Rachel Kelly fell right as she was about to catch her target. She was closing in, just about to leap onto her target’s back, but instead her face and clothes landed smack dab into the middle of the oily, alley asphalt. Her gun sliding across the concrete well out of her reach and into a puddle of murky water, as the person she chased ran ahead disappearing around a corner.
“Dammit!” Rachel slapped the ground, jumping to her feet with military like precision. Picking up her gun and holstering it, she thought about giving chase. Running up the alley in the direction the woman disappeared until the sound of a rumbling engine invaded her ears and a bright light flashed in her face.
“POLICE!! FREEZE!!” Two officers jumped from their vehicle with their guns drawn and pointed as Rachel slowly put up her hands.
“Look...I’m a detective. I can show you my badge.” She said slowly, making sure to give no sudden movements. “I am a detective.” She began trying to explain but she heard laughter.
“Dammit...Detective Kelly is that you?” The lights went off but she kept her hands up anyway.
“Yeah it’s me. The light blinded me, I can’t really see you. Can I put my hands down?” She blinked rapidly trying to get the focus back in her sandy brown eyes. Soon the neon shadows formed two of the uniformed detectives from her department, now standing in front of her laughing.
“What did you do, come take a shower out here?” They laughed, pointing at her soiled clothes. Of all the people that had to catch me out here.
“Damn Kelly. You look like you took a swim.” They both laughed, putting away their guns, and that quickly, a wild, hostile situation had turned into laughs.
“Chasing an informant in a case. She got away.” The lies came out just as easily as her husband’s.
“We got a call that shots were fired. Did you discharge your weapon or did the perp fire at you?”
“Umm...When I fell it discharged.” Kelly was a breeding ground for lies. But she would say anything to get the young uniforms to leave.
“Oh, okay. Didn’t know it was police business. We’ll go ahead and radio it in and…”
“No, don’t.” Before she could stop him his finger was already on the radio.
“Dispatch, this is car 38. It's a police related pursuit…” She tried to signal for him to stop but it was too late. Once a call went into dispatch there was no changing it. That information was logged and filed away and available for all to review.
“Officer Rachel Kelly.” She turned around ready to scream a million fucks until she saw the white SUV pull up at the front of the apartment building.
“Shit, it’s the lieutenant.” one of the uniforms said from behind her. She watched as he leaped out of his vehicle, his black wingtip shoes shining under the street light, up his chiseled chest and to the badge that hung around his neck on a brass string. He stopped for a moment, surveying the scene then walking towards the back of the building.
“KELLY…” Through the darkness his bronze skin seemed to shine but tonight he was still the last person that Detective Kelly wanted to see.
“Nixon and James” He yelled over to one of the uniformed officers. “You're dismissed. Get out of here.” He shooed them away and, like roaches when the lights are cut on, the pair started to scatter. Grabbing the radio from his own shoulder the lieutenant sent out a radio call of his own as only someone of his ranking could. “Dispatch, Lieutenant Miller is on the scene. Go ahead and cancel that backup.”
“10-4 Lieutenant.” Lieutenant Miller holstered his radio with his eyes on Rachel Kelly.
“What the fuck is going on? Are you trying to work out some personal frustration or something?” She couldn’t hold it any longer. The whole few days had been a whirlwind and now she was in front of her superior, being reprimanded for doing something as silly as losing her cool over her husband’s side chicks.
“It's...a crazy situation, Sir. I’m sorry...I’m just…” her voice began to crack and she felt the sting of the tears in her eyes. “In a bad place.” She told him trying to stop herself before the tears came.
“God dammit get yourself together. Get down to that damn hospital and sit beside your husband and act like this shit is all good.”
“But...I can’t...I can’t be around him.”
“What are you talking about? This is no time to get all emotional and vigilante…”
“He cheated on me.” Kelly blurted it out. “I went home to look through some insurance information and guess what I found.” She ripped out a lease from her back pocket. Almost thrusting the piece of paper in his face.
“A damn rent receipt. For an apartment in this building.” She pointed back up to the two story building. “I found the apartment and… a damn message to her in his phone.”
“Kelly...dammit. You have to think better than this. I don’t give a shit what happened.”
“Fuck that and fuck him. I’m tired of him. Now he wants me to nurse him back to health after finding all this?” She was ready to go off but Miller stopped her.
