A/N: Before I start, I must give warning. Although this fiction is rated T under FanFiction guidelines, and will continue to do so, the content of the following chapter may disturb some readers. If you are easily offended and/or disturbed by "indecent" acts, I strongly urge you to not read this chapter.
"Ok, team!" Greg yelled out in the gym, "Gear up because this afternoon, we're going on patrol!"
"Oh yeah!" Spike exploded with excitement, as he started to dash out of the gym.
Greg just followed the excited Spike with his eyes, as he shook his head after Spike left the gym.
"And will someone please pass onto Mr. Scarlatti that it'll be Eddie and Spike as alpha, and Jules and Perra as bravo."
"What about you?" Ed asked, "You heading up a Charlie by yourself?"
"Naw, Ed, I'm staying behind, got some paperwork to do."
"Suit yourself." Ed said, as we all left the gym.
Spike bounded into the locker room and opened his locker, and began to frantically put on his uniform.
As he finished up, he felt the voicemail alert vibration from his cellphone.
After punching in the activation and access numbers, he heard the message.
"Hey Spike. It's Sam. I, uh, just wanted to talk to you. I know you're a busy guy and all, but I just wanted to talk to you before I do this, so if you could call me back, that'd be great."
Samtastic wanting to get back in touch. Wonder why? Hmm- doesn't help much that he didn't leave his number in the message, since I deleted his contact from my phone- needed the space for the Angry Birds update.
"So- what part of the city you want to hit first?" I asked Jules, as I pulled out of the SRU garage, right behind Ed.
"Well, Ed turned left, so we might as well turn right." Jules said, "Hospital district?"
"Let's try Bayview first."
During my turn, I noticed that Jules had turned her radio off, so I turned off mine as well.
"Why are we going off the record?" I asked.
"Are you mad at Megan?"
I looked at Jules, as I came to a red light- "Why would I be mad at her?"
"About last week- coming home early from school, about being arrested, about Haley-"
"I'm not mad at her." I said, as I turned my radio back on, "Can we not talk about it?"
"Talk about what?" Ed asked over the radio.
"It's nothing Ed."
"Talk about what?" he repeated.
"Ed- give it a rest."
"Perra, this can go on all day- talk about what?"
"About Megan."
"Ok." Ed said, as he let it go.
"Ed," Spike said, as covered his headset mic, and removed it.
Ed followed suit. "What's up Spike?"
"You should listen to this."
"What is it?"
"It's a message Sam left on my phone."
Spike hit a few buttons on the cellphone as the message played back.
"Hey Spike. It's Sam. I, uh, just wanted to talk to you. I know you're a busy guy and all, but I just wanted to talk to you before I do this, so if you could call me back, that'd be great."
"What do you think it means?" Spike asked.
"You guys were close, right?" Ed asked, "Went out- clubs, bars, and other miscellaneous night life offerings?"
"Yeah."
"He deploys in a month, so he probably wants to get together and hang out again before he leaves."
"How do you know when he deploys?"
"I just know- I'm a smart guy."
"Perra," Winnie's voice came over the radio, "911 got a call- from a Lauren Perrasmith. You know her?"
"My adopted sister- what's going on?"
"She's reporting a suspicious person in her neighborhood. Dispatch flagged her, because it's the third call they've got from her in the past week about suspicious persons."
"Copy that. Ed- can I take it?"
"Take it." Ed informed over the radio, "But stay blue and objective."
I knew exactly where she lives, so I didn't need the GPS co-ordinates, but Winnie uploaded them anyways into the vehicle's GPS enabled radio.
Once there, me and Jules got out of the truck. As I got out, I radioed into Winnie, "Team One Bravo Unit on Patrol, at the scene of a possible 10-6, residence belonging to Lauren Ann Perrasmith."
We walked up to the front door, and I knocked.
"Oh, god, I didn't think they'd send you." Lauren said, as she opened the door.
"Do you mind if we enter your home?" I asked.
"Yeah, yeah, sure." Lauren said, as she let us in, "Hey Jules."
"Hey Lauren." Jules said, "So we heard that you're reporting a suspicious person. Where was this person when you last saw him or her?"
"It's a him." She said, as she showed us to a window, "He was just here. You can still see where his nose was rubbing up against the window."
"I'll go out and check it." Jules said, as she went outside.
As soon as Jules left, I tossed the headset out of my ear and onto my back, so it couldn't pick up my voice, as I gave my sister a hug. "You sure you're ok? How's Ella?"
"She's at Mike's."
"Mike Roland?" I asked, "Why?"
