The Damaged Detective

They never knew he was behind them. That death was so close.

 

In this suspense thriller, The Damaged Detective (85,000 words), set in 1972, an avaricious woman and her feisty fifteen-year-old daughter are on the run with money and an incriminating ledger belonging to a mob boss, and it’s Phoenix police detective Luis Faro’s job to find and protect them from a violent killer sent to track them down—an assignment that tests his emotions and his balance as he struggles with survivor’s guilt and vertigo following a recent automobile accident that killed his wife and injured him.

 

Ada Lange and her daughter, Jillie, arrive in Phoenix by bus, fleeing their home outside St Louis with the money and ledger in hand. Ada’s husband, Arthur, stole them from St. Louis mob boss Carlo Retricio, and he paid for it with his life. Thugs Retricio sent to Ada and Jillie’s home beat Ada, thinking she knows where they are. She doesn’t, but when they leave empty-handed, she remembers a safe installed under Arthur’s desk, where she finds $52,000 and the ledger. She doesn’t care about the ledger, but she sees the money as her big chance to escape her loveless marriage and strike out on her own, and she coerces Jillie to come with her on the bus. As the miles go by, though, what she thought was only a bad cold or a case of the flu turns worse, and she’s taken to a hospital in Phoenix, where she’s diagnosed with pneumonia and the money is found and impounded by the police, who suspect it may be drug money. The next day, at Ada’s direction, Jillie spirits her out of the hospital to a refuge in the desert Jillie’s heard of, where they hope to find medical help while they plan what to do next.

 

Luis attempted to interview Ada in the hospital to determine how she and Jillie came by the money, but she wouldn’t speak to him. Now he finds himself at a loss to find them at the same time he learns that Leonard Lachurado, the killer sent by Retricio, is in Phoenix, having trailed them all along the bus’s route from St. Louis. Frantically searching to protect them, Luis finds them at the refuge, only to be told that Jillie has the ledger and that she and Ada have unwittingly called Retricio at a number they found in it, offering to exchange it for money to replace the cash the police impounded. Astonished at their recklessness, he lays out a plan to capture both men—a confrontation that erupts in gunfire, killing Retricio and Ada. Shortly thereafter, Lachurado, too, is located and killed.

 

Recovering in the aftermath of the violence, Luis learns that an ongoing investigation into his accident has determined that a revengeful old woman with a deep grudge stemming from one of his earlier cases has been identified and arrested for having paid a confederate to tamper with his car’s steering mechanism, causing the accident that killed his wife. Absolved of the guilt he’s been harboring, and nurturing a strong affection and sense of responsibility for Jillie, now on her own with no family to turn to, he arranges at her urging to take custody of her—a bond that promises to smooth the way forward for both of them in dealing with the deaths of their loved ones.

One

                                                                                                                       

He woke with no sense of where he was or where he’d been. His vision was blurred. Indistinct figures loomed in the near distance—three, four, maybe more, their voices muted, scarcely audible. Men’s voices. His head ached horribly. When he reached to touch it, the voices stopped and he felt a hand on his arm. “Luis?” It was Raymond’s voice, soft and low, intermingled with the humming of fluorescent lights. A machine beeped softly at his side. Beyond, he heard footsteps echoing in a hallway.

Raymond’s voice again. “Luis. I’m here. Can you hear me?”

“Where am I?” he rasped through dry lips.

“St. Luke’s,” Raymond replied. “You’ve been in an automobile accident.”

“The lights,” he whispered. “Too bright.”

Now a form in a white garment was at his side. Raymond asked, “Can we turn the lights down?”

“We can turn them off” came the reply. A woman’s voice. Now the room was darker, lit only by a soft glow from a window. Late afternoon…early morning? “Gentlemen, I’m Dr. Rebus,” the woman said to the others near the door. “My nurse has asked you to leave the room, and I must insist that you do so. Detective Faro cannot speak to you now. He needs quiet and rest. Please move into the hall. There’s an alcove just down the way. I can meet you there and explain what we know about his injuries.

A shuffle of feet. The room seemed to expand, the air to clear.

To Raymond, she said, “From your collar, I gather you are Detective Faro’s priest. Is that right?”

“Yes and no. He’s my brother.”

“Ah. I see. I need to ask him some questions to assess his mental acuity. You may certainly remain alongside if you like.”

“Okay.”

