Tag: murder

Hijack: Part 7

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

7.

It was just after lunch that OPD’s forensics rep appeared in the garage. Contrary to Gail’s expectation, it wasn’t a guy like Thacker with even thicker coke-bottle glasses. In fact, it wasn’t a guy at all. Her name was Nora Roselle, an English-born Oakton Crime Forensics officer who’d retained a slight accent from her youth. Darian was instantly smitten by it, however well he hid it. Gail sensed it in his over-accommodation and slight, dreamy-eyes. She eye-rolled internally, externally remained unchanged; Nora was good-looking, if slightly plain, but her accent and diction had enthralled the untraveled and intellectual Darian. They might’ve been an excellent match were it not for the circumstances surrounding them. Before long, the trio stood at the damaged rig, now in more pieces than it had arrived in.

Nora’s well-shaped brows and full lips inflected learned charisma on her speech. “I understand you have documented the process of disassembly.”

“Quite well, in fact,” Darian said, still somewhat dreamy.

Gail cleared her throat to snap him out of it. He shook off his entrancement and called over one of his crew– curiously, Gerald Rush, the married and less attractive of his two, currently unoccupied employees. He introduced Rush and set him about gathering their camera footage and inspection notes for Nora’s review.

“Thank you, Mr. Foster. It will help immensely to integrate me into things,” Nora said, the pout on her full-lips now evidenced as permanent.

“Please, Darian,” he corrected somewhat uncharacteristically.

If Gail hadn’t been standing slightly behind Nora, she’d have seen the world-tilting eye-roll that once more put Darian back in his own shoes. He said something Gail didn’t need to hear to know was flirtatious fluff-speak, and she cleared her throat again.

“Miss Roselle, if you don’t mind, I have a business to run. Is there anything you need form me?”

She reached into a leather briefcase, “This is a standard non-disclosure agreement stating that you may overhear privileged information during my time here. Often times, it is not regarding my work on the premises, but elsewhere. It is merely a safety protocol to ensure against information leaks.”

Gail nodded, “Fine. But I have over twenty other employees, I can’t sign for them.”

“They will be asked to sign separate disclosures,” Nora assured her.

“And if they don’t?”

Nora winced, “Then they may not be present during my time here. I’m sorry, I know it is an intrusion, but it is required.”

She took the packet, led the pair to the couches and table, and sat down to flip through it and scrawl her name on the last page. She handed it back, “Anything else?”

“No, thank you.”

Darian gestured Nora along, “Well, Ms. Roselle– may I call you Nora?”

“You may.”

“I’d be happy to review our information with you. I’m certain Rush has it compiled by now.”

“Very well,” Nora said, rising with him. She looked at Gail, “Thank you again for your cooperation, Miss Wolfe. I’ll do my best not to be a bother.”

Gail finally stood, “Clear things up. That’s all I care about. Good luck.”

Nora gave a courtly forward-tilt of her head and Darian led her to the far corner of the garage where his desk was sequestered. They disappeared around an edge of the damaged rig, and Gail blew a breath through her lips. At least someone’s day was looking up. Hers, on the other hand, was only looking to get more complicated. Almost immediately preceding Nora’s arrival, dispatch had received alarm codes on one of the short-haul rigs. Felicia Euwart, the driver, immediately confirmed the issue, but it had put everyone on-edge. ABS warning-codes had gone up, and Felicia lost pressure in her primary brake-lines, it wasn’t earth-shattering, and even Darian confirmed the rig had needed new brake-lines. With the state of things, he’d let it out on the road with the mind of replacing them on its next return, expecting they’d make it one last haul.

However understandably wrong he was, the extra time required to bring the rig back, exchange it for another, then haul its load to its destination would now put Felicia behind schedule. It was just enough, that she’d never make the next haul, assigned to her from Ferrero’s schedule. With most of their long-haulers on the road, and only Carl on his mandated time off left at the garage, Gail was forced to pick up the slack. In other words, after greeting Nora, she had enough time to go home, sleep off the day’s bullshit, then head for Northern Indiana.

