Category: crime fiction

Chapter 2 – First Impressions

Senior Inspector Jackson Tyler reached for his trench coat. The floor beneath him lurched, as if he was on a bus as a driver locked the brakes. He then fell forward, as if someone jostled him trying to get off it. He caught himself, hands on the sill of his closet, and froze.

The vision coalesced. He was in a long dark corridor lined with benches and windows.

“God, I’m tired,” he said as he rubbed his eyes.

Again, he reached for his trench coat, but instead, grabbed a green and gold letter jacket, the kind a teenager wore.

“Not real. Not real.” He shut his eyes.

When he opened them, his hand was on his trench.

When he turned, he was on a bus.

“What the…is this a school bus? A Greyhound?” Jack shook his head. He didn’t have time for this. A child was missing. Yes, he needed distraction from worrying about Tomi, but not the distraction of a vision.

He put on his coat, grabbed his phone and keys, and stepped into the hall. A frizzle of anxiety clenched his muscles. “Not now, not now, not now,” he chanted as he locked his door.

With his mind partly on the job, partly at the hospital, and partly on the vision, he jogged down five stories of stairs to the foyer of his apartment building. Each step nudged his mind toward reality. A missing child always sent everyone’s heart into their throats, and Jack was no different. Time was paramount. Each minute that ticked by lessened the chance of recovery. He left the building at a run and kept his speed the first two blocks north. He slowed his pace to turn east and to jump two puddles. His heart rate was up, and he felt more grounded to the task in hand.

On the far corner in front of his destination, the light was low, emanating from one source – a yellow bug light over the door of the building. Sleepy residents leaned out of their darkened windows, yelling, “Shut up,” and, “Go home,” at a crowd of punks seemingly unbothered by misty, damp air, who jostled each other in mock martial arts posturing. He counted five males and three females. The youths’ movements were just uncoordinated enough to indicate that it was the end of a revel, not the start.

He stopped about forty yards from them to pull his credentials and check the security strap on the gun hidden under his jacket. Revelers were unpredictable, and it was unclear if he was seeing exhaustion, drunkenness, or a group high on something. Without backup, and with as much bravado as he could muster, he approached them. “Inspector Tyler, Detroit PD.”

One female looked up and ran. Alerted by her reaction, the rest followed like a flock of crows. A ninth person hiding in the shadows stepped into the yellow light. The man, puffed up like a threatening bear, clenched his fists and faced Jack. Jack was tall; this man was taller by at least two inches. His shoulders were broader by half.

“What the fuck do you want, pig?” he said. A momentary gleam flashed in his eyes that said, ‘I know you.’

It seemed like ages since Jack had walked the neighborhood, at least three since he’d played basketball in a nearby gym. Had they had a previous encounter? He zipped through his mental catalog of remembered faces, but could not find this man in it. Rattled, Jack replied with authority, “Excuse me. I need to talk to a lady in that building behind you.”

The kid swaggered closer to Jack. “You ain’t got no business with anyone here,” he growled.

“Look man,” said Jack, flashing his credentials with one hand, while holding his other up in a peace offering as he also closed the distance between them. “I didn’t make the call. There is a distraught mother in there worried about her kid. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

“You see a kid, here?” he snarled.

Just one, thought Jack, close enough to see that the man was barely in his twenties, twenty-five at most. “Look, I have no problem with you; I just want to talk to the worried mom.”

The kid backed down a notch.

“We good?” said Jack.

“Phillip, you let that po-leese by, you hear?” said a woman from the second story.

“Ain’t Phillip no more. Folks ‘round here calls me Rat Snatcher,” he yelled at her.

“Rat Snatcher.” She belly laughed. “I don’t give no nevermind ‘bout that. You let that officer up here, you hear me, Phillip?”

The bear of a kid cut his sleeve and shoved his fist toward Jack. Then he turned and swaggered back into the shadows.

“Your mother too, buddy,” Jack muttered as he ran up the stairs to the door of the building. He could feel Rat Snatcher’s acute stare hot against his back, but did not turn to confirm it.

The distraught caller was waiting at the door for him, coincidentally the same woman who yelled at the bear named Phillip. She had been crying. Her soft, round body trembled, as would anyone’s who was missing a child.

Jack approached her. “Ma’am,” he said. “Senior Inspector Jackson Tyler, Detroit Police Department. I understand you called about a missing child?”

She nodded affirmatively.

“Claudine. Claudine Fischer. Folks around here call me Grandma Fischer.”

“Ms. Fischer,” Jack said, “can we step inside and talk about it?”

She opened her door, and moved to the side to allow him entrance. As Jack entered, she said, “My grandson, Evan. He didn’t come home tonight after work.”

“Sit. Tell me about it.”

When she shuffled toward her easy chair, it was obvious she had bad hips. Jack reached out to help her. Then he sat on a love seat across from her.

She had furnished the living room humbly, but it was tidy. Softly colored crocheted throws hung on the backs of both small couches, and she had draped another over the worn, gray easy chair in which she sat. The table and shelf surfaces looked dusted. There were a few books, which for some reason surprised him, and an open Bible on an oval occasional table near the chair, which didn’t.

To his right, the kitchen dishes had been cleared and washed, and the food put away, except for one covered microwave tray on the clean counter. “You saved dinner for him?”

“Just like I have every night for the past two years.”

Jack made a note of that. “Where does Evan work?”

“He works at Walgreens.”

“The one in this neighborhood?”

“Yes. I called them because he didn’t answer his go-phone. They said he’d left work at the usual time.”

“So, we know he was at work. What are his usual hours?”

“It varies. Tonight he was off by six.”

“Are his hours the same for tomorrow?”

She pulled a piece of paper from the Bible that lay open next to her elbow. “Same.”

“Can I have that a moment?”

She gave Jack the slip of paper.

He used his phone to snap a photo of Evan’s schedule and then handed the paper back to her.

“What is your grandson’s last name?”

“Fischer.”

“Just like yours.”

“Yessir, my daughter’s kid. She’s a drug addict, out there on the streets somewhere. Evan has been in my custody for his whole life.”

“Where is Evan’s father?”

“Ain’t got no father. That scumbag dragged my daughter to the devil and left her with a bun in the oven. I pray that Evan never finds him.”

