Old School

Detective Rita Garcia closed her laptop and, looking up at the clock, found herself deep into unpaid OT yet again. She leaned back and yawned -- time to blow the pop stand, grab takeout at the choke-and-puke on the way home and pass out in front of the tube.

It was quiet in the squadroom of the Monroe County Sheriff's Office substation in Islamorada. In fact, it had been a languorous day and 50-something cop spent most of it tidying up files and dealing with calls from worried parents up north wondering about the whereabouts of their babies on vacation in the Florida Keys.

"Laquanda isn't answering her phone!" wailed one mom. Well, if you named me 'Laquanda' I wouldn't take your fucking calls either, Rita replied...in her mind. She placed a few calls and sure enough the 19-year-old was located in a boy's room at another motel. Rita took pity and agreed to save the desperate kid's ass by telling Mom her phone had gone missing only to be found by a trooper on the beach. Happens all the time.

Because, what the hell, somebody should be getting laid in the Sunshine State. It sure as hell wasn't Rita Garcia, three times to the altar, two-time loser, one-time widow.

Before she could make good her escape to another dreary evening, her phone lit up again.

"Screw it," she muttered before looking around the empty room, she being the only one stupid enough to there this late. She sighed and picked up.

"Garcia," she grunted.

"Hey Rita, it's Jackie at Key West station. Putting through a call for you from Philly."

"Gee, thanks Jackie," Rita groaned. Great, another distressed parent. Rita never popped any kids but she sure as hell would have invested in surgically implanting a GPS chip in them.

It was not a frightened mom this time. The voice on the phone was, however, very hesitant and distraught and Rita's patience at this end of the day was tapped out.

"Ma'am, can you please get to the point?" Rita snapped. "What is the nature on your enquiry?"

The voice gave way to exasperation. "What I have to tell you is going to sound crazy."

"Lady, I'm a cop from south Florida," Rita said wearily. "If you don't mind, I'll be the judge of what's crazy. Spit it out!"

"My name is Jamie Winstead. I am calling about a murder that happened 40 years ago in the Keys in the hope of preventing another one now."

Rita sank back into her seat. This had to be a whole lot better than Squid Games. She popped her laptop back open. She tapped some keys. Jamie had her full attention.

"Ma'am, let's start at the beginning."

It was a breezy evening on the deck of the Parrot. Jimmy Buffet was playing on the loudspeakers, the tiki torches were swaying and Ted was chatting up Old School as they chowed down on their grouper. She listened intently as he told tall tales of his days in the amphibious unit of the Royal Australian Navy well before he moved to the Keys with his little brother Bruce.

He held forth on story after story of boarding ships at night under fire from drug smugglers and underwater hand-to-hand combat with goons, that sort of stuff. He pulled down the collar of his polo shirt to show off a nasty scar from a knife wound. She had a suspicion the true story was less Thunderball and more angry husband or jilted slut.

Maggie feigned enrapturement, all the while stroking Ted's tattooed right arm and swirling her wine, watching him like a barracuda. She taken care to select just the right low-cut top at a strip mall shop before heading out that evening. Britt left her plenty to work with and brassiere technology had come light years since she last shopped for knocker lockers back in the 1970s. She subtly drew her tits tighter together as Ted carried on, his gaze less subtly laser focussed on them.

After dessert was served, Maggie steered the conversation to the here and now in the northern hemisphere and toward some of the more challenging dive opportunities in the area. She was baiting a hook, and betting her prey was just egotistical, horny and stupid enough to bite.

"What about the wreck of the Polk?" she asked offhandedly. "I've been reading about it. It looks very interesting to me."

She could see the discomfiture on Ted's face as he considered the question, draining his third beer as he did so.

"It's pretty deep, love," he said finally. "Deeper than most can handle. It's on the edge of the shelf -- a lovely old freighter. No one dives it anymore, even the fish won't go near it. Too risky."

Maggie broke into a broad smile. "Sounds perfect. You ever take anyone there?" She knew damn well he did.

He nodded and raised a finger to order another Corona. "It's been a long time. It didn't go all that well. There's plenty of other wrecks we could do, though. A lot less dodgy."

She looked him with a piercing glare. "Are you scared to go back, Ted?"