She sat down.
"On Monday, when I woke up, I looked out the window in my bedroom, all I saw was a man staring right at me."
"You called the police, right?"
"Yeah, and they came and they did a big investigation. Took molds of footprints in the backyard, talked to the neighbors, everything."
"Then what happened?"
"I was coming from one client's house to another client's when I saw the same man."
"And you called the police again." I finished.
"Yeah, and they didn't believe me. All they told me is that it probably looked like him."
"Perra-" came Jules' voice over the headset, which I had put back in.
I motioned to Lauren that I'd be a minute, as I got up and walked away.
"What's up?" I asked.
"There was definitely someone here. I see footprints and- is she nearby?"
"No. What else was there?"
"You're not going to like it. There's semen on the brick out here."
"Repeat that again Jules?" Ed asked, "What's on the wall?"
"There's semen on the exterior wall." Jules repeated, "We got a pervert around here."
"Call the Crime Investigation Unit," Ed said, "Alpha unit en route- Winnie, send us the GPS co-ordinates."
I walked back to Lauren.
"Laur-" I started.
"Do you believe me?" she asked.
"Yes, I do." I said, "And I'm not saying that because I'm your brother, ok?"
She nodded.
"Ok, Lauren," I continued, "I'm going to get you to a safe place, ok? I want you to call Mike and have him bring Ella to the SRU building on Lesmill, ok?"
Again she nodded.
"Winnie," I ordered over the radio, "I need a cruiser down here immediately, for safe extraction of victim Lauren Ann Perrasmith to SRU Headquarters- do you copy?"
"10-4 Perra. Sending a unit right away."
Once Lauren was safely in a cruiser, Spike and Ed showed up.
"We might be able to pull some images from the cameras out here." Spike said.
"What cameras?" I asked.
"This neighborhood is a criminal hotspot for break and enters, robberies, and domestics, so the city spent close to a hundred thousand dollars installing cameras on light poles around here."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I was part of the installation team."
I gave a smirk to Ed, as I pulled him aside.
"So- what's the protocol here?" I asked.
"We fan out. Leave Spike on intel. We'll search this place inside and out, if there's one thing I hate, its perverts."
"Aren't we all perverts?" I asked, "In one shape or another?"
"In what way exactly?" Ed asked, as Jules approached us.
"I know which way." She said with a wink in my direction.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't see that." Ed said, "Let's work this slowly. We got 3 quadrants- I'll take quad B, Jules in C and Perra in A. We got uniforms on each intersection leading into this place. Spike- if you get anything- send it to the PDAs!"
"Copy that."
Me, Ed and Jules split up to cover our quadrants.
Jules had reported in finding two young teenaged boys, walking around. She questioned them a bit about what they were doing, and she seemed satisfied with the answers.
"The CIU just got a sample of the 'fluids', and they're testing it now against the Sexual Offenders Registry." Spike relayed.
I looked around, looking for the suspect, meanwhile though, my thoughts were on something else…
Why in god's name would Haley be contacting Megan? She knows damn well that it's a contradiction of our divorce settlement. And what's this about wanting money? Doesn't have enough? Got into some bad habits after our divorce? Yeah, that sounds about right, since I could always remember her breaking out the bubbly at every damn occasion. Hell- after she gave birth to Matthew, what were her first words to me? Not 'our first boy' or anything like that it was 'do you have any champagne in the car?'
Then I saw someone move in the shadows.
"Police- SRU! Stop right there!" I yelled, as I ran after the guy.
He didn't give up much of a chase, but it was enough to get my heart pumping.
"Been looking in any windows tonight?" I asked.
"What?"
"Windows!? You looking into windows, maybe touching yourself as you do it?"
"Calm yourself." Ed told me over the radio.
"Spike- you got my location?"
"Yeah, reading your GPS signal."
"Send a cruiser to my position."
I put a set of plastic zip cuffs on the man, as we waited for a cruiser.
"You can't arrest me," he said, "I wasn't doing nothing."
"You weren't doing anything," I corrected, "But you did run away from me when I approached, and you're going to be charged with evading police custody."
Meanwhile, Jules opened a fence into a backyard. "Anybody in here?" she yelled out, as she continued to enter.
As she turned the corner, she saw a woman in a bikini, stretched out on a lawn chair, with headphones on.
Jules approached her. As soon as the woman saw her, she pulled out the headphones, and said "Can I help you?"
"I'm Julianna Perrasmith, I'm with the Police Strategic Response Unit. Have you seen anyone suspicious in the neighborhood over the past week?"
