Fire Flies

by Marie Marini

  I got this really nice robin’s egg blue paint for the bedroom. It looked good with the blue sheets. I found a tall lamp at Goodwill that I put in the bedroom, too. The lampshade was white but sometimes I would put Darren’s pale blue shirt over it like we did that first night, just to be nostalgic and romantic. He couldn’t get an erection on his own anymore, but I was getting good with my hands and could usually manage to get him in the mood.

  We had a very active sex life. I know he was sad that he couldn’t really participate much so sometimes I would lift his hands and put them on my butt or my waist. But they would just fall off if I didn’t hold them there. There was one time I duct taped his hands to my boobs while I rode him, but the tape was a bitch to get off so I never did it again. Still, it was pretty funny and he did orgasm that time. Then he cried and I just held him and rocked him. He really was the sweetest man.

  When she came ‘home’ with groceries I never knew if she would be sweet or sour. The nerve pain was excruciating. Every fiber in my body was on fire. Every nerve ending was scraped raw and demanded my attention. She would tell me stories about the Saints. Apparently, growing up the only books allowed in her house were books about religion and the Bible. Her dad had porn magazines but somehow that didn’t count. She had to read to him every night before bed, sometimes from the Bible, sometimes from a porn magazine. Since I wasn’t Catholic, she considered it her ‘duty’ to save my soul from eternal damnation. I wouldn’t tell her I was raised Christian, I refused to tell her anything else about me. It was the only thing I could control. When she told me about her fucked up father raping her from the age of 8 and the misplaced guilt of her mother’s death being placed on the bony little shoulders of that little girl child, I realized just how fucked up she was.

  The stories got more graphic and more detailed as she started to trust me. She clearly had never said any of this out loud before. I didn’t know how it would end but I knew that I would die here. She would never let me betray her or tell her stories. My heart broke for the little girl she once was. My heart broke for the fucked up person she had become because of it. The saddest part was that she thought her childhood was normal. I couldn’t wrap my head around how she could hold down a responsible job and be a normally functioning human being and have this side to her. She honestly didn’t believe there was anything wrong with our relationship. She didn’t think there was anything wrong with her relationship with dear old dad either. In her twisted, warped little caged heart, she was taking care of me and I should have been grateful.

  The sex was the worst part. She manipulated me into participation. She rode me with abandon, discovering new ways to please herself. This insane sexual beast had been unleashed. One day she brought out a ten-inch crucifix. The bottom of the cross had been sanded and smoothed out so there were no sharp edges. She sucked on it first as she danced around the room singing hymns then she rolled a condom onto it. I couldn’t look as she slowly pushed it inside herself.

  She raped me repeatedly. I wasn’t a willing participant, I said “NO” as strongly as my distorted vocal cords would allow. She would laugh when I told her she raped me. Men aren’t supposed to be raped by women. No man would consider that a crime really would they? She would dance for me. There was such a heartbreaking innocence to her dancing that I knew her father asked her to do that too. I knew from her stories that her brother would watch her father fuck her then he would storm out when dad didn’t let him have a turn. Then there was the night she wanted to dance with me…

  My name is Detective Jesus Rivera, God I love how that sounds. I worked so hard to get that title. I’m more than a little proud of it. I always wanted to be a detective but my family didn’t have the money for a college education. I needed a scholarship with a full ride and a job to pay for everything else. Let me tell you books are EXPENSIVE! Uncle Fernando and Auntie Iris ran a Crime Scene clean up company in Miami. There was plenty of work. While I was in High School, I worked for them. Not everyone can stomach the work and it’s not everyone you can trust with the gruesome details of suicides and homicides. But I proved that I could handle it. While I was going to college at night to finish my degree in Criminal Justice I got a job as a Crime Scene Tech with Miami Police Department. Finally, I had the opportunity to learn the other side of the crime scene.