“I understand, but I still need a name.” In his experience, sometimes kids went missing trying to find an estranged parent.

“Conti,” she spat.

A sliver of disquiet pricked him. The only ‘Conti’ he knew was a street boss that was no longer part of the Mafia scene. Rumor was he was in witness protection. Most cops thought he was probably at the bottom of the river. He wondered if the boy’s father was one and the same. Conti was a man best left alone. He fervently hoped Evan wasn’t looking for him.

“Does he have a girlfriend, any friends he hangs with, friends he could have gone somewhere with?”

“Well, I suppose he does, but he always comes home.”

“Like clockwork,” he said.

When she nodded, her lip trembled slightly.

Jack placed a comforting hand on her arm. “He’s how old?”

“He’ll be twenty next month.”

Jack’s phone buzzed. “Tyler,” he answered.

“Jack, it’s Maureen. I’m sending you a photo.”

He held the phone in his hand as he continued his inquiry. “Ms. Fischer, do you have any photos of your grandson?”

Ms. Fischer pointed to a collection of photos on the counter between the kitchen and living room next to an old-style dial-up telephone. He walked over to the collection. Claudine directed him to the latest photo, which he captured on his cell. His phone buzzed again, a photo from Maureen’s investigation.

Jack enlarged it as best he could. To him, the mangled face didn’t read ‘nineteen-year-old boy,’ but it was hard to tell from the image on his phone. The hair was dark, as was Evan’s, but the texture looked different. The victim’s hair was straight and each strand seemed thick, somewhat like Tomi’s hair, except it was matted close to his head. Evan’s hair curled, less so as he aged in subsequent pictures; nevertheless, a hint of softness was evident. He felt a tiny sliver of hope that Maureen’s victim wasn’t his boy.

“Is everything all right?” Claudine Fischer asked with a hint of fear behind her words.

“Yes. My partner is on another case and sent me some information.”

“Oh, I hope everything is all right,” she said, wringing her hands.

Jack smiled. “Can I see Evan’s room?”

“Of course. It is at the end of the hallway, past the bathroom.”

Small nightlights near the floor lit the hallway and the opened rooms off it. Evan’s room was closed. Jack quietly opened the door and flicked on the light.

His heart fell to the floor.

To the left of the door, amid the typical teenage chaos, was a collection of mixed martial arts magazines.

Was there a link to his and Maureen’s cases after all?

Numbed and heartsick, he snapped pictures. It would take a long time to sift through the flotsam in this room. It was best that he get started. The first thing he stepped on was a red and white school jacket. Not the colors in his vision, but when he picked it up, it looked similar. Perhaps this kid was on a bus.

One could only hope.

Chapter 1- It Never Ends

Lordy, she hated night calls. It damn near killed her to lose moments with Larry on a night when he was home. Her kids had gone to sleep easily, and they had a stretch to themselves after a long three weeks. The tingle in her limbs slowly and regrettably subsided as she sat behind the wheel of her road-stained Toyota Corolla, peering through the breath-fogged window at the group of four young officers, three men and one woman, who she sent to secure the crime scene at the river’s edge.

They had finished cordoning off the area and now huddled together, a miserable lump of humanity trying to stay warm in the cold of the night. At their feet lay cold death, hidden under a shroud with which they thankfully covered it. As her own warm breath created blossoms on her side window that unfolded then quickly faded with each inhale, they blew into their hands to warm them as they waited for her to set foot on scene.

Maureen Thompson had worked her way through the ranks to become Chief Inspector of Detroit’s 12th Precinct. She wasn’t normally on call at night, but the rest of her senior staff was reeling after the apprehension of a killer dubbed ‘The Vampire.’ Her own partner lay in the hospital, on her way to recovery. Senior Inspector Jackson Tyler sat by the bedside of his partner, Tomio Dubanowski, while he fought for his life. The entire company was mourning the death of one of their own. The killer was now behind bars for the rest of his life, but life out here droned on, and another victim, another criminal’s ruin, lay at the river’s edge. Sweet Jesus, it never ended.

She braced for the blast of cold that would hit her as she opened the door. It did not disappoint. The icy ground crunched beneath her feet as she descended the incline toward the river. Without a doubt, the water’s edge was the worst place to find a body. Thankfully, the blast of frigid air that hit her didn’t reek of dead fish this time of year. Her officers came to attention as she approached.

The body was on top of the rocky shore right at the edge of the water line. Feet poked out from under the shroud, and the river’s waves gently caressed them. It was a weird juxtaposition. The body was face down, unless she was looking at horrendously mangled legs. Markers had been placed next to shoe prints that didn’t belong to her officers, and her people had set down mats of cardboard next to the body as best they could on top of the rocks.

“The scene looks well secured,” she said. It never hurt to pat their backs.

“Yes, sir,” said one of the young men. Another stepped up behind him and laid a comforting hand upon his shoulder. No doubt, the first had upchucked after seeing a murder victim for the first time. What were they looking at here?

Her phone buzzed. “Chief Thompson.”

“Dispatch. Coroner ETA, about two minutes. Over.”

“Thank you. Out.” She stuck the phone back into her coat pocket. Then she squatted next to the body and gently lifted the shroud. The black hair, though short, was long enough to mat against the skull on the back of the head. She used a penlight to check for blood. It appeared to be mud and leaf matter.

“Was this body face-down when you found it?”

“Yes, sir,” said the young woman, who stared at the river when a fish splashed heavily back into it after jumping.

The skeletal build of the body, the short hair and heavy muscling indicated male, but until the coroner flipped him, she wouldn’t know for sure.

The coroner’s van pulled in behind Maureen’s Corolla. A short, older, and gray-haired woman slid out of the bus feet first, wearing muck boots under a business skirt, covered by her white lab coat. Maureen did not recognize her. However, the 12th had an on-call agreement with Precinct Nine. She was probably one of theirs.

The woman stumbled twice as she slid down the hill and fell on her bum. Maureen felt uneasy having to work with someone unfamiliar on a new scene, and watching the woman scramble to her feet did nothing to alleviate that. However, when the woman extended her hand, Maureen warmed to her gentle smile and compassionate eyes.

“Doctor Tamilin,” she said as they shook hands.

“Thanks for coming,” said Maureen. “I just got here myself. Nothing has been moved, the scene is secure.”

