times have you been?"

She looked away: "More than a... more than once."

"With Tottenham, or with other people?"

She didn't answer.

"What are you into, Mary-Jo? Swinging? Or is it something else?"

Again, she just looked away, didn't answer.

"I need to know, Mary."

She nodded. "Yeah, I know."

She seemed to gather herself inward, as if to protect herself from a storm, then she looked up at me. Her eyes were really lovely, soft, kind, but confusion lurked in the shadows.

"Tell me." I remember that now. I commanded her to tell me, and something seemed to snap-to when I told her what to do: "I'm a Bottom, Woody."

"A Bottom? What's that? Like something to do with anal sex?"

She laughed. "No Woody, it means I'm submissive. I do what people command me to do."

"What do you mean, 'what they command you to do'?"

"Sexually, though sometimes it's just role playing. You know, like the French maid and the Gestapo interrogator?"

"What? You mean like bondage and stuff?"

"If that's what my master wants to do."

"Your master?"

"Yeah. The Top, the person in charge."

"The person? You mean, man or woman?"

"Yes."

I coughed, took a long pull on my drink.

She reached up, wiped my forehead: "You're sweating, Woody. Does that turn you on?"

It was my turn to look away.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Woody. Everyone has fantasies."

"Yeah? I guess so."

"What would it be, Woody? Would you to tell me what to do? Would you like to do that?"

Her hand was under the table now, then it was resting on my thigh. I cleared my throat as her hand drifted up to the zipper on my khakis.

"Or maybe you'd like it better if I told you what to do. Would that do it for you, Woody?"

She was squeezing my cock through my pants. I'm pretty sure I felt an eyelid was trembling.

"Ooh, Woody! I think that's it! I think you'd like it if I told you what to do!" She squeezed again: "Do you feel that, Woody? Feel that need? To let loose, lose control? Let me?"

"Let you? What?"

"Let me take you there, Woody?"

"You keep squeezin' my dick like that and you won't have to take me anywhere. I'll pop-off right here."

Her eyes smiled, she licked her lips. "Really?"

She slowly pulled the zipper down, undid the belt, then she reached in and pulled my cock out; our waiter came over to fill our water glasses and she looked up at the kid: "Would you bring me a clean glass?" she said to him. "An empty one, please?"

"Certainly, Ma'am."

He disappeared and she started squeezing my cock again, milking it. Every now and then she'd pause and run her fingernails up and down the shaft, then she'd jerk it fast a few times before squeezing it again, milking it.

The waiter came back and dropped off the glass.

"Take it, Woody. The glass. Hold it down there."

I did as she said, felt my balls boiling, my cock getting hard as a rock.

"Hold it there, Woody; let me shoot it in the glass."

I did as best I could; within a blinding flash I started to cum. And cum. And cum some more.

"Jesus, Woody! How long has it been?"

I couldn't answer. I was biting my lower lip, holding on to the edge of the table with one hand and the glass with the other... and I was still cuming... it felt like it lasted forever...

"Hand me the glass now, Woody."

I brought it up from under the table and put it on the table.

"Woody?"

"Yeah?"

"No, Woody. Not yeah. It's 'Yes, Mistress.'" She squeezed my prick with her fingernails to drive home the point. "Woody, I said hand me the glass."

I picked it up and put it in her hand, then she released my cock and I groaned.

A couple at the table across from ours was looking at us, they were leaning close and whispering something to one another. Mary-Jo held the glass up to the dim light like she was examining a fine wine, then she drank the cum -- all of it -- in one smooth motion. The man across from us squirmed in his seat, the woman with him was directing all her attention to his lap, and soon he held up his own glass, as if toasting us, and then he handed his glass of cum to the woman.

I guess it really hit me then; the couple across from us were our minders, here to keep an eye on us. Just part of the club, I guess, but I felt cold dread as I looked at the smiling couple across from us, as I watched the woman drink down the milky contents of her glass.

+++++

I felt my phone go off in my coat pocket and excused myself, went up on the front deck and called dispatch, trying to conceal the alarm I felt. The only way anyone could have found out about our dinner plans was through Mary-Jo -- or Tate, and the latter just wasn't possible -- was it?

"Woodward."

"Detective, we have officers at the scene of a homicide; they want to talk to you directly. Can you take a number?"