  When it all started, I had just landed my dream job of Detective with Palm Beach County. I realize now looking back just how young and inexperienced I was. I thought six years on the force meant I knew what I was doing. Detective work is very different from being a patrol officer. I had the overconfidence of a rookie and I made a lot of mistakes. It was grueling hours and being on call a lot! Endless hours of paperwork and following up on leads to nowhere. Not much of a life for a 30-year-old hot-blooded Latino in South Florida.

  I loved every minute of it.

  Palm Beach County is the third largest county in Florida and home to over one and a half million people. The department was always busy, but at that time we were knee deep in gang-related shootings and it was an election year.

  A call came in to an apartment in Boynton Beach, a missing person call. The family were from the west coast and had money and connections. They were demanding a detective check the place out. Boynton Beach Police Department had consolidated with Palm Beach County just a year before. It just meant we had to drive unfamiliar roads and neighborhoods until we could learn what lay hidden in the nooks and crannies of the back roads. I took a ride out there to Riverside apartments in Boynton with Detective John Holbert. He was three months from retirement and quite happy to ride along to check out the new apartment building. I had known John for years; he had taken to me for some reason when I was a Crime Scene Tech. He knew I wanted to be a detective one day, and he would take the time to walk me around a scene and point things out. He had a reputation as a grouchy old man and most of his jokes were at my expense, but I didn’t mind. That was just his persona, his image. He was in transition and actively handing off some of his cases to other guys. That was how he found himself paired with the rookie that day. We both felt it was a complete waste of time, but an order is an order and we could always stop at Starbucks on the way.

  We were armed with a Grande each when we got to the brand-new apartment buildings. One building was in the final stages of construction. The construction materials and debris were contained to the back end of the complex. It looked like three out of four buildings were at least somewhat occupied. We introduced ourselves to security and were escorted to the apartment. John opened the door and walked in. Before I stepped over the threshold I smelled that familiar smell of Scene Clean XP and the hairs on my neck stood at attention. It has a very distinct citrus based smell which doesn’t really smell like citrus. I used it for years with Uncle Fernando. I would know it anywhere. The thing is you can only buy it in bulk from certain vendors and you have to have a special license.

  Detective Holbert was walking into the kitchen. “Don’t touch anything John!” I yelled out to him. In response, I heard “Ah, Jesus!” When I started to explain to him the logistics of getting your hands on this stuff, his shoulders just kind of slumped. “I know, I know. Damn! Why? It was supposed to be a nice quiet check-in kind of a call. The boss is going to be pissed. We are up to our eyeballs in dead gang bangers and now this missing money man! Shit!” We were both in the kitchen looking around the way-too-clean apartment. Neither of us wanted to call that one in.

  I had a pretty good relationship with most of the detectives, even though I was the new guy. They respected that I had done my time in the trenches both with my uncle’s company and with crime scene before becoming a Police Officer and working my way up. They respected that I had worked hard to get through school and really wanted to be in this business. However, I was still the greenhorn and had a lot to learn about detective work. Having accepted our fate and after a lot more complaining, John called it in. We waited outside the front door of the apar
tment for the other detectives and crime scene techs to arrive with the paper suits, booties, and gloves we would need. I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be contaminating any evidence. When we finished with the apartment, sure enough, we had nothing. We tested the kitchen counters for Scene Clean XP or more accurately the chemicals in Scene Clean XP and it came up positive. So did the doorknobs. Even the stem of the toothbrush. Someone was VERY thorough. After the techs took some fingerprints from the car keys, we went to find the car and see if we could get any luckier there.

  The car hadn’t been cleaned, so they either weren’t in this car or they forgot to clean it. Considering how fastidious they were in the apartment I was not expecting much from the car. The car had been baking in the Florida sun all day so when we opened the door it was over 120 degrees in there. I wanted a sniff before we aired it out. I smelled perfume. Was this an elopement that the family didn’t know about or approve of? The family said he had met someone recently, but details were sketchy. According to the Mom, Darren hadn’t told his girlfriend about the family or their money. We couldn’t rule out that she recognized him and knew exactly how much he was worth. He didn’t tell Mom much about her other than a first name of Chris and that she was a firefighter. I was already formulating so many questions in my head that we would eventually have to follow up on. I just had to gather evidence to build a case.