At first, the petite doctor seemed feeble and uncoordinated, but then she squatted with the ease of a twenty-something on the precarious rocks next to the body. Immediately all business, she began by temping the body, palpating an apparent knife wound to the back and surveying the brutal bruising on the ribs and over the exposed hips. “Do these look like kick marks to you?” she said.

Maureen squatted next to Dr. Tamilin. “Could be.”

One of the young officers chimed in, “Mixed martial arts.”

“Do you want to elaborate on that?” said Maureen, feeling her left eyebrow arch as she stared up at him.

“Yes, Sir. See that bruise on the forearm and the one behind the knee? Classic strike marks. The victim used a cross-body strike with the arm to push back his opponent, and he took a hit to the back of the knee when his opponent tried to knock him to the mat.”

“Do you fight?”

“Sometimes, Sir. When I can.”

She compartmentalized the information in case she needed it later.

“Am I allowed to direct your team?” Dr. Tamilin quietly asked Maureen.

“Of course.”

Dr. Tamilin seemed taller than she was when she stood and turned to the officers. “Let’s move this person away from the water’s edge. I’d like to roll him over on that tarp.” She pointed to the staging area that her second had set up behind them.

Two officers and her tech lifted the body. They laid it on the canvas and gently rolled it as they set it down. A young boy. He was lean, between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, maybe nineteen.

The rocks under the body were clean, except for disturbed river debris. It was obvious he’d been killed elsewhere and dumped. Maureen said, “Was he in the river?”

“No, Sir. That is how we found him.”

Tamilin said, “There is no gross evidence he was ever in the water. I will check his lungs, of course.”

Maureen nodded.

The coroner continued, “From the looks of the wounds, here and here…,” she pointed to marks on the boy’s ankles and forearms, “it looks like he put up a hell of a fight.” Then she lifted each of his arms, one at a time, and examined his wrists. “He was bound, not long enough to form abrasions, but these indentations indicate he was bound.” She checked his ankles. “Yep. Probably rope, but I can’t be sure until I get him under the light.”

“Oh, god. Poor thing,” whispered Maureen. Her keen eyes perused the story on the boy’s face, arms, legs, and bare torso. Angry bruises stained his hands across the knuckles and at the base of his palms. His knees sported fresh bruises, as did his ankles and arches. He had a bent nose and a blackened eye, swollen lips. She wondered if he was missing teeth. There were contact bruises across his ribs. “Looks like he’s been in a martial arts fight to me,” she agreed as she stood.

Why would someone knife him? Was it to put him out of his misery, or had he pissed off someone? If captured and bound, was he held captive before or after the fight? His face was so smashed it was hard to ascertain his nationality, but young Taiwanese boys were smuggled into the country to fight. The color and texture of his hair suggested a tie to that traffic line. Her stomach became queasy as she thought about it.

An officer said, “We broke up a few bouts this week. Two of them licensed, one not.”

“Well, we can count on this bout being unlicensed,” she said in a low voice.

“Sir?”

“Nothing, nothing.” She nodded at the officer and felt her phone buzz again. She walked away to answer. “Chief Thompson.”

“This is Dispatch. We just received a 9948. Family has requested an officer on scene. Over.”

Maureen looked around. They weren’t finished here, and she wasn’t going to desert her people. “Ten four. Send me the information. Over.”

“Will do. Out.” Dispatch hung up. Ten seconds later, she was staring at the call log and an address with a name. Jack’s neighborhood. She wondered if he was home. She dialed.

It rang twice before he answered in an exhausted voice. “Hey Maureen.”

“Did I wake you?”

“No. Just got in.”

Alarmed by his reply, she said, “How is Tom?”

“He’s in the ICU. Had another surgery. They couldn’t control his pain, so they did an ultrasound and found a pocket of blood. Evidently, there was a slow bleeder they didn’t catch the first time.”

“Dammit, Jack. I am so sorry to hear that. I can call someone else.”

“No. I need the distraction. How can I help?”

“Seriously, I can call someone else.”

“Seriously, I am fine. What can I do?”

“I’m at a crime scene on the river, an apparent martial arts fight gone bad. I have rookies working tonight and I don’t want to send them on a missing persons call. It’s in your neighborhood.”

“I gotcha.”

“I’m sending the address. Thank you so much, Jack. I will be praying for Tom. Out.” Maureen clicked off and re-texted the message from dispatch. She owed Jack big time. He and Tom were instrumental in catching the Vampire Killer. What was one more favor?

As she turned back to her team, a news van skidded into a crooked position behind the Coroner’s van. She did not want the press to get hold of this just yet. The illegal fighting clubs were hard enough to break up, their locations found only by chance. Giving them a head start with limited information about this victim was not on her to-do list. With a heavy heart, she trudged up the bank to intercept the cameras and reporters.

It was going to be a long night.

Broken – Prologue

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: I plan to post my new novel, BROKEN, chapter by chapter. This is the first installment. For those of you who follow this blog, this post first appeared as V is for Vagabond. Rewritten and edited, the gist of the story remains the same, Jonathan Tyler meets Sailboat Tim. Again for your perusal…enjoy.)

Prologue

Like Tom Sawyer chafing against the constraints of overprotective parenting and the idiocy of enforced school, Jonathan Tyler was running away again.

Six months ago, Rollo, his best and only true friend, reacted to Jonathan’s angst by offering his closet as a place to stay. It was a life raft. Jon jumped on, or rather in, never once considering the current of distress that would wash away the trusting love of his family. After four days of freedom, Rollo’s father caught him. Phillip had no problem soundly paddling his fourteen-year-old stepson. Then he grounded him, piling on a mountain of chores and a multitude of extracurricular activities as a deterrent for wayward thinking.

Jon was done with that, ready to throw in the towel and take a hike. He was fifteen, now, and old enough to make his own decisions.

He dumped his allowance onto his bedspread and counted it. A ticket to Sacramento would cost him the whole amount. It was stupid to go without extra money, but he could not stand another day trapped like a bird or toiling like a child laborer. Tomorrow he’d be on that bus.

He stuffed the money into the backpack hidden behind his clothes in the closet and leaped onto his bed, bouncing the mattress twice. He stared at the walls around him. It would be the last time he ever saw these things.