“Detective Faro,” she said in a soft tone. “This will just take a moment. Do you feel you’re up to answering a few questions?”

“All right.”

“Can you tell me what year it is?”

A moment’s pause. “Nineteen seventy-two.”

“Can you tell me who the president of the United States is?”

“Nixon.”

“Good. One more. Do you remember the events that brought you here?”

Another pause. “Raymond said it was an accident. Could I have a glass of water, please?”

“Of course.” Reaching to a carafe on a side table, she poured a cup of water and handed it to him. Sipping, he gave the cup back and closed his eyes. “That’s enough questions for now,” she went on. “Sleep is good. Sleep as long as you like.”

“His record says he’s thirty-four years old. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Raymond responded. “Born here in Phoenix. Both of us were. He’ll be thirty-five in just over a month, in January.”

“Do you know if he has any preexisting conditions I should know about? Is he taking any medications?”

“No. Not that I know of. As far as I know he’s in perfect condition…or was.” Seeing Luis deep asleep, emitting a soft snore, he asked, “How is he? He looks pretty battered to me.”

“His age and his general physical condition are very much in his favor. That said, he has a severe concussion, several bruised ribs, and an ugly contusion of the left tibia—his shinbone. Other than that—and remarkably, from what I’ve heard of the crash—only a few cuts and minor bruises. His wife—”

“Karen. Yes, I know. I’ve seen the body.”

“I’m going down the hall now to talk with the others. You can stay here with him while I do that. But perhaps you’d like to come? Your brother will be fine alone for the time being. You can certainly return later.”

“He will take this very hard,” Raymond said, as much to himself as to the doctor. “She was everything to him. What will he think and do when he learns?”

 

The men who’d gathered in Luis’s room were clustered in the alcove talking among themselves. As Raymond and Dr. Rebus approached, a pudgy man in a business suit stepped forward to greet them. “Dr. Rebus,” the man said. “I’m Jack Laurence, Luis’s supervisor.” Gesturing toward two uniformed men, he said, “These men are Captain Wilson and Trooper Weston of the Highway Patrol.”

“Here’s what I can tell you,” Dr. Rebus began. Again she listed the injuries Luis had suffered, this time in more detail than she had with Raymond alone. “Frankly, the most serious injury is the concussion, a contrecoup injury.”

“A what?” Laurence asked.

“A contrecoup injury is a bruise on the brain opposite the trauma site. In some cases with head injuries like this, we see subdural hematomas, which can result in death. Let me stress that this does not appear to be the case here. But Detective Faro’s brain has been bruised. I would imagine—and this is only a guess at this point—that recovery will take weeks, perhaps a month or more. Even then, he may continue to exhibit symptoms.”

“What kind of symptoms?” Laurence asked.

“Headaches. Confusion. Fatigue. Perhaps sleep disturbances. Dizziness. Vertigo is not uncommon, with attendant nausea.”

Scanning their faces, she added, “Are there any other questions?”

“Yes,” Laurence said. “When will we be able to talk with him?”

“It would be best to let him sleep for the next twenty-four hours. After that I see no reason he shouldn’t be alert and able to answer your questions. Anything more?”

Each man shook his head. “Then excuse me,” she said.

Raymond turned to Laurence as the doctor walked away. “Can you tell me what happened? I know they planned to spend the long weekend at a lodge outside Flagstaff. Leaving today and returning Sunday evening. But that’s all. When and how did the accident occur?”

The trooper, Weston, spoke first. “It occurred midmorning today, Father. It being Thanksgiving Day, as you might imagine, traffic was light. I was the first officer on the scene, and I have statements from a man and his wife who stopped to help. Their name is Fleming. They were following Detective Faro’s car in the right-hand lane. They’d come off the valley floor and were into the mountains near Black Canyon City. It was raining hard and beginning to snow. At first there was a large semi between the Flemings’ car and your brother’s. Then it pulled out to pass, and Mr. Fleming said he couldn’t see your brother with all the water being kicked up. Your brother was driving. His wife was beside him in the front seat. They were driving an Austin Healey. Gray in color. Totaled now.”

“I know it,” Raymond said. “A 1960 Roadster. Bought it used. Twelve years old. Added a roll bar for safety after he married Karen.”

“When Fleming saw it next,” the trooper continued, “it was flying off the right side of the highway and down an embankment.”

