To Protect and To Serve

Sorry for the akward paragraph structure of chapter nine. I didn't realize that I was distributing the lyrics so sparsely. The rest are in this chapter, then there will not be a song for awhile. I usually don't do songfics for this very reason. I do not own Anna Quindlen, nor do I own her book "Black and Blue". She has all the rights to it as far as I know, as she should. I am not making any money off the mention of her book or her person, nor do I intend to. I don't own O'Dea High School, I just know it. I have no grudges against the school or anyone there; I am simply using it as a setting in this fanfiction for creative purposes. I am not anti-Catholic; I was baptized Catholic.

-Sasuke-
I scurry away as he looks at me, into the bathroom to dispose of the condom. The lubricant is on top of the box of condoms, stuffed protectively into the drawer on the nightstand.

(-I say you want, I say you need. Ring my bell, ring my bells-)

Splashing cold water on my face, I pause to reflect.

(-If you got what it takes, we don't have to wait, let's get it on-)

The sex hasn't been that good in a really, really long time. I dress silently, not impressed at how he stares at me.
"Hey, Sasuke?"
"Get dressed," I snap to shut him up. He's going to ask it.

(-Ring my bell, ring my bells-)

He walks into the bathroom after pulling his shirt over his head and he, too, splashes cold water on his face. I unlock the front door and stand in the doorway as he turns to look at me. "Thanks," he puts a hand in a back pocket of his jeans. "My pleasure." It sounds sarcastic. Before I have time to decide whether I meant it to or not, he asks it.

(-Get it on! Ring my bell, ring my bells-)

"When can we see each other again?"

(-Ring my bell, ring my bells-)

Shit.

I trudge in to work at nine, hoping nobody notices anything.
"Hi, Sasuke!"
"Hi, Umino," I grumble.
"You okay?" Hatake asks. What, does he expect me to tell him I'm dating a man who's keeping me on the down low, who I think is an undercover FBI agent?
"Captain, with all due respect, just let me do my job."
"Where are you on the Quindlen case?" Umino asks curiously, referring to the case I named after author Anna Quindlen.
"It's been cold for years, but we might have some new, solid leads." Anna Quindlen wrote a book called "Black And Blue," about a cop's wife who fled with her child to escape her husband's beatings. This case is exactly that, only it's in real life.

She’s back, the child was killed by the husband and no Seattle police officer is saying anything. The husband, because of his privileges as a police officer, is screwing his wife over. The law, or corruption thereof, is screwing her over even harder. I really, really have a problem with cops like him. He should be arrested, and that’s what we’re trying to do. I’m a hypocrite, you might think. After all, I’m a meth addict and I tag. Well, I know I will be caught sooner than I think and I will be cooperative to the officers when they toss me into the holding cell. I won’t deny anything. This guy is denying everything, lying to us and it’s clear he’s very misogynist.

“And the Port of Seattle accusations?”
“That’s not our jurisdiction,” I respond. Hatake smiles. “Just making sure you were paying attention. The Seven Virtues suspect gets out in ten minutes—bring him here.” I snatch the warrant out of his hand and stride to my car. Hatake’s a quiet passenger, buried in that orange book of his. Soledad always stares intently at the roads ahead of her whether she’s driving or not. She’ll tell me a driving direction or talk about something entirely off topic if she’s nervous that something will go wrong. She rarely does this, but when she does, she’s always right. Hatake is engrossed in his book and in comparison to Soledad’s intense, adrenaline-fueled, angry silence, he seems bored and detached.
Hatake and I both show our badges. The principal smiles when we explain who we need to see.
“He’s finishing his last class of the day. I’ll go get him.”
“Thank you, Brother.”
He nods and walks away. O’Dea high school, like many other Catholic high schools, houses relatively few students in a large building. It smells weird. The Seven Virtues Rapist is most likely a student here at O’Dea high school, a boys-only institution. He has easy access to the nearby all-girls’ Catholic school and has raped seven students there. He wrote one heavenly virtue on each of their backs in accordance to how they led their lives—chastity, diligence, humility, charity, kindness, patience and temperance.

I don’t like to identify minors by using their legal names to the public, and even though you’re sworn to secrecy, I consider you public, so I’ll refer to the teens by their virtues. Temperance had her water spiked with a heavy, pure amount of GHB before she was raped. Patience was assaulted into unconsciousness and raped, then had her tongue partially severed before she awoke. Kindness had her left index and middle fingers broken. Charity was robbed and raped. Humility, as she was being raped, had body fluids expelled on her. Diligence’s room was gutted by fire from a lit cigarette, and other parts of her house were also burnt after she was raped. Chastity was raped orally, anally and vaginally. The Seven Virtues Rapist did not use a condom with any of his victims.

“Hey,” he adjusts his backpack onto one shoulder and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He wears the standard O’Dea uniform, clean, ironed, spotless. He wears black dress-style pants that cover his ankles. His socks are hidden by black single-sole tennis shoes. The tucked in dress shirt with a stiff, starched collar covers his slightly flabby chest. His sideburns are uniformly trimmed above his ears. White male, auburn hair and hazel eyes. One is lazy. He is 5’6” and maybe a hundred fifty pounds. He’s nervous. I tighten the handcuffs as I recite his rights. The bulky, heavy backpack filled with the massive textbooks only a private school can offer makes the procedure slightly more difficult than usual.
He’s quiet in the car and doesn’t ask for a lawyer when we arrive at the precinct, but he does ask for a glass of water. He’s cooperative as we interrogate him. His signature on his written statement is written heavily, confidently. He’s eighteen and will do at least a few decades for statutory rape and all the charges of aggravated assault, plus an arson charge. He asks questions about legal procedures and the A.D.A. explains everything to him.

It’s definitely one of the smoother, cleaner, faster cases we’ve had. The entire ordeal, from the initial arrest to having him sign his statement, lasted a little over three hours. What most people don’t realize is how long cases really take, how many things go wrong and how sad and frustrating it is. It’s never like what’s shown on TV, and cases don’t get solved in forty-five minutes. Cases go cold. Criminals don’t always get convicted or serve time. Lawyers don’t always cooperate with police, and some judges are assholes. The Seattle Police Department, especially the Federal Way division where I work, isn’t perfect. I mean, it’s not historically corrupt as the LAPD, not famous and misrepresented like the NYPD and it has a high crime rate, unlike police departments in rich cities. The rich ones mostly respond to noise complaints and dog bites. Federal Way, by contrast, is a poor, crime-riddled neighborhood (or collections thereof) with a lot of housing projects and apartment projects. There’s a lot of minorities, and people that are culturally conditioned to hate, evade or avoid police. I’m a minority, too, and I can’t really blame them.

Hatake summons me into his office. Soledad just called to report on the progress of the MS-13 case. We’re almost there. Oh, did I mention that since a rape is reported every five minutes and child abuse is often reported as well, that police officers in this unit work on average fifteen cases at once? Otherwise nothing would be solved.