Most of the posters on his walls depicted mixed martial arts. On the top of his bookshelf were two trophies. One was for Most-Improved Fighter; the other was a first place team trophy from a state tournament. There were multiple pictures of him sparring in various events, his favorite taken when he and Phillip were sparring in the gym Phillip had assembled in the garage. He sighed. It didn’t matter.

Mind made up, he went to bed.

The next evening, he stood on the corner across from the bus station in Sacramento. The view before him was nothing like he envisioned: a vast parking lot behind him, industrial office buildings on the next block, and a few shops across the street, all closed for the night. On the next corner was a restaurant.

He was homeless now, and free. He could stay by the river, but there was a chilled breeze wafting off it. He could stay in the bus station. He took a step to cross the avenue to do just that, but stopped. That would definitely scream run-away to anyone keeping eyes on a stray kid. He stared at the lit depot, watching people come and go.

He was penniless, dumped into an urban wilderness…maybe, he hadn’t thought this through long enough. Shrugging off regret, he walked west until he came across a police station. He turned abruptly and walked away.

Night fell swiftly and with it the temperature. He put his head down and paced, two blocks, three blocks, four…he lost count. It felt like he’d walked an eternity, but ahead of him, a light signaled hope. A neon sign lit his way to a small apartment complex, like a green affirmation that he would be okay. A three-foot chain link fence surrounded the little group of buildings. Most were curtained and dark, but a soft night light shined in the larger building, which was, no doubt, the main lobby. He tried the doors.

Locked. Why did he expect anything else?

He explored until he found a sheltered wall between the lighted office building and a laundry facility. Hunkering between the two, he spent the first night fitfully shivering in the cold.

As the sun rose and before traffic picked up, he hopped back over the fence and walked south, toward Capital Mall. Along the way, he passed several restaurants before it dawned on him to check the back alleys for garbage bins. He might get lucky and find some fresh pickings.

A small pub across the street was open. People entered and left with regularity. It seemed a likely place to scrounge for leftovers. Furtively aware of his surroundings, he raced across the damp pavement and crept around the building to the alley behind it. Was it illegal to steal garbage? He’d heard it was, but he didn’t know if that law applied here. However, he sure didn’t want someone turning him in because he looked young and truant. To his delight, he found that the pub threw away their leftover food in a separate bin from the trash.

Beyond the street behind the pub, across an expanse of public parking, there was a small park. Had he found his stomping grounds? Maybe. The park would be the perfect place to stake out a bench or, at the very least, the base of a tree.

The back door latch jiggled.

He grabbed a couple of rolls and ran. Heart pounding, he raced across the parking area and sprinted into the park. There he feigned calm, hoping he looked as if he was taking a morning stroll to school.

He spent the morning daydreaming and following the arc of the sun to stay in its warmth. His bones and muscles softened and it felt good to sit and observe, with no responsibility, and no worries. He watched a couple, dressed as if they were homeless, raid the pub’s food dump. After observing that they came back a second time for the lunch hour, he surmised that perhaps the establishment put out food on purpose.

Testing his theory, he crept to the bin and found half of a roast beef sandwich and some carrot sticks. He laughed. This was a better lunch than any he got at school. When he got back to the park, he crept under some bushes.

The pub closed at midnight. There was a final dumping of leftovers in the bin. He ran to get his share, as other homeless people were bound to take advantage of it. He skidded to a stop when a hunched, older man, with very long, very gray hair and beard, wearing multiple layers of soiled clothes, stepped in front of him. He wore athletic socks over his hands and carried a walking stick. With the end of it, he hit the pavement in front of Jon’s toes.

Jon yelped and backed up.

The man glared at him.

“No, of course, you first,” said Jon, bowing slightly.

The man didn’t smile, nor did he stop glaring, but he nodded and reached into the bin. He pulled out a loaf of bread, some browned apple slices, and a couple of thick pieces of ham. He shoved these at Jon, who took them. Then he reached into the bin again and pulled out a half bottle of white wine.

In a whispery voice, he said, “Sometimes they leave it, sometimes they don’t.” Underneath the breathiness was a lilt. “Remember to be thankful.” He winked at Jon. “Now, where are you staying? Let’s go there to eat.” He grabbed the loaf of bread out of Jon’s hands.

A little panicky, Jon said, “Uh, sure. Over there in the park. I made a nest under some bushes.”

“Sounds like a picnic to me,” said the man.

Jon led the man to his shelter of sorts.

They sat down. The man took the rest of the food. He gave a sizable portion of the bread to Jon and evenly split the rest.

Jon said, “Are you sure?”

“I have all I need,” said the man, in his gravelly voice.

They ate in silence. Jon furtively watched the man as he ate. Old and thoughtful, he seemed happy while Jon struggled with his decision to leave a warm home and loving family. What kind of person did that? Could he live like this man?

“Why did you run?” said the man, as if he could read Jon’s mind.

“Who says I’m running?”

“What are you, fourteen, fifteen? You’re runnin’ from somethin’.”

“Maybe I am running toward something.”

The man laughed, a deep belly roar that shook his whole body. “Yeah. Well, I hope you find it. My name’s Tim. Folks call me Sailboat Tim.”

“That’s an odd name.”

“And yours is better?”

“I didn’t say that. It’s Jon, spelled J-O-N.”

“For Jonathan, like the Bible, gift of God. And so it is more important.”

“I-I-I only meant that I was curious about why they added the Sailboat to Tim,” said Jon.

“Guess folks likes to tease. I’ve always wanted a sailboat, talked about it a lot in the early days of this.” He swept his arm wide as if gathering the expanse of the park in his sweep.

Jon asked, “How long have you been doing this?”

“Long enough to know this isn’t a good place to stay the night. Vigilantes come through and run people out of the park. We’re a safety hazard to the good folks that live in those houses and apartment buildings right over there.” He pointed to a beautifully landscaped two-story building with multiple terraces. Then he pointed to a block of well-appointed office buildings. “We might break in. One never knows about vagrant folks.”

“You’re just being facetious now, right?” said Jon.

“No.” Tim grimaced. “Come on. Finish eating. I know where we can sleep safely.”

