Communion

Chapter 1

Detective Jane Rochester pulled up to St. Alexander's Church to find her Sergeant, Bill Isling, standing on the sidewalk with his arms crossed, gazing through her windshield with his typical "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed" stare.

As Bill approached the driver side door, Jane took a deep sigh before removing the keys from the ignition and preparing herself for the inevitable disciplinary tone awaiting her outside.

Without fail, Bill fired his warning shot as the driver side door opened, "Nice of you to join us! I only called you half an hour ago."

Despite Bill's seemingly casual approach, the stiffness of his body and the half-hearted smile he displayed as he surveyed the officers around him suggested he was a little more frustrated than usual.

Nevertheless, Jane couldn't help but shrug off the inquisition in her usual button-pushing way, "It's Sunday. You guys are lucky I even showed up."

As Jane got within an arm's length of Bill, he switched to a more desperate, hushed tone intended for only her to hear, "Look, you know I've got your back through this whole probation thing, but if you expect me to keep having it, you're gonna have to at least put some effort in."

Effort. What a joke. Jane had built up a 98% conviction rate in her six years as a Homicide Detective in this city, and that wasn't including the 3 cold cases she had solved in the past year.

Apparently, all it took to taint a near-perfect record was one altercation with the Mayor's son, resulting in her first and only suspension on record. Suddenly everyone started throwing around statements like, 'dangerous to her unit', and, 'unfit for service'.

The gossip didn't bother Jane. Words rarely did. Even when it came to the Mayor's son and his repeated sexual propositions, Jane took it all with a grain of salt for upwards of a year.

Even when she overheard other female officers complaining about the same tired pick-up lines that he had used on them, Jane quelled her anger and suppressed her rage. However, when his advances took a physical turn, that's when things began to come to a head.

Jane found her breaking point around the time that her second formal complaint was dismissed, claiming it was 'hearsay' despite the fact that her story lined up perfectly with at least ten other recently dismissed complaints of the same nature.

Putting her frustration and disappointment aside, Jane saw through the bureaucratic language. No one in the department was willing to do anything, for fear of losing what little funding they already had. It was no secret to government employees that the Mayor would do anything his predatory trust-fund brat of a son demanded, so long as he was persistent enough to annoy his father.

Not even a week later, Jane found herself at a gala fundraiser for inner city schools when suddenly she felt an unwelcome hand on her lower back.

She could smell the stink of his cheap cologne as he leaned in to whisper in a voice that dripped with slime, "I hear you've been saying things about me. You should say it to my face."

Jane held still, trying not to give him the pleasure of making her recoil in disgust. He gripped her elbow as the violence in his voice began to grow, "Go ahead," he pressed his pelvis against Jane's backside, "Tell me I'm a bad boy."

Jane felt the volcano inside her erupt. Something needed to be done. Not just for the purposes of self-preservation, but also for the protection for all the others he had decided to prey upon, or would in the future.

In hindsight, Jane felt a little guilty about punching the poor bastard so hard. There was no doubt that he deserved to be hit, just maybe not with such expert precision that his nose would explode like that; and certainly not when the press was around to capture the whole thing.