“What do you want me to do? You can’t just leave him now, what will that look like for my election?” Lieutenant Miller was trying his damndest to get elected to mayor of Alpharetta. If he secured the job there would be an increase in pay, benefits, and a transfer away from law enforcement.
“Why not?” Kelly crossed her arms, pouting like a child.
“I just can’t leave my wife now.” That was it, simple as that, he had drawn his line in the sand but it was like a gut punch to Kelly. A deflating of her ego that told her exactly where she stood. She was the side chick and Lieutenant Miller never let her forget it.
“But what if I don’t love him. I can’t just not say anything.”
“You damn well better try. If people start suspecting things between us then we are both in deep shit, do you hear me?” He told her, turning his back and scanning the alley. “As a matter of fact. Come to my car and talk to me.” Miller didn’t wait for Detective Kelly to follow, instead he turned on his heels jogging back to his white unmarked SUV with windows tinted so dark that it was barely legal.
As soon as her butt felt the leather seats Lieutenant Miller was driving off down the street, turning on another street and pulling over almost half a mile away from the apartment building. “Now what the fuck is wrong with you? You're acting like a fucking maniac.” He said throwing the truck in park.
“What would you do if you found out your wife had a damn apartment with a man living in it?”
“I wouldn’t do this. Come over here like John Wayne, causing undue attention.”
“I’m sorry...it’s just not my best day. I can’t believe he would cheat on me...for this...this bitch.”
“Oh stop the bullshit. You're doing the same thing. You aren’t any type of fucking Mother Teresa.” Rachel rolled her eyes but he was right. She chuckled a bit at her hypocrisy. “So what the fuck are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we have a lot of money riding on you staying put. We have a lot of things that need to be done and you drawing attention is only going to fucking hurt us.”
“I’m sorry…” but he didn’t want to hear that. Instead he put the car back in drive and eased down the street into another alley, so dark and scary that not even a street light shined down the small patch of pavement with broken glass and small trash dumpsters. Cutting off his headlights Lieutenant Miller was barely able to put the car in park before he grabbed her.
“Come the fuck here.” He kissed her and she kissed back, their lips moistened with each other’s saliva as their tongues danced.
“You don’t need that asshole. All you need is me.” The lieutenant held her, his burly hands going up her blouse, past her holstered gun to her bra strap.
“I’ve wanted you all day. You don’t know how bad I want to blow that fucker away every time I see him.” He said through breaks they took from sucking each other’s tongues.
Their sex was sort of mechanical, two cops groping each other in a cramped police vehicle wasn’t meant to be smooth and sensual but they had made far worse places work as their sex den.
From abandoned buildings, to broom closets at the station, or wherever they could steal a few moments to share their love no matter how stiff the love looked.
“I want you so damn bad.” She whispered. Her adrenaline pumping like a locomotive as her brain switched from being filled with anger to serotonin covered arousal.
He pulled away at her blouse but a call over the radio stopped him short.
“Lieutenant Miller...Over.” The dispatcher’s voice entered the car.
“Just let it go. You're busy.” Kelly tried to coax.
“I’ve gotta answer. I’m the only superior on tonight.” Miller said sitting back in his seat and snatching the radio from his shoulder strap.
“Yeah…” Miller spat the words into the radio.
“It's your wife sir...she’s in labor.” The dispatch came over jubilant and happy, and from an angry scrunched up face, Miller immediately turned happy too, his lips curling up in a full smile.
“Okay...Umm...tell her I’m on my way” he said, with nervous hands he somehow managed to start the car. “My wife,” he said adjusting his shirt as Detective Kelly did the same.
“Yeah I heard. She’s in labor.” But he was too busy smiling, and just as quickly as he parked in the alley way, he slid back down through the alley, turning on the flaming police cherry lights to move all potential vehicles out of the way.
“Damn...my baby is coming.” He said slapping the steering wheel. But Rachel gazed out the window as they drove. This was always her life, never getting what she wanted and having to share. She was never the main attraction and tonight she figured it out more than any other time that her husband nor her boyfriend could put her first.
“I can’t win…” She said laughing as Lieutenant Miller rounded a corner.
“Baby don’t be like that. You know I have to be there for this.” He said trying to hold her hand but she pushed him away.