  There were fingerprints everywhere. We would run the prints through VICAP and see if we got any hits, but I wasn’t feeling optimistic. Nothing here pointed to a crime, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I had when I smelled the Scene Clean XP. You don’t use Scene Clean XP to clean up nothing and how the hell did they get their hands on the stuff anyway? Something wasn’t right. We gathered what we could find and emerged from the car drenched in sweat and ready for a cold beer. So maybe I didn’t love every minute of the job. We agreed to get cleaned up and go to Boynton Ale House for a cold beer and a burger.

  The Ale House is a big loud open sports bar type place where a lot of the cops and firefighters like to hang out. There are tables back behind the bar area by the pool table that are a little quieter if you need to have a conversation unless there is a Dolphins game on. Then nowhere is quieter and there are no tables. I arrived first and was slurping down a beer when John and the others arrived. Without asking we moved into the pool table area and I starting racking balls. We ordered some wings to munch on and buckets of ice-cold bottles of Bud while we shot some pool. It was the usual Friday night routine. The main conversation was about the increase in gang shootings. The Mayor was livid and determined that her legacy would not be gangs but the swift and total destruction of the gangs. We bitched and moaned about all that stuff while we ate. Truth is there are other places in the country where they don’t have half the toys and equipment we have to do the job. Everyone bitches about their job.

  Eventually, conversation rolled around to our apartment search. Everyone wrote it off; no blood, no sign of struggle, nothing to investigate. I kept insisting on the Scene Clean XP. The guys just laughed. “If that’s all you got Cubano you need to learn to let it go. You can’t go after every little weird thing in this job. Besides John don’t need new cases right now, right John?”

  Laman was right. John had worked tirelessly for 34 years at this thankless job and I could only imagine the number of sleepless nights his wife had endured. I sighed and said, “Tell you what old man, let me just see if I can find a female firefighter called Chris locally and talk to her, that’s all. Just to see if it smells funny.” He grumbled for a bit because that was what John did. He eventually agreed.

  “Okay. If you can find her, we will both go talk to her. You can buy me coffee. You have to do the legwork though, I’m too old for this shit.” He turned away and summoned the waitress to bring another round. I smiled at my small victory.

  My father was Cuban and my mother was Iranian. Not the most popular mixture in South Florida at the time. With Trump as President and police officers being shot, it was a scary time to have dark curly hair and a big nose. Never mind the shiny badge and gun under your jacket. I would fit in okay in Miami, at least until they knew I was a cop.

  The conversation had moved on and everyone was talking about the Powerball jackpot. It was at an all-time high of 800 million dollars. I happily joined in the conversation about how many houses I would buy and where they would be. We debated the merits of a Tesla versus a Bentley.

  On Monday I would start looking for Chris. Tonight I could just have a few brews and shoot the shit. I was thinking I would call my sister Stephanie tomorrow, maybe drive over and spend the night. It was only a three-and-a-half-hour drive to Nokomis on Florida’s West coast. I could be there in time for the drum circle. To hear my nieces giggle, I would make a fool of myself dancing on any beach in the world.

  Monday rolled around way too fast. I got my fix of the girls, so I was in a good mood when I got in and ready to start looking for Chris. I would have to be gentle on this one though. First off I’m a rookie detective, secondly, there was no crime committed and police and fire have a kind of courtesy respect thing that means you don’t step on feet or come in too heavy. The department was crazy busy and I would have to do this stuff on my own time. The news on the missing money man from upstairs was that he had a big fight with his family just before he left Seattle and moved to Florida. His family hadn’t heard from him in two weeks. According to them, that was unusual and he would be running out of money by now. He had a job as a rep for Red Bull but hadn’t been at work in over a week. When pushed, the family admitted he was flighty, had never held a job for more than a couple of months. He was a womanizer, unreliable and drinks heavily. The department was not going to spend time or money on this unless we had something to investigate. I kept thinking I should just leave it alone. Everyone else was walking away from this one, but something just really bothered me. This one was getting under my skin.