"Go ahead," I said as I fumbled for my pad. I scribbled as she spoke, then hung-up and dialed the new number.

"Woodward."

"Detective Woodward?"

"Yeah. Go ahead."

"Ah, yessir, we're going to need you to come out here."

"What's going on?"

"Can't say sir. Not on an unsecured line."

"Well okay, but where the hell are you?" I wrote down the address of a hotel out north on the Interstate. "I'll be there in about an hour," I said as I closed the phone, then: "Fuck!" I walked back in, sat down beside Mary-Jo, avoided looking at her.

"You okay?" she asked. The couple across from us had departed, I noted.

"A call." I couldn't even look her in the eye.

"You have to take it?"

"Apparently so." Fuck! What had I just let happen?

Our waiter had brought our dinner while I was out; I had a beautiful King Salmon and some steamed broccoli Hollandaise and I was damned if I was going to walk away from it, so I lit into it as fast as I politely could.

"Goddamn, someone back there sure knows how to cook fish!" I said as I finished up. I flagged our waiter, got the bill and paid up. "Sorry," I said as I stood.

"I understand. Will you call me later? Let me know you're alright?"

"Sure."

I walked out to the Ford, saw a note tucked under the windshield wiper and plucked it up while I opened the door. 'Watch your six... T'

Goddamn! Tate hadn't gone home at all and he'd seen something. I closed the door and my phone went off again.

"It's me," he said. "Did you get it?"

"Four."

"Need to twenty-five with you," he said. "Betty Lincoln west?"

"Four." I started the Ford and drove the three blocks over to the visitor's parking lot by the locks; Tate winked his lights and I drove over and parked next to him.

"There's a shitload of traffic on the scanner. I mean, even the Chief's on the air, en-route to a Signal One."

"Tottenham?"

"No, no, not an A/C... I mean THE Chief."

"Fuck."

Nice night to dawdle over dinner, Dickhead!

"I just got the call, I think. I'm on my way now."

"Want me to tag along?"

"If you're not too tired, sure. The Silver Cloud, in Mukilteo."

"Wow, out of our jurisdiction. Oh well, I'll follow you."

We made our way over to I-5 and blended in with the northbound traffic and I didn't even bother to look for a tail; we probably would have looked like a freight train if I had. Twenty minutes later I exited and we wound our way west between huge Boeing assembly buildings, then down to the shore. More patrol cars -- local ones, more flashing lights, a couple of ambulances. I could see the Chief waiting in the lobby, looking at his watch.

"Great! Just fucking Great!"

I grabbed my stuff and walked in, looked for the Chief and walked over to him. He was on his phone talking in hushed tones: "Okay, he's here now. I'll call you in a half hour."

"Chief Anders," I said as I walked up.

"Where the hell have you been? And wipe that shit off your shirt!"

I looked down at a nice, shiny glob of salmon on my shirt and groaned.

"Who's that with you? Richard Tate?"

"Yessir."

"He's retired, isn't he? What's he doing here?"

"Chief, I'm still active in the reserves; just putting in some hours."

"You were homicide, weren't you?"

"Yessir."

"Oh, well, come on, then." We walked up a flight of stairs and down a hall that stretched off into infinity to an area cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape. We walked past two patrolmen into the room.

Mark Tottenham lay face-up on the bed, his penis had been cut off and was dangling from his mouth. The tattoo on his chest had been cut out of his flesh, and it looked like he'd been stabbed about a hundred times in the chest and belly.

Now I didn't know what to think. I looked at the Chief. There was a tear running down his cheek and his teeth were clenched so hard the side of face was trembling. Tate walked over to Tottenham's body while I walked around to the other side of the bed. There was a glass there, the rim smeared with red lipstick, and obviously, whoever she was, she'd drunk a shitload of cum from the glass.

Some nights are worse than others, you know. Nature of the beast, I guess you could say; no two nights are ever the same yet somehow they all are, but this was like déjà vu all over again. Even with more than a decade of looking at wrecked and mutilated bodies, this one got to me. I don't care what you have to say about it, or what you think: when you look at one of your own, a brother officer, your feelings are...different. The Wall can't go up fast enough and you're left wide open and vulnerable -- and just like every other Joe on the street you feel a big, cold slap on the face. There's no other way to look at it: you really feel the scene around you and it hurts. It hurts because you don't get to play the objective observer anymore. It hurts because the pain hits you where you live and there's no place to hide. And you can't run from your feelings, either. They come for you hard and fast, grab you by the throat like a lion and won't let go.

