Sharon was a very pretty blond-haired, blue-eyed, very physically fit young police officer. She had a good social game and she was literally the most attractive lady cop in Chicago. She was recruited for undercover work and became pretty good at playing a junkie and hooker buying drugs. She got waitress and bartender jobs for surveillance. She drew the line at stripping or screwing though. It was tough enough being a gay woman on the force.
While working undercover as a junkie hooker she shot another man. There was a dangerous man moving through the Chicago ghetto beating, raping, and robbing hookers. He killed at least three hookers by stabbing two and shooting one that broke free to flee. He killed at least one pimp in a gunfight and badly wounded another.
Sharon spent numerous nights running around the targeted area buying dope and flashing cash.
Despite having an undercover back up nearby, the killer caught her completely by surprise. She was stumbling from a buy when she was tackled. The guy bodyslammed her so hard spit flew from her mouth. It whacked the wind out of her. The predator that pounced and jounced her down wrapped an arm around her neck from behind and dragged her into the shadows of an alley. He pricked her neck with a knife and coldly commented, “Struggle and I'll kill you."
Sharon reached down to smoothly raise her skirt and grab the palm-sized .32 caliber semi-automatic pistol tucked in her thigh holster. Rather than try breaking away from him and his knife, she risked a kick with his momentum propelling them back a step fast. She turned her neck and lowered her pistol down firing in his foot. His knife nipped the side of her neck in a caress that would have meant death had it been over her throat. Instead the knife sliced deep without cleaving any artery. She was shocked that he didn't drop her as the bullet snipped through his shoe and flogged through his foot. His response was a roar and he scrunched her tighter to him in the headlock as the knife rose for a fatal stroke.
Sharon raised her weapon firing a second shot that shattered his shinbone. He howled and she desperately kicked back into his pulling momentum. His knife dived down, sticking in her shoulder. This time they both fell backwards. Sharon wiggled wildly and risked firing high behind and above her. That bullet dug deep chewing in his chest. She popped a last shot that burrowed beside the other entry wound. His grip slipped from the twin torso taps and she kicked and ripped from his grip. She reached her feet pointing her pistol down at him with only one shot left. He tried to sit up, still clutching the knife. He dropped the blade to reach behind him where his gun was.
Sharon plugged his gut with her final bullet. He balled up groaning from that one.
"Done! Done!" Sharon called out hoping the team would hear her emergency word over the comm. Moments later the undercover cops waiting nearby rushed in. He was cuffed up. EMTs arrived soon afterwards. Sharon would later get a dozen stitches along the side of her neck and ten more where he stabbed her shoulder. Her assailant was a very muscular man and survived his battery of bullet holes.
His DNA was matched to numerous rapes, including three of the murdered ladies. His gun matched the weapon that killed one pimp and wounded the other. He was suspected in other rapes and murders, but that couldn't be proven. He was convicted on multiple heinous charges and received three life sentences with no chance at parole. Sharon did get a commendation and press recognition for stopping the serial killer the press called the “Prostitute Predator."
The recognition in the papers and TV news ruined her undercover abilities for a while. She went back to riding in a cruiser. Seven months later Homicide wanted to use her again. A pair of ski masked robbers had gone on a spree of robbing and killing dope dealers. Hooker bodies started turning up used, abused, and butchered. Sharon dyed her hair black and went back to playing a junkie hooker. She was soon tuned into all the local small time street dealers and then she started reaching the bigger dealers. Her trip through the drug world also led to her taking a part time bartender job at a bar where most of the victims had frequented. It was believed the two drug dealer killers met the victims at that bar. Sharon started partying with men from there that fit the profile a FBI profiler did for the investigation.
Two of the possible suspects drank in her bar often, but weren't dope dealers. They were users. They had money to drink, use drugs, and pick up party girls, but neither worked a job. Although they were young black men with clean records they wanted white girls. They displayed a contempt for the black girls looking to party. The first time the pair tried to get her to go home with them she refused. It was discussed amongst the detectives and decided they'd go ahead with a set up plan.
The pair were back in the bar two nights later and this time Sharon whispered she had some real good crack and asked if they had a cool place nearby to party. To sweeten the deal she slipped them a couple hits to use in the bathroom. The guys smoked the dope in the bathroom like customers often did. Sharon arranged to leave early.
The men took her home. Once there, they smoked some dope and talked.
At some point without warning, one of the men grabbed her from behind in a headlock. The other man threw her purse aside and tore her top and bra off. They did so in deathly silence without words. Sharon couldn't even breathe, much less scream. She tried to pull her small pistol from her thigh holster. The guy in front of her was swift enough to snatch it before she could use it. She was bodyslammed down on the floor where her shoes, skirt, and panties were torn off and mouth covered. Her eyes bulged in horror seeing zip cuffs come out in one man's hands.
Sharon only had one weapon left. Her thick blond hair was so long that she often stuck two long ceramic hairpins in the back to pull some of it from her face. They resembled seven inch long knitting needles. For Sharon they represented a weapon. As one of the men snatched her left wrist to cuff, she reached in her hair pulling one of her pins and speared the sharp end in the man's chest. He gasped in shock at the pin piercing his pectoral.
Pragmatically, she jerked it free and nailed his neck while he was looking down at the blood jetting from his chest. His neck next spewed a deluge from his cut carotid artery. He delivered a blow that drubbed Sharon's skull and made her see darkness with red spots strobing. She bit the other man's hand on her mouth and she fought the descending darkness screaming and blinding stabbing backwards. Her pin pierced flesh again, arrowing into the man's arm. He fractured her arm as he seized and twisted it to make her release the pin.
Her back-up police team used their battering ram to drive through the doorway and storm the scene. Before the rapists could reach their weapons they were looking into yawning muzzles and they surrendered. In the aftermath, the search warrant located a pistol that matched the ballistics from the prior murder/robbery scenes. The cops recovered gold chains, watches, and rings that belonged to some of the victims. In addition, their DNA was recovered at some of the scenes. In the end they pled out to only two homicides with chances at parole after twenty five years. The state was sure they'd killed the other dealers and hookers, but going to multiple trials was risky for both sides.
Sharon took the detective’s exam and was promoted to detective.
The End
Bio:
Tom Kropp’s work has appeared in Chiron Review, Churches, Children and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, The Horror Zine, Freedom Fiction Journal, Short-Story Me, Dark Harbor, Blood Moon Rising, Flash Phantoms, Phantomania, Lowlife Lit, The Listening Eye, J Journal, Evening Street Review, Conceit, Spotlight on Recovery, Muscle and Fitness, Outdoor Life and many other magazines. His play Jailhouse Confessions was performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC in 2019. You can find more of his writings at tomkropp.wordpress.com. He has many fantasy novels available free at Google Play Books in audiobooks and eBooks.
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