Afternoon writhed and wriggled into night, passing only for Gail to rise more tired than usual. She chugged her latest mug of black-sludge coffee and made for the garage. The morning’s wee-hours found the office door spitting light across the garage’s outer-sanctum. The night-shift dispatchers were slumped at their desks, imbibing caffeine and barely visible from the angle, but Gail’s attention was drawn to low-lights glowing from Darian’s desk-area. She had more than enough time to dally before getting on the road, figured she’d scold Darian for skimping on sleep. She rounded the corner of Ferrero’s damaged rig, and found Nora poised over Darian’s desk with loads of paper-work atop it.

“Nora?” Gail asked approaching. “Why’re you still here?”

She didn’t respond. Gail eyed her oddly, then stepped up and laid a hand on her shoulder. She snapped ’round with a start. Gail lurched back, panted terror.

Nora yanked ear-bud headphones from her ears with a breathy, “Cry-st!”

Gail gasped, “Sonuvabitch! I think I need to change my pants.”

“I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t hear you.”

Gail recomposed herself, pushed onward, “What’re you still doing here?”

“I’m accustomed to long nights,” she admitted, finally catching her breath. “In my profession, it is a useful skill. I work a thirty-six hour days, sleep eight hours, then repeat.”

Gail sympathized, however apprehensively, “I know the feeling.”

She smiled, “I imagine I’d have been an excellent driver in another life.”

Gail nodded to the papers, “Quite a commitment to the job.”

“It is important I examine as much of the vehicle’s history as possible, however mundane. A faulty, third-party part could be as much to blame something factory-spec that never required replacement. In either case, the vehicle’s history will allow me to narrow it down as Darian has attempted.”

Gail leaned against a wall at the desk’s edge, “Any ideas yet?”

“No.” She picked up a sheet of paper, skimmed it, then met Gail’s eyes again. “But I have seen the video footage.”

“Off the record, what’s your assessment? Driver error?”

Nora seemed to consider if her opinion could be professionally damning, then relented, “Off the record, there is no way to be certain. Ever. Driver-error is always a possibility, but given the driver’s history, it’s too far of a stretch for my liking. Unfortunately, I can’t rule it out entirely without proper evidence. As far as the vehicle goes, nothing adds up.”

“How do you mean?” Gail asked with genuine intrigued.

Nora shuffled some pages, “These are all of the work orders on the vehicle’s maneuvering systems and suspension. All post-work diagnostics indicate perfect functioning, as far as the tests can tell. From what I can personally see, the vehicle was expertly maintained. Some evidence of this is only days old.”

Gail skimmed the pages with a look, “What’s it tell you?”

“Simply? That there was no earthly reason for that vehicle to act as it did.”

Gail’s skeptical look urged her to explain. She dug a laptop from beneath the mounds of papers, and flipped it open. Gail braced herself on the desk and chair from beside Nora. On-screen was a crude, wire-frame model of a T680. She keyed in a command and the wire-frame began to move as if traveling at highway speeds. All of a sudden, the rig jolted left, then right, left again. The model tipped and ground its side until it struck a guard-rail. Simulated debris rained behind it, smacked away like particles. The wedged rail caught the road, took the rest of the engine with as it broke free, and crude flames sparked on the overturned rig as it came to a stop.

Gail was suddenly aware of her white-knuckled grip on the desk and chair before her. Nora seemed to notice it too, tactfully ignored it. Gail eased from the tense poise and cleared her throat; it had been like watching the accident all over again, except every bit of the first-person dash-cam played over in her head atop the third-person render. It was horrifying, enough that even Gail’s hardened heart felt sympathy for Buddy’s last moments to have been in such fear.

Nora allowed Gail a moment to recollect herself, then explained, “As near as I can tell, the vehicle was traveling in a straight-line, at safe-speeds, in preferable road conditions. Nothing short of a driver error or an electrical failure could have caused the first swerve.”

“But you disagree it was driver error?”

She was careful, evasive for the sake of her job more than anything, “Personally, I do not believe that to be an issue. This was a deliberate motion, too instant and sudden for the drifting of a fatigued or inebriated driver. More-over, none of the preceding video shows any indication of driver distraction.”

