Monday, June 27, 2011

Virgin Territory
Opening Chapter
by Buck B.

                                                          Chapter 1


Memorial Day weekend, traditionally the start of a summer filled with beach parties, scuba diving, and Keys vacations for Florida folks.  Fewer tourists, lower prices, slower pace.  Good times… if you’re lucky enough not to get stuck with an investigation that darkens your soul and wrecks your life.  I wasn’t lucky, not even close.

Flies buzzed and flitted over her naked body lying face up by the picnic table.  A line of ants marched across her torso, skin dappled by early morning sun penetrating the leafy canopy.  A faint smell of necrosis assaulted my nostrils.  Then an irrational feeling of failure engulfed me, draining my soul as the death of a young woman always did, but stronger than usual, maybe the strongest ever.
“Is this her, Luke?”
She wasn’t the smuggler’s girlfriend I’d been trying to find, but there was something about her… something familiar.  I glanced at OC and said what I was sure he already knew, “This isn’t the girl I’m looking for.”
Though death had slackened her face, she was still beautiful.  I couldn’t pinpoint what was familiar.  Around twenty years old, long blonde hair, glazed-over blue eyes, medium height, good body, not much makeup, pale lipstick, clear fingernail and toenail polish.  A black beetle crawled over blonde pubic hair trimmed short and shaved into a small triangle.
Flawless, except for a bullet hole under her left breast, but not much blood.  The bullet must have wiped out her heart instantly.  What a fucking waste.  I failed her.  The world failed her.
“Is this how she was found?”
OC shook his head.  “White panties pulled down to her knees and red sandals on her feet.  A red top and bra and a white skirt were next to her body.  Harlan bagged all of it.  That was the only evidence besides the shell casing.  No tire prints or footprints in this sand and rock.”
I was glad the panties were gone.  Somehow that intimate garment would have made her seem even more violated than her total nakedness.  I squatted and touched her left shoulder… flesh cold, so different from the warmth she radiated just hours earlier.  My feeling of failing her deepened.
I looked up at OC.  “What’d the medical examiner say about time of death?”
“Between ten and midnight, maybe as late as one this morning.”
No blood around her.  I lifted her shoulder.  Flies swarmed off.  No blood on the ground underneath her.  “Exit wound?”
“No exit wound.  Doc rolled her far enough to see her back.  And no sign of sexual assault.”
I stood but a translucent image of me touching her shoulder remained.  I shook my head to clear the illusion and said, “Obviously shot while undressing.  Gunpowder stippling on her chest.  The killer wasn’t far from her.”
“The casing’s a .380.  With that stippling pattern Harlan thinks it was about two feet.  He’s going to check his charts.”
I leaned forward and studied her face, trying to visualize her alive.  “Any idea of who she is?”
“Not yet.”
A second beetle caught my attention and the flies were bringing in reinforcements.  Masking the emotions the dead girl had churned up, I said, “Might as well let the meat wagon take her while there’s something left to autopsy.”
OC turned and waved his arm.  A deputy moved the crime scene tape blocking the park entrance and the ambulance rolled in.  We were silent while the paramedics put the body on a gurney, loaded it, and closed the doors.  After the ambulance started back toward the highway, we walked in the same direction.
“The ME finished up a few minutes before you got here,” OC said, “but I wouldn’t let them haul the body till you saw it.”
“Thanks, we don’t usually get called in until the body’s been six feet under long enough to be a fossil and the case is colder than a penguin’s ass.”
I stopped and looked around.  Tall water oaks shaded River Bluff Park.  Calling a strip of land on the Persimmon River with one picnic table a park was a stretch.  A moonlit night about six years ago with a woman who worked for the Treasure County Sheriff’s Department entered my mind.  That pleasurable memory of the park was quickly ruined by the dead girl’s glazed-over blue eyes fading in.  I blinked them away.
“Really appreciate you comin’, Luke, swamped as you always are.”
Although concentration lines and thinning gray hair had always made OC appear older than his years, my good friend had aged more than he should have in what?  Six months?  Six months since I’d seen OC.  Hard to believe.  A hell of a way to get together.
“When,” I said, “did the Florida Department of Law Enforcement ever turn down your request?  I’m damn sure I haven’t personally because I’d still be hearing about it.”
“This is different.  You don’t work this area anymore and could’ve gotten out of it.  But it’s a bad situation and I’ve seen you figure out what happened before anybody else even realized a crime had been committed.”
I held up a hand as though stopping traffic.  “You don’t have to lay it on so thick.  I’m already here.  Did you really think this girl was the one I’ve been looking for, or was that a con job for Tallahassee’s benefit?”
We ducked under the crime scene tape, walked past two sheriff’s department marked units, and crossed River Road where our cars were parked on the shoulder.
“Both,” OC said.  “She looked enough like the girl in the photo that I couldn’t positively say it wasn’t her.  And I knew your Fort Pierce office couldn’t help much what with the vacancies and some major cases they’re involved in, but most of all, I need you on this.”
OC looked at his watch.  “Roughly two hours ago, which was about fifteen minutes before I called you, Harlan had just finished the other crime scene.  He got the call to come here and found the same caliber shell casing.  With the bodies only bein’ about two miles apart, the homicides could be connected, and the girl maybe bein’ the one you’re interested in, I figured it was an FDLE case.”
“The part about possibly being the girl I’m looking for was a masterstroke.  Tallahassee didn’t hesitate about me coming up here.  What’s the story on the other victim?”
“Alvin Wayne Reynolds, called Big Al.  His body was found inside his house in Persimmon Estates.  You know where that is, don’t you?”
I nodded. I knew the place. I’d made an arrest there six years ago.  If I’d gone straight on Bridge Road instead of turning toward the park, I’d have come to it about a mile past the bridge.
A strident electronic tone blared out of OC’s cell phone.  He pulled it off his belt.  “Sheriff Lofton.”  He listened but didn’t speak.
Thinking about Persimmon Estates, I looked west down River Road toward Bridge Road, the area as rural as when I’d first driven into Treasure County eight years ago as a rookie agent.  Back then, 606 east from I-95 to Treasure Beach was rural too, with only a mom-and-pop gas station and a small local airport along that five mile stretch.  I could cruise at a hundred plus and only have an occasional wayward cow to worry about.
This morning after driving past big gas stations and fast food joints crammed around the interchange, I almost rear-ended an idiot stopped in the road gawking at decorated conch shells and coconuts in front of a souvenir shop.  Then before turning north, I got stuck behind a truck creeping through a construction zone.
Well, what the hell did I expect in a coastal county between West Palm Beach and Orlando in the budding twenty-first century?  Fortunately, the zero-lot-line housing and strip malls sprouting in pastures and citrus groves soon petered out on Bridge Road.  By the time I reached River Road, the terrain looked about the same as ever.  The closer I got to the park, the more I realized it wasn’t overdevelopment aggravating me.  It was knowing I was about to investigate the death of a young woman.
I took a deep breath of clean country air and tried to detach myself from the dead blonde.  Some Memorial Day weekend, and it was only Saturday.
OC finally spoke into his cell phone.  “Stevenson Community?  Be right there.”
He disconnected.  OC’s eyes were narrowed and his mouth was set in a hard line.  “A three-year-old girl just died at the hospital.  Parents brought her in a half hour ago, said she’d fallen into an abandoned well.  The doc’s not buying it.”
I tried to talk but something had me by the throat.  A faceless toddler under bright hospital lights taking her last breath filled my mind.  A child, the only thing that hit me as hard as a young woman, maybe harder.  Both, back to back.  My neck spasmed.  Bile in my throat.
OC blew out his breath.  “All my investigators and six special-assignment deputies are working Big Al and this one.  I know I got you up here for these cases, but I don’t have anybody to handle the little girl, except you and me.”
I forced out gravelly words.  “Meet you at the hospital."                                                  ____________________________________________________________                                    
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Sunday, June 12, 2011

