Prey

This story's got a bit of an edge to it. I'm not sure where it came from, honestly.

Like all my stories, although it stands completely on its own, it's loosely connected to my other ones. This one could serve as a prequel to "The House At The Top Of Briggs Road," though the subject matter is completely different. It's also linked to the many other cop-themed pieces I've written.

I'm submitting this in Lit's inaugural Crime & Punishment 2023 Story Event. Make sure you read all the entries and vote up any that float your boat.

* * *

"It just seems weird," I fretted, "going tanning and getting paid for it."

Julie burst out laughing. She was amazing, already a legend in the Department, and she'd only been on the job like four years. I wondered if I'd ever be that awesome. "Damn, girl. In terms of fleecing the taxpayers? That's the least of what you're going to be doing." She winked, steering her car way too fast up Empire Road. Way too fast. But then, she wasn't worried about getting pulled over. She was a cop. I'd already learned that that was one of the big perks of this job. "Just wait until you get to claim your underwear as a tax deduction."

"No shit?" I was trying for her air of coolness, that Ray-Banned sense of control, but I suspected it looked like what it was: an act.

"Now that I'm working Vice almost full-time?" She snickered and looked out the window. "Man, I went to Secret Whispers and dropped three hundred dollars on like four items. Submitted the receipts and the captain gave me a voucher the very next day. So the next time I'm wearing red lace for my husband, that'll be paid for by the good citizens of Seaborne." I joined her in a laugh. "Not that you're quite there yet, Wiley. This is just a temporary assignment for you. But if you want anything, let me know. I'll buy it for you."

"Damn!" I was impressed. The girl was slick. "Won't they wonder why a girl with a chest like yours is buying for the president of the Flat-Chest Club?"

She winked. "Like the Captain is going to question cup size? He'd be worried about getting fired for harassment." She glanced over at me. "Don't worry. You're not as flat as you think. Just wait until you meet Dobbs, on the night shift; she's got, like, negative boobs."

"Really?"

"Hell yeah," she said, and we laughed again. This felt so good, hanging with Julie Lindberg, like I'd been accepted at the table with the cool kids at school. She was going to be making sergeant with the next set of promotions, rumor was, and taking over Vice completely. "It's just a pain we have to drive so far out of town to get our tan on. It's a beautiful summer day. We should be at the beach."

"Totally." It had been explained to me: we had to go out of town to get tanned because if anyone local saw female police officers tanning on the clock, it would be a sure tip-off that a prostitution sting was in the works. So we had to go out of town. But even though that seemed like a flimsy explanation, I wasn't prying. When you're a rookie cop, it's like you're drinking from a firehose. And I had a bad sense of what was good news and what wasn't: I'd thought getting assigned to stake out a drug house was good, until I found out it was so boring that anyone who could get out of it, did. And I'd felt the same way when they'd told me I'd be doing this Vice detail, until I'd realized they'd only picked me because I was young and had a vagina.

So. Not much of an honor, really.

"Yeah," Julie continued, warming to her earlier theme, "on the scale of corruption in the Seaborne PD, getting a free tan is minor."

"Yeah?" They'd warned us about this in the Academy, and hell, it's not like I haven't been paying attention to current events. Police officers are not exactly renowned for their ethics these days. I wondered, with a sudden lurch, whether Julie Lindberg was about to try to corrupt me somehow.

"Just wait." She yawned. "Temptation will rear its ugly head every day you work this job. You'll be asked to do favors for people, or get people out of speeding tickets, or whatever. That's how it starts. Then before you know it, you're framing drug dealers."

I stared over at her, trying to Be Cool. "You frame drug dealers?"

She chuckled. "No, man, no. Most dealers are so stupid, they frame themselves. These people are not brilliant. This isn't major organized crime, like the Mafia. Yakuza. The O'Malleys. The Kystrov Family. We're talking about penny-ante players. But my point is that the temptations are there. Everywhere." She glanced at me out of the corner of her shades. "I don't think you can be a good, aggressive police officer and not feel the urge to get involved in shady shit." She gave me a lopsided grin. "The trick is to know how far to go, and to make sure you don't get caught."

I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I took my old grandma's advice: when in doubt, keep your pie hole shut. I smiled.

"I'm telling you: it's part of the system." She swept us through a long turn as we headed toward North Adams, passing five cars on the right. "Know how they trust us to decide when to give a ticket, versus a warning?"

"Yeah?"