“So, it was the electrical system?” Gail asked outright.

“Logic would suggest as much, given the video evidence. As I’ve said though, there is no mechanical reason for it to have happened.”

Gail went quiet for a long time, wondering how the findings might fit her M-T theory. For someone to sabotage the vehicle, as she suspected, they’d need access to it. Overlooking the obvious fact that it was damn-near impossible to get to, Gail wondered what they could have done to cause the accident. She’d been driving rigs long enough to know this wasn’t a frayed wire snowballing into a colossal fuck-up. If it had been, the rig would’ve shown signs before-hand, and it would’ve been caught during one of the vehicle’s inspections Darian and his crew had done.

But without clear evidence of tampering, Gail couldn’t point a finger at M-T without bringing a serious shit-storm upon herself. She suspected something would be found though. Even Nora seemed to be leaning toward that– in as much as her suspicions did not involve neglect by either driver nor mechanic. While Gail didn’t know much about the woman, her high-intelligence was obvious in her methods and demeanor. If others respected her as Gail expected, especially given the Chief of Police personally assigning her the case, her word might be enough to back up Gail’s suspicions if necessary.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Nora said finally, breaking the silence. “What do you believe happened? You must have suspicions yourself, right?”

“Off the record?” Nora blinked once. “I think someone fucked with that rig, someone from M-T Inc.”

“Mechanized Transports?” She asked, accent drawing out certain syllables.

“Yes. The assholes have been trying to buy me out and I’m not interested. I wouldn’t put it past them to do something like this then hide behind their lawyers.”

Nora looked away to think. Then, with a resigned grimace, she met Gail’s eyes. “If that is the truth, it is all the more imperative we discover how they’ve done it. Otherwise, many more innocent people may die.”

Hijack: Part 6

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

6.

The morning meeting came as much welcome as anyone had expected. It was 8 AM on the dot when the Union Rep pulled into Lone-Wolfe’s lot. The Chief of Police followed immediately. Little was said between them as they stepped for the door, brief-cases in hand. Gail had made coffee and forced Carl off the couches so she might sit with Darian and Marla across from the pair. The rest of the employees gawked one room or the other, hidden in shadows or at desks and chairs only half-listening so no-one would notice.

They laid out files and folders across the coffee table between them, set up audio recorders “for the record.” Gail figured that meant, “to sell to the nightly news.” She allowed it for the sake of moving forward, and began by introducing Marla and Darian.

“Marla and I were retrieved the vehicle after the accident. Darian is Lone-Wolfe’s crew-chief, and is inspecting it on grounds of his experience with it.”

The Police chief spoke first, and at Marla, as if singling her out for the weakest link, “And you submit the vehicle arrived in roughly the same condition it left the tow-lot?”

Marla eyed him, but spoke expertly, “The vehicle arrived here in identical condition. We have cell-phone photos to prove it.” She fished out fuzzy print-outs from a file-folder and set them up, “As well as high-resolution images of the rig’s arrival and unloading.”

She thumbed out a few pieces of photo-paper, and the Chief’s mouth squirmed. He’d expected her to be the weak link, not a well-spoken professional. Gail sensed almost immediately how in over his head he was; he’d made it through life bullying the weakest making his way forward from it. He’d expected to get through the morning the same way, but now couldn’t. Regardless of Marla’s standing in the three, she was still expertly skilled, however often Gail found fault with certain personality traits.

Gail hid smug satisfaction at watching the Chief squirm. He’d already revealed his agenda, and the whole damned building knew it. He wasn’t there to meet out justice. He was there to appease constituents and critics, crack-down on the little guy. Gail wasn’t little by any means, even less so a guy, and infinitely less of one to be fucked with so crassly. It was going to be one of those days, and everyone knew it now.

The Union Rep explained, “Local 413 is prepared to argue in your defense provided you meet certain criteria.”

“In our defense? Is someone taking this to court?” Darian asked suddenly.

