Julie had known Vincent since high school. They regularly got together for lunch, talked on the phone, exchanged e-mails. Vincent was a mild-mannered accountant, soft-spoken, with neatly combed brown hair and a somewhat bland face. He seldom got upset about anything. That’s why it surprised Julie so much when they met at a restaurant one Friday noon, and Vincent seemed about ready to burst into tears.
‘What’s wrong, Vincent? I’ve never –’
‘It’s Cassie!’ the normally self-controlled man blurted out for the entire restaurant to hear. ‘I–I think she’s cheating on me!’
Julie glanced around at the alarmed patrons, then reached across the table and patted Vincent’s hand, trying to calm her friend down. Although she wasn’t the least bit surprised to hear this news; she’d figured it’d been coming for a long time, as long as Vincent and Cassie had been married. Two years.
Cassie was a buxom blonde with a bubbly personality and boisterous attitude, almost the exact opposite of her staid, timid husband, outgoing and outspoken. It had always seemed odd to Julie that the pair had ever even found each other, let alone married; an extreme example of opposites attracting. They’d seemed to make it work, however; up to now, anyway.
‘What makes you think Cassie’s cheating on you, Vincent?’ Julie calmly asked. As a police officer, she was skilled at handling distraught civilians.
Vincent looked down at the tablecloth, his small, pale hand shaking under Julie’s slender one. ‘Once a week, regularly, she goes out at night – late at night.’ His brown eyes behind the lenses of his glasses glistened. ‘She thinks I don’t hear her, but I do. She goes somewhere – I don’t know where – and then comes back a couple of hours later, early in the morning …’
Julie’s large blue eyes reflected sympathy. She asked the question, though she could guess the answer. ‘Have you asked her – where she goes, what she does?’
Vincent’s whole body shook. ‘No! I can’t!’ he bleated. ‘It’s … I’m afraid of the answer. I know I’m not good enough for her, never was!’
Julie gripped his hand. ‘Now, Vincent –’
‘No, it’s true!’ Vincent gritted his teeth, staring desperately at Julie. ‘But I have to know. I have to be sure.’
The waiter drifted over. Julie shooed him away with her free hand. ‘Well, you’re just going to have to confront her, demand to know what’s going on. Maybe it’s not so bad …’
‘I want you to find out, Julie! You’re a detective. At least, a police officer, I mean. You’re skilled at this kind of thing.’
Julie opened her mouth to try to dissuade the man, but he kept on talking, letting it all out. ‘She’s always so tired afterwards, sore, and so quiet and subdued. It’s like she’s a completely different person, for a day or two. She’s so nice to me then that–that I can’t come out and ask her. But you can find out for sure – find the evidence of what she’s up to.’
Julie steeled herself for the next question, which had to be asked. She’d been dragged in this far, she might as well go all the way. ‘Do you two still have sex, Vincent?’
The man gulped. ‘Not for a few days after she’s … been out. But afterwards, yes, in the dark, in our usual …’
Julie smiled. ‘You can tell me, Vincent. Friend to friend.’ She was about to add, ‘Victim to law officer’, but bit her tongue in time.
Vincent flushed, then shrugged. ‘Well, uh, we do our usual thing – missionary position, I, uh, guess they call it. Cassie used to try to get me to experiment with other positions, but now she seems content with just that … every now and then.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Follow her, Julie. Find out what’s going on. I have to know!’
Julie squeezed Vincent’s hand. She’d never seen her friend so passionate about anything before, and she knew, as a friend, she had to help. ‘OK, Vincent, if that’s what you really want. I’m working day shifts this week, so I’ll stake out your house at night, find out what I can. But you’re probably not going to like what I find out.’
Some relief showed in Vincent’s eyes, and he smiled weakly. ‘Thanks, Julie. I have to know. Maybe I can still do something – to save our marriage.’
* * *
Julie parked three houses down from Vincent and Cassie’s modest bungalow that night, pulling up around eleven o’clock. Her black sedan with the tinted windows was inconspicuous, just another car in line on the quiet street. Most of the houses, including the one at 315, were already darkened. Julie sipped a cup of cold coffee, played Minesweeper on her mobile phone.
At 12.21, the front door of the bungalow opened. Someone slipped out into the shadows. Low-hanging clouds covered the moon, but in the dim light shed by the widely-spaced streetlights Julie’s trained eye could see that the person was wearing a headscarf and trenchcoat, and clutching a purse. And in the stillness of the night, she could hear the white high heels click-clacking hurriedly down the sidewalk, running away from the home, white-stockinged legs flashing in the yellow light. The front and back of the shapeless trenchcoat were packed tight with hot-blooded woman.
There was a cab waiting at the cross street up at the four-way stop. Julie watched the woman open the rear door of the cab and jump inside. Then she turned over the key, set her own car to purring and eased out of the parking spot to tail the cab and the woman inside.
Julie had experience, and training, in following suspect vehicles, and she used it now, keeping her distance but keeping the taxicab in sight. The traffic was light at that late hour on a weekday. Until they crossed Main Street and headed down to the docks. Then there was no traffic at all. Julie had to douse her lights, knowing it was illegal and not caring. She was as curious as Vincent now about what was going on.
The cab turned right at the river and travelled along Front Street, past the docks, the warehouse district, to the barren, desolate waterfront well up the river. Julie saw it swerve left, bump along a short dirt road, then come to a stop. The taxicab’s headlights illuminated an isolated, dilapidated shack perched on the edge of the weed-strewn riverbank, and Julie frowned in concern.
The woman got out of the cab, ran to the door of the shack, pulled it open and slipped inside. Light glowed in the one window on the side of the shack, as the cab pulled out and drove back up Front Street. Past Julie in her darkened car.
She drove down the street and turned into the dirt road and parked. She opened the car door and got out, softly closed the door and jammed her gun into the waistband of her jeans at the back. Her sneakers made no noise as she crept along the rutted path up to the shack. She didn’t like the set-up at all. Liked it even less when she heard a loud crack, then a scream.
The shrill cry came from a woman. The violent crack sounded like flesh impacting flesh. Julie leaped forward and pressed herself up against the weathered plank wall of the shack, next to the grimy window. There was another crack, another scream. Julie ducked down under the window, then rose. She peered through the cracked glass, and her eyes widened with shock.
Cassie was pushed up against the far wall of the shack, naked except for her high heels and stockings, her hands splayed out on the wall, body arched at the waist, bum thrust back. A large, powerfully built man dressed entirely in black leather had hold of her golden-blonde hair with one hand and was smacking Cassie’s round, ripe bottom with his other huge hand. He cracked his hardened palm across her outthrust rump, making her scream, jump. Rhythmically, brutally, over and over, hand marks flashing white on the rippling, reddened flesh of Cassie’s vulnerable bum.
Julie raced around to the front of the shack and kicked the door open, barked,