Raymond nodded. “I see,” he sighed.

“Fleming didn’t hesitate to stop and do what he could. He’s a good man. His wife, too. She got out of their car and was waving a cloth of some sort to flag down help. I was on the other side of the highway coming down from Camp Verde when I saw her. I called in for an ambulance, then climbed down to the crash site. When I got there, Fleming was holding Mrs. Faro in his arms, trying to get a response. She was badly injured and didn’t respond. She didn’t respond to me, either.”

“Yes, I know,” Raymond replied.

“Fleming said when he first got out of his car and stood on the roadway looking down at the crash, he saw the detective slide out of the driver’s seat and walk calmly away from the Healey, ‘as if taking an afternoon stroll.’ Then he just sat down against a tree. ‘Uninterested like.’ Fleming said.”

“You heard the doctor say he suffered a severe concussion,” Raymond said, an edge to his voice.

“Yes, sir,” Weston responded, “and that would explain what Fleming said he saw, and certainly what I saw when I got down to him. He was dazed. Disoriented. It was like he was completely unaware of what was going on around him.”

“Thank you, Weston,” his captain said. “That’ll be all.” To Laurence he said, “We’ve assigned an accident reconstruction team to investigate and generate a report. When we have that, I’ll get it right over to you. There’s nothing at this point to indicate the truck driver bears any real responsibility. But we’ll track him down through the trucking companies and get his statement.”

 

Raymond made arrangements for Karen’s funeral, a vigil at a funeral home, a funeral Mass at St. Mary’s Basilica, burial at Holy Redeemer Cemetery. A hundred or more people surrounded the grave at her burial, police officers and their families, personal friends and others Luis didn’t recognize, his mind elsewhere. Why didn’t I just slow down, he brooded. Or speed ahead. And the Healey. I hadn’t driven it for weeks. Maybe something was wrong. Broken. Out of alignment. I should’ve looked at it. But it was running fine. There was no indication…

In the days that followed the ceremonies, his sense of guilt and the vertigo the doctor had warned of became troubling companions in his new life without Karen. Once, at a grocery store, he’d lost his balance and fallen to his knees while reaching for an item on a lower shelf. Struggling to stand, he saw a woman farther along in the aisle give him a seething look and move cautiously away. I would, too, (Highlight note?) he shrugged. The spinning sensation came multiple times a day, a sense of floating on air, tossed about like a balloon caught in the wind. It lasted only a few seconds, but he often had to stop and reach out to steady himself. On top of this, he could feel his eyes moving back and forth behind his lids for seconds on end when he lay down. And his brain hurt. How could that be? He could feel it there, inside his head, and he’d never felt it before, consciously felt it, like a weighted object. It was maddening. Told to rest and stay home until he felt fully recovered, he spent his days reading, watching television, and wandering aimlessly around his condominium, often tumbling onto his sofa to sleep in broad daylight. He was halfway through Atlas Shrugged but finding it hard to concentrate. At night he began drinking heavily.

He’d been overwhelmed by the support he’d received from his fellow officers and their families—food, cards, calls, and offers of help whenever and however he might need it. Each day Rick Dawson, his former partner, and Rick’s wife, Jenny, telephoned or visited. Jenny had taken charge of coordinating with the other wives to ensure Luis had everything he needed. Each time she visited she brought food, cards expressing sympathy, invitations to lunch, dinner, a walk, or other outings with her and Rick or some of the others. With Christmas just weeks away, she’d hoped to stir some sense of the season in him. But each time she got the same answer. “Thanks anyway. I do appreciate it. I mean it. But I just want to be alone for now.”

What went unsaid was that all his visitors, even Rick and Jenny, intent as they were on lifting his spirits, instead fed his guilt and his sense of loss. He and Karen had been married for five years, wed on Memorial Day, 1967—“Memorial indeed!” he would crow each year on the day thereafter—and as much as husband and wife, they were best friends. Always a quiet and introspective man, now, after the accident, he was more melancholy than quiet, more sad than introspective. A shroud of sadness clung to him, a feeling of unremitting remorse. He sensed a vast emptiness deep inside him, a well with no bottom. From time to time he would bring his hands to his chest to try and stop the tightening he felt around his heart. The condo, once so warm and comforting when Karen was alive, was now cold and constricting, the rooms, the whole atmosphere of the place as lifeless as the pit he felt inside him. Photographs on walls and tables; posters promoting old concerts and favorite movies; curtains on the windows; knickknacks on tabletops and shelves; a carpet stain Karen had worked diligently to remove, with little success; a hole in a sock she’d mended. They all reminded him of her and of what he’d lost.

