Please read chapters 1 and 2 of
A New Dawn
and all of
Intervention
before you read this one. Some of this won't make a lot of sense unless you do.
There's something about a sunny day at the beach in Southern California. Sure, it can be clear and sunny and warm anywhere. But unlike most of the United States, in SoCal you don't have the humidity and you don't have the multitudes of airborne bugs. The Pacific Ocean stretches as far west as you can see or even imagine, a deep blue foundation topped by glimmering white peaks. Depending upon which beach you happen to be at you'll see people lying in the sun, swimming, surfing or body surfing or windsurfing, kayaking, biking, roller blading, lifting weights, playing volleyball, picnicking, painting, hawking questionable goods and services, or almost every other manner of activity you could imagine. You almost never see any tourism commercials for Southern California. It doesn't need them. If you aren't afraid of the occasional earthquake, you pretty much want to be here.
I was naked and sweating in the sun in the backyard of my Malibu almost-beach house. We could have maybe afforded a house on the beach but your bang for the buck increases dramatically on the other side of Pacific Coast Highway, and the farther east you're willing to go the more you can get for your money. We were far enough east to have a house that was nicely sized for the three of us but still close enough that we could ride bikes to the beach whenever we were in the mood.
I was thinking about hopping in the pool to cool off when my cell phone rang. It was Meyer.
"We're up, John Boy" he said.
"It's our day off, Meyer. "What the hell?"
"Hey, it's your own fucking fault. You weren't so successful at this detective shit, they wouldn't want to use you so much. I'm rolling hot on the Jansen case; I don't want to pull away from it. Help me out here, Johnny."
Chelsea Jansen was the 15 year old daughter of a Los Angeles city council member. She had disappeared after school and had been found two days later, raped and strangled. There was never any question that the elite LAPD Robbery Homicide Division would be given the case and right now Meyer and I were the golden boys, solving new cases and the occasional cold case with a speed and frequency that baffled even us. We'd been transferred to Robbery Homicide as a team from Pacific Division because of our record for cases solved and convictions. A transfer to Robbery Homicide was really a promotion, not in rank or money but in prestige and case importance and visibility, and when we'd talked it over we'd both agreed that we wanted it.
Working a case has a lot in common with being a serious gambler. When you're on a roll you run with it and you keep at it and you don't stop. Momentum has a way of quickly getting away from you if you slow down or back off. I understood where Meyer was coming from.
"Okay, partner," I said. "What did we pick up?"
"B & E robbery. Rich hot shot software developer, lives not too far from you. They took his mom's jewelry and stuff he considers to be intellectual property, stuff that was going into his next software thingy. If you could just go up there and do the usual basic blocking and tackling and see if he has any ideas about who and why, that'd be great, kid."
I could tell his mind was already back on Chelsea Jansen.
"Meyer?"
"Best I can tell, Johnny, she was a sweet kid. Gorgeous. Good to people. A guided missile for college. I'm pretty fucking pissed off about this one."
Meyer was pretty fucking pissed off whenever anyone was murdered. But... a little girl.
"Meyer," I said. "We'll get the asshole. Hell, you're working the case on a Saturday. He doesn't stand a chance."
Meyer gave me the software guy's address and phone number. His place was no more than fifteen minutes from my house. I said goodbye to Meyer and hopped in the pool for one last refreshing little dip. As I climbed back out and shook the water from my hair the gate in the backyard fence opened and the neighbors' girl Laura appeared, dressed in a skimpy white bikini. She took two steps into the backyard, saw me standing there, and froze as the gate closed behind her.
"Hi, Laura," I said as I reached for the towel.
"Hi Johnny," she said. She watched, not moving, as I dried my hair. "Umm... you're naked."
I looked down at myself. "Holy cow... you're right!"
She laughed and walked towards me. "I was afraid you'd be mad at me for seeing you nude," she said.
I continued to dry off and said, "Kid, we told you that you could come over any time to use the pool, and this is any time. Maybe we should have also told you that this is very much a clothing optional zone and there's a chance that if you do come over you'll catch us in the buff. Now you know."
"Clothing optional zone?"
"Yep. We like to be nude. If that bothers you or your parents enough to keep you away, I understand. But I promise I'm just a guy who doesn't like to wear clothes unless he has to. You're safe with me."
"I'm okay with you being naked, Johnny," she said. She sat on a lounge chair and looked up at me. "It doesn't hurt that you're in great shape."
"Cool," I said as I wrapped the towel around my waist. I studied her swimsuit. "Besides, once you get that thing wet you may as well be naked yourself."
She looked down at her bikini. "Maybe," she said. "You want to find out?"
Uh-oh.
"I would indeed but I've gotta run. Cop stuff," I said.
"I could jump in and out really fast before you go," she said. "Just to test your theory."
