Fetishes
Fantasies
Fatalities
By
Patrick D. Peay
As a ten year veteran
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Gary Black was accustomed to, but not
desensitized by the amount of death he was exposed to in the field as a special
agent. There he stood on the edge of a
grassy marsh in Middleburg, Florida. The
weather was muggy, but not near the unbearable extremes one can come to
experience at the end of a summer in North Florida. Yet another corpse was sprawled out before
Gary and his partner Rhonda Banks. The
decomposition of the dead body was obviously advanced by the humidity of the
First Coast Region. Rhonda surveyed the
scene with a stern look of concentration on a face filled with such delicate
and attractive features while Gary stood in silence for a moment. He found himself drifting off into a daydream
themed with an all too familiar forbidden fantasy.
Gary worked closely and
in conjunction with Rhonda for the past six years. All the while, he tried his best to conceal
his secret admiration for her. What
started as an innocent crush turned into a lurid obsession and even he was
ashamed to admit that to himself, so he kept these desires for her pent up
inside him as best he could. Everything
about Rhonda was so alluring and attractive to Gary. She was brilliant, beautiful, and something
about her attitude and the way she carried herself was irresistible to
Gary. He wondered if she ever noticed
his longing stares. He had the
impression that Rhonda could be a subtle seductress if she wanted to be. That desire to throw caution to the wind and
conventional wisdom always festered inside Gary. Everyone knows how complicated feelings like
this could complicate work relationships.
Still, sometimes Gary wanted to hold Rhonda. He wanted to caress her. He wanted to sensually kiss her and explore
her whole body with his tongue. He
typically didn’t see Rhonda out of her stark professional attire, but Gary
imagined she would look absolutely stunning in lacey lingerie.
Rhonda was keenly
focused during the initial phases of a murder investigation. Gary was in a tantric trance. Even at this early stage of investigation, Rhonda
could sense that this current case would be of the atypical variety. Rhonda’s sudden and curt remark snapped Gary
out of his mesmeric daze.
“This is a new one for
me, a dead and ball-gagged gimp in a swamp,” Rhonda said.
“Damn, Agent Banks, it
smells like day-old cabbage stewed with rancid road kill out here,” Gary
remarked.
“I
won’t even ask how you know what that smells like, Agent Black,” Rhonda
commented.
Gary
and Rhonda worked closely as partners for six years. Gary was strapping and brawny man with a
thick southern drawl. He was raised in
Moultrie, a small rural town in Georgia.
His humble upbringing on a farm was a stark contrast to the way Rhonda
was raised. She got used to that
ephemeral and transplanting lifestyle that came along with being in a military
family. She couldn’t count how many
times she was uprooted and had to pack up to move when her father was
transferred to another Naval Base. More
times than not, they were coastal cities, so Rhonda grew up loving the beach. Still, the country boy Gary and the beach
girl Rhonda, although an odd pairing, worked well as a cohesive investigational
unit. They got on each other’s nerves
sometimes and clashed on occasion, but they truly trusted and respected one
another.
The
crime scene in Middleburg was cordoned off. It was a muddy and wooded area not far from
the northern flowing St. John’s River south of Jacksonville off US Highway
17. The Clay County Sherriff’s Office,
the local authorities, alerted the FBI.
Gary and Rhonda weren’t too far away in Daytona Beach investigating a
high profile missing person’s case, so they were immediately summoned to the
crime scene. A week prior, Blake Adams, the
eldest son of a prominent United States Congressman named Bill Adams from
Miami, vanished without a trace. Blake
had travelled to Jacksonville from his home in Miami to attend the first road
game of the Miami Dolphins’ 2014 National Football League regular season versus
the perennially lousy Jacksonville Jaguars at Ever Bank Stadium. Blake’s father Bill happened to also be in
town at the time accompanying his wife Linda Adams, a published and renowned
self-help author that had a scheduled speaking arrangement at a women’s
empowerment conference at the Morocco Shrine Auditorium off Jefferson Street in
downtown Jacksonville. Reportedly, Blake
hade made his way to Daytona Beach south of Jacksonville after the football
game to celebrate the Dolphins’ thrilling 26 to 20 overtime victory over the
Jaguars. Bill travelled in a convoy with some of the Dolphins’ players he was
acquainted with. Blake was last seen
leaving an upscale gentlemen’s club called Emperors’ off the strip in Daytona
Beach with an unidentified woman.
