S&P: Interrogation Ch. 01

Based on his play "Good Cop, Bad Cop" For the series of stories created by Patricia51 and Linda_s

A detective investigates the murder of a gay man, which may be tied to a TV show where he "outed" another man.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wrote the play more than two years ago, and I still haven't turned it into a story -- this bit is the prequel, entirely separate. At least this part will stand on its own with a romantic sex scene. Since I'm working on a novel right now (with some characters I created separately, working with Patricia51's famous Bridget O'Brien), I have to choose what I want to work on next. Please let me know if the sex is good enough and the story is intriguing, and if I have a good mix.

Thanks to LadyCibelle, my editor, who asked for two small changes and gave major encouragement. She is a beautiful woman where it counts ... in the heart.

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Detective Sergeant Carol Wilson ducked underneath the tape stretched across the crime scene – in this case, the front porch of a house in a nice neighborhood. Detective Corporal Darrell Evans extended a warm hand of welcome to her as she entered the house.

"Great to see you, Sarge. Too bad it's under circumstances like these."

"Keep up the good work, Evans, and you'll be a Sergeant like me and we might partner up. You know Sergeant Adams is in line for a promotion."

Evans grinned. "The two of you are too good a team to break up. You ever watch Cagney and Lacey on Lifetime? Even when the two actresses couldn't stand each other, they still got six Emmy Awards between them. And you and Sergeant Adams really are close friends." Evans shook his head. "Damn, if I thought I had half a chance, I would have dated both of you at the same time."

"That's why you'll never get married, Evans. You can't spell 'commitment' without a dictionary. Adams and I have ten and fifteen years respectively to our mates."

"Hell, even I can figure that out. I should have quadruple-dated both couples to find out what makes relationships tick," replied Evans with a toothy grin.

"Sextuple dated," fired back the Sergeant. "My mom and dad. Maybe even octuple-dated, Josh and Samantha Crane. How's motherhood agreeing with her?"

"She e-mailed and said she's going to have another one. And they're both in line for promotions. Beats me how working parents do it."

"My mom and dad had five and they did just fine," Sergeant Wilson replied. "But time is wasting. What do you have?"

"Homicide. Male, Caucasian, that's all we know for sure at this point. He took two loads of buckshot pretty close. One in the face and chest, and the other in the back, probably after he turned to run away. We searched the house – no sign of forced entry. In a nutshell, we think he's the homeowner, he knew the killer, let him or her in, killer whipped out the shotgun and let him have it. Killer took off like a bunny rabbit.

"There's one thing, though," said Evans, pointing to a nice hedge which bordered the porch. "See how badly those branches are messed up?" It was obvious that something had damaged the well-manicured hedge.

"I have a hypothesis," Evans said. "The hypothesis is that the killer threw the weapon into the hedge in flight. Then, whoops, he came back and got it. He must have flung it pretty hard. When he pulled it out, he broke a bunch of branches."

"That's all the supporting evidence you have?" Sergeant Wilson asked.

"I think there's more than just the broken branches," Evans said. "There's a funny-looking scratch on the outside wall of the house, just above the hedge. Pretty sure something metal and cylindrical made it. Like the muzzle of the shotgun."

"Well, stick to what you're sure of for the time being," Sergeant Wilson replied. "Let's go inside and see the body."

The dead man lay face down. One look at him seemed to confirm that he knew his killer – he was wearing pajama pants, a bathrobe and socks, as if he had just risen from bed to answer the door. Evans reported that the door had two bolts and a chain lock, all of which were unfastened. That seemed to preclude the killer shoving his or her way into the house, but you never knew.

The trail of blood at least five or six steps from the door. There was the possibility that the killer, after being admitted, had shoved the shotgun into the victim's chest and pushed him backward for some distance. There was also the possibility that the victim had grabbed for the shotgun by the muzzle at some point – his left hand was mangled and showed signs of close-up powder burns on the palm. The first set of wounds, to the face and chest, were from no more than a foot away; the second set, in the back, probably came from at least twelve feet, indicating the victim had survived the first blast and had started running away when the killer fired again.

As Evans was pointing this out, a uniformed officer came down from upstairs, holding an evidence bag containing a man's wallet. The uniformed officer said she had found the wallet on a night table in the bedroom. Evans signed for the bag and went through the wallet.