He hadn’t visited the cemetery since the funeral. He didn’t know if he could face it. What could he say to her? How could he explain something he didn’t understand himself? But he knew Karen wouldn’t have waited to come to him if he had died instead. She would have come right away. She would have been brave, brave and caring, promising to come often and doing it. So he went. Turning in at the gate, he slowly followed the twisting road to the gravesite, parked in a small turnout, and sat for a moment, steeling himself for the encounter. Then got out and walked slowly ahead. By the time he reached the grave, his face was a mask of pain, tears soaking his shirtfront. Raymond had added a headstone. It hadn’t been there at the burial ceremony, and this was Luis’s first look at it. Karen Ann Faro. Born January 18, 1940. Died November 23, 1972. Raymond had wanted to add an inscription, but Luis couldn’t handle that, couldn’t think how to describe the woman he loved, now dead at his hands. “Later,” he told Raymond. “If at all.” On the ground alongside the grave, he put his hand in among the flowers laid in tribute on the protruding mound of newly planted grass and whispered, “I’m so sorry. I am so very, very sorry. I feel so responsible…so stupid…I should have been more careful…I miss you so much.” Then he sat silent.

 

A can of chili and saltine crackers sufficed for dinner when he returned home. Finished, he went to his liquor cabinet, poured a glass of Wild Turkey, and moved to his piano. As boys, he and Raymond were told by their parents to take up something other than sports and chasing girls. Raymond chose painting; Luis chose the piano, and through the years he’d kept at it, playing both popular and classical music. He was a star at parties in college, and Karen loved to hear him play. As a present when they moved into the condo, she’d splurged and bought him a used Chickering baby grand.

Seating himself, he began a soft étude. “Chopin,” he said aloud, then, “Debussy.” When he finished he went back to the kitchen for another drink. “A nocturne,” he said as he returned. Then he stopped, swallowed his drink, and went back for another. The condo was so quiet, barren of the joy and love it once held. In front of the liquor cabinet he spread his arms wide and screamed, “Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn!” the effort sending him reeling backward against his kitchen table, his glass flying from his hand and shattering on the floor. “Goddamn!” he screamed again, furious with himself—furious at his clumsiness, furious at the overwhelming guilt and emptiness he felt, furious at his stupidity and his numbing inability to see beyond the next hour, the next day, a lifetime ahead without Karen. Struggling to his feet, he poured another drink and returned to the Chickering. “Forgive me,” he said as he seated himself. “We shall do the Revolutionary Étude.” Lighting into it with bourbon-fueled energy, he pounded the keys, faster and faster, harder and harder, more and more violently until sweat on his forehead blinded his eyes and he fell, exhausted, against the music rack, his head cradled in his arm, his eyes closed, his head spinning.

His father’s heirloom clock ticked away on a table to his side. Chime built on chime, and still he slept. Awaking at last, he refilled his glass and staggered out into the community’s common area through the sliding glass panel that served as his back door. The stars blazed overhead. The cool air was a tonic. Collapsing on the grass, he fell asleep again.

A strange noise woke him, a panting sound accompanied by warm breath. Opening his eyes, he saw a large dog hovering over him, its head tilted to the side as if unable to make sense of him. Farther on, a blond-haired woman stood looking down at him. She wore a housecoat and fluffy slippers, and she kept pushing a stray wisp of hair back off her forehead.

“Belle!” the woman called out. “Come here, sweetie.” At this, the dog stretched and moved to her side a few feet away. “Are you okay?” she asked Luis.

“What time is it?” Luis croaked. As he spoke, he ran his tongue over his parched lips.

“Around two.”

“I don’t feel well,” he grunted. Sitting up, he ran his hand over the stubble on his face. Soon the feeling of vertigo came, and he braced himself until it passed. “I think I’m going to be sick,” he murmured. “You should move away.”

Patting her leg for the dog to follow, she stepped off the grass onto the flagstone walkway.

“Who are you?” he asked as she turned to go.

“My name’s Suzanne. I’m a neighbor.” Pointing, she added, “I live at the end there, on the other side of the pool. I’m just out for Belle to relieve herself.”