Ted's face flushed. "It's a fine line between courage and stupidity. But I'm not scared of anything down there and can handle myself."

"Well," said Maggie, "you've probably noticed I can handle myself too. I'd be up for it. I love deep wrecks. I've done a number of them all over the world, like the Thistlegorm in the Red Sea and the Saratoga at Bikini. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I have a special way of commemorating special dives like that."

Ted swallowed and the beer hadn't even come yet. "Oh?"

She leaned forward conspiratorially. "I like to fuck in them. Do you like to fuck underwater, Ted?"

He smiled and nodded. "One of my specialities."

"Not something you picked up in the Royal Navy."

Ted chuckled. "No, mostly up here. I've met a few lovelies while working at Down Under. One-on-one night dive instruction, that sort of thing."

Maggie took his hand. "That sounds delicious," she purred, her foot beginning to stroke his leg under the table. "Maybe there's something you could teach me."

Ted could feel his donger harden. "You know, we could go back to my apartment. We could do it in the bathtub if you like. You could squeeze my rubber duck."

She shrugged, shook her head and withdrew her foot. She turned her attention to the Key lime pie, baked that afternoon at the Parrot she was assured. She took a bite and worked the mouthful sensuously, the whipped cream slowly oozing between her lips. She cleared it with her index finger and then pushed it into her mouth, sucking on the finger, her lips forming a bright red O. She had Ted's rapt attention.

"Get me to the Polk and you can give me a poke," she whispered. "What do you say, Ted?"

Ted gulped. Things has escalated quickly. She was clearly a nut, but in his experience the crazy ones were the best in bed. In this case, the seabed. It had been awhile. He didn't understand her fixation with the Polk and had concerns about returning to the scene of his foulest deed.

That woman just changed her mind, as birds often do. Hardly his fault what happened next. This woman though, was a very, very different animal. And he wanted to ring Old School's bell very, very badly.

"Tomorrow night?" he offered.

Maggie leaned in for the kill, beneath the table her nimble foot retracing its path up his leg to his now-turgid cock. "Tonight," she insisted.

It would be about twenty minutes before Ted could safely stand.

As she promised the detective, Jamie's story was coo coo crazy, but she was clever enough to tailor her tale to leave out the supernatural stuff and stick with a plot Rita might have seen on CSI. A missing woman. A niece discovering clues years later in her old beach house. The discovery of remains offshore. The finger of blame, rightly or wrongly, pointed at a divemaster the woman was acquainted with all decades ago. A man who made unwelcome advances, a bully and chauvinist who didn't take rejection well. A man who escaped notice when police investigated her disappearance. The coldest of cold cases now threatening to get red hot with an increased body count if the avenging niece had her way.

Rita shelved her dreary evening plans and began prowling the department's electronic database. She soon discovered the case was so old, she'd have to dig into banker's boxes in the evidence room and had to rouse an unhappy off-duty officer to return to work to unlock it. Once inside she strolled aisle by aisle until she discovered the paperwork on a high shelf, climbed a ladder to retrieve the box and then returned to her desk.

Opening the box the familiar scent of carbon paper filled Rita's nostrils and she began leafing through the dozens of pages of notes, forms, photos and other data sealed back in a time she still wanted to be an astronaut and thought boys were icky. Some things never change.

Sipping stone-cold dishwater coffee, Rita eventually happened upon interrogation reports. An Officer Charlene DeLisle interviewed a divemaster named Edward "Ted" Jenks, Australian national. It was evident that Mr. Jenks wasn't awfully helpful in questioning and a background check revealed a history of sexual assault charges back home, no convictions. "Keep an eye on this one" was scrawled in a margin.

Rita quickly searched the sheriff's department database hoping to find contact info for the now 70-something retired cop in the faint hope she might have more information, but learned instead the officer died in a car crash back in 2010. Jenks' U.S. record was clean, just a few speeding tickets -- like everybody else in the Keys, Detective Garcia included.

She checked the time: almost 10 p.m. Ms. Winstead feared this Ms. Perry might even now be luring the old horndog out for a night dive. A call to Britt Perry's cell went unanswered, ditto the Down Under shop's proprietors. Rita decided to swing by the beach house and then the shop nearby over for a looksee, a twenty-minute push with the cherry on top. She vaguely remembered a dock behind the shop off U.S. 1 -- she'd been called out there to investigate a stolen outboard motor about a decade or so before -- and recalled living quarters upstairs. She grabbed her coat and strapped on her sidearm.