They huddled together on the porch of an empty Victorian in the Oak Park region. Tim shared the only blanket he carried with him, a ratty, flea-filled wool of tatters and holes. He told Jon heartbreaking stories. Some gang banger knifed a crippled army vet while he slept under a tree in the park. The cops didn’t even investigate. A crazy old coot froze to death just a winter ago on the steps of the library downtown. Word was, he shouldn’t have been sleeping there. Tim, himself, had ended up in jail twice for raiding the garbage behind a Safeway for scraps of food. Who knew it was illegal to take food from a garbage bin behind a Safeway? Sailboat Tim had fond memories of the food he ate while he stayed in jail, though. And, he appreciated the warm cells, with sturdy cots and thick blankets. At least while he was in the slammer, he didn’t have to worry about getting knifed or “froze to death.”

Jon smiled.

Tim’s toothless grin was kind, and his eyes were gentle.

Before dawn, a clatter of footsteps on the porch of the house awakened them.

A helmeted policeman with a bat, grabbed him by the arm. Another grabbed Tim. Together, the policemen hauled them down the steps and hoisted them into the back of a waiting van where several other homeless people cowered on the benches. A young girl at the end was silently sobbing; the rest sat stoically, eyes averted, awaiting the trip to jail.

Jon whispered to Tim. “What now?”

“Now we sit in a cage until a lawyer secures our freedom. It will be okay. The food is great, the cots are firm, and the blankets are clean and warm. Oh, and the commode is clean. That’s a big plus. They gives us coffee if we want it.”

Jon must have looked horrified because Tim bumped his shoulder and said, “It’ll be okay. You’re the lucky one. They will call your parents. Then, you can go home where it’s safe and warm.”

Jon curled up on himself after that and hid his face.

As Tim said, the police sent Jon home. Jail would have been preferable to his parents’ house of strict rules, and scheduled time. Jon had acquired a yen for freedom that no amount of discomfort could alter. Third time’s a charm, he’d always heard.

It was time to plan his next adventure.

 

 

 

 

R is for Recipe…

(Author’s Note: This story is based on a real event. Names were changed to protect those embarrassed by excessive wine consumption.)

Mid-October twilight dropped a chill over her sister’s backyard after a balmy day of swimming, eating, and enjoying the company of friends and family. Anna’s head was hazy, but her heart was full. “This has been has been a lovely day,” she said to her sister Jean.

“The last pool party of the year,” said Jean. “Glad you could come. You plan to stay the night, right?”

“Well, I hadn’t.”

“You’re going to though. If you feel anything like I do, you shouldn’t be driving.” Jean held up a bottle. “Last Obsession of the year.”

“OMG. You are incorrigible,” said Anna.

“I’m your sissie. You love me.”

“Let’s clean up while we enjoy that.”

While they cleaned, they chatted about childhood memories and made plans for the holidays. When Anna and Jean were children, the holidays were special, but especially exciting was when a large box arrived right after every Thanksgiving that rivaled any Amazon mailer. Grandmother’s Christmas cookies, hand decorated, lovingly packed, and individually preserved in Saran wrap before she placed them into the box. They lasted for weeks. The family favorite was the pillowcase of Pfefferneuse at the bottom, tiny button sized rounds of goodness that had been baked in the early fall, and dried in a dark closet until Thanksgiving. It was tradition to enjoy them floating atop early Christmas morning coffee, hot chocolate or eggnog. They seldom lasted through New Year’s Day.

Jean pulled a folded piece of paper off her refrigerator door, a photocopy of a recipe card, front and back. “The Pfefferneuse recipe you sent me several years ago. I have all the ingredients for it.”

“Really?” said Anna. She had wanted to bake Christmas cookies with her sister for a long time, but life got in the way. When Grandmother had taught her how to make Pfefferneuse, she talked about baking with her own sisters, a bee of women laughing and sharing with dough on their hands while they waited for the wood stove to heat.

Handed down by word of mouth, Grandmother shared the Pfefferneuse recipe with Anna and indulged her need to record every bit of life that happened to her. Step-by-step they built the recipe, and step-by-step Anna scribbled directions. Ingredients went together like a chemistry experiment, ending with the painstaking and muscle wracking effort of kneading eight or more cups of flour into a scant amount of batter, until the dough was stiff and felt like silk. Grandmother demonstrated how to roll marble-sized dollops of it into hundreds of balls that lined the cookie trays. After baking and cooling, they stored the tiny cookies in a pillowcase in a closet. The cookies cured for two months before they were ready. One did not eat them without soaking them in a hot liquid, because only then did the spicy cookie melt in the mouth delighting the palate. Otherwise, they were as hard as rocks.

“Let’s do it tonight,” said Jean. She poured each of them another glass of Obsession.

Anna and Jean faithfully followed the recipe for the batter. Ignoring the fact that Jean had a machine for kneading, they worked the dough by hand, just as Grandmother had, and sipped Obsession, laughing about the silliness of their lives and bragging about their kids.

“So what do you make of this direction?” said Jean. The facsimile of Anna’s wildly scrawled and dough stained recipe card was hard to read, especially with the amount of wine both women had consumed.

“Let me see,” said Anna, peering at her scrawl. “Bake at thirty degrees for…for three-hundred minutes.”

“That doesn’t sound like a thing.”

“A thing?” said Anna.

“I thought you’d made this with Grandmother.”

“I did,” said Anna, but that was a long time ago, before she had kids who were now college age and older.

“Three-hundred minutes,” said Jean. She fiddled with her fingers, counting. “That’s like…five hours!”

“Well, they are supposed to feel like little rocks when they are done,” said Anna, casually forgetting that they were supposed to dry the Pfefferneuse in a warm closet for two months after baking.

Jean frowned and turned on the oven to pre-heat it. “The directions say to hold your hand inside the oven for a slow count of three. I can’t believe you wrote this.”

“I wrote down everything Grandmother said.”

“Did you hold your hand in the oven?”

Anna shrugged. “I might have. I don’t remember. Probably.”

Jean huffed. “I guess it’s one count for every ten degrees?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Anna shrugged again.

“There’s nothing on this dial remotely close to thirty degrees,” said Jean.

“Oh, yeah,” said Anna, sort of remembering how an oven dial looked. “Well, this is an old recipe. We probably turned it to warm.”

“Do we do a fast count or a slow count?”

Anna quit rolling balls and looked at her sister. “I don’t know. A slow count, I guess. It has to be thirty degrees.”