“Uh. My name’s—”

“I know who you are. You’re Karen’s husband, the policeman. I hear you playing the piano.”

“Yes.” Letting out a long breath, he began, “Karen—”

“I know.”

At this, Luis’s eyes filled with tears. The woman began to speak, then she stopped herself.

“I killed her,” Luis said quietly.

“I know that’s not true,” she countered in a comforting voice.

Jerking his head toward her, he snarled, “How could you? How could you know anything?” Then he lurched onto his side and retched violently.

“Goodbye,” the woman said. “Come along, Belle.”

 

 

Two

                                                                                                                       

Two weeks into December, his health improving, Luis decided he’d had enough of what he called “sitting on the shelf,” not allowed by the powers that be—meaning Laurence—to get back to real work. It was time to do something productive—anything to keep his mind occupied with thoughts other than his aches and pains, his dizziness, and his sense of guilt. Laurence had been a mentor to him from the first day he’d arrived from Arizona State University ten years earlier with a degree in criminology and criminal justice. Now he was one of the youngest investigators in the unit, and the plan was to leverage that distinction into an active assignment.

“No,” Laurence sighed when Luis appeared at his door. “It’s been less than three weeks since your accident. Twenty days, by my calculation. And what I’m seeing when I look at you now, and from what I’m reading in the medical reports I’m getting on you, it’s hard to seriously consider putting you back on active duty. Take a seat. I’ll read you the most recent report.”

Folding himself into a chair across from Laurence, he spread his long legs out in front of him and leaned forward. He’d prepared the case for his return, and he was primed to make it, the set of his jaw reflecting his determination. He had no experience being idle, workwise or otherwise, and he wasn’t about to start now.

“Detective Faro has not shown meaningful improvement in his recovery from the effects of his automobile accident,” Laurence began. “He continues to suffer from depression fed by a deep sense of responsibility for the accident and from recurring bouts of vertigo attributable to the blow to his head. In addition, contusions on his leg, along with the deep bruises to his chest, limit his physical dexterity. I recommend he remain on limited duty until these conditions improve.’”

“Yeah, well, that’s old news,” Luis countered. “I feel fine. I’ve healed and I’m ready to get back to work.”

“Luis,” Laurence said in an earnest tone, “I want you hale and healthy, and I don’t want you to get hurt. Now, don’t give me that look. I mean it. If you’re unsteady on your feet and preoccupied with what you see as your guilt for your accident—a guilt I feel is misplaced—you could very well get hurt if you find yourself in the wrong situation with the wrong crowd, unable to fully focus and react to protect yourself and others. So bear with me. Be patient. I’ll let you know the minute I and the professionals evaluating you feel you’re ready to go again.”

Frustrated, Luis nodded acknowledgment and left the office without a word. Three doors down the hall, he turned in to the men’s room, shouted at the ceiling, and bent over a sink to splash water on his face. Was he so damaged, so conflicted, as Laurence seemed to feel? He didn’t think so, but the face that stared back at him in the mirror above the sink told a different story. It was a tired face, sadness captured in his eyes and his expression. Even he could see the inner turmoil he was experiencing. My God, he thought, rubbing his three-day-old beard. I even forgot to shave.

Tall and lean with close-cropped black hair, eyebrows, eyes, he had what Karen called a “Mediterranean air,” a look other women had been known to comment on, accepting the slight rightward tilt of his nose—the result of an inadvertent elbow earned in a pickup basketball game—as part of the package. He’d run track in high school and college, specializing in 220-yard low hurdles, his height, at six feet three, a distinct advantage helping him place at or near the top in most meets. Until the accident, he’d regularly run three to five miles most days, lifted a set of free weights he’d owned since college, and pounded through dozens of push-ups and sit-ups.

But that was then. Now he grew tired walking around the block, his sleep and his daytime musings often accompanied by a familiar tune he couldn’t quite identify, visions of a bright light, fire, and an acrid smell. The accident. He and Karen had been in the foothills a third of the way up to Flagstaff, the mist and cool temperature of the valley having given way to steady rain and snow showers, the pulsing rhythm of the Healey’s engine and the slap-slap of its wiper blades a pleasant backdrop. She was curled in the seat beside him, a tartan shawl across her legs, her hands folded in her lap. Then she was gone.

