Chapter One

The street corner was bare, unmoving and uninteresting. It should have been; if it were not for the shadowed man standing under the lamppost. The teal raincoat was buttoned up to his neck and a large wide-brimmed fedora hat was crooked low over his face. This was to keep the light from the overhead lamp to bear any relieve on his facial features. He raised a hand to his mouth and removed the cigar that had been held there, clenched between his teeth. A haze of dark gray smoke rose from his yellowing lips.

It was at this place and at this time. The man checked his watch. A small oval pocket watch connected to the end of a thin tarnished chain. It wasn’t deliberate for his appearance to be so unwelcoming; he just had been out of the loop for so long he scratched together what had been available. She walked up. A beauty clung to her face, as if trying to keep a hold of her innocence that was now long gone. It was a natural born beauty, not like the masses of plastic Barbies smeared all over the television.

Her skin tight zebra striped shirt and faded vixen red nail polish stated her business, especially since she was wearing a flaring mini skirt in five-below weather.

“You Peter?”

“Yea.” His voice was coarse, like rusted chains being dragged slowly across wet pavement.

“You okay, honey?”

He put the cigar to his lips and breathed out a long stream of dark vapor. “Throat cancer.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Lying, of course. “How long.”

“As long as I want.”

“A man with a plan, c’mon.”

She led the way back to her place. While he was here, he was going to get what he wanted.

****

The job didn’t pay this much. Ever since his first day joining the Special Victim’s Unit, Peter regretted it every waking hour, seeing the horrorstricken faces of those raped, molested, and abused. After his throw last night, this was the only thing he dreaded. He was back in the stationhouse with a pile of case files on his desk.

“Twenty-three years.” Peter grumbled as he took his place behind his desk.

“What are you whining about now Pete?” Peter looked up, with great discontentment, at his boisterous and young partner, Mitchell Peirce.

Peter Fells was a 52-year-old, 23-year-veteran of the Baltimore City Police Department, much unlike his new partner, Mitchell, who was fresh off a six-month tour on the beat. His skin was yellowing like his lips, his hair falling from his already balding scalp. The chemotherapy was taking a toll on him so he quit the treatment and went back to work. Peter’s wardrobe had never changed for those twenty-three years. He wore an off-white dress shirt and brown overalls that were worn so thin, they were almost about to break through the knees.

Mitchell always wore a bright aqua short sleeve collared shirt and black khakis, definitely not the dress of a senior detective that has seen way too many living and shattered victims that he can barely sleep any more.

“You’ll be whining in a short while,” Pete growled, pulling his stack of cases toward him and pulling the top folder off the pile.

“Whatever?”

“Mitchell?”

Mitchell looked at Peter was he walked to his seat which was facing, with his desk, toward Peter’s desk.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Wait and see, kid.”

“What?”

“Different cops have different ways of sleeping after a few years on the job.” Peter gestured over his shoulder to the detective sitting in a chair next to the water cooler with his head in his hands. “Jacobs drinks.” He pointed to the slightly overweight woman sliding unneeded pages from an unknown document into a paper shredder. “Ronaldson eats.”

“And what about you Peter?” Mitchell asked. “What about you?”

“Me?”

Mitchell nods.

“You don’t need to know.”

Mitchell made a loud pfft of indignation and turned to his computer. Peter peered down his nose at the file and groaned softly to himself. He had forgotten, as he did everyday, that the chemo had knocked out his 20/20 vision. He pulled out his reading glasses and slid them on, his withered eyes panning down the page of information.

Jones, Patsy. Age: 34. Height: 4’ 7”. Crime Filed: Rape. Suspect: Former Boyfriend, Klein, James.

Peter stood up, threw on his thinning brown suit coat and walked toward the interrogation rooms. He pulled out a small can of mouth spray. He still smoked, and that can be a trigger for some, especially those he came into contact with who had been burned or tortured with fire or a some other type of a smokers’ poison.

He opened the door to the room and the frightened girl was sitting inside with a cup of coffee rattling in her hands.

“Ms. Jones?” Peter said as softly as his cancerous throat would permit him. She jumped a little at the sound but calmed down when she saw the silver badge clipped to the right overall strap of Peter’s pants.

“Yes?” she asked reluctantly.

“I’m Detective Peter Fells, I’ll be handling your case.”

“Okay.”

Peter sat down, with the stern and cold metal table between them. “Tell me what happened…” Though Peter had heard almost any cruel and horrific tale in the book, this one was the one trump card that he was ever dealt.

“I don’t know why I couldn’t stop him.”

“Who?”

“Him…James…”

“James Klein?”

She nodded. Though Peter wasn’t supposed to judge her, he realized that she wasn’t cut up, bruised or beaten down in anyway. She looked entirely normal; or as normal as her mental state would permit her. “Please continue.”

“I was in my house, All of the lights were on and I was finishing up a movie on TCM.”

“The Turner Classic Movies Channel on television?”

“Yea.”

“Which movie?” Peter asked, pulling out his notepad and beginning to jot down notes.

“I…don’t remember.”

“Okay. Do you remember what happened?”

“I do…but…”

“Yes?”

Her face was the color of bone. Peter tried to look sympathetic as possible but her face did not change, did not relax at all.

“He grabbed me from behind, by the neck.” she began suddenly, almost giving Peter a start. “He started touching me, everywhere. I tried to push him off but it felt as if I had no strength anymore.”

She dropped her head, as if her neck had given up trying to keep it aloft, and hit her head on the steel frame of the table. Her cup of untouched coffee tipped from the tremor and splattered the floor around Patsy’s feet. Peter sprung to his feet, dashed around the table and pulled her head off the edge. A long bruise was now etched across her forehead, her eyes wide, and glassy, like a porcelain doll. Her face remained vacant for a moment, then her eyes squinted, her mouth writhed and the tears began to roll. Peter embraced her in a forceful hug that would probably rival a professional wrestler.

She wailed into his shoulder, clawing into his shirt with dull fingernails and tears leaking through the thin fabric, moistening his skin. Peter just made shushing sounds as he stared at the ceiling, willing her to stop, willing her to be strong, but not saying a word.

“I liked it!” Peter wasn’t ready for that. She had pushed away from his frame and cried these words to him. “That’s why I don’t know what happened. Why did I like it?”

Peter left it at that, calling in the psychiatrist to finish the task. He didn’t know how to respond to her, never being confronted with this answer before. He stepped outside of the door, slowly closing it until it clicked shut, a solid barrier between him and that woman.

“Fells!”

That bark was all too familiar. It was Peter’s captain, Roger Forbes, mad as always. Peter turned and saw Roger’s massive overweight frame marching down the hallway; if you could call it marching. It was more of a mad waddle with a lot of emphasis on each step, to make his presence known.

“Yea captain?” Peter replied, sliding his palms into his pants pockets and looking uninterested.

“The Jones case, I want you and the rookie to get over and arrest Klein, we got the warrant.”

“Quick aren’t you. I guess you were listening in.”

“I always listen in.”

“Never listen to the others in this shithole.” Peter muttered.

“What was that?” Roger yapped, his face red with the effort it took to walk from one end of the hallway to the other.

“Nothing.” Peter got away from the mammoth of a man as quickly as possible without looking like he wanted to.

He reentered the bullpen and snarled across the small section of desks, “Mitch! Get your shit together, we’re moving.”

Mitchell almost tripped over his own feet with excitement.