“We’ve received word the NHSB is preparing a lawsuit to be brought to the state’s Supreme Court. As I said, we’re prepared to represent you, provided you allow a forensic investigator to assist in your examination of the vehicle.”

Gail fumed, but did her best to keep her cool, “What good’s a Union that can’t protect us?”

“That is what we’re attempting–”

“No. It isn’t,” Gail spat sternly. “You’re covering your own asses and throwing us to the wolves. All of this is politics and optics. If you had the clout you pretend to, it’d never go so far.”

“Need I remind you this conversation is being recorded?” The Chief said, mirroring her previous smugness.

“I’m allowed to be angry,” Gail said, clamping her jaw shut. “I’m allowed to admit that I feel we’re being hung out to dry. That the Union has only its own interests in mind concerning this case.”

“Gail, please,” Darian interrupted with a low hand. He eyed their visitors and Gail, “I see no reason not to allow a forensic investigator to observe, so long as that is all they do. I have a job to do with regard to the vehicle, and I intend to do it. I’ll comply as much as is reasonable. I can always use an extra set of eyes. That said, I can’t allow anyone to compromise my inspection. What I’m doing here will set the tone for everyone’s defense– be it Union, Lone-Wolfe, or otherwise.”

The Chief seemed to relax at Darian’s obvious command of the situation, “Very well. Then I’ll ensure you’re deferred to as authority during the inspection.”

“And so long as there is no evidence of non-compliance in this matter,” the Union Rep said. “Local 413 will be behind you every step of the way, but I warn you Ms. Wolfe, your company’s on thin ice, with the Union as well as the Press. You’re under the microscope for the time being.”

“Which means what?” Marla asked outright.

“We’ll be sending in representatives to observe and document the company’s work and responses to the investigation.” He managed a round-cheeked smile that made Gail want to knock his teeth in. “Consider it our own form of investigation regarding personnel and operations. Should everything check out, your certification within the Union will remain in good standing.”

“And if not?” Gail asked with a slight snarl.

He winced and rose from the couch, “Let us hope it does not come to that.”

The group rose with him, Gail’s arms firmly crossed as the two saw themselves out. She watched the garage door shut, then about-faced and marched into her office. Darian and Marla trailed after her, passing gawkers that did their best to suddenly appear casual. Gail sank in her chair while Darian and Marla stood before her.

“Shut the door,” she instructed them. Marla slipped away for a moment, returned with her arms crossed. “Darian, watch this… investigator carefully. Don’t fuck up your job over it, but make sure they’re not allowed access to anything sensitive. Especially on the rig.”

Darian nodded, “I’ll handle it.”

“Have you found anything yet?” He shook his head. “What’s the hold up?”

“What’s left of the rig’s pristine, or as much as it can be after the accident. So far though, it’s looking more like driver error.”

“Have we heard from the Cook County Coroner yet?”

Marla replied this time, “Someone took a call from the office yesterday, but they said it’d be a couple days before they released their reports. Apparently they’re backed up on paper-work, but Bud’s wife took possession of the body yesterday. She called in to alert us of it, and that she’d call back once they’d made the funeral arrangements.”

“You should go,” Darian insisted. “A lot of us have already decided to. Ferrero was a good guy, a friend to all of us. It wouldn’t be right not to. The dispatch crew’s spoken to one another about it, they’re planning to go in shifts.”

Gail heaved a sigh, leaned back in her seat with fingers tensed against her forehead. She hated funerals. They were an extension of people’s inability to accept things and move on. To her, “Closure” was just another word for attachment. She respected Zen philosophies most, ones where nothing was sacred and all things would pass. Anything else just seemed self-indulgent and delusional.

While she agreed with Darian’s assessment, not attending was still better than attending without a proper show of sympathy– or any for that matter. Sympathy was one of those emotions she had trouble with. It required a certain level of sentimentality, and she seemed to be losing what little she’d had by the day.

She straightened in her seat, “Fine. I’ll go. Marla, keep me informed of anything we hear.”

“And until then?” She asked simply.

“Help Darian and keep an eye on that squint when they come in. If I need you for something more, I’ll let you know.” She waved them off. “I need time to think.”