"That right there is an invitation to play favorites. Right?" I got the uncomfortable sense she was trying to convince me. "Like, whatever your criteria are for giving a ticket or not giving a ticket, it's all subjective." She nodded. "See? That's the Department, telling you the rules don't always apply."

"Right." I brushed my hair out of my eyes. It was sultry today, the windows down, and my hair was all kinked from having it braided and shoved under a police cap for a week. Julie had already told me I'd need to straighten myself out before the Vice thing tomorrow night.

"I mean, if you're honestly trying to protect the public?" She whipped us onto a street lined with strip malls. "It's almost impossible to avoid ethical dilemmas. The key is to pay attention." She parked us outside Rawhide Tanning in a chirp of tires. "Because nobody means to be corrupt. But by the time you notice it? It'll probably already be too late."

I nodded, hoping I looked calmer than I felt. "Makes sense."

* * *

I was self-conscious as I roved around town on patrol the next day, my skin feeling all dry and cracked in the warm breeze off the sea. Murcia and I had been assigned to the South Bay in the E12 car, so he'd told me to expect a day of parking violations, public intoxication, and perhaps a mugging or two.

"Want coffee?" he'd barked as we'd arrived on station.

"Sure," and that had been about all we'd said all morning. Murcia was a man of few words. He hadn't even told me his first name, claiming he didn't like it. But he was my Training Officer, so in theory we were joined at the hip. And I hadn't been near such an unresponsive man since I'd dumped Niko. As I'd told my sister a week before, if Murcia and I had been set up for a date, I wouldn't even have made it to the appetizers with him.

The radio crackled as we turned onto Chott Avenue, and I had it in my hand before Dispatch even finished their callsign. I clicked the button. "This is Edward 12, go ahead."

"Yeah." The dispatcher was important to my work, but I'd never met her. She had one of those TV voices that sounds like it's automated. "We've got a probable 10-50 or 10-51 at 34922 Bayshore, at the beach end, between Chott and Oliver. Can you respond Code 2, over?"

"Roger. Code 2." I was feeling my pulse race as Murcia made an abrupt, screechy u-turn and headed back down toward the water. "Sounds interesting."

"Sounds routine." He did not look at me as he spat out the quiz question. "You know 10-51. What's 10-50?"

"Narcotics. Subject under the influence." He nodded once, briefly, the car whipping down the road as the radio crackled once more. "Edward 12. Go."

"Multiple subjects. Possible Section 333 violations."

I frowned, puzzled, the silence growing heavy as I searched my brain. Learning the radio codes had been pretty easy. The legal stuff was giving me more trouble. "Copy," was all I said, then I pondered how I could ask Murcia what part of the criminal code Section 333 covered. Most misdemeanors, I knew, were 326; nonviolent felonies were 330, but I couldn't remember 333.

Until Murcia spoke up quietly.

"Sex offenses, Wiley." It came out as a rasp while he slowed down crossing Bayshore. "34922. Should be close by."

"Okay." I took a deep breath, eyes wide as we passed the low-slung midcentury houses that filled this part of the coast. A woman leaned out of a house nearby, waving us down. "There."

"I'll run the contact. You listen and watch." He swept the cruiser up to the curb and I hopped out quickly, still mastering the fine art of getting out of a car without getting my gunbelt or my radio cable hung up on anything. I remembered to turn up my radio, which made me feel momentarily proud. "Be ready, though. If it's a rape or something, she might want to talk to a woman."

"Got it." I felt keyed up, abuzz with the seriousness of what I might be walking into. A week and a half on the job, and this was my first sex crime. I drew myself up as we crossed the sidewalk and approached the house, the woman standing at the top of the steps with a strange smile on her face. She was small, maybe 65 years old, 130 pounds or so. Short grey hair.

"Seaborne police. Can we help you, ma'am?" I'd noticed before that Murcia sounded like a different man when he was talking to the public. He grew positively polite.

"There are men in my backyard." She did not sound upset, certainly not victimized. I saw nothing but clean, unripped clothing. "Or, there were. They seem to have left."

"We had reports of a possible sex crime?" he pressed.

"Oh no. No crime, really. Just three naked men, officer." We stopped short, my eyes seeking out his. "They were in my backyard," she repeated.

"Your backyard." I knew he was repeating it to make sure I'd heard, that I was tracking. "Naked men? Three of them? Where did they go, ma'am?"

"They hopped the fence and disappeared, I guess into my neighbor's yard. The house behind."