 

Raymond greeted him when he returned home. Seated on the sofa in the middle of his living room, his feet propped on his coffee table, he wore an open leather jacket over a Notre Dame sweatshirt and blue jeans, and he was eating popcorn, a good amount of which had fallen on the carpet. When he saw Luis, he sang out, “Luis, it’s time for us to hit the desert once again. Knowing you’ve nothing better to do, I brought food—sandwiches, poto salad, and chips—not to mention my trusty red cooler filled with the elixir of the gods, Coors. You and I need to go out and commune with the land.”

“How long have you been here?” he asked with feigned annoyance. “I never should have given you the keys.”

“It’s coming on dark,” Raymond responded. “The stars will be shining soon. It’s prime time to go out to Dad’s special spot. Your beeper can surely reach out there—although I don’t know why they’d want you in the state you’re in—so if the city needs to be saved, you can be found as easily there as here.”

The desert, Luis thought. I like that idea. (Why no comment about ital here?)

When the two were boys, their father used to drive them out into the desert northeast of the city, to a little rise in the sand down a remote access road a half mile off the highway. From this vantage point, he would position his car to catch the Cardinals games on KMOX out of St. Louis. When the Cards weren’t in season, the three just enjoyed being together alone in the desert, smelling the clean air and listening to the night sounds, the boys often falling asleep side by side in the back seat as their dad dozed in the front.

Raymond was in college at Notre Dame when their father died. As a boy he’d been a hell-raiser at home, and he’d continued in that vein in South Bend. But on his drive home to his father’s funeral, he’d been in an automobile accident and almost died. During his recovery, he experienced his call to the priesthood, and he enrolled at the University of San Diego’s St. Francis Seminary where he excelled and gone on to earn a master’s degree in Divinity and Theology at St. Patrick’s Seminary in California. Returning to Phoenix, he was ordained into the priesthood and ultimately named secretary to the Bishop when the Diocese of Phoenix was established in 1969. Now thirty-eight, four years older than Luis, he’d developed a paunch, but his pleasant face and black hair and eyes still drew the attention of women—attention he enjoyed but resisted with an ever-present wide smile across his face and in his eyes.

“Aren’t you ever tempted?” Luis once asked him. “By women, I mean.”

“I’m tempted by many things, little brother. Women among them. But my heart is with the church. Celibacy is not the burden you might think or have heard from others.”

“I don’t talk to others about it, Raymond, only you.”

“Yeah, well, know that the rewards of ecclesiastical life far outweigh the strictures. You heard it here.”

Luis let out a sigh and smiled at the familiar landscape when Raymond rolled to a stop at their spot in the desert. “Yes,” he said. “This is a good idea.” Saguaro cacti dotted the landscape among sharp-tipped agave, mesquite, prickly pear, and clusters of bunchgrass. Fast-moving clouds hid the sky. The air smelled of oncoming rain, and away to the east, lightning licked the earth, quicksilver sent by the gods. Charlie Douglas’s program ran until four o’clock in the morning, and with the station’s fifty-thousand-watt signal, it blasted country music over half the nation.

Raymond drove an audacious canary-yellow Camaro convertible with a muted racing stripe running horizontally across the hood—much more car than he needed, Luis argued, and hardly the right rig for a priest. Seated in it, the top down, their coats drawn tight against a slight breeze, the brothers ate their sandwiches and drank their beer in silence, serenaded by Roberta Flack and Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty and Tammy Wynette. Whenever Charlie called out the hour, he would add the line, “King Edward Cigar time.”

“So, how you feeling?” Raymond asked as he popped a beer and handed it to Luis.

“That seems to be the only question I get lately,” Luis responded.

“Yeah, well, I hear from that pretty blonde that lives across the common area from you, Suzanne, the one with Belle, the golden retriever—”

“What do you hear from her?” Luis interrupted.

“I hear that you’re drinking hard and playing your piano too loud and too late into the night. And I hear that some of your neighbors are thinking about coming to have a talk with you.”

“Let ’em come.” Pausing, he added, “And how do you know her name? I remember her dog’s name. But I never caught hers. You’ve been snooping around about me, have you?”

“No. I just ran into her one day after visiting you. We had a nice chat.”

“Nice chat? Nobody has chats, Raymond. They talk, they converse, they gab, they jaw…”

“I like her,” Raymond went on, unfazed. “Seems like a real person. Says she met you out by the pool one night, woke you up while you were enjoying a nap on the grass. Says she introduced herself, but you might not remember because you were puking your guts out alongside a spilled glass of liquor at the time.”