Chief Anders was shook up bad, too. He was standing at the foot of this hotel bed looking down at Tottenham's body and I couldn't even begin to guess what was running through the old man's head. They'd gone to Academy together, been close friends for just a little longer than forever -- and now this. This death wasn't a random drive-by or another officer run-down by a drunk driver; this wasn't a pissed-off veteran blowing his brains out after a bitter divorce or a forced retirement. No, this one was different...because everything in that room was so goddamn dark and twisted. It looked like the body on that bed had gotten there on its own, so it was a consensual encounter. But then what had happened? Had Tottenham been betrayed, or set up? Still, as I looked around the room it hurt most of all because it hinted at something immeasurably dark and vicious within our ranks.

Whoever it was had not bothered to untie the wrist and ankle restraints this time, and Tottenham's body was obscenely splayed; he looked like da Vinci's Vitruvian Man -- drawn in blood. There were deep impressions all over his body, marks not easily explained.

Only Tate seemed relatively unaffected. He'd never really cared for Tottenham, thought he was a martinet and had done sloppy work in Internal Affairs, yet Tate seemed to be the first to grab hold of the implications of having the head of IAD compromised; I didn't get it yet because none of us had quite grasped the depth of departmental penetration this murder implied.

+++++

This was another city's jurisdiction but after learning the identity of the victim we'd been asked to join their investigation; given the FBIs tertiary interest I wasn't surprised when Brennan showed up. Tate and I helped the local detectives, a crusty old veteran named Spiros Pantazis, and a new detective, a four year veteran -- who also happened to be a woman.

Her name was Susan Eklund, and my first impression of her was that she might make a good cop -- when she got out of high school. To my eye she looked like a teenager, but then again I've been a little slow to admit that just about everyone under the age of forty looks like a teenager to me these days. Eklund had a round face and round, curly hair, sort of blond but not quite. She was wearing a suit. A very masculine suit, and she was laying the macho know-it-all routine on pretty thick. Her partner, Pantazis, regarded her knowingly, yet we could tell he was embarrassed for her showmanship.

Their photographer was moving around as directed, taking photos then standing back, waiting for orders; Eklund seemed intent on ignoring Tate and myself but was deferential to Chief Anders. No one, it seemed to me, knew what the fuck what they were doing...

I went over to the bed's headboard and looked at the grain of the wood. "Prints here, I think," I said; Pantazis came close and looked too, held up a little UV lamp and looked again.

"Good call," he said. "Missed that one."

That had been Eklund's mistake and he wanted her to know it, too. She glowered at him and came over with her kit and began taking the print.

I walked over to the sliding glass door; it was unlocked. "Anyone been out here yet?"

No one had. "And don't let anyone in the bathroom!" I yelled. The carpet was already useless.

Pantazis came over and looked with me. There was dozens of prints on the glass, and we wouldn't be able to tell about the door-handle and lock-lever until Eklund tried to lift prints from them, but I was guessing there'd be a relevant one or two -- at least -- on both.

"You shootin' film?" I asked their photographer. He looked like he was -- maybe -- fourteen.

"No, sir. We haven't in years. Canon, 1Ds with data verification."

"Can you shoot I.R."

"What?"

"Never-mind," I grumbled as I took out my phone. I called dispatch, had them transfer me to the lab.

"Woodward here. Is Harker in?"

"Yeah, hang on." I heard some hollering in the background, banging sounds of stools falling over onto the floor, then the always and ever diminutive: "Jonathan Harker here."

"Jon? Woody. You got any high speed infrared left?"

"Yeah, sure. Tons. What's up?"

I filled him in; he got excited and loaded up his stuff and was headed our way in a flash, he got there about a half hour later -- somehow keeping his velocity just under the speed of light. I had managed to keep everyone away from the patio door, and the bathroom, until he arrived, then told him what I needed. I moved off and let him at it. He knew what I was after.

We finished the crime scene about five hours later, only then did we let the M.E.'s people move the body. I had Harker shoot some IR where Tottenham's body had been, then pulled down the comforter and had him shoot the blanket, then each sheet underneath. Pantazis and Eklund looked at me like I was nuts.