"There's this guy who I've seen walk up and down the street a lot."
"That's great, can you give me a description?"
"Short brown hair, I'd guess like maybe 5' 10", skinny- sometimes he's wearing glasses."
"How old would you say this man is?"
"He's definitely not a man- probably 17 or 18."
"Alright, thank you." Jules thanked, as she left.
As soon as she was back out on the sidewalk, she radioed in "Ed, Spike, Perra- I got a possible description. Woman said that she's seen him walk up and down the street a lot. Short brown hair. Approximately 5 feet, ten inches, and in his late teens- could be a 17 or 18 year old we're dealing with."
"That's great Jules." Spike said, "Look up- any nearby street lights?"
"Yeah, one right out front her home."
"Do you see an ID number on the pole? Should be about 20 feet up off the ground."
"Yeah, number 45."
"Fantastic. Looking up the camera attached to pole number 45, and I'll grab a snapshot."
After Ed told Perra to calm himself, he saw a group of four teenaged girls sitting out in their front lawn.
"Good day, girls, I'm Officer Ed Lane, with the SRU- see anyone suspicious tonight?"
"No, not really." One of them said.
"What do you mean by not really?"
"Well, we did see a senior from our high school about 20 minutes ago. He probably just wants to see where we live, that's all."
"Have you ever seen him around here before?" Ed asked.
"No- I think he lives downtown."
"Ok, thank you."
"Picture of the possible suspect on the PDA." Spike announced.
Ed took out his PDA and showed the picture to the girls. "This him?"
"Yeah, that's him. Is he in trouble?"
Finally, we finished clearing the quadrants.
"Nothing." I said.
"We got something though." Ed said, "We got a description, and with that description, a picture and a positive match and motive."
"We got a name?"
"No," Ed said, "They didn't know him, just recognized him."
"We've checked everywhere, Ed." Jules pointed out, "We sure no one slipped past the coppers at the intersections?"
"They haven't radioed anything in." came Ed's reply.
"So where would he be?" I asked.
"Return to the scene of the crime?" Jules suggested, "You know you're being chased, you go back to the last place you felt pleasure."
"That's sick." I stated.
"Spike-" Jules said, "Is CIU still at the house?"
"No- they're gone back to the lab. They couldn't finish the tests on site."
"It's worth a try." Ed said, "Fall back to the victim's residence- first SRU officer on scene- perform a perimeter sweep."
Maybe it was my drive to get there, but I was the first one back.
Ok- performing perimeter sweep.
Then I heard something in the backyard.
"Spike- on me- exterior white wall," I muttered into the radio "stay blue."
Spike slowly crept behind me. Together we used the shadows from the trees, thanks to the falling sun to conceal us.
"I got him." I whispered over to the radio, as I confirmed with the photo on the PDA, "I got our suspect."
"Go for it."
"Police-SRU! On the ground- now!" I yelled.
At the same time, Spike yelled, "Police- do not move!"
I approached him, and noted that his pants were partially down, as he stood in front of the window that looked into my 3-year old niece's room.
"Pants down, looking into a window?" I said to him, as I put on a set of plastic zip cuffs, "You just might be the guy we're looking for. You come here often?"
He didn't say anything.
I slammed him up against the brick of the house, "I said, do you come here often?!"
"Officer Perrasmith," came Ed's voice from behind me, "Stand down. We got EMT's on site- they'll take a sample and send it to CIU."
"Who wants to bet it's gonna match?" I asked
Back at the SRU headquarters, Ed debriefed us with the help of Greg as a third party investigator.
"Strategic Response Unit Officer Kristopher Perrasmith returned to the victim's residence and apprehended one Thomas Gagnon. When tested against the fluid specimens taken by Criminal Investigations Unit, Mr. Gagnon's semen did match the semen found at the scene of the crime. Mr. Gagnon was then arrested by Constable Eric Hawn for public indecency, public nudity, trespassing in the 4th degree and invasion of privacy under the Federal Privacy Act." Ed summarized. "We good?"
We all nodded.
"That was excellent, Eddie," Greg commented, "I think I'll have to stay here more often."
After we all signed the sealed transcript, me and Eddie went to the locker room to change.
"You ok Perra?" Ed asked, as he pulled a black shirt on, that said 'SRU' in small lettering underneath the neck opening.
"I'm fine Ed."
"Yeah?" Ed asked, as he sat down in front of my locker, "Because what I saw out there, was an officer who couldn't stay objective. Are we going to have a problem?"
"No sir." I said.