"A New Beginning"
by Mike H.
Narrative Opening

                                                             Prologue

            The clouds hung full, bunched like ripe grapes in the sky.  The air was stagnant, the humidity high, and the smell of approaching rain unmistakable.  These were the precursors of Tropical Storm Beatrice, which was disrupting the normal currents and trade winds. 
            For two days the humidity had been building until it was now unbearable.  Even with all the windows open, no member of the O’Rourke family was able to sleep soundly.  Mary found it especially hard, since she was pregnant with her fourth child and it was due at any time. 
Another day dawned, and even though the clouds appeared thicker on this morning as they blocked the sun, there was no relief—the temperature in the 80s before noon and a humidity near 100 percent.
            At 1:40 p.m. both waters broke and chaos started.  Beatrice lashed the island with intense rains while Mary prepared for the new birth. 
            The family was startled three hours later by a bolt of lightning that fried the landscape just outside their ranch-style home.  A long rumble and a crash of thunder followed to drown out the woman’s cries of pain. 
            Beatrice continued to pummel the island.  Howling winds created horizontal sheets of rain.  Eerily, thunder and lightning would arrive just in time to announce another contraction and obscure Mary’s latest wail.  On it went, an opera playing
out over many hours, Beatrice roaring across the island in a rhythm reminiscent of Wagner’s Ring cycle.  Finally, it was over, and a different cry filled the room.  At 10:35 p.m., as John O'Rourke held his new son, the skies cleared to reveal the constellation Capricorn rising on the horizon.
            The child was named Beetle Makena Bailey O’Rourke, born August 4, 1953, on the island of Maui, Hawaii, on the north slope of Haleakala Mountain, in an area later known as Paia.