“What’s that to her?”

“Nothing. But you might want to catch up with her one of these days and let her see the real you.”

“I wish I knew who that was,” Luis said in a muted tone.

“Well, I know who it is, Luis,” Raymond said, a new firmness in his voice. “And I want you to consider something, something I think will help you remember.”

“What’s that?”

“Counseling, professional counseling.”

“No.” Leaning back against his headrest, Luis closed his eyes and went silent.

“Let me finish. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, but you’ve had a hell of a shock, both physically with the crash and psychologically, with Karen’s death. And if you tell me one more time that her death was your fault, I’m going to beat the hell out of you.”

“I’m not going to do it, Raymond. That’s what I told the two who came over from the department. A man and a woman brought me a basket of fruit with cheese and crackers and said the department had a protocol for this sort of thing. ‘This sort of thing,’ Raymond,” he repeated in a low voice full of contempt. “I wanted to say, ‘What sort of thing?’ The sort where a guy’s wife is dead? Where he killed her? That sort of thing? You know what to do about that, do you? You can fix that?”

“Listen, Luis, this from your brother, someone who knows you well, better than anyone: Life is a balancing act, and you’ve lost yours, both literally and figuratively. I think talking to someone—”

“I have you, Raymond. I can talk to you.”

The little breeze stiffened in the silence that followed, and the desert changed color as billowing clouds obscured and then revealed the moon. Soon WWL began to deliver as much static as music and Raymond turned off the radio. Now they could hear the symphony of the desert night—crickets and frogs, the putt-putt-putt of pygmy owls, and the plaintive cry of a killdeer. Far in the distance, a coyote yipped. With the bright lights of Phoenix and the suburbs behind them, the view ahead was almost complete darkness. Only small flickers of light shone on the far horizon, little cells of life amid the vast landscape.

“Okay, new topic then,” Raymond said after a time. “You asked me to go to the garage where you stored the Healey and gather up the various stuff you’d stored there. I did that, and I’ve got it here in the trunk.”

“Good.”

“About the garage, by the way.”

“Yeah?”

“As you likely know, there was a slight oil stain under where the engine would have stood. Not a real concern. I get that. But in among it I saw what looked like tiny metal filings. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Any idea what that might be?”

“No.” Luis frowned. “You got everything off the shelves and the floors, you say?”

“Well, most of it. I know you didn’t do serious maintenance on it yourself, but I did find a number of used and unused cans of oil, an air filter in its original packaging, and some other stray items I figured you’d have no use for now, so I gave that to the maintenance people around the corner. Nothing among what’s left looks to be of real value, but you can check for yourself when we unload it.”

In the silence that followed, Luis suddenly blurted, “This can’t go on!”

“What can’t?” Raymond asked.

“I can’t just keep sitting around all day. Laurence won’t relent and let me back, even on limited duty. I’m going nuts. I need to be doing something productive, catching bad guys. But Laurence won’t budge. Says he only has my best interests at heart.”

“Well, you never know,” Raymond responded. “Maybe a good old-fashioned murder or two will come up and they’ll need your unique expertise and intuition to crack the case. Or, better yet, an opportunity to help a damsel in distress or break up a crime ring. So take heart.”

 

 

 

Three

                                                                                                                       

It was cold in St. Louis, cold and wet, snow inches deep on the ground. In Webster Groves, twelve miles southwest of the city, Ada Lange sank deep into her chair in her living room, covered in a red flannel robe and blankets. She’d been ill for days. Maybe the flu. It was past midnight, Christmas ten days away. She’d given little thought to decorating the house or any of the other matters involving the holidays, content—as her husband, Arthur, often accused her—to wallow in anger at what she considered her sorry lot in life, her self-pity honed to a fine edge. Roused by a sharp sound from the kitchen behind her, she called out, “Jillie? Is that you? Why aren’t you in bed?” No? Not Jillie. A strong gust of cold air blew into the room. Arthur, then. (Again, okayed itals?) “Close the door, Arthur,” she rasped. “You’re letting the cold in.”

A moment later, a bear of a man burst into the room, trailed by a smaller, weasel-like companion. Both men’s coats were flaked with snow, their shoes covered with slush. Stunned, Ada pulled a blanket to her throat and stared goggle-eyed at them, unable to speak, her breath caught in her throat. “Who…who are you?” she gasped at last. “Go away! You don’t belong here.”