"Okay. And, did they do anything else? Did they threaten or harm you in any way?" He had relaxed visibly.

"No, they just left when I yelled at them." She smiled vaguely, happy to be helpful.

"They left over the fence. When you yelled at them." He nodded to me. "You go around the right side of the house, I'll take left, we'll circle the neighbor's place until we find something."

"Got it." I gave what I thought of as a terse, ass-kicking nod to the old lady, then darted off into the little passageway between her house and the next one. She'd put in a tall, slat fence, a solid reassuring shadow at my left shoulder as I moved rapidly over gravel and weeds, the no-man's land most people leave alongside their homes for contractors or cops to use. My ears were tuned to the slightest sound, but I heard nothing but a few gulls and a distant dog, maybe three or four blocks away.

And then? Voices.

I halted, silent, my ears straining. A man, whispering up ahead of me where 34922's tall slats ended and the neighbor's backyard started, behind a twangy-looking split rail with chicken wire nailed to the wood. Junipers grew just behind the wire, and it sounded like the voices were down in those bushes. "I'm fucking cold, man," the whisper said.

I inched closer, my hand resting on my Glock. It felt like I could actually hear my own pulse.

"Dude, I'm telling you, I don't know where the fuck to go." This whisper was lower, raspier, a frustrated man venting.

"She's going to call the police." A new man? The first one? It was hard to say, but with a surge of satisfaction I knew I'd found our guys. It occurred to me how great it would be if Murcia circled all the way around the neighbor's house, then down my side, only to find all three rapists cuffed with me taking their names already.

"I'm cold." The first one, and I took a deep breath.

"Seaborne police!" I said it the way they'd taught me: firm, controlled, deliberate, but not at all loud. "Show me your hands. Now." The junipers rustled, a quick twitch in there, stilled just as quickly. "Hands! Now!"

Cautiously, six hands rose up above the greenery. I peered closer and saw the top of a head in between two of them. Red hair, wavy. "Now get up. Slowly."

The red hair was joined then by a pair of eyes, staring at me worriedly. "We're not wearing any clothes, ma'am."

"Get up! Slowly!" I'd raised my voice just a touch, a few extra decibels to let them know I wasn't really giving them an option, no matter what the fuck they were wearing. "Right now!" I'd practiced this kind of thing at the Academy, and Murcia had let me take the lead on a traffic stop last week, but this was a whole different kind of thing. And Murcia wasn't there yet. "Come on." I kept my hand on my gun, not that I had any reason to draw, but just because I figured I ought to.

The redhead looked to his left and right, where two other faces had risen above the bushes to join him. One was bald, with scruffle scattered carefully along his chin. The other was Hispanic, all thick wavy hair and piercing eyes. "Okay," drawled the bald man, "why not?" He looked back at me, blue eyes in a strong face, and straightened calmly to his feet. "Still want my hands up, officer?"

He wasn't mocking me, or at least not obviously; his voice stayed mild. But he wasn't serious, either. I was grateful for my sunglasses as my eyes dropped automatically past a chiseled chest and a six-pack to where his penis dangled out of a crescent of hair trimmed as close as his chin. I swallowed. "Yes, please keep your hands up, sir." I turned my face deliberately toward his buddies.

But I kept my eyes on the bald guy's meat. It bobbed gently beside a big tattoo, mesmerizing, an intricate black dragon coiling from the bottom of his ribcage to the middle of his right thigh, the dragon's talons reaching for the root of his dick. I had to force myself to stop looking at it.

The red head was tall and immensely hairy all the way down his chest, but obviously I looked at his dick too as it hung long and lugubrious between his skinny thighs. I had to make myself quit looking at it: the thing was huge. The Hispanic was next, built like a cone with broad shoulders and a tapering body, his own package shorter than the second guy's but thicker than the first's.

Well. This was certainly an unusual day.

I cleared my throat. "Y'all can cover up now." It was very clear that none of them had any weapons. "And I'll need you to get up over this fence. You're trespassing."

"Over the... that fence?" The hispanic looked doubtfully at the plank fence they'd just come over, an impenetrable wall around the 911 caller's property.

"No. Just this one." I gestured down toward the split rail fence, which was thigh-high at its lowest point. Baldy came up around the bush, his dick swinging; he did not show any urge to cover up, though the other two had their hands cupping their junk. I stepped back to give him room, wondering whether I was supposed to offer to help him or something like that, realizing belatedly that I had no clue how to deal with this. The man braced his hands on the top rail and swung one leg over, facing away from me, his nuts swinging below his ass; I realized I was staring, then realized all three of them were bound to have noticed my attention.