“Geez,” said Jean, but she turned on the oven. “Five hours seems like a long time to bake cookies,” she said, when she came back to the table. She held out her empty wine glass for a refill, which Anna graciously provided.

“I don’t think so. An oven on warm would take at least five hours for them to dry out,” said Anna, wishing she could remember everything she and Grandmother did that day. “Besides, you bake a pot roast on low for hours. Dad used to bake a turkey from dawn to noon.”

“Yeah, that makes sense, I guess,” said Jean.

They rolled out more marble-sized balls of cookie dough as they waited for the oven to warm.

“The oven should be ready any second,” said Jean.

“Go stick your hand into it and count to three.”

“I’m not sticking my hand in there.”

“Grandmother lived a long time, and her hands looked just fine,” said Anna.

“But she cooked with wood,” said Jean.

“So?”

“So, it’s a different kind of heat or something.”

“Pfft,” said Anna.

Jean’s son walked into the kitchen, and looked over his mother’s shoulder at the card. “Whatcha doin’?”

Jean said, “Making Pfefferneuse.”

“I’ve always wanted to try those. Can I help?”

“You can check the temperature of the oven. It should be thirty degrees. Just hold your hand in there for a slow count of three.”

He cocked his head, but wandered over to the oven.

Then, he turned back and said to his mother, “You want your beautiful son to stick his hand in the oven?”

“For a slow count of three.”

“Mom.”

“It has to be thirty degrees, so we can bake them for three-hundred minutes.”

He walked back to the table and grabbed the card. “Mom. Are you sure it isn’t thirty minutes at three-hundred degrees?”

Jean looked at Anna.

Anna stared back.

There was nothing to say. They burst out laughing, and then clinked together their wine glasses.

“Good thing he walked by,” said Anna. “Five hours is a long time. We would have had to go out for more Obsession.”

“Yeah, he’s a good boy,” said Jean.

Jean’s son muttered as he walked away. “I can’t believe you asked me to put my hand in the oven.”

Jean and Anna laughed again.

It took longer than thirty minutes to cook multiple trays, but hundreds of little balls of Pfefferneuse were poured into a pillowcase to cure until Christmas Day when the family would come together to enjoy a beloved childhood tradition. Jean and Anna held their empty glasses high and saluted each other before passing out on the couch.

P is for Pimp…

(Author’s Note: Alternate point of view from BROKEN, a work in progress)

 Charlie Marchesi polished the counter in his bar. He’d long since removed every fingerprint and smudge left by the evening patrons, but he needed time to think. One of his studs had worked a rival’s territory today and a brutal beating was his payment. The kid was useless until his face healed. Charlie’s loss amounted to $5,500 with medical bills and lost revenue. He loved this bar with its rich ambiance of masculinity, but it would not cover the loss. He needed another experienced stud because the rest of the colts in his stable were too green to make that kind of money.

He glanced around his man cave checking that all was in order before he locked up. The back wall had pictures of his kids, wayfarers that had stumbled in looking for a way out of whatever they were running from. He flicked off the front light. The big picture window framed the corner across the street, a bright spot for his eyes to rest. The rain had stopped and the pavement glistened with diamonds.

A man stepped into the halo from the street lamp, illuminated as if the spotlights had just turned on over center stage. He was tall and stood with strength, even though Charlie could tell by the set of his shoulders that he was shirking from his current situation. His dark hair and arched eyebrows stood out against his paler skin. The scruff of his beard outlined a strong jaw. He looked the part of a young god unsure of where he was, or what he was about.
Serendipity had handed Charlie a card. He was looking at his replacement.  “Come this way, mister,” he said. “I have time for one more.”  He flipped the polishing chamois over his shoulder and walked closer to the window to get a better look at the man. “Come on. It’s warm in here. Get out of the cold.”

As if the man heard him, he turned and looked at the glowing sign in Charlie’s dark window. His eyes were wide-set, though from this distance Charlie couldn’t read them. He could only read the man’s body movements, and something about the way he adjusted the pack on his shoulders said ‘mature teenager’.

Serendipity rose, a questing snake peering over tall grass. The youngster just needed to come in. That’s all. Charlie would wrap him with something beneficial to both of them. “Come on, it’s open. There isn’t anything else. I bet you just got off the bus, didn’t you.”

The young man resettled his pack upon his shoulders, flipped up the collar on his jacket and strolled across the street toward Marchesi’s Bar and Grill.

Charlie moved to the far end of the counter where it was dark, becoming a simple barkeep cleaning up for the evening. The bell over the door tinkled as the young man walked in. Bold as brass he sat at the counter. It was a move calculated to feign maturity and hide the fact that the boy couldn’t be older than fifteen or sixteen.

Charlie’s breath hitched. God, he was beautiful. He could hardly wait to hear the tale this one was going to spin. He approached. “How can I help you?”

“Something hot,” said the young man, as if he owned the world.

Charlie nodded. He grabbed a white, ceramic mug from shelving under a simple drip coffee maker and filled it. The whole time he did so, he studied the youth. His scrutiny did not go unnoticed. The boy frowned, and hunched his shoulders turning in on himself.

“Cream?” said Charlie.

The boy glanced at him. “Sure.” As an afterthought, he said, “Thanks.”

Charlie was generous with the cream. “Kind of late for you to be out and about all alone.”

Guilt flashed across the boy’s beautiful features. “Got off the bus about twenty-five minutes ago.” His voice had dropped into a full bass rumble, probably because he was tired.

Charlie chuckled. He liked the brassy attitude of this one. “Where’re you from?” he said.

“Stockton. Stockton, California,” said the young man.

Never been,” said Charlie.

“You wouldn’t like it,” said the boy.

“What brings you to Detroit?”

It was just small talk, no need to rush this. If Charlie was reading this right, the boy had nowhere to go, or nowhere he wanted to go. A boy like this could easily end up on the street and be picked up by someone else. Charlie had never lost a gold mine sitting at his counter and he wouldn’t tonight.

The boy took a deep breath, and relaxed his shoulders.

Carefully keeping his voice warm and considerate, Charlie pressed. “You didn’t answer my question. Detroit’s not a place people come to for pleasure. You must have some business here?”

