Catharsis of the Bogue

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Tag: murder (Page 4 of 4)

Fiction Saturday 2! Jackson Malone Part 4

September 26, 2013 / / 6 Comments

If you haven’t read part 1 yet,

Or even Part 2,

Or even Part 3,  this will make next to no sense.

When we left our Story last time:

I turned left and entered a small living room that was dominated by a huge bay window.  This window took up most of the north wall.  I walked over to the window and looked out.  This was a perfect view of the warehouse across the street.  An arsonist may have liked this view as his handiwork burned.  But I was not on that case.  This room had been lived in, the carpet worn thin in several spots, but it was relatively clean.  Not exactly brimming over with clues.

And now for Part 4:

I walked towards a doorway in the east wall to find a small kitchen that smelled of rancid bacon.  This room had a small table with 2 chairs and the portable TV that the officer had been watching.  This room had also been cleaned up to sell the house.

The only signs of life were the sandwich wrappers and the TV that obviously belonged to the cop.  There was one window in the kitchen that had been broken out and repaired with cardboard and duct tape.  The linoleum was the same worn color of orange that lined the hall.  Still, it had been swept.  I shook my head because I still had no clues as I went back out the door to the kitchen and to a door on the south wall of the living room.

“This is the murder scene.” The cop murmured.  I didn’t reply.  The small window in this room was covered with a dirty green velvet curtain only allowing a trickle of light through.  I flipped the switch on the wall and was not prepared for the sight that assailed me.

This was the bedroom, complete with a sagging twin bed that looked as if it had been dyed a dark brown.  There were splatters on the wall, the ceiling, the floor and all of the furnishings in the room.  The acrid metallic smell of blood permeated everything.  “Damn.” I said looking at the carnage.  “None of this was in the newspapers.”

“No.” the cop replied.  “We have kept a lid on it.  No one would want to buy this place otherwise.  What it looks like is one homeless guy kills another over a place to sleep.  We do suspect that the arsonist from the warehouse across the street is either involved or is Moran himself.”  I placed my hands in the pockets of my trenchcoat and squatted near the ground.

“Did you find a weapon?” I asked.  “Yea.  There was a piece of pipe in the backyard with blood all over it.  No fingerprints though.  That is what broke that window in the kitchen.  The guy who did this would have been covered in blood too, but with homeless guys who ever pays attention to what they are wearing.”  “Hmmm…” I mumbled as I entered the room.

I could tell that the cops had done a good job going over this bloodbath and didn’t disturb the blood soaked contents of the room.  I didn’t see anything offhand that they may have missed.  I stood, turned and left the room.

“You guys got anything else in this case?” I asked as I was going towards the front door.  “Just the dead guy, this house and that pipe.  Seems pretty open and shut.  Homeless guy kills other homeless guy over the big prize and a bed to sleep in.”  The cop replied.  “What big prize?”  I asked.  “Oh yea this may help.  This house is the prize.  Every night hundreds of those homeless guys fight for the right to sleep here.  I’m not sure how they do it but it seems your boy Moran was king of the hill that night and someone didn’t like it.”

We reached the doorway and I opened the door while taking all of this in.  “That’s the way we are taking it.  This case will be in the unsolved pile and I will be gone as soon as the insurance guys finish their investigation.  No one will give a crap in a week.”  He was probably right but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply.  I stuffed my hands back into my coat pockets and walked out the door.

I spent the next day in my office trying to figure out a motive or angle.  Something the cop at the house said to me kept sticking.  The fact that the homeless in the area compete for the right to sleep in that house was strange.  Why not several of them in the house at once?  There were several rooms that could hold several people.  They could compete over one room but the whole house?  Maybe that was their way of just having some privacy, and some unwritten street code kept everyone honest about it.  Well almost honest anyway.  Nelson Moran was still dead.

The next day came too quickly.  I was back in my office when I called one of my old friends in the police department.  It seemed that the insurance people had finished with that they needed and the crime scene cleaners were there now.  The police presence was finished.  The house was back on the market.   The competition should be underway tonight.  I was going down there to find out the truth.  Or die trying.

Join us again next week for Part 5 of Jackson Malone!