Ted secured the Down Under II to the weather-beaten mooring buoy for the wreck of the Polk, located 80' to 125' below them. The gulf was flat as glass, moonlight painting the water silver. It turned into an ideal night for a dive after all, easing some of his earlier trepidations. And what was wrong about wanting to overwrite grim memories with a very pleasant one, all these years later?

Britt emerged from the cabin ready to dive. Ted's eyes widened as he drank in the two-piece Racerback suit his buddy had squeezed into, her breasts barely contained by the top. Maggie turned to see her buddy begin to harden under his aussieBum briefs.

"Down boy," she said with a smile as she slipped into her tank straps. "You know the deal."

Ted neared her. "Aw, where's the harm of a little foreplay, love?"

Maggie reached up and traced the outline of the impressive skin diver with her fingers, inducing it to breach the waistband. But she quickly and teasingly withdrew.

"I'm down to fuck, Ted, accent on down," she reminded him. "Gear up. I promise it will be worth the wait."

"Not that I'm not enjoying the view, but it's going to be a little cool down there -- don't you think a wetsuit might be in order?"

Maggie tugged on her fins and cinched her weight belt. "What's the matter Ted, afraid the moray eel won't be able to come out to play?" One final poke at the man's bottomless ego.

Ted shrugged and finished suiting up. In a minute they were ready and it was time for the drill.

"We drop straight down the mooring line. Stay close. The current kicks hard near the bottom."

Britt smiled and tested her regulator. "Don't worry about me. I'll stick real close."

Ted eyed her closely, not quite sure what he would find at the bottom. "Keep an eye on your computer. I'll lead the way, but remember we're going into some very dark places, overhead environments. Lot of divers freeze up in those conditions. Doesn't matter how confident they are at the surface."

"I like the dark. That's where everything fun is," she said as she heaved herself off the bench and headed for the platform.

"Okay, then. You stay on my right. No wandering off. If anything feels off, we abort. I've got a lovely mattress below deck. Got it?"

"I didn't come all this way for dry humping, baby" she replied with a wink.

Ted swung his arm out to the gulf. "Ladies first," he said. Maggie took a stride off the platform and the dive had begun.

After finding the beach house dark and Britt's car gone, at 10:30 Rita was rapping on the door of the shop before she stepped back called out for either Jenks brother. An intoxicated Bruce poked his head out the window cussing out the cop and telling her to sod off. She glared up at the old drunk and produced her shield, telling him to get his wrinkled butt downstairs on the double.

It didn't take long to figure out both Bruce's big brother and the operation's small dive boat were gone. Bruce then opened a locker and found Ted's equipment, including underwater torches, all taken. Bruce was puzzled to see the Down Under II missing as he insisted there were no scheduled dives on the books. He had no idea what time Ted had sailed off on his voyage of the damned but seemed to remember hearing engines firing up maybe an hour before.

Rita frowned and looked out at the still surface of the gulf. It's a big puddle, she thought -- where the hell would they be? She quickly questioned Bruce about potential wrecks Ted and Britt might be diving, and the kid brother reeled off a few names of sites spread over a distance of five to ten miles from the dock. Needle in a haystack time.

Then she had a notion. "Which is the deepest, the most dangerous?"

The addled man put his head in his hands as though he was reassembling it. Then he brightened.

"The Polk. Yes, that fits the bill alright. Deep, dangerous, dive operators like us steer well clear of it."

"Show me on a map."

Bruce opened the shop, turned on the fluorescent lights and as they chattered to life, he was already tracing his fingers across a large map on the wall, tapping a red dot furthest from shore.

"This is it," he said. "It's a fair toot. You're gonna need a fast boat."

Rita put her hand out. "Your keys, if you please."

Maggie and Ted's flashlights sliced through the water down to the wreck lurking below. They descend slowly, bubbles rising in gusts toward the surface world Ted would never see again. She hung back, just a little, her fingers brushing against the knife in the scabbard strapped to her right calf. But she wouldn't need the blade.