“Just like everybody else,” said the young man. He sipped the coffee, gazing toward the pictures behind the bar. A dip of sadness settled on his mouth for a second.

Charlie said, “Can I help you find someone?”

“No,” said the young man, a little too harshly. He squirmed in his seat. A lie then, there was someone here.
“So you do have a place to go tonight,” said Charlie.

“Not yet,” said the boy, shifting a defiant gaze toward Charlie.

Not willing to give up, Charlie said, “It’s past midnight. It’ll be hard to find a place around here, and folks aren’t going to lease to a minor anyway.”

If looks could kill, the boy’s expression would have dropped him to the ground. Wow. Keeping this one engaged was imperative. Fresh meat like this would attract all kinds of predators.

The young man folded his arms on the counter and leaned into them He turned to Charlie and said, “Why would you assume I am a minor?”

Charlie sighed. How many times had he seen this now? He glanced at the pictures on the wall across from them, his stable of young, lost children that grew up under his tutelage, learned the ways of the street, and lived to tell about it. “Seen a lot of runaways come through here. I guess you look the part.”

“There’s a part?” said the boy. His voice raised three notches as he lifted the cooling cup of coffee to warm his hands.

Cold and scared, that’s what Charlie saw. He chuckled and said, “Name’s Charles. Most people call me Charlie. Charlie Marchesi. I have a room in the back. Forty dollars a night.”

“How much for the coffee?” said the boy.

So he had no money either. Charlie admired the bravado. What did it take to leap into the world with nothing, hoping that it would take care of you? It took a keen mind and a quick wit. Most of these kids didn’t have it. They were scared and lonely, and he took them in and made something out of all that. This kid, though, was different. Charlie pushed a little more. “Coffee is on the house with the let of the room.”

The boy looked him right in the eye. “I don’t have the cash for the room. How much do I owe for this?” He lifted the cup and took another sip.

Tough guy, thought Charlie. He said, “Two-twenty five with a free refill.”

The boy pulled a ten and handed it to Marchesi.

Charlie hesitated. Was he going to let this one walk?

The boy insisted, slapping the ten onto the counter and pushing it toward him

“Tell you what,” said Charlie. “Put down what you have for the room and you can work for the rest in the morning. It’s a rush here, and I can use someone to bus tables and wash dishes. Beats an alleyway somewhere. Especially this time of year.” He glanced outside.

The kid turned and stared out the window.

Why was he hesitating?  Just take it. It’s cold outside and I am offering a room.

The boy continued to stare.

It was about four miles to Downtown. If he walked briskly, he could probably make it in an hour, but there was no guarantee he’d find a warm place to sleep, and he’d run the risk of getting snatched by one of his competitors. Charlie couldn’t have that. He said, “I am offering a room, and a way to pay for it.”

The boy looked down. “I’ll think about it.”

Charlie Marchesi tapped his pointer finger on the counter, twice. “Working the morning kitchen will get you breakfast on the house. For tomorrow, anyway.”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll take it.”

There was no maybe about it. Charlie had found his replacement. He slapped the counter, and said, “Smart man.”

Whipping the chamois off his shoulder, he grabbed the coffee and cream. A little refill should cinch the deal. The boy smiled as Charlie poured warm coffee into his mug. Yep, he’d found his replacement.

 

O is for Oreos…

He had no idea what time it was, except that it was time to sleep, but he couldn’t. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw red. Could be it was the light over the head of his bed that the nurses would not turn off. Hospital policy, they said. Could be he saw his own blood coursing through his eyelids. Could be the pain meds they doped him with had a weird, visual, side effect. The point was, there was nothing else to do except sleep and he couldn’t. His shitty, I-am-a-pathetic-gimp attitude brewed in the pit of his stomach.

It was either attitude or hunger brewing there. He thought about food all the time, until they brought his tasteless meals, which consisted of differently colored spoonfuls of puree. He ate them because he knew they were calculated to make him feel better but they didn’t fill his need for real food. His hunger never went away. Hospital staff told him to ignore it, that it was probably gastro-reflux from lying down. They raised the head of his bed and propped pillows under him, so he spent his hours of captivity canted at an unnatural angle. His back ached, his butt ached, but when he tried to squirm away from the discomfort, it felt like he was tearing stitches. Of course, that was ridiculous, but he couldn’t stop worrying about it.

Oreos. Crunchy outside cookie, soft, sugary goodness sandwiched between. He smacked his lips. He could taste the grainy sweetness on his tongue. The machine down the hall offered Oreos, regular ones and some with interesting pink frosted centers. The problems were that the Oreos were not on his approved food list and even if they were, he would have to get out of bed, push the damned walker down the hallway to get them, and then find the strength to get back to his room and back into the bed. The whole business was problematic.

He lay in the hospital bed, a stranded snapping turtle with a yen for Oreos. To Oreo or not to Oreo, that was the question. He swallowed, relishing his imaginary treat. “How long are you goin’ to stare at the ceiling, you ol’ fool,” he said. “Grow some balls and break out of here.”

His pain was under control, why was he so afraid to get up?

He shut his eyes, squeezing his face into a grimace. “Just do it,” he thought.

Carefully, timidly if he was honest with himself, he scooted to the side of the bed, the way the therapist had taught him. He rolled to his side and opened his eyes. It didn’t hurt as badly as he anticipated. Encouraged, he pushed himself into a sitting position and let his legs fall over the edge of the mattress. Again, it wasn’t as painful as he expected.

The walker was a few inches to his right, so he grabbed it and pulled it toward him, centering it in front of his body. Slowly, he slid his butt forward until he could place his feet on the cool tile. He sat there for a few breaths, with his feet caressing the floor, his weight held by the mattress. How much did he want those Oreos?

His belly shouted, “Chocolate.”

Pain was quiet, though. He was on enough medication to tranq a horse.

Why hesitate?

Fear. Fear of causing pain froze him in place. How was he going to get along at home if he couldn’t find the courage to get off the damn bed by himself? He gritted his teeth and slowly shifted his weight onto his feet. As he did, the stretch to reach the floor flared against the stitches below his left ribs. He quickly grabbed the walker exacerbating the situation. The aluminum contraption bucked and banged against the floor. Slowly, he straightened until he, and the walker were upright.

A nurse popped her head through the door. “Need help?” she asked.