Back
in Middleburg, Special Agent Banks and Special Agent Black surveyed the area
with local cops and crime scene technicians.
They examined the dead body which was dressed up in a full-body leather
BDSM gimp suit, complete with mask and ball-gag strapped in his mouth. There wasn’t an apparent cause of death that
they could see. The ankles were bound
with chains, and the wrists were handcuffed behind his back. There was a not lot of blood, and it wasn’t
immediately evident whether or not part of an attack occurred on the scene, or
elsewhere, or if the man was assaulted violently, and dumped severely injured
to expire alone in the swamp.
“Can
somebody please remove that ball-gag from his mouth and take off that mask?”
Rhonda asked.
One
of the CSI’s obliged Rhonda’s request, then Gary said, “Holy honeycombs! That’s our guy. That’s definitely Blake Adams.”
This
is was no longer a missing person’s case for Rhonda and Gary. It was a homicide, and a weird one at
that. The uniqueness of this murder was
evident.
“Who
discovered the body?” Gary asked.
One
of the police officers answered, “A man was walking his dog on a nearby trail
when his dog got loose from the leash and ran into the woods. The man gave chase then stumbled across
this. He phoned us right away.”
“Where
is this man now?” Rhonda asked.
“Right
over there,” the cop pointed.
“Officer,
we are gonna need you to escort that man to the station to get a detailed
statement from him,” Gary said. “Have
your people finish securing the scene and take as many pictures as possible. Collect and document as much trace evidence
as you can. Then, carefully bag up the
body, and take it to the coroner, so they can conduct a detailed medical
examination and autopsy.”
“Officer
Williams,” Rhonda read the name above his badge. “We appreciate the assistance and cooperation
of the Clay County Sheriffs’ Office.
Now, my partner and I must go to Jacksonville to give the victim’s
parents the bad news. Try to keep the
press suppressed, and don’t give any official statements to the media until
tomorrow. We may have to handle that.”
Alerting
the next of kin: this was always a difficult and uncomfortable
undertaking. Bill and Linda Adams were
still checked in at the Hyatt Hotel on Market Street near the St. Johns River
in downtown Jacksonville. Needless to
say, they were absolutely distraught and grief stricken when Special Agent
Black and Special Agent Banks delivered the about their son’s peculiar and
violent death in person. Gary and Rhonda
expressed their sympathies and assured the Adams family that the Federal Bureau
of Investigations would find whoever was responsible for such horrible
atrocities and use all the resources at their disposal to bring the perpetrator
of such an awful and inexplicable crime to justice. After delivering the devastatingly horrible
bad news, Gary and Rhonda stood on the Riverwalk outside the Hyatt. Gary could see the anguish in Rhonda’s face.
He wanted to comfort and console her.
“Ronnie,
we are going to catch this guy,” Gary assured her. “We always do.”
“I
know, Gary,” Rhonda replied.
Then,
Gary made a suggestion, “Let me tell you what I like to do once I get to the
meat and potatoes of a big murder case like this one here.”
Rhonda
asked him, “What’s that, Gary?”
He
explained, “It’s kind of a superstition.
After I find a body and have to alert the next of kin, I like to go to a
restaurant to eat a juicy steak with a glass of wine to decompress. I vacationed in Jacksonville with my brother
once. I’m going to take you to Maggianno’s
at the St. John’s Town Center on the south side of town to have some steak and
wine with me, my treat. After that we
can go to Massage Soleil at the Town Center.
According to Blake Adam’s itinerary he got a massage there Sunday morning. We need to question the staff and review
their surveillance footage.”
Rhonda
just nodded. She had learned long ago
not to reject Gary’s insistences. He was
very persistent and persuasive person, and sometimes he knew what was best for
Rhonda. That’s why they worked so well
together…
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