"The homeowner's?" Sergeant Wilson inquired.

"Looks like it," Evans replied. "The driver's license matches this address, and the specifications for the man in the picture match the deceased. Name is … George Harvey. Something wrong, Sergeant?"

Sergeant Wilson had stood and backed up, her eyes wide. "I think so." She mused.

"You know the TV show Bring 'Em On Out? The one that brings celebrity guests on and then confronts them with their unsavory pasts?"

"I don't watch reality TV," Sergeant Evans said haughtily.

"Get used to checking it out," Sergeant Wilson said. "I was cooking dinner last night, my husband was watching preseason football and there was a promo for it, big as life. He called me into the living room and pointed to it. 'Coming up this season, he's in YOUR neighborhood and LOOK who's waiting for him.'"

Evans acted like he really didn't want to figure it out, but he spoke anyway. "Was the deceased on camera?"

"Give that man ten silver dollars," Sergeant Wilson replied, using a line from a vintage game show. "Call Information and get the number for –" she gave the call letters and channel number of one of the local TV stations. "I want to see that promo. I think they were promoting the show for the fall season, so I don't think the episode has aired yet."

Evans called Information on his cell phone and was patched through to the TV station. Sergeant Wilson took the phone from him and asked to speak to the traffic director, the one in charge of promos. She made an appointment to come up to the station and check the schedule. When she hung up, Evans looked at her quizzically.

"Was this guy in the promo, do you remember? And was anyone else with him?"

"I think yes to the first question, but I'll have to look at the tape to make sure. I didn't see anyone in particular besides the host on the show. I'll find out some things." Sergeant Wilson got out her own cell phone and brought up another number, to Sergeant Sue Adams of Detective Squad. After exchanging pleasantries, she put in to set an appointment with a judge regarding possible search warrants.

When Sergeant Wilson rang off, Evans asked her: "Is there anything else you want to look at?"

"No, but seal off this house for a few days. Sergeant Adams will get the required orders. I have a feeling we may have to burn some shoe leather or car tires or both to find out what we want."

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"You look tired, baby."

Thus Lieutenant Roger Wilson to his wife, who sat at the family computer. She had just tucked in five-year-old Tricialeigh and had come back to surf the Web. Tricialeigh had been working on her kindergarten homework, and Mom and Dad alternated checking and explaining the lessons to her. She wasn't so tired that she couldn't turn around and kiss him.

"It's kind of cold in here," Carol said. "You want to warm me up?"

"Sure," Roger said with a grin. "But it's a bit early for bed. You want to sit on the couch? That chair is right under the air conditioning vent."

"I don't mean that, silly," Carol said, punching Roger lightly in the chest for emphasis. She rose and walked with Roger to the couch, taking a stack of printouts with her. "The chill runs down my spine when I read this. I think the case I'm on is going to produce some major reverberations, maybe nationwide reverbs. Take a look."

Roger got a stern look on his face. "I thought Pat had taught you better about taking your work home with you." Patricia Gibson, Roger's mother-in-law and the best woman he knew besides her daughter (although Sergeant Adams and Deputy Inspector Shannon came close), had suffered serious health problems due to job-related stress fifteen years ago. "Something about you almost not having your little brothers because she was obsessed with putting away a killer."

"Okay, hear me out and then you can relieve my stress. Besides, my period's over. Maybe I can relieve some of yours as well." She grinned.

Roger took the papers and looked at them for a minute or two. "So, the dead man appeared on this TV show to 'out' one of Our Finer Local Citizens?"

"Yes, and I'm suspecting the citizen killed him for revenge. We're checking his records to see if he owns a shotgun similar to the one used in the killing. And tomorrow, I'm booking a flight to Orlando to go to the production offices of the studio."

Roger really frowned then, but not at the prospect of losing his wife for several days. He had spotted an E-mail address for a contact person at the production company: titusoates@counterspyproductions.net. He explained.

"Titus Oates was a South Pole explorer with Robert Scott's expedition, you probably know that. But he was named after a man who created England's version of the Salem witch hunts with a story about the Popish Plot in 1678, a supposed attempt to kill King Charles the Second and install his brother James on the throne. James, of course, being a Catholic." Carol, who also was Catholic, pursed her lips.