And if you liked this story you may enjoy Death With A Vengeance, my previous Fiction Saturday story, available here as an e-book!Thanks for reading, see you next week

-Justin

Fiction Saturday 2! Jackson Malone Finale! Part 6

September 20, 2013 / / 7 Comments

Well folks it is here, fiction Saturday and actually the Finale of Jackson Malone.  I just didn’t want to fill it with a bunch of useless fluff to go another week.  There is more news at the bottom of the post.  Have a good read.

If you haven’t read part 1 yet,

Or even Part 2,

Or even Part 3,

Let alone Part 4,

Or even Part 5,  the following will make next to no sense.  Now that you are caught up, On with the Show!

When We Left Our Story Last Time:

“Sergeant Stebbins.” A tired voice answered when the line connected.  “What can I do for you?”  “Hi Art.  It’s Jack.  How are you?” I replied, relieved that a friend had answered.  “Hey Jack.” He replied.  “Everybody is looking for you.  They heard you were out by that warehouse where that guy got shot yesterday.  That have something to do with you?”  “Sort of.” I said.

“I am down here now though.  I know who burned down your warehouse and who killed Nelson Moran across the street.”  “What?!?” came the incredulous reply. “You know who did that?  Who?”  “Gangs and drugs Art.  Gangs and drugs.  Vance’s Gang.  Send some cars.  No sirens, these guys will run.  There are a few of them and a whole potload of homeless guys hanging around.  I am at the booth down the street.”  He tried to reply but I hung up the call and rejoined the group milling around the warehouse.

And now we join the rest of the story already in progress:

I headed west through the crowd knowing most of the police would arrive from that direction.  I had to meet them before everybody important left, namely Vance.  It was only a few minutes later when the first car arrived.

I stopped the officer by standing in front of his car.  He was not amused as he got out and drew his pistol.  He was not one of the cops that I knew.  I displayed my detective’s license and gave my name and that of Art Stebbins.  He relaxed a bit but still nearly arrested me, until I told him what was going on.

“In that house is the drug runner and gang leader known as Vance.  Vice, Narcotics and Homicide have been trying to bust him for years.  You can do that now.  You can be the big hero today.”  He looked at me wryly.  “Why are you even here?” he asked.  “A case.” I said.  “The brother of Nelson Moran hired me to find out something about his murder.  I did.”

I continued, “Vance was running a drug ring out of your records warehouse over there and using homeless guys to process and distribute the stuff.  One of them got pissed off and burned it down.  Vance was not amused.  Every night he hosts these rumbles where the winner gets a night in that house over there with chicks of his choice.  That night, Nelson Moran won the rumble and was in the house.  Vance found out that he had burned down his drug operation and instead of a night of fun, Vance’s goons beat the hell out of Moran with a pipe and left him dead in the bedroom.  They are all in there right now with the latest winner.”

“You sure?” he asked.  “Look,” I said, “Don’t be a retard.  Would I be telling you this if it weren’t true?  What would I have to gain besides a night in jail?  Nothing that’s what.  Now get your ass in gear and arrest some people.  You are solving 2 crimes and taking a major drug dealer off of the streets.  Narc and vice will be fighting over who gets you first.  Go.”  He didn’t say another word.  By now some of his brothers had shown up and he quickly explained the situation to them.  This is one of the things I missed the most.  The camaraderie.  This bust was great.  Oh well. I at least know I broke it all open.

I sat back against the cruiser and dreamed of being with them as they crashed the door and entered the house.  I dreamed I was reading rights and snapping handcuffs when I felt a hand clamp itself on my shoulder and spin me around.  I went defensive and reached for my .38, as a deep voice said, “No need for that Jackson Malone I won’t kill you…yet.”  I looked up into the face of the man I had been afraid of the previous day.  Chief Burton.

We had been friends once before I was kicked off of the force.  Now he was not happy with me at all.  “Good work Malone.  This is a big bust.  Maybe you can get back on the force one day.  Did you kill Jimmy Wolfe??”  “Who is Jimmy Wolfe?” I asked.

“Thug in the warehouse.  Killed yesterday.  3 .38 slugs to the chest.  You do him?”  “Ummmm  yea.  He was shooting at me and I shot back.  What are you going to do about it.”  “Nothing.  He was a pain in the ass.  He deserved it.  We have been trying to get him and his boss Vance for a long time.  Good work.  You closed a lot of cases today.  Now, get out of here Malone.  Call me on Monday. We’ll talk”

I walked away from the now flashing police lights and men bustling about with their arrested charges.  I walked towards home, thinking of being a cop again.

