As I got in I pulled another cigarette out of my pack and lit it up, sliding my sunglasses on during the process. Spencer Carlin that name sounded all too familiar to me. I had to get a background ran on her when I got back to the station. I put my hands on the steering wheel; it was sizzling hot from the early California morning sun. I flipped on the air conditioning; it was going to be a scorching day in the city of angels.

As soon as I got into the station I pulled up everything that I could on the victim. She was 24 years old and was working at a local jewelry store while finishing up her masters degree in international business. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and lived in Beavercreek, Ohio up until the time she was 16. That was when her school records were transferred to King High in Los Angeles.

I knew King High all too well. I graduated from there, the same class as her. But I never knew her. I knew that her name sounded familiar, but I never figured that I actually knew a part of her in some way. She was a cheerleader, just under the head cheer-bitch herself, Madison Duarte. She graduated with honors, top fifteen of our class.

There was a knock on my office door, “Come in.”

My partner Sam Cameron came walking in, “Sorry I’m late.”

I laughed to myself, “Long night?”

Everyone in the department swore that we were sleeping together. But that wasn’t the case at all. We kept our private lives hidden from the rest of the world. Sam talked, walked, and looked like any other straight man working in the department. And I was by no means a butch. But Sam liked his boys and I…well…I liked my girls. But we let everyone else believe what they wanted.

“Let’s just say that Kevin…was…I actually don’t think that there’s a word to describe how kinky he is.”

I made a mock gagging motion with my mouth, “Too much info.”

He smiled, “I figured that you would say that. So what do we have this wonderful Tuesday morning?”

“Homicide.”

“Really, who’s the lucky victim?” He reached for the case file on my desk.