Chapter 3 - Junior the Rookie

There she laid. Rachel Johnston if I recall. Apparently she was married now and she may have changed her last name. Maybe she kept her maiden name, maybe not. Her head, the part still attached to her neck was close to the incoming tide. I stood over her watching the peace of the stillness. Her eyes were still opened but now fixed on the heavens not mine. The water seemed to be rising fast, her hair and bloody remains of her inner head mixing with the sand and salt water. I realized that I never pulled up my pants. The gun was still in my hands, I dropped it to the beach, bent down and pulled up my boxers, then my khakis, and completed the act by fastening the belt buckle.

"Put your hands above your head," I heard him yell in a North Florida accent. This part of the state was so close to Georgia, the natives actually sounded more like deep southerners than the mixed international/northern accents of South Florida. I quickly turned to see the blue flashing lights up near the car accident. The lights illuminating against the navy blue uniform.

"Fuck," I whispered inaudible to anyone but myself. I quickly processed what was about to happen. I was living an episode of CSI Miami.

"Get them up NOW!" he ordered. I was getting tired of taking orders this morning, and he was again the one with the gun. He must have been fifty yards away, but I was sure he could hit me from that distance. I acquiesced and my hands reached up towards the early morning sky. A second officer appeared and they both walked down the dune in my direction, their guns drawn and pointed at me in stereo. My heart was pounding. I started to wish Rachel shot me rather than herself. As they neared, they became aware of Rachel's stillness.

The younger officer whipped me around and cuffed me while the seasoned cop bent down to Rachel and placed his index and middle finger to sense a pulse on her neck. He was not yet aware of the missing rear hemisphere of her scull.

Did they hear the shot? They must have, that's why I had been cuffed. I wondered if they saw what happenned. Did they see Rachel with the gun on me as I was raped? Did they see her put the gun in my hand? Or did they just hear the shot. Clearly they were on the scene because of the two abandoned cars, but that would not have been cause to bind my wrists so quickly. I can only assume that at minimum, they heard the shot, saw Rach laying on the beach and me standing over her. At some point I will know what they heard and saw which will set the tone for the breadth of my defense.

I was facing toward the road. The blue police lights were flickering in the dark morning, the sun yet to break the horizon. I could see the Porsche and Lexus lights beaming to nowhere unparticular northbound. How much time had passed I wondered. It seemed like hours, but could not be more than a half hour, maybe fifteen minutes at best. My watch was inaccessible since my left hand was attached to my right, this time restrained by cuffs rather than Rach's firm grip.

"What time is it?" I asked the junior cop.
"What do ya'll care, ya'll ain't goin' ta' work today," he said in a near Georgia drawl.

Work had not even crossed my mind.

"Bit a' road rage Bubba?" He asked, but sounded like more of an observation.
"What?" I replied in an almost angry tone.
"Oh yeah, almost forgot," he said, then continued," you have the right to remain silent, you have....."