                                                         Chapter 1


                  June 14, 1957, began with an atmospheric cover that obscured any light from the sky.  Dressed all in black, and with grease on his face, an intruder watched the headquarters of Fortunes United Building America’s Resources, acronym FUBAR, from his hiding place in the trees.  He saw the lights go out.  Then he observed personnel leaving The Organization’s building.  He waited.  At 3 a.m., he observed a guard walk from the headquarters to sweep the grounds.  He knew from previous surveillance that there were two guards, and the other was likely still inside in the control room. 
                  In the northeast corner of the premises, a dart felled the first guard at 3:07 a.m.  The second guard came out to check on his partner and was knocked out at 3:27, less than two feet from where the first guard lay.   The intruder entered the building.  Wherever he went, he upturned bookshelves and kicked over wastebaskets. 
                  In the secretary’s room next to the boardroom he found copious notes, many handwritten from industry and government leaders, detailing changes that would be coming during the next six months.  It riled him that these men were circumventing the will of the people to line their own pockets.  He knew very well the work of The Organization and its elites, and how they subverted people and the legitimacy and sovereignty of the government.  In disgust, he scattered the papers.
                  On one wall he noticed a large map of the world stuck with pins of many colors.  Areas of known conflict were identified by yellow pins.  He perused the map and made a mental note of the orange and red pins and their locations.  He recognized the orange pins as denoting locations of “natural” disasters.  The few red ones had no immediate significance for him, but he noted that one red pin was placed in Peru, another in Italy, a third in Greece, a fourth in Egypt, and a fifth in London.   
                  He entered the personnel offices, picked the file cabinet’s lock, and with the aid of his flashlight located six hanging files.  After securing these in the backpack he was wearing, he slammed the cabinet door shut.  This would be a meticulously studied crime scene.  No need to draw attention to one file cabinet, so he tossed the rest of the office before he set off.  In the computer room, he lit a match and threw it onto the punch cards before leaving the building.  It was 3:37 a.m..  He smiled.  Ten minutes, no more, no less.
                  Returning to his perch, he watched quietly as the sedative wore off and the guards revived.  The guards awoke in time to see flames inside the building and fire trucks approaching.  An hour later, the intruder left.
                  The next morning, the intruder placed the files in a safe deposit box.


                                                       Chapter 2

            Beetle began to put his puzzlement into words.  “What’s going on?” he wondered aloud.  “Why can I see colors that show me how people are feeling?  Where is this coming from?  What does it mean?”
            His family was leaving Green’s Grocer where his mother had bought food
and other supplies.  It was a bright, sunny day, and the temperature was already into the 80s.  As they left the grocery and crossed Dairy Street, Beetle looked at the various people.  Every time he focused on a person, a color and emotion pushed into his mind.  He was two days past his fifth birthday.
            “Mama, what color is that lady over there?”
            “Color is not important," Mary said, observing an ocean of Hawaiian brown and tan.  "No one’s different from anyone else.” 
            He turned to his older sister, Angela, and asked her, “Do you get their feelings when people walk past you?  Do you see people in different colors, like that blue woman over there?”
            Angela gave him a quizzical look. “There is no blue woman over there.  Nobody has blue skin, Beetle.  And no, I don’t feel emotions when people pass by.
I don’t notice anything special about them at all.”
            They entered a clothing store.  Mary spent a few minutes sifting through outfits before the family noticed a man approaching.  It was the store’s salesclerk, but what Beetle saw was red, and what he experienced was hatred and rage.  He ran to his mother, wrapped his arms tightly around her leg, and shivered in fear.
            Mary tried to move but was unsuccessful with her youngest holding firm to her leg.  “Angela, come get your brother,” she implored.
            Angela pried Beetle from his mother’s leg.  His sister held him close, asking, “What’s wrong, Beetle?  What frightened you?”
            He cowered in Angela’s arms, and only after she took him outside did he speak.  “That man came toward me, and I could feel he was red and angry and hateful.  He scared me.”  
            Angela said, “Nobody sees into other people like that, Beetle.  It’s your imagination.  Just relax and it will pass.”
            It didn’t, though.  It just got stronger.
            Mary brought everyone else outside after she finished with the clerk, remarking about him, “That young man was very rude.  He must be having a hard day.”
            Beetle turned away from his sister and looked at his mother.  “Mama, that boy over there is all black.  What’s wrong with him?”
            Mary glanced around, but couldn’t see the boy he was talking about.  There were no black people on the street.  She did, however, see the boy he was referring to.
             As they watched, the boy picked up his walk to a faster gait.  Then, passing by an older woman, he reached out and grasped her purse by the strap and pulled hard.  Beetle saw the strap break and the boy run away with the purse in his grip, leaving the woman to fall.
            One of Beetle’s older brothers spotted the boy just as the purse came free.  He lit out after him.  It required sprinting three blocks, but the purse-snatcher was finally caught and the handbag returned to the woman, who was being attended to by other passersby.
            Angela stared at Beetle and asked, “How did you do that, brother?  How did you see that boy was bad?”
            Beetle didn't know but shrugged and said, "He was all black, just like the night."
 _______________________________________________________ 

Robert L. Bacon
theperfectwrite.com

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