Sleeping with the Fishes

Chapter One- To The Grave

*(A/N) Occasional swearing but I try to avoid it as much as possible.

I'd also like to expressly say that none of the views held by any of the characters necessarily represent my own. Most were written to be terrible people or even just below average. While I hope you enjoy reading this book, it does contain several sensitive topics such as sexism, violence against women, pedophilia, light homophobia, and grooming. Please do not read if you will be upset by any of the above. I love you all :)*

Ryan assessed the corpse.

It- no, she, had only been missing a week but her time in the river had decayed her past the point of belief, in a few more she'd be past the point of even recognition. Almost like she had been gone, passed, screw the euphemisms, dead, for months rather than mere days, it definitely seemed that way from the smell as well. Ryan hadn't seen many real dead bodies before; in fact he hadn't seen any. Perhaps his reaction would have been less severe if he had. Perhaps it would have been less severe if he hadn't known the girl.

"Well, that's one mystery solved," boomed a voice from behind him. Even as a supposedly hardened cop, Ryan admittedly jumped. The bank was near silent apart from the gurgle of the river, even though it was crawling with labbies, mostly borrowed from the next department. Ryan supposed they were so silent out of respect for such a beautiful morning. No one wanted to spoil it; the body did that well enough.

"What do you mean?" Ryan mumbled sullenly, he shoved his hands into his pockets to hide their trembling and turns towards the source of the voice. He looked up at Sarge, the boomer, who had some unidentifiable glint in his eyes. He nudged a rock near the girl, which fell on a decayed hand with a slight squelch.

"Where she's been," Sarge says, his voice was much too large in the tranquil edge of the wood, it made the younger cop flinch, "though I doubt any other suckers had the poor sense to be looking for her.  Pretty sure everyone every Tom, Dick and Harry in town knew she was quite the little-."

He was cut off by Ryan coughing sharply, and he didn't go on. They both knew what he was going to say. It didn't need to be said. Not about a dead girl. Ryan squinted at Sarge and examined him.

Sarge was not a man to be crossed. Though he was pushing sixty, the Sergeant, who was not a sergeant by any official means, but known as one to anyone too scared to use his real name, was still packed with muscle and bigotry. Ryan was tall but standing next to the Sarge he was practically a dwarf, and Sarge didn't waste a single inch of his height on particularly pleasant qualities. Ryan had been stuck with Sarge since he was a rookie right out of the academy. There was quite possibly no one who he wished to punch more, and he would too, if his chance of being beaten to a pulp was less than certain. Ryan wasn't a fool, he knew his limits.

The young man's eyes were drawn back towards the corpse. Even bruised and waterlogged she was still distinctive and even, dare he say it, obviously once attractive. Or maybe it was just that Ryan had seen her so many times before the river had washed away that beauty, and large chunks of flesh. Back when she could still breathe, still move those smooth elegant limbs, still twist those pump lips into a smile, or scowl, or pout, it was all anyone could do not to stare. At least her face was still mostly intact, mostly.

On second thought, he decided the latter must be the case as he turned away, eye twitching slightly. After all, she looked like she'd been dragged through Hell and back; several times, and maybe not all the way back.  Every time he closed his eyes he could see it. Her doe brown eyes, wide open, huge and unnerving, that had bled from a stupefying blow to her head, they were dark and empty, like an alien. Her lips, and most of her to be honest, were mottled blue and grey. Her artfully, meticulously arranged corkscrew curls had become so limp, matted and dirty that they looked more like strips of seaweed stapled to her scalp than something akin to what you might find atop a starlets head. It was the first time Ryan had seen her look anything but perfect. The only thing that could possibly identify her was the dress.