“No, I’m good,” he grunted. And as he stood there for a few seconds, he was.

She smiled, patted the door sill, and went back to her station. She returned thirty seconds later with grippy socks, which she cheerfully rolled onto his bony feet.

He watched her leave, moving so easily through the world. Sighing, he pushed the walker forward. Then he carefully scooted one socked foot, and then the other, step by step until he crossed the room. He shuffled down the darkened hall toward the softly lit waiting area and the vending machine. Standing in front of it, he knew he was ready; he could do this. Now if he just had change to buy some Oreos.

He really deserved Oreos.

L is for Lair…

Excerpt from “Legally, With Good Intent” a chapter from AV Singer’s, Blood on His Hands

Chief Inspector Maureen Thompson placed a photocopy of the enlarged fingerprint on the table for her team to see. She said, “We are trying to get a warrant based on a seven-point match.”

“Not enough to arrest,” said Senior Inspector Jackson Tyler, grabbing it for a closer look.

“Not enough to arrest without further evidence, but enough to raise suspicion,” said Thompson, conspiratorially.

“A chance to get inside a killer’s lair,” said Jack.

She nodded her head, eagerly.

“He lives in the neighborhood like we suspected?” said the Chief’s rookie in tow, Aurelia Gomez.

“Records are sketchy, but it seems as a child he did. Dubanowski, get some prints of his mug shot, take Gomez with you, and start distributing there. Talk to people; find out if anybody remembers seeing him at any time, in any way. Stay together.

“Jack, you and I are going to grab that warrant as soon as it comes in. I want him, Jack.”

Jack did not have words for how much he wanted to see this killer locked down.

The suspect’s last known address was a house located in the East McNichols area. It was one of three that his mother had owned, that passed to her only child when she died. There were back taxes owed on it, but nobody cared about that anymore, not in this part of that district. Most of the buildings in this impoverished area were abandoned and derelict. Detroit could not afford to squander law enforcement to accompany tax collectors. Like most abandoned neighborhoods, looters had littered it with the aftermath of pillaging. Stray animals hunted through scattered garbage, dead foliage, and forgotten household furnishings.

Maureen drove through the neighborhood with the thoughtful attention of someone who ferried small kids, which Jack appreciated. She parked in front of a house that was no less dilapidated than were any of the other tumbled-down buildings around it. At least this one appeared to have an intact roof. The small cottage stood in the middle of the property, farther back than the other houses. At one time, it must have had quite a grand walkway, but now the cement was cracked and in some places broken completely away. Wisps of weeds sprouted through it.

The wood siding, stripped of paint, and probably once white, was weathered gray. The lawn was gone. There were some bushes next to the house, but they were scraggly and mostly dead. This one house exemplified the character of the entire neighborhood and its people: jobless, desperate, and out of luck.

Maureen said, “Got your wooden stake?” It was a weak joke that confirmed her nervousness.

They crossed the yard, carefully skirting broken, rusty machine parts and rotten, disintegrating, cardboard boxes. The simple, attached entry porch sagged to the left, as if by falling off it could escape the fate of the rest of the house. As they stepped on it, it swayed under their weight. They froze, and Jack caught Maureen’s eye. Then it settled.

Maureen released the safety strap on her holstered weapon before she knocked loudly on the door. “Inspectors Thompson and Tyler, Detroit PD. We’d like to speak with you.”

There was no answer.

She knocked again. “This is Chief Inspector Maureen Thompson, Detroit PD. Please come to the door.”

A dog barked in the distance, the only answer to the summons.

Gently, she tested the door knob. It was locked.

Jack hopped off the porch to peek through the hazy glass of the front window. A torn, dirty couch sagged in the left corner under a side window framed with torn drapes. On the far wall was a small fireplace. There was no safety screen, the brick hearth was cracked and falling apart like the sidewalk in front of the house, and inside, there were stacked boxes, perhaps collected for kindling. The rest of the room had no furniture, only more boxes filled to their brims with undeterminable flotsam. They would have to get into the house to see clearly.

He walked toward the driveway on the far side of the house. His footfalls crunched as he stepped onto the gravel to peer through another streaked window into a small, cluttered kitchen. This room looked lived in: dirty dishes filled the sink, a partially eaten meal was on the table, and a small coffee pot on the counter had a small clock face, which at that moment clicked to 1:42. It wasn’t the correct time, but it was obvious the house was still running electricity. Somebody lived here.

His eyes roamed back to the meal on the table. Someone had abandoned it in a hurry, perhaps when he and Maureen arrived. The coffee mug was partially full. There was torn bread on the surface of the table, smeared with a jam of some sort. But, it was the small, delicately flowered plate that held his attention. Someone had cut a large slab of meat into generous bite-sized portions. A fork, dropped upon the tabletop, skewered a chunk that left a puddle of fluid and grease under it. If Jack was right, it was organ meat, maybe a piece of lightly cooked liver.

Every psychic sense he had was screaming, “Get in there.”

He snuck toward the back of the house to look through windows. The first one framed a small, completely empty bedroom. The next window was too high to look through without compromising his stealth. It was probably a bathroom window.

Metal softly clinked against tile.

He froze.

Slowly, he crouched against the wall and pressed an ear against it to listen. He knew it was impossible to hear this way but he had to be sure he had actually heard something. “Come on, come on, come on,” he thought, “Make another noise.”

Maureen was at the kitchen looking through that window when he caught her eye. He stood, pointed to his ear, and then pointed to the window above him. Slowly, he pulled his gun.

She quickly joined him, drawing her own. They decided, like a long-paired team that needed no words, to try an entry at the back door. Together they crept around the house. On the back wall, ripped screening hung from the windows. In the middle of that wall, at the top of cracked and chipped cement steps, the half-opened screen door swung on one hinge.

Jack mouthed, “Cover me.”

Maureen Thompson nodded.

He stepped over another tumble of rotted boxes and crept to the door. Cautiously, he lifted it. As he did, the hinge creaked loudly.

In response, a bang from the front, probably the front door, echoed through the house.

“Damn,” yelled Thompson as she ran up the driveway toward the front of the property.

Jack followed, hot on her heels.

Blood On His Hands will go live in October. Watch for updates on this site or https://avsinger.weebly.com or my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Amorningsong