It's a good thing I'd been getting regular sex and lots of it from two women that I dearly love; otherwise my typical lack of willpower might get me into some serious shit here. On the other hand, with my girls having been gone all week I wasn't about to take any chances with my libido.
"Laura, I could probably get in trouble just being naked in front of you. You're a truly gorgeous young woman. If you got naked too, who knows how deep the trouble might get? I really do have to run now. Enjoy the sun and the pool."
She looked disappointed and I chuckled as I walked to the house. You've still got it Johnny, I said to myself. You can attract underage girls. Maybe later you can try your luck at a retirement home.
I quickly showered and dried off and put on a lightweight wool Canali suit. I glanced out the window and saw that Laura was taking advantage of my clothing optional zone and tanning topless. I got my ass out of there fast and hit the road.
*****
I thought about calling ahead as I climbed the twisting hilly road but his place was so close that it didn't seem worth it. Fifteen minutes later I parked the car outside a very large house in a very secluded and quiet rural neighborhood. I walked up the driveway past a late model BMW M5, went to the door, and rang the bell.
I watched through the screen door as a pretty young girl walked down the hallway towards me. She was nude. My kind of place, I thought, and today was turning into my kind of day. Somehow her body, though small, managed to look lean and willowy and almost waif-like. Her long brunette hair was a perfect match for her light olive skin tone. It fell to just above her pert little nipples.
"May I help you?" she said.
I badged her and introduced myself and told her I was there to speak with the owner and his mother about the robbery.
"Please come in," she said as she opened the screen door. "My name is Esmeralda."
"Nice to meet you," I said as I walked past her and started towards the living room.
"Wait!" she said. "They're all..." She looked down at herself, then back at me. "Oh, shit," she said. "I'm sorry. We don't wear clothes very often around here and I honestly just forgot. If you'll please wait here I'll go put something on and then go out back and tell them all to get dressed, too."
"That's okay," I said. "I'm a nudist when I'm home, too. As long as they won't be embarrassed, neither will I."
She laughed. "Embarrassment isn't something we're very big on here, either," she said. "Okay then, follow me." I watched her ass as she led me towards the backyard. I'm in a committed relationship but hey, she was right there in front of me, her butt muscles flexing as she walked. Besides, I'm a detective. Even I can't control my amazing powers of observation.
We walked past a large sliding glass door and into a small orgy in progress. I stopped and stared. A man was on his back on a lounge chair giving oral sex to the very pretty young blonde girl perched above him, who in turn was kissing the beautiful older woman facing her, who in turn was bouncing up and down on the man's rather large cock. On the lounge next to them a very fit blonde woman with very large breasts was locked in a 69 with a shorter, more voluptuous Hispanic woman. Moans and little words of encouragement formed the soundtrack for the scene of entangled lovers.
Years ago I'd spent some time on the set of a porn shoot in conjunction with a case I was working. I saw a lot of guys with big dicks and a lot of naked skinny young beauties and many different kinds of sex, but nothing that compared with this. Porn actors did it for the money and although the sex was real, for the most part the love and the lust and maybe even the enjoyment were fake. But these five people weren't faking anything. It was an incredibly erotic sight and I realized that my own cock was suddenly hard as a rock and pushing against my trousers, a fact not lost on Esmeralda.
"I know," she said. "I've seen them do it countless times and you'd think I'd be used to it. But every time I see any of them having sex in any combination I get so incredibly horny." She stepped in front of me and backed into me until my cock was nestled in the crack of her ass. She grabbed my hands and placed them on her abdomen as we watched the lovers go at it. I sighed.
"You're beautiful, but I can't," I said as I gently pulled away and stepped back just far enough so that we weren't touching. "I'm in a committed relationship. My lovers would have to be with me before we could do anything like this."
"Lovers? Plural?"
I sighed again. I'd been here for maybe ten minutes and had learned nothing relevant to my case. Meanwhile this young girl was getting my life's story. I'm an honest person but I normally don't volunteer personal information to total strangers. But my powers of observation and deduction told me that there was a fairly small chance that this particular group of people would be judgmental.
"Yes, plural, as in two women. I'm in a committed threesome, a triad. We've been together for almost a year now and it's working. We're in love with each other and although we do bring other women into our bed, we only do it when we're together."
"That's cool. I like the idea of commitment. Before my mom came to work for Thomas I was a good Catholic girl." She giggled. "Now I'm a bad Catholic girl."
"Where is your mom?"
She pointed. "That's her over there on top of Nela."
We were interrupted by grunting and panting from the young blond sitting on the man's face. "Tommy, I'm gonna cum!" she said. My super deduction powers told me that Tommy was most likely Thomas Barker, the man I was here to interview. Then her back arched and her face contorted and she literally screamed, just like my Dawn does. The man reached up and grabbed her breasts and rolled her nipples between his fingers and her scream got louder. Clearly he knew how best to give her pleasure.