Especially when I looked quickly away. The guy's butt was insane.

"Watch that chicken wire when you come over, boys." Baldy stood before me on my side of the fence, legs parted slightly with his hands at his side. "Look, sorry officer. We didn't mean to trespass or make anyone nervous. We're just in a weird situation here."

"Yeah. Hold off on that. My partner's on his way; you can tell us both." I made myself keep my eyes on his face, a nice face, while his buddies clambered across to join us. I frowned, wondering vaguely whether I should cuff them. They clearly weren't interested in mischief. "You have anything you can put on?"

"Nah, just back at the beach." Baldy still made no effort to cover himself, standing there poking out into the breeze not two feet away from me. I had no clue how to react.

"Okay. Well, you have any ID on you? Anything?" But it was a stupid question. The three were completely nude, though the redhead wore a wristwatch. I fumbled at my back pocket for my notebook and started to ask for their names, but around then I heard scuffed gravel up toward the far house and turned gratefully to greet Murcia. "Found 'em," I told him unnecessarily.

Murcia stopped, surveyed my collars, and nodded. "Which one of you wants to tell us what the fuck is going on here?" he demanded quietly.

"It's kinda weird, officer." Baldy turned his way, and Murcia snarled at him at once.

"Cover yourself," he rasped. Baldy obeyed, gathering his cock and balls up into one hand. Loosely. The man was not shy.

"So we were at the beach, swimming. Then we saw a shark." I was jotting all this down as rapidly as I could, my role clear: the junior officer was the scribe in the Seaborne PD. "Like, more than one. Bunch of sharks. We came up out of the water and ran for our lives, then got lost heading back toward the beach."

"You're not local?" Murcia did not believe a word of this. "Like, you got lost in here? You're about two hundred feet from the beach." He eyed them, but not like I was. "And that doesn't explain what's up with your clothes."

Baldy shrugged. "We were skinny-dipping." He looked at me and smiled. "Honestly? When I saw that shark? The very first thing that came to my mind was that he was going to go right for my junk."

Why the fuck had he looked at me when he said that? And he was still doing it too, his eyes on my face. "What's your name?" I asked him, striving for cold efficiency in my tone.

"Scary shit," he went on, shaking his head. "I'm Baxter."

"That your first name or your last name?"

He smiled blandly. "Am I under arrest?"

I was not ready for that one. "Excuse me?" I could see Murcia lean forward on the balls of his feet, wanting to chime in. But he wouldn't. The point of a Training Officer was to let people like me navigate these kinds of things ourselves. "Do you want to be under arrest, Mr Baxter?"

"Not really, Officer Wiley," he nodded, squinting at my nametag. Or, hell, at my boobs; he was incredibly unnerving. Mostly because I was very aware of his nutsack overflowing his hand. "But I just don't like my first name. I try not to use it."

"Yeah," I observed dryly, moving on; it wasn't terribly important. I'd get a look at his ID later, and if he didn't produce one, I would arrest him. Then I'd let his fingerprints tell the story. Pick your battles, Murcia had preached from day one, and this seemed like a bad one to get nasty about. "You?" I asked the redhead. "Are you squeamish about your name, too?"

"I'm Kenny Aaron." He smiled. "I'd offer to shake hands, but, you know." His friends snickered. I knew Murcia would have much to tell me about after this.

"Pedro Cruz," the last guy said, and then his mouth snapped obstinately shut. He had a lot of tattoos, I noticed, and a sour look on his face. I wondered what his sheet would show me.

"So." Murcia adjusted his shades. "You obviously can't go running through peoples' backyards."

They fidgeted before Baxter opened his mouth. "We're lost, officers."

"Well, but that's not an excuse. People called 911 on you; that's why we're here." He hesitated, glancing at me. "Listen, you guys sit down right here. I'm going to talk to Officer Wiley and we're going to figure out what needs to be done." He nodded at me and then led me back along the plank fence, toward where I'd come in. Away from the direction they'd come; if they tried to make a break for it, they'd probably keep going that way. But I could read Murcia's mind. They were barefoot, and we had their names. They were unlikely to run. "Tell me what you'd like to do, Wiley. You caught them," he asked me once we were out of earshot.