Ted looked over his shoulder at the woman behind him, a smile emerging from behind his regulator, anticipation growing, wondering what delights this very odd woman planned to visit upon him. As she promised, diving in light kit in cool water made no difference after all. His cock had already begin inflating, the time for their rendezvous nearly at hand. He was already a member of the Mile High/Hundred Foot club, but his card was a little dated. He felt young again. But mostly horny and ravenous.

He pointed to a gash in the hull, the Polk resting on its side like a sleeping monster, and she followed him inside. Memories of the last time he visited flooded into his mind like an old nightmare. It was on a night like this, actually, with that young woman with the long black hair. He couldn't remember her name. She said she wanted to examine nocturnal pelagics in a deep-water environment, a lame pretext if he'd ever heard one, like an invitation to come up to see my etchings.

Ted might have misread that situation -- he was on top of her before she knew it, he could hear her scream through her regulator, anger and fear in her eyes behind the mask. Maybe she should have just gone with the flow. Then she pulled the knife and ripped at his donger. That left a mark. Bad, bad move darlin'. He shoved her into that cabin, sealed the hatch. Watched her scream some more. That got him unexpectedly excited, watching her beg for her life through the port hole. Then she disappeared from view, desperately seeking another way out. There wasn't one.

Ted shook his head to dismiss the memories. It would be different this time with a willing, sexy partner. He poked his light into a tight berthing compartment -- yes, that would do nicely. He turned his head to seek the approval of his lover. She was gone.

Rita gripped the wheel as Down Under I raced across the water in the desperate hope she might get to the wreck of the Polk in time. Wind had picked up, and the ship was beginning to rock as the surface was no longer as smooth and pleasant as it was when she pushed off. The drunken little brother wanted to come along for the ride but the last thing she needed was Ted's possible partner in crime underfoot. She had absolutely no idea what she was getting into or who might be slaying whom -- if anyone. She did tip the Coast Guard what she was up to, but it would be over an hour before they could scramble any support to the scene. Rita didn't think she had that kind of time.

The bumpy ride made her curse her decision to order in tacos for lunch. They weren't all that great going down and she was anxious not to see them again anytime soon. Rita looked over her shoulder at a small selection of charged tanks strapped to the benches on both sides of the craft and in her quick recon of the deck below she spotted a shorty suit, some masks and a couple regulators.

It had been years since Rita dove with the state police marine patrol and was relieved when she could finally retire that wetsuit -- she'd seen enough bloated corpses and bloated alligators containing parts of corpses to last a lifetime. But now, once more into the breach. She only hoped her fat ass would fit into the suit below.

Aghast, Ted looked around quickly -- where the hell did she go? He checked his computer -- they had maybe five more minutes at this depth before having to push off for the surface, leaving a little time for decomp. He took his hungry eyes off her for maybe 15 seconds to check out the mess as a potential lovenest. And...she disappeared.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder. He spun about and his eyes widened in shock. The woman floated before him, stark naked, without gear, unmasked and fins-free. She smiled and crooked her finger, beckoning him to follow. And he did, startled that anyone would be daft enough to doff her equipment at this depth. In seconds they entered a tight chamber and he could see this is where she intended to fuck him -- her gear strewn across the floor. Crazy bitch, he thought, knowing she would need to breathe very soon and reluctant to share what little supply he had left.

But Maggie produced no hand signals, no pointing to her lips or thumping her bobbing tits. She got down to business right away. She expertly tugged his suit off and in a second she opened her mouth and descended to his engorged cock, swallowing it whole while gripping his ass cheeks to hold herself in place as she sucked him enthusiastically. Ted groaned loudly into his reg, the sound echoing off the rusted superstructure of the wreck. This woman lived life on the edge, he thought to himself while wondering how far she would go, admiring her impressive technique and breathholding capacity.

Soon Ted felt his cum rising, grunting harder and harder as she crushed his balls in one hand and fingered his asshole with the other like the mermaid whore that she was. He tried to hold off, but there wasn't much time left anyway -- he'd have to service her topside on the mattress in the boat. They had to do this again.

He was cumming, and rocked his head back and felt his jizz explode in the woman's hot mouth. He closed his eyes and drifted back until he heard his tank clang off the wall in the chamber. He opened his eyes when he heard another ring of metal on metal -- the door to the chamber closing!