They nodded at one another and headed for the door, stepping out as someone else began to step in. The fleeing movements of their departure damn-near confirmed what the stink of money said before she looked up. She found herself eyeing M-T Inc’s leading, suited prick.

“Get out of my office and off my lot!” She shouted, nearly tipping her chair back as she stood.

“Ms. Wolfe, if you’ll allow me–”

“I won’t.” She reached for a phone on her desk. “Get out now, or I’m calling the police and having you charged with trespassing.”

He cleared his throat, “That won’t be necessary. Mechanized Transports merely wishes to extend our sympathies to you and your employees over the recent loss of your driver.” She lifted the phone to dial, but he stopped her, “And I’m certain, as this is my purpose here, it would only engender more negative opinion were you to have me accosted over it.”

Gail froze, poised with phone in-hand and finger ready to dial. She clenched her eyes shut for a moment, tensed her jaw, and flared her nostrils with a furious breath. She set the phone back on its receiver. “You have exactly twenty seconds before I hurl you off my lot with both hands.”

“I shan’t need more,” he said with a cocky half-smile. He set a briefcase on the desk, popped it open to produce a packet of papers. “In addition to our condolences, I am also authorized to present you with a copy of the offer-contract we’ve written up. Our price is more than fair, and I assure you we’ll hold to that offer as outlined.”

He set the packet on the desk, shut the briefcase. Gail couldn’t help it, she laughed– one, robust laugh that melded desperation with exasperation. “More than fair? You want to buy us off, gut the company, and eliminate the competition to further your corporate agenda.”

“I assure you–”

“Listen Mr. Wembley–” Genuine surprised that she remembered his name etched over his face. “My boots alone have twenty years on you. If you want to spout rhetoric, go home and practice in the mirror until you believe the bullshit you’re selling. I started this company. I built it with sweat and blood, and I’ve kept it running with good sense since then. Now you come in here, high and mighty, and expect me to roll over like you would. If you think I’d ever sell to you, you’re a lot more of a lost cause than I thought.”

His face turned to a scowl, clearly bothered by her slight, “You cannot hold out forever.”

“Watch me,” she challenged with narrow eyes.

He sneered toward the packet of papers, “That offer is contingent upon the public value of your company, Ms. Wolfe. The lower it goes, the lower we go.”

Her previous suspicions flared up in the back of her mind. Her voice turned low, venomous, “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on here. You show up, and suddenly one of my drivers is dead. I don’t know how your company is involved, but I aim to find out. When I do, you won’t have paper enough to wipe your asses with.” His eye twitched, but he remained silent. “You’ve had more than your twenty-seconds. Get. Out.”

A corner of his mouth twitched and he turned away, body considerably more stiff than before. The door to the office shut with a deliberate attempt not to slam it. Gail fell back into her seat, waiting a moment to recollect herself and contain her fury. In a perfect world, she’d have kicked the little shit through a window, smashed his head into a desk, then left him in a bloody heap outside Lone-Wolfe’s front-gate. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a perfect world, and any physical violence she might want to exact on the assholes trying to set her up would have to be transmuted into more-clever legal maneuvering.

One good thing seemed to have come out of everything though, however negative in the longer run: M-T’s involvement. She hadn’t been sure before. She’d wanted to believe it as a matter of personal pride, and because coincidences happened even less often than she knew they did. Wembley’s reaction though, confirmed M-T’s involvement.

She’d been on the fringe of the corporate world long enough to know that Corporations did two things; shouted denials when involved in lies, and went dead silent when caught with their pants down. It wasn’t just the companies as a whole though, it the individuals themselves, an extension of the so-called “corporate-culture.” Wembley was nothing if not an embodiment of that culture. No doubt he’d be running to their lawyers crying like a child to mommy when he got back to M-T’s offices.

As much as it was a win to discern involvement, it was a loss as a whole. She was now waging corporate war against the seemingly infinite resources of a modern mega-corp. On top of that, they had public opinion and a guard dog safety-bureau on their side controlling both her own Union and the local Police. However things wound up ending, it wouldn’t be pretty.