Thinking of telling Rob Moran who killed his brother.  Thinking of the nice fat fee he would bring with him.  Thinking about a shower.  Playing a homeless guy stinks.

Well folks that is it for this chapter of Jackson Malone!  There are more adventures starring him though.  I like the guy.

Unlike Death With a Vengeance, the ebook of this story will not be available today.  Through some sort of cheap guilt ridden tricks, I am being forced to flesh out the story more.  The ebook will be available on May 15th, expanded and improved.  These stories on here will be but he cliff notes versions.  Watch for it, you will like it.

Next week I am going to begin a story of murder and strange intrigue.  Along the way there will be choices for you, my fine readers, to make.  You will determine the direction of the story at key points.  I am going to write the other side as well and release both as an ebook when that story plays out.  This one is going to go for a while.

The results of my poll the other day indicated that you would keep reading as long as there was story to tell.  That is where we are going now, and you will help guide our hero.

Until next week and the release of a fabulous Jackson Malone ebook on May 15th, I bid you good day!

-Justin

Fiction Saturday 3! The Man in the Hazy Suit Part 6!

September 5, 2013 / / 2 Comments

**Hey folks this is a reprint of part 4 of The Man With the Hazy Suit that originally ran on June 26, 2010.  I have been few and far between regular posts this summer, and that is the same thing that has killed some of my favorite TV shows, like Alias.  So I am going to rerun the whole story and finish it strong!  Thanks for reading for the first time or rereading if you have been here before.  The Choose your own adventure aspect is not available anymore.**

Previously in the Man in the Hazy Suit:

Police detective Thompson was wrapping up a crime scene when he found a scrap of paper in the dead man’s posessions. The paper led him to the bus station and a locker that was filled with legal pads, all written by the deceased man.  Sergeant Thompson is currently reading the legal pads which are spelling out a strange narrative and a chronicle of a serial killers murders, that somehow the man writing the story knows before they happen, if only by moments.  So far our writer has witnessed 3 deaths with apparently more to come.  With another murder looming, The dead mans narrative comes back around to Detective Thompson.

When we left our story last time:

The Man in the Hazy Suit watched the two girls with the same detached indifference that he showed on this street before.  He stood stock still, his head slightly cocked to the right, showing me an almost profile of his face.  His old fashioned fedora sat on his head, pulled lower over his eyes, as if he were in a strong wind and didn’t want it to fall off.

He turned a bit more to the right and winked at me.  I had a bad feeling he had chosen someone else that I would see on the news.  He grinned and began to walk down the street, leaving the girls behind.  I woke up in a panic.  I knew these girls and maybe I could stop what was going to happen.

I ran to my kitchen, barely noting the open front door and found the business cards for the two cops that had visited me a few days earlier.  I dialed the number on the card and asked for Patrolman Thompson.  I was going to prevent these murders.

Now we join our story already in progress:

I dropped the notebook.  I remembered that call. A hysterical young man saying he knew a couple of girls that would be killed in the next few minutes. I thought he was crazy, but I still had to check it out.  He had given me the address of an auto parts store not too far from where a couple of college kids were killed a few days ago.  We checked but there were no girls there.

I called him back and he was very insistent.  He had told me their names and where one of them lived.  We checked and they were both fine.  I remember telling the kid later at his house that it was just a bad dream from watching the news.  He had nodded, not looking very convinced.  That was the end of it.  I drank some of my now cold coffee and picked up the notebook again.

The police were not much help.  I think they were just patronizing me.  I knew something was going to happen to January and Faith but I didn’t know a way to prevent it. I called Faith the next night.  She answered but blew me off.  I had told her that she was in danger and she should stay at home for a few days, and away from the auto parts store.

She scoffed at me and told me I was being paranoid, after all, why would she ever be at an auto parts store?  And without my even asking, she said she was not going to go out with me.  I felt really rejected.  She had hung up on me and I could imagine the disgusted look on her face.  I guessed that she would never go out with me now.

I stared at the phone for a good ten minutes before muttering an explicative and turning off the light, heading back to sleep.  The Bagel Hut called the next morning at 7:30.  I had overslept.  I told them I would be there shortly and stumbled out of bed towards the bathroom, thankful I had slept without another dream.