Roger continued: "And Counterspy is a magazine devoted to blowing the covers of spies around the world. At least one time, an enemy government was tipped off by their article, ran down a spy and killed him."

"Shit!" Carol said with more fervor than mere italics can provide. Then her eyes went wide and she covered her mouth. She stared over the back of the couch at Triacialeigh, in the living room doorway, her eyes wide open too. After a long silence, Triacialeigh spoke.

"Mommy, are you going to put yourself in timeout?"

Carol blushed beet red. Roger roared with laughter. "Fair is fair, isn't it?"

Carol said: "All right, I'll pull up a chair and sit in a corner for … let's call it 30 minutes. What did you need, little one?"

"Could I get a drink of water and have Daddy read and sing to me? I'm not too old for that, am I?"

Roger replied: "No, sweetie, you won't be too old for that as long as you live in this house. Let's go and set the oven timer so Mommy doesn't do it herself. We'll come back here on the way back and make sure she's in her corner."

"Okay." Triacialeigh skipped by Carol, who was up and getting the desk chair from the computer and pushing it to a corner, as Triacialeigh headed for the refrigerator and the bottled water.

Carol heard the buzz as the timer was activated while she prepared the chair. She sat there staring at the wall as her husband and daughter passed back by. From the child's bedroom, she heard "Waltzing Matilda" and another couple of songs, and a few minutes of talk in murmured voices. She held her position as Roger came back into the room.

It wasn't easy. Roger went up to Carol and started kissing the back of her neck. She squirmed, partly out of embarrassment and partly because Roger sure knew how to turn a girl on, damn it. Now he was sliding his hands around to her breasts. Blast! Roger knew how to massage the skin until the nipples made a bas-relief, even through blouse and bra. Carol bit her lip and stared straight ahead.

"Roger, I promised. Have you ever seen me break a promise to any of my family?"

"No, and that included to love, honor and cherish me. Thank heaven" - he slipped a hand inside her blouse and massaged her breast more thoroughly – "the Padre didn't make you promise to obey. Or me. I'm not in timeout. I can do whatever I feel is right."

It was a good thing Carol was sitting down, because she was weak in the knees. Roger nibbled at her ear. Carol's breathing came harder. She concentrated on the texture of the paint on the wall. Watching paint dry isn't as boring as watching already dried paint, especially if it isn't starting to flake off. Good house. Well-built house. Well-maintained house. She could feel a flutter in the pit of her stomach.

Roger got on his knees behind the chair. He ran his free hand down Carol's back, pushing her forward in the chair. He rubbed up and down the length of her spine, caressing her buttocks. His hand on her breasts moved inside her blouse and he deftly unclasped her bra with one hand. He couldn't always do it, but he managed this time. That dash-blanked so-and-so of a such-and-such, he was the best lover in the world except possibly her dad with her mom. Carol knew she shouldn't have let Roger sit next to her dad and her mom when the couples double-dated during their courtship. He sure as hell had observed a lot. Ooooooohhhhh …

Roger shifted his attack. He began caressing Carol's left wrist with one hand. That wasn't original with him; he had seen Sarek and Amanda – Mr. Spock's parents – do that on the Star Trek Original Series episode "Journey to Babel" a hundred times in reruns. After seeing that episode, Roger had concluded Spock was totally faking his emotional coldness for some kind of uber-Vulcan machismo because he was half human. That gesture was so damn intimate, it would melt a heart of stone. And, by the way, it also allowed him to deftly remove Carol's wristwatch.

After what seemed like several minutes, Carol spoke again. "You know, if you hadn't pointed that out, I wouldn't have said that word … mmmmph!" (This as Roger kissed her neck and licked her earlobe, causing her to shift forward in her chair.) "You should be in timeout yourself."

"Poor, poor Carol," Roger said as he rested his hand on Carol's knee. Since it was summer, Carol had changed into a pair of fairly loose shorts, socks and running shoes when she came home from work. Her knee was bare. "You got caught. I didn't. Triacialeigh didn't punish me."