Short Story: L. Mactans

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Her pursed lips wrapped around the end of a straw to suckle a long island from its glass. Her dark eyes met his down the bar. Through the scattered, dim light, they glistened with an animal wanting and a hint of desperation that signaled to he alone to hunt, chase, conquer. She presented the bar stool beside her with a flit of her eyes, to silently suggest he join. He took the offer like a lion sauntering to a kill that’s already accepted death.

She was a nobody, comparatively speaking, but he was somebody. Rumor had it he was a cleaner for a local crew running guns and drugs out of the red light district. There was no evidence of the rumors, of course, but that didn’t stop them from forming. It didn’t hurt that he made a point to keep the mystery about him, never saying much about himself, or anything for that matter. For anyone who’d spent enough time in the little watering hole off the beaten path, at least some whiff of Anton had manifested to them.

“Allison,” she said, head tilted to drink from the side of her straw.

“Anton,” he said, mounting the stool beside her. “What brings a girl like you to a place like this?”

She smiled, chuckled. He’d left out the “beautiful” part, but it was word for word what most guys said. He didn’t know that of course, but it revealed his obvious desires. Where other men would’ve fallen flat though, Anton walked sure-footed as Christ on water. He had the clout and cash to back up any challenge to his status, to say nothing of his manhood. They were two, beautiful people in a drab, ugly place, that stood out like sore thumbs. Both of them knew it.

The next hours passed in a retrospective haze. Allison was younger than most, good looking with hips, breasts, and waist all in perfect proportion to her hourglass shape. Her dark eyes and hair accented the bits of pink flesh peering out along her clavicle, back, and navel from the neo-modern dress that framed her diamond belly-piercing in glowing light.

Before either of them knew it, Allison was leading Anton by the hand to the bar door. They slipped out into the street toward his high-end sports car. The flashy style perfectly suited his reputation, and more pointedly, his date. If there was anything Allison loved, it was fast cars for even faster men. He was certainly one. They spent the whole ride home in various states of sex, receiving mouth or hand, Anton the one, Allison the other.

Coursing with fresh ecstasy and lust, they spilled from the car, clothes half off. He carried her in to his palatial home, took her once just inside, then again anywhere else they could reach. Their stamina finally gave out in the bedroom, Allison on her hands and knees, wet and sweating from more sex than she could ever recall having at once. They gave virile new meaning in one another’s minds as they collapsed on the bed together.

Her body was slicked with sweat, glistening like her eyes had in the low-light from a lamp by the beside. He sparked a cigarette and smoked in silence while she let pleasure course upward from her loins and out to her shaking limbs. They lie in the still aftermath, drinking up the last of the erotic night as the liquor-high furled up its tendrils to slink away until its next return.

Contrary to Anton’s expectations, Allison climbed atop him again, kissed her way along his body before taking him in her mouth one last time. With a final, pulsing throb, he flooded her throat and she swallowed, began to kiss her way back up. She settled her groin atop his, the wetness there pleading for more attention as she bit at his neck.

He groaned something mixing pleasure with pain, dug his nails into her back. The pleasure drained from him. All was pain. Sudden, piercing, as if being stabbed. He struggled, managed to throw her off. She fell sideways off the bed, rebounded onto her hands and knees. He swore repeatedly, vision darkening. He fell off the far-side of the bed as she rose to full height to watch.

He writhed on the floor, retching, ready to vomit. His limbs tingled. Needles sank deep along punctures flooded with molten steel. The pain was too much. He vomited beside the end table. Dry heaves forced the painful needles deeper. His pulse raced, veins inflating like balloons to cause ever-present blood flow to hurt more and more.

Anton fell around on the floor, like a wounded insect tackled by its predator and grappled around in its limbs. Allison merely watched, eyes locked on him. Her face was empty, blank, nude hourglass shining with a fine coat of sweat. Anton made one last attempt to stand.

His legs were too weak, felt of rubber beneath a marble slab that was his torso. He collapsed onto the bed, sweating profusely and gasping for air. His heart skipped beats with erratic arrhythmia–he stretched an arm out at Allison, felt it seize entirely. With a last set of gasps, his eyes rolled back, and his body went limp.