I flipped on the radio on the way to the bathroom to hear some morning banter between the local DJ’s.  All I got was some static and muffled voices.  I looked at the radio.  There was something not quite right about it but my still sleeping brain could not decipher what it was.  I turned the dial and finally got some music.  I then went and got ready for work.

All of that  day at work I had a hard time concentrating.  I would get orders for customers but always in the back of my mind, something…tickled about the radio.  I couldn’t remember playing with the knobs.  But I must have.  I just couldn’t place what was wrong.

I tried not to think about it but it wouldn’t go away.  I knew I was distracted and so did my boss.  He kept asking me if I was ok.  I kept telling him yes, that I wasn’t sleeping well but he just kept pestering me.  I was very annoyed by the end of the day.  I drove home with the remembered smell of gasoline in my nostrils.  That was really strange.

I made it back to my apartment just in time to change into my Taco Barn uniform and get to work over there.  I didn’t really want to go in that night, but my landlord didn’t care about my moods, just the rent on time.   I got changed and looked at the radio again on my way out.

Something still not right, but I couldn’t figure out what.  The Taco Barn was a zoo on that Friday night and I didn’t have time to wonder about the radio.  I was actually working rather well this shift.  I left after closing that night and my boss there told me I had been better today than in the past few weeks.  I thanked him and headed home to bed and, hopefully, another dreamless sleep.

I wasn’t that lucky.  I knew I was asleep but I was in the hazy world again.  This time I was walking fast, heading towards a small house on what must have been the other side of town.  I couldn’t see the Man in the Hazy Suit.  But I could feel him.  He was near, and plotting something lethal.

The scene changed then, in no more than a blink, the Man in the Hazy Suit was walking next to me.  Long coat flapping in our haste, gas can clutched firmly in his right hand.  I stopped.  He slowed but kept going, eventually looking over his shoulder at me and gesturing with his head that I was to follow.  I tried to call out but found that I couldn’t speak.  All I could do was chase after him.  Maybe I could tackle him and make him stop whatever terrible thing he was plotting.

I thought I was keeping him in sight until I turned the next corner and saw him knocking on the door of a house in the middle of the street.  The lights came on in the house and on the porch.  The Man in the Hazy Suit looked at me and grinned as Mr. Stevens, my boss from the Bagel Hut opened the door and got a length of pipe in the forehead for his trouble.

I tried to throw up but it did no good.  This was still a dream.  I took a few more steps forward, trying to wake myself up but I couldn’t.  I got closer and could smell gas.  A moment later the Man in the Hazy Suit stepped out of the door and closed it behind him.  He was missing his gas can and the pipe.

He walked casually off of the front porch and down towards the sidewalk, adjusting his fedora.  Then there was a, well, a fwump sound and Mr. Stevens house started on fire.  I tried to scream but it wouldn’t come out.  A few minutes later I woke up in my apartment screaming.

I sat up an flicked on the light.  I could smell gas again.  And there was a black fedora on the chair across the room.  I didn’t own a fedora.  I began to scream again knowing the Man in the Hazy Suit had to have been here.

Join us again next week for more of The Man in the Hazy Suit!

-Justin

Fiction Saturday 3: The Man in the Hazy Suit Part 10!

September 10, 2012 / / 0 Comments
The police photograph of the murder scene.

*******I am so sorry folks.  I put this out last week and I noticed on Friday the 19th that it didn’t publish the story itself!  I am very sorry, this is now what should have gone last week!*******

Thanks for hanging in there folks, Today the story will not conclude!  There will be more to read next week.  I hope it was helpful to have the story laid out as is was meant to be, like a serial novel!

Previously in our story:

Police detective Thompson was wrapping up a crime scene when he found a scrap of paper in the dead man’s posessions. The paper led him to the bus station and a locker that was filled with legal pads, all written by the deceased man.  Sergeant Thompson is currently reading the legal pads which are spelling out a strange narrative and a chronicle of a serial killers murders, that somehow the man writing the story knows before they happen, if only by moments.  So far our writer has witnessed several deaths with apparently more to come.  Strange coincidences surround the narrator having to do with the Man in the Hazy Suit, leading to paranoia and a wonder as to the outcome of his sanity.  Currently, he thinks he may have the drop on the Man in the Hazy Suit.  He has figured out that the Man in the Hazy Suit is his inner personality!

