Foley & Rose Mysteries Collection - Books 1-4

Chapter 8-1

Why, Sam mused, did police officers of both genders, but predominately male police officers, seem to be pre-occupied with s*x? Not the scientific, or biological aspects of s*x, but how to get as much as possible, as often as possible. Indeed, in a few cases that sprung immediately to mind, he suspected it wasn’t of paramount importance that both participants were of the opposite gender. He supposed the pre-occupation was not exclusive to members of the police force, it was just he saw more examples of it here. It had to be a power thing, he guessed. There were any number of psychologists specialising in such matters who would confirm the adage - power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Sam never considered himself to possess anything other than a perfectly normal s****l appetite. He was not into kinky s*x, or same gender s*x, or indeed any s*x that required him to dress in anything that had feathers hanging from it. He had, he believed, a healthy, respectful attitude towards members of the opposite s*x, with perhaps a couple of exceptions. Jennifer Foley was one of those exceptions.

“Slut” was not a word that fit comfortably in his vocabulary, but if one was to apply the general perception of the meaning of the word to someone, it could easily be Jennifer.

Jenifer had cheated on Russell for as long as Sam had known them both, and he became aware of her infidelities long before her husband did. Or perhaps, for reasons known only to Russell, he did know but chose the path of ignorance. In the fullness of time, he suspected something was going on, but he would have to be deaf as well as blind not to.

Sam also knew Jennifer preferred police officers when it came to her infidelities. He knew because the rumours were far too consistent for them to have no basis in fact. But Russell was his friend and partner. While he knew the smart thing to do would be to talk to him about the rumours, he was never able to bring himself to broach the subject, and it was a failing on his part he long regretted.

He wondered if perhaps it was just, for the most of his adult life, and certainly since the onset of his own sexually active years, he had been around police officers, and he really had nothing else with which to compare. Although, if he were honest with himself, he didn’t think there was any other section of the community offering as many and varied range of s****l exploits as the police force could. He was sure most of it was nothing more than boastful, chest pounding talk. Cops generally liked to think of themselves as a macho bunch of individuals, but he knew there was, for the most part, a foundation of truth to the rumours and innuendo circulating with monotonous regularity through the ranks.

Notwithstanding his error in judgement with Jennifer Foley, Sam found himself wondering if his apparent normality in regards to his appreciation and practice of things s****l left him wanting in some small way. He preferred to think not. He liked s*x as well as the next man, or woman. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy his liaison with Jennifer the day she came to him carrying a bottle of whiskey and wearing no underwear, he did. He enjoyed it as much as he had ever enjoyed s*x with anyone, in truth, more than most. Jennifer was good at it. She had, after all, plenty of practice, and it was far more than the deceit it involved on both their parts that made it a memorable day for him. When she did those things to him, thoughts of deceit, morality, or a sense of right or wrong came much later; after she was gone. That was when he consumed the last of the whiskey she left behind, and the best part of another bottle of his own as guilt descended upon him and threatened to consume him.

It wasn’t as if he had cheated on his wife as so many others of his colleagues had, and did, with scant regard for the ethics of their behaviour. He was single. He was not seeing anyone on a regular basis, hence no one was getting hurt – except Russell Foley. Sam had cheated on his best friend, and betrayed that friendship. Afterwards he did feel it, and he didn’t like the feeling.

Now, a year later, while he had managed to consign the memory of it to a place where it would hopefully remain dormant and distant in the overall scheme of things, it still reared its ugly head occasionally. Just to remind him that he was human after all, and perhaps when it came right down to it, he wasn’t really much different from anyone else who might find themselves in a similar situation.

* * *

It was a short drive from his home to the place where Sam played squash every week at this time. He started playing the game a couple of years earlier following a challenge from Kevin Thiele, a solicitor with the Australian Legal Aid Service. Their respective work commitments notwithstanding, the two met every Thursday afternoon to thrash out their individual frustrations on the court.

Sam felt no more like playing today than running a marathon. It was hot, he was tired, and he was still suffering lingering effects of his night on the town with Paddy O’Reily. He forgot to ring Thiele and cancel, and he would be inside warming up already. He saw Thiele’s car parked near the entrance. Perhaps a good, hard workout might blow away the cobwebs and the lethargy.

Thiele had never beaten Sam on the squash court; not once in the two years they had played. He had, over the time they had been friendly rivals, become mildly philosophical about his consistent failure at the game. Sam was a particularly good player; but Thiele was a particularly bad one.