Allison stood in place, more satisfied than usual. The cleaner had been dealt with, and soon everyone would know. They wouldn’t know who’d done it, of course, only speculated how. Indeed, when Allison read the digital newspaper only two days later, Anton’s cause of death was exactly as she’d predicted.

She sat on a cafe patio, soaking in the sun of a warm, Floridian morning. The tablet in her hand read out an article that could have been overlooked by even the most intrepid investigators. The most important part however, was a line that read, “… died as a result of a Latrodectism, a toxic effect of the bite from a Latrodectus Mactans, more commonly known as the Black Widow spider.”

Allison sipped her cappuccino and smiled. No one would ever know. That was why she’d been paid so much to “clean” the cleaner. Even her clients didn’t know the truth, only the calling card. That alone made her chuckle. She sipped her drink again, and let the sun warm her hourglass shape.

Short Story: Reel-Gun Blues

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Detective Arnold Foster had been on the force near-on twenty years, but nothing had been like this. He’d done his fair share of high-profile cases and seen enough things to make the average uniform retch, but nothing had ever been so rough. He took off his gray fedora and knelt beside the body, tailored trench-coat falling around him to rest on the floor just beyond the pool of blood.

She lie on her side, arms near one another, left hand clutched half-closed as if sleeping. Everything about her was peaceful, as if lying in her own blood with a gut-wound was just another night of beauty sleep. Even her auburn hair had fallen around her pale-skin like a woman sleeping the greatest sleep of her life. Foster wasn’t sure about that, but it would certainly be the longest.

There was nothing unusual around the scene; no marks on the wrists, no broken glass or furniture askew. Nothing had been thrown, or knocked around. There was just her body and a pool of blood. It was still the most difficult thing Foster’d ever forced himself to witness.

Ali was one of the few friends he had left, alongside the now-primary suspect, her husband. Neither one had ever been the angry type. What had kept Foster on such good terms with them was their glowing love that welcomed him to bask in it. He enjoyed it.

But there was no glow now, just pale skin wrapped around coagulated veins and dead organs.

Foster rose from his stance. He shouldn’t be here, his heart said it, his analytical mind said it. There was nothing to find, and he’d been explicitly barred from the case on grounds of personal attachments. He disagreed with that decision and he doubted the Chief himself could have stopped him from coming.

But the Chief wasn’t there, just a group of uniforms, a few forensics squints, and a few reps from the coroner’s office. Even if there’d been something to find, Foster wouldn’t have needed it. The fact that Sten was missing was enough. He’d been the loving husband that stood by Ali through everything. If he wasn’t here, lying in a pool of his own grief, then he was the one responsible. Foster didn’t need any further proof. The door wasn’t forced, the room wasn’t askew; Ali had known her attacker, hadn’t expected her death. If she had, she’d have run, tripped, fallen, knocked over a lamp– left some sign that it wasn’t the man she loved and trusted.

Foster re-fitted his Fedora, and stepped away from the body. He pushed through some uniforms, passed the ambulance and coroner that helped EMTs to remove the gurney, and headed for his unmarked car. Like him, the Ford Sedan was getting on in years, but remained reliable enough not to be cast out. Its turbo-charged police engine had always gotten him from point A to point B, no matter the situation or urgency.

The Sedan was now the one constant in a world of variables. As he slid in and ignited the engine, it agreed with him. They were a package deal, it seemed to say, two old dogs trying their best to keep up and abreast of all the new tricks. The times had changed enough that technology was often their greatest asset and biggest rival, but today both sensed it was unnecessary. Personally, Foster didn’t need a bold repertoire or an extensive case-history to know where he’d find Sten.

When the Ford rolled up to the edge of the pier, Sten’s pickup was already there. Foster could just see him through the back and front windows of the truck, propped backward against the bumper with his hands in his pockets. For a moment, Foster considered leaving, but Ali’s dead body was too prevalent in his mind. Her supple, vibrant skin was too pale, eyes too closed and dead to let him leave.