When we left our story last time:

I looked at the gas can in my hand and twitched as I began to pour the pungent fluid on the floor.  Memories flooded in.  Realization hit me like a .45 slug in the forehead.  I was the man in the Hazy Suit.  I was the one responsible for all of that unpleasantness.

That was why I could not stop the man.  That is why he would not listen to me.  He is me.  I could feel him then, inside my head with me, crowding me into one of the dark recesses there.   He took great pleasure lighting a match that he produced from his suit and tossing it to the pool of gasoline on the floor of the library.

He turned us calmly and pushed the elevator button.  The car came and the door opened.  We stepped inside and began the descent to the ground floor as the 5th floor burned and those who had been in throes of ecstasy only moments before now screamed in horror and pain.

I tried to gain some sort of control over my body.  I tried to scream at the other entity in my head but this body was committed only to him.   Things made sense, but now, instead of the dream state, I was trapped.  Trapped and no one could do anything about it.

And Today, We join our story, already in progress!

I couldn’t believe what I was reading.  I remembered his calls, I remembered him asking only for me, Patrolman Thompson.  I had really thought most of those were…well crank calls. I always thought that it was weird that a kid kept calling on the boogeyman in his dreams.  He was never even a suspect in any of the killings because he had almost reasonable alibi’s and he didn’t give us any more information than he could have read in the paper.  I would have never pegged this kid as the Gas Can Killer.

I was tired now, I had been up reading all night, but I couldn’t quit yet.  Aaron Goodwin was the Gas Can Killer.  Aaron Goodwin was dead, but he still deserved a chance to be heard, no matter what his bizarre tale.  At the very least I could close the whole case with the name of the killer, at the most I could tell the families of the victims that we had got the guy.

I thought back to that night nearly 3 weeks ago when the library had burned.  The fire was horrific.  23 people died from smoke inhalation or the fire itself.  More than 100 were injured.  The elevators shut down and the stair doors had been chained.  The fire suppression sprinklers barely worked in half of the floor, not letting enough water do its job.  The firefighters had broken windows to get water on the blaze.

I had not been there.  I was home when the initial call came, and I was taking my time getting ready to go.  It didn’t sound like much until later when they were totaling up the butchers bill.  Jim Phillips, the arson expert from the fire department had called me on my cell phone to tell me that I was dealing with another arson from what looked like the same gas can killer.  This time the homicide total was 23.

I had asked him how he could know that it was the same kind of arson.  “Well we matched the chemical composition of the gas to a brand that had…” He didn’t even finish the sentence.  “Nah.”  He said with a grim tone.  “No jokes today.  The can was the same and the signature was the same.”  I sat in stunned silence.  We had never released anything about the signature before.  Of course the arson guys knew of it, but if it was there, it meant there was no copycat.

“Ok, “I said.  “Thanks Jim.  I guess I am off to work on my day off.” He snorted and muttered something derisive as he hung up.

I pulled up to the library after the fire trucks had finished and the men were cleaning up.  I entered the building and walked up the stairs to the site of the fire.  Jim was over in the corner looking at something on the ground.

He looked up as I walked over to him.  “Thompson.” He said.  “Take a look at this.”  He produced some glass shards and bits in a plastic evidence bag.  “These came from some glass bottles as you can see.  They are fairly typical iced tea or juice drink bottles.” he said.   “What is the string around the necks for?” I asked.

He pointed up.  “They were rigged to swing down and hit each other when the cords burned through.” he said.  “It looks to me like they hit each other and exploded, showering glass and more gasoline down on the crowd.  There were 10 such setups around here.”  I whistled softly thinking of the implications of adding more and more gas to the inferno already blazing below.

“How did he get all of that set up in here with no one noticing?” I asked.  “We don’t really know…” he trailed off.  “But they did the job and kept the fire burning for a long time.  Kind of simple genius in that.”

Now,  I think I had the answer.  I hoped I had an answer.  It had to be in the frantic final notes scrawled here by Aaron Goodwin.  I needed to read more, and put the rest of the pieces together.

I picked up the second to last notepad and began to read.

Join us next week for more fun and excitement!

-Justin

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