  There were a couple of places you were likely to bump into the street medics. The Fire Engine crew usually did the cooking which also meant the shopping, so Publix grocery store mid-morning was a good bet. Since I needed this to look casual, I found myself taking an early lunch at 11 a.m. and wandering around the grocery store with a basket pretending to look for something instead of someone. Just as the store manager was starting to look at me funny, I saw the three-man crew over at the produce section. I wandered over. We bullshitted about the weather for a minute or two and then I asked them if they knew a female firefighter called Chris. Of course, they asked what she looked like and I had no clue. I told them she was dating a friend of mine, but I hadn’t met her yet. No luck there, they didn’t know anyone. Was I sure she was with Boynton? Hell, I wasn’t sure she existed. I thought again that maybe I should let this go. It’s a needle in a haystack and even if I find her what then? I thanked them and told them to be careful out there, gangs were shooting at Fire Rescue ambulances for fun.

  I would have to be more direct. I couldn’t spend every lunch break at Publix accosting the medics and making Publix staff nervous. I decided it might be better to hit the most popular firefighter hangouts and see if I could get lucky. After about two weeks of going out almost every night to different firefighter hangouts, from West Palm Beach to Pompano Beach, I finally got lucky. Good thing. Even though I wasn’t drinking every night—just one or two beers—it was getting exhausting and expensive. I was at The Irishmen in Boca Raton when a rowdy crowd of firefighters came in. Someone was retiring and they were doing a pub crawl in honor of the retiree. They would only be there for an hour or so then on to the next place, so the timing was perfect. I approached a guy at the bar who seemed to be in charge of the tab and struck up a conversation with him. He invited me to join the crawl. By this time I was getting my story down and I guess it sounded casual enough when I asked if he knew Chris. He didn’t hesitate, “You mean the chick in Deerfield who just made Lieutenant last year?”

  “Maybe, I’m real
ly not sure. My friend was dating her, but I never met her.”

  “I don’t know if it’s the same one. Everyone says she’s gay. In seven years, she’s never dated anyone or spoken about anyone she dated. Claims to be a private person, makes her stick out like a sore thumb. How can you trust someone to have your back in a fire if you don’t know jack shit about them? If it’s the same chick, she’s a midget, maybe five feet tall” He took a big slug of his beer. He was an old school guy and didn’t approve of women in the firehouse. “In my day she wouldn’t have made it through probation, we would have made sure of it. I need to know a good man has my back when I go into a fire. Not some chick with man issues.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that. At least I finally had a lead. Next stop would be Deerfield Beach. I hoped he was the one retiring.

  In all, it took me about three weeks to find her. John was counting down his last nine weeks on the job when I stopped by his office with a name and reminded him that he said we could go talk to her. It turns out the only local female firefighter I could find called Chris was not Christine but Kristen, Kristen Klein. I didn’t want to approach her at work in front of the crew. After all, we had no crime. Since I now had a name and had managed to pry enough information from co-workers to determine she lived in Pompano Beach, I should be able to find her. Firefighters, like police officers, can request their addresses and personal information remain confidential in records requests. At this point, the only thing keeping me on this trail was damn stubbornness.

  John reached out to a detective he knew in Pompano PD to find the address. At this point he just felt sorry for me and wanted to shut me up and make me go away. Darren’s family had been in South Florida for the last three weeks hitting all the news stations and getting all the publicity they could pay for. I thought it strange that Kristen hadn’t contacted them and identified herself as the girlfriend.