Foster checked the reel-gun he’d inherited from his father to ensure it was still loaded. Cleaned, oiled, and fired regularly, it was as near to mint condition as an old thirty-eight could be. Part of him want to aim it through the windows separating him from Sten and pull the trigger. Something about Sten’s refusal to acknowledge his presence made him hesitate. It reminded him of the few times he and Sten had talked office-politics or work-business. Sten was always reserved, quiet, only letting out enough not to defy the NDA’s his software company made him sign. He was always honest, straight as a razor, Foster’d liked him for that.

But now he was jagged, crooked enough to have murdered his own wife then run to the one place he knew he’d be found; Why? Why any of it? Why murder his loving wife? Why make it so obvious? Why stand still when he could run, leave Foster in the dust? The old detective had to know, and there was only one route to the truth.

He slid from the sedan and sidled between the bumpers, reel-gun in hand, to approach Sten from the truck’s right.

“You don’t need the gun, old man,” Sten said as he approached. “I’m still the same man you’ve always called a friend.”

Foster stopped just out of arm’s reach, near the front-right fender, “My friends don’t murder people in cold blood, let alone their loving wives.”

“If you think that, you don’t know your friends too well.”

“What the hell’re you talking about, Sten? You killed Ali, your wife, and all you can do’s be a smart-ass about it? What in the hell’s happened to you?”

Sten finally moved, but only his head and neck. It still made Foster tense, just in case his so-called friend had any designs in mind. “Jumpy today,” Sten said blankly. “Why don’t you come over her, take a load off with me?”

Foster’s mouth half-snarled, “You son of a bitch, you think I’m gonna’ risk my neck for–”

“I think,” he interrupted. “You should hear me out. You wanna’ take me in after, fine. You wanna’ blow my brains out on the gravel, fine, but hear me out. You owe me that.”

Foster remained still, it was enough of a sign for Sten, whom turned his head back to the ocean. He was lost in thought for a long moment before he began with a distant vacancy, “Just before you and I met, I was writing software for a government agency connected to DARPA. Someone in the CIA contacted me asking for a meeting. Two months later, I was field-rated and on my first op. Nine months after that, I met Ali. She’d passed all of our screenings, and she believed every word of my lies. Or at least, I thought so.”

He slipped a hand into his inner-jacket pocket. Foster tensed up again. The hand withdrew, clutching a printed, digital photograph between its fingers. A small memory card had been taped to a bottom corner. He set the photo on the hood of his truck, slid it at Foster, and re-pocketed his hand.

Foster craned his neck to eye it and Sten continued, “That photo was taken two-days ago outside the Villa-Nova hotel. You’ll notice Ali meeting a bald man.”

Foster’s eyes confirmed as much, “This going somewhere?”

“Twelve hours ago the CIA informed me that Ali’s file had been forwarded from a contact in Moscow. Her real name is Ivana Kurleynko, an SVR agent sent to spy on the CIA through me. A contract hit was put out on her by the agency, but I got there first.” He finally met Foster’s eyes, his own sharpened by pain. “I… couldn’t let someone else kill the woman I loved. So I came in, and she saw me, smiled her smile, and blinked. I shot her once and left. I’ve been here ever since.”

They were quiet for a moment, only the ocean and distant gulls willing to force themselves on the scene. They created a background of white-noise that infected Foster’s heart.

He swallowed hard, “How’m I supposed to believe this?”

“All the information you need is on that card, Arnold.”

“You understand I need to take you in ’til this can be verified,” he said, only half believing him.

“Just make sure they don’t try to take retribution on me, you know?”

Unfortunately, Foster did. Wife killers were second only to child molesters when it came to inmate hatred.

“I’ll do what I can,” Foster said, still not sure what he believed.

Sten stepped around the truck. Foster’s followed, pocketing the photo. The two men stopped at either of the front doors and their eyes met again.

“You know,” Sten said. “I guess it’s true what they say, “You never really know someone.”

Foster thought about it, but Sten slipped into the Sedan and took the thought with. He ended up in a mired confusion… just another day of reel-gun blues.