Kevin Thiele had never been a person possessed of any great motivation. At fifty, his life to this point never really reached any great heights. It would be fair to say it had barely gotten off the ground. It was more a case of a series of attempts amounting to very little. Even during the years studying law, he never seemed able to display any genuine interest in his future as a solicitor. His position at the bottom of his graduation class was proof of his lack of enthusiasm for the profession.

Thiele was, by any standard, an uninspiring man who began in his current position as a nervous, quietly spoken, recently graduated young lawyer, and was still in the same job twenty-six years later. He approached his work with considerable lack of both self-confidence and self-belief. To those who knew him, he appeared to live his life and carry out his duties with just sufficient expertise to ensure his continued survival in the legal profession, and the business of life itself.

Every once in a while, he thought how nice it would be to beat Sam one day. While they were pleasant enough thoughts, they were not powerful enough to spur him into putting in any extra training time on the court, or into seeking specialised coaching with a view to improving his technique. His ability as a squash player never improved much beyond awkward and uncoordinated. It seemed he had long ago accepted it was his lot in life to always come in behind the leader. Someone had to lose, or so his brand of logic told him. There had to be a certain number of losers in life; at least one for every winner, he reasoned. It was not something that depressed him particularly. That’s the way it was. Those were the cards he was dealt. He could either play them or fold, but he couldn’t change them. He was one of those whose destiny it was to be always positioned somewhere closer to the back of the pack than the front.

* * *

Thiele sensed something lacking in Sam’s approach to the game this time. Although the outcome was never in doubt, his opponent was not attacking the ball with the same enthusiasm, and it reflected in the score; the gap between them wasn’t as wide as it usually was.

Sam was always going to win, but this time, Thiele got closer than ever before to causing an upset. Being the negative soul that he was however, he never for a moment considered his game might be, at long last, on the improve. Rather, that Sam must be pre-occupied with something or other, and hence the uncharacteristic slump in his performance.

They sat on a bench outside the glass wall that gave them a view into the court they had just vacated. Their eyes followed the style of two attractive young ladies playing as though they were born with squash racquets in their hands. For a while, they sat in silence watching the girls darting around the court, their tiny skirts offering occasional glimpses of tanned, well-proportioned thighs.

With a towel draped over his shoulders, Sam wiped at perspiration dripping into his eyes and running freely down his face. He took a long sip from the orange juice provided by his playing partner; the agreed on trophy for the winner of their weekly game. It had not failed to escape Sam"s notice that Thiele often pre-paid for the juice when they registered and paid for the court time; such was his lack of faith in his chances of beating him.

“I almost whipped your arse this time,” Kevin announced, nudging Sam in the rib cage.

“Kevin,” Sam laughed, “you could start two days before me, and I’d still beat you. Don’t you ever get tired of the floggings?”

“You keep playing like you played today mate, and it will only be a matter of time before you are buying me the juice.”

“Dream on, pal,” Sam said, his eyes still following the girls on the court.

“Do I detect a pre-occupation with matters not related to thrashing me on the squash court?” Kevin asked.

“Sorry, mate,” Sam apologised. “I’ve got a few things on my mind.”

“Anything I can help you with?”

“What, are you moonlighting as a counsellor now?” Sam joked.

“No, just asking as a friend.”

Sam turned to face the ruddy-faced, sweating solicitor. “Tell me, you are around the courts every day, what’s the talk in the corridors about this spate of murders?”

“s**t,” Kevin shrugged. “What do I know? No one tells me anything. There’s a rumour doing the rounds that a few of the magistrates and judges are a little skittish, but s**t, I just keep to myself. Always have. I prefer it that way. I doubt that I know any more than you do. You know me. I just front up every day and offer what meagre, mostly inadequate defence I can to the unwashed, unemployed, brain-dead drop-kicks who don’t have enough common sense to duck behind a tree when they decide to take a piss in the street.”

“Don’t you ever aspire to anything even slightly greater than defending society’s sludge pit every day of your working life?” Sam asked.

“Someone’s gotta do it,” Kevin shrugged. “Besides, I’ve been doing it for so long now that I’ve come to develop an affinity with the s**t heads.”

“Well,” Sam said, “I for one, am glad I left all that behind me.”

“You don’t miss it?” Kevin asked.

“I did at first,” Sam answered. “Until I got the P.I. business up and running; now I don’t have a lot of time to think about it.”