"If she sees you touching me, Buster, you are spending the rest of the night in timeout … ahhhhhh!" Roger was stroking Carol's leg behind the knee. The skin is softest there on a woman, which is why Roger liked it. The skin is highly sensitive there too. Carol clasped her knees together. She decided instantly it was a mistake. Roger's hand stroked behind both knees simultaneously. His other hand ran up and down her spine. Since she was leaning forward, it left a gap in her waistband.

"You too, honey," Roger said. "If your moaning wakes her up and tips her off, you're as guilty as I am."

Carol bit her lip and stared at the wall, trying to find a cobweb she or Roger hadn't brushed. She thought of moving her legs apart so Roger couldn't touch them both simultaneously. Then she realized it would be a bad move because Roger could touch the inside of her thigh. Then his other hand, on its way up her back, curled around and touched the tip of her breast. She hadn't realized how hard her nipple had become …

"What part of No don't you understand, the N or the O?" This through clenched teeth.

Roger stopped touching and withdrew his hands instantly.

Roger hadn't pulled more than a forearm-length away before Carol, still staring at the wall, reached up and grabbed his hands.

"You … you …" Carol was trying to find a suitable noun without resorting to nouns of four or 12 letters – the latter would have been singularly appropriate. "If you were anybody else –"

"You'd be beating my head against the hood of your car, right?"

Carol blushed scarlet. That was exactly what she had done to a man making a series of unwanted passes at her, back when Triacialeigh was an infant and she had celebrated a friend's promotion at a local watering hole. She hadn't told Roger about the incident.

"How did you know about that?" Carol held Roger's hands in an iron grip.

"I knew about it the very next day. The man himself came in wanting to file police-harassment charges. He came right up to me at the front desk. He identified himself, I identified myself, and he nearly lost his dinner into his pants. He thought for sure he was going down for attempted rape."

"What did you do to him?"

"Thanked him for getting the message, looked him straight in the eye while doing so. He looked me straight back in the eye and asked me to treat you right for the rest of your life."

"I'll be blessed," Carol said. She couldn't see Roger's grin.

"Later on, I found out he was a highly successful insurance salesman. I bought our car insurance from him, in fact. The last time I renewed it, he showed me a picture of his new wife and his young son. About as respectful as an insurance salesman can get."

"Happy endings do exist," Carol said, letting go of Roger's hands.

"Still want me to stay away?"

Carol again thought of the 12-letter noun. "If you dare break my concentration before timeout ends, you take the timeout and I caress you until you go bananas."

"You know you want to stay focused. You won't let me." His hands hovered.

"Dad never did this to Mom."

"He told me he wished he had thought of it." Ever closer.

"Dad would do anything to please Mom. And vice versa."

"My mother-in-law would never do anything to put herself into timeout."

If only you knew, Carol thought. She had heard a few stories going around, and at one point ... no, let's NOT think about the makeout session in their car, interrupted by Carol herself. No, Roger didn't know the half of it.

Carol bent forward, seeing an imaginary speck on the wall. And this time she raised no objections to Roger touching her back, rolling up her shirt, feeling her ribs and her tummy and breasts. In fact, she leaned rather hard against the edge of the chair. Fortunately, her shorts didn't discolor. But they got a little stretched out of shape when Roger ran his fingers up the inside of one leg, caressing the inside of the thigh with first his palm and then the back of his hand.

He leaned against Carol to do it, and she felt something thick, juicy and hard inside his pants. After he had switched thighs a few times, all the while keeping up his ministrations with his other hand and his kisses, Carol's breathing came hard. When she moved her wrist, she realized it was naked. All of a sudden Carol felt especially open and vulnerable. And she thought of something else.

"Are you sure you didn't set that timer for extra time?"

"I didn't set it."

"You what?"

"Oh, it's set all right. I lifted Triacialeigh up and she set it. We had a little talk about how bad Mommy was and I told her she could set your punishment." Before Carol could call him what she thought of him, he slid his hand upwards and found something thick, juicy and yielding just under one thin layer of cloth.

He used that layer to his advantage, massaging the general area with it and embedding it between a set of lips with which he was well-acquainted, not incidentally bringing a third little nubbin into relief.

"OHHHHHH," escaped Carol's mouth. She hadn't always thought foreplay necessary, but she knew something about how her dad had won her mom's heart (and how Sue Adams had won Linda Shannon's heart), and after a while with Roger, she had changed her mind rather zealously.