Trey R. Barker - Official Website and Blog

Guest Post: Jury Duty

Trey — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:59:31 +0000

The joke is…those who end up on jury duty are those not smart enough to get out of jury duty. But sometimes, someone doesn’t try and get out of jury duty. Sometimes, a person wants to do it. Either because they’ve never done it and want to see behind the curtain, so to speak. Or [...]

CopStories: “I’m being held against my will….”

Trey — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 22:58:01 +0000

It was late, a quiet night filled with complete emptiness. And then this: “BU10…Bureau County.” “Go ahead,” I said. A woman called, my dispatcher said. She was being held against her will…by her husband. He had her locked up in a room and was coming back in a few minutes and would probably take the [...]

My, what a big…backhoe…you have!

Trey — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 19:40:15 +0000

Seemed like an easy gig. (cue the banjos….) A friend of mine, recently gone from journalism to office manager for a lawyer, hired me to serve some court papers. I serve papers all the time as a deputy and figured this wouldn’t be much different. No marked squad, no gun on my hip, no badge [...]

CopStories: “Puh-leeeeeeze don’t take me to JAIL!”

Trey — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:46:49 +0000

“Dude! Puh-leeeeeeze don’t take me to jail!” “Calm down.” “I don’t wanna go to jail!” He’d been driving down the center of the road. It was like this guy’s personal lane extended from the middle of each lane inward. Most drivers try to stay between the lines, but he preferred to stay on the line. [...]

CopStories: Can I Get My Meat?

Trey — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 22:58:20 +0000

So I’m heading north on one of our state highways, some cool Miles Davis bop playing smooth in the car, just chilling and trying to decide on a plan for my patrol night. But the guy coming at me? He’s blowing a hard 109 miles an hour. “Whoa fuck,” I said, ’cause I’m a brilliant [...]

A Bit’o'Cross-Blogging

Trey — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:31:07 +0000

The wonderful Patti Abbott, a huge supporter and fan and writer of crime fiction, has allowed me a few lines to guest blog. I’ve written a short piece about how I came to write a particular story, ‘A Good Boy.’ That story is included in Shotgun Honey’s first anthology, Both Barrels. That antho, full of [...]

CopStories: Suffer the Little Children, Pt. 3

Trey — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 20:07:54 +0000

Turns out it wasn’t a shitty idea. Just a looooooong, tedious one. We’d spent hours tearing the suspect’s house apart, looking at all his media, all his hard drives, all his computers. And while we’d seen pathways that pointed to files that might have been kiddie porn, we had no kiddie porn. Command had just [...]

CopStories: Suffer The Little Children, Pt. 2

Trey — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 16:16:24 +0000

The line was six cops deep. Each officer touched the shoulder of the man in front of them. Everyone crouched low, weapon out, fingers indexed away from the trigger. Up front a cop carried a battering ram. The next guy had a ballistic shield. Six helmets, six weapons, six officers holding their breath tightly in [...]

CopStories: Suffer The Little Children, Pt. 1

Trey — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 16:40:37 +0000

When I got there, the house was under siege. It was a nice house and it fit the neighborhood. Every house upper middle class, each groomed just so and color-coordinated, yards immaculate. Two vehicles in every driveway, usually a sedan and an SUV, both polished and gleaming in the early morning sun. Cats watched from [...]

CopStories: Hospital Dreamin’

Trey — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 20:11:08 +0000

I was parked at the old train depot in one of our small towns. Watching for speeders and drunks, listening for whatever might come along, generally chilling out. Working nights is sometimes quite exciting (such as the car crash I had recently but won’t be able to write about for a while yet) but sometimes [...]