“Yeah, there for a baby that she damn near raped you to have.” Rachel recanted the story she was told by Miller.
“It is what it is.” he said trying to stay away from the story of how he got his own wife pregnant, but Rachel wasn’t ready to let the conversation die.
“I still don’t get how you got her pregnant and you said you sleep in the den with the damn door locked.”
“She snuck in one night Rachel, what the hell can I say? She is my wife.”
“But you want to marry me. Didn’t you say that?” Rachel threw back.
“Dammit...I don’t have time for this shit.” He said pulling into the front of the apartment building.
“I’ll call you tomorrow or something so we can talk.”
“Talk about what? How now I have to wait even longer to be yours?”
“If you would just chill out I can have this all figured out. And fuck this broad he’s fucking. We’re doing our thing and now you have grounds to get even more money when you leave his ass.” Lieutenant Miller rationalized but Rachel wasn’t trying to hear it.
“Whatever.” Opening up the door Rachel stepped out back into reality. “Congratulations on your baby.” She said out of spite before slamming the car door. She wanted to hurt him with her sarcasm but the lieutenant didn’t miss a beat, he sped off leaving Rachel right back where she came from, at the home of her husband’s mistress.
“Well Rach, you're here already. Might as well do your damn job.” She told herself kicking up dust and rocks as she walked back through the broken door and up to apartment 6. The door was open now, way different from having to kick it in before.
This time she did it differently, just in case someone was watching.
“Police...Police…” Rachel screamed before pushing the door further open until she heard a creaking noise behind her.
“Ohh...thank God you're here.” With a closed robe and hair full of rollers, a petite older woman came creeping from her apartment.
“Yes ma’am. I’m with the police. Did you see what happened here?” Rachel asked as if she weren’t the one that caused the damage.
“No ma’am...but they…” She said pointing to the door. “Are always making all kinds of noise. Those two…” She said shaking her head. “Nothing but the work of the devil.”
“Is that so...how?” Rachel asked waiting to hear about loud sex or crazy drinking to further prove her case for divorce.
“Two men together...it just ain’t right.” Rachel heard the words but her thoughts couldn’t wrap around what the woman was saying.
“Excuse me…”
“You know the people that live there. They are both men.” The old woman said whispering. Holding her housecoat closed, she took a few steps closer.
“You see nobody knows but me. The one looks like a girl.” Rachel gasped like someone punched her in the stomach. “Yeah I know right...one of those damn...transganders or whatever they are called.”
“Transgenders?” Rachel tried to correct but the old woman turned up her nose, unwilling to learn the correct terminology.
“Yeah something like that. Look...only reason I know is because I heard his voice change one day.” She said prancing around. “This is how he walks. You would never know. But one day he got mad and I heard him yelling on the phone out there…” The old woman started laughing as she recanted the story. “Sounded like James Earl Jones’ voice coming out of Vanessa Williams’ body.” She laughed so hard that she didn’t notice the nauseated look on Rachel’s face.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes ma’am...I started observing after that. He does good at hiding it but that’s definitely a man. I can tell some things. These young kids getting fooled but I know one when I see one. But that other dude he was just regular. Probably the one doing the poking instead of taking it...if you know what I mean?” Rachel did know what she meant and it sent her stomach flipping a few dozen times. She pulled the door to the apartment closed, or as closed as it could be.
“I’m going to check things out around back…”
“Sure...thanks for coming officer.” The woman smiled, retreating back to her house as Rachel ran back down the stairs barely making it outside before the contents of her stomach came up.
Vomit all over the lawn and the only thing she had on her mind was all the signs she missed. The gay porn on the computer, the lack of sex drive, the late nights coming home, it was all starting to make sense.
“That sonofabitch.” She screamed as she made her way to her car. Jumping in she sped away, trying to make sense of everything, but two small words were throbbing in her skull. Down Low...your husband is on the down low. She shook her head hard trying to knock the thoughts away but it was useless.
“Remember what he said...remember.” The only thing that calmed her was thinking of Lieutenant Miller.
“Don’t draw any attention right now. Let everything be cool. No big deal.” But she was ready to run up to the hospital and put a barrel of steel in his mouth. Her trigger finger itched more than it ever had in her life, and for Rachel that only meant one thing. Someone was going to die.