With a finger to his lips, the smaller man bent and whispered, “Shush. I’m Mr. Luther. And this is Mr. Sava. Your old man brought a box here tonight. It don’t belong to him. We come for it. Where’d he put it?”

“I…I don’t know,” she said in a barely audible voice, her indignation replaced by shock. “Arthur…Arthur can tell you,” she blurted. “He didn’t tell me about any box. Why would he?” Caught by a coughing fit, she grabbed a tissue from a box on the table beside her to cover her mouth.

Luther scoffed and looked at Sava. “Man tells his wife everything, right, Sava? Why would this woman lie to us?”

“Don’t make no sense,” Sava growled. Moving to Ada, he grabbed the front of her robe and dragged her to her feet. “We gotta know where that box is, lady,” he hissed, his face inches from hers. “So quit the bullshit. Where’s it at?”

So strong was his grip, her feet barely reached the floor. “Stop it! Stop it!” she moaned, her voice trembling. “Put me down! You’re hurting me. He came home earlier and left. He did have a box with him. He took it into his study. Then he left again. He said he was going back to his office. Why would he—”

“Where’s the study?”

“There,” she said, pointing across the hall. “When he comes back…”

“Lady,” Sava mocked, “your Arthur ain’t never coming back again.”

“Shut up!” Luther roared. “She don’t need to know about that. Put her down. Sit her down in the hall on that rug where we can see her. I’ll take the study. You take the rest of the house. Call out if you find anything.”

A tight grip on her wrist, Sava dragged her Ada into the hall and threw her down on the rug against the front door. “Stay!” he ordered.

“But I—”

“That’s it!” Sava yelled. “No more of that!” Seizing her by her hair, he slapped her twice across the face and pressed his fist against her nose. “I don’t want to hear no more out of you. Get it?” Released, she collapsed back onto the rug, blood streaming from her nose, her cheeks glowing red. Silent, she curled into a ball, sobbing uncontrollably.

A sturdy oak desk stood in the center of the study facing the hall. Behind it, casement windows faced the street. One wall held a shelf with a grouping of books and a small golfing trophy alongside two framed diplomas centered one above the other. On the other wall, a large print of an old English sailing ship tossed about on frothy white waves hung over two knee-high wood file cabinets. The desk held a telephone, lamp, tabletop clock, and a paper desk mat filled with doodles.

Luther had no idea what was in the box. All he knew was that it was cardboard, well used, a bit smaller than a banker’s box, and taped top and bottom—the property of C&D Construction, albeit not labeled. He knew it was sensitive. He knew he’d better come back with it. And he knew if it were open when he did, he and Sava would pay in ways he didn’t want to think about.

Walking behind the desk, he saw it on the floor, open and empty. No sign of what might have been in it. “Uh-oh,” he whispered. Now we got a treasure hunt. Seating himself, he swept the desktop clean and began pawing through the drawers, tossing the contents and the drawers onto the floor when he finished with them. Nothing. Crossing to the file cabinets, he pulled out handfuls of green hanging files, found nothing, and dropped them on the floor. With the thought that there might be a wall safe, he took down the English ship and the two college diplomas and threw them aside. Still nothing.

“The box is here,” he said in a low tone when Sava appeared at the door. “But it’s empty. We weren’t to open it when we found it. But we’re gonna have to search the whole place to find it—whatever was in it. I figure we’ll know it when we see it. Gotta be here somewhere. Go upstairs. I’ll keep searching down here.”

 

Jillie came awake in her bed to the sound of loud voices in the hall below. None she could recognize. Hard, menacing voices. The clock on her bedside table read one fifteen. Unsteadily, half-asleep, she wrapped herself in her housecoat and looked out into the hall. A huge man, bald, no one she had ever seen before or ever wanted to meet, was moving up the stairs, halfway to the hallway outside her room. Defenseless if he came into her room, she slunk into the shadows, her heart pounding, her breath caught in her throat. When he reached the top of the stairs, he glanced toward her room, so near she could see scars and pitting on his face—surely he can see me! she breathed—then he turned away and entered her parents’ bedroom at the far end.

At the sound of a shrill, reedy voice below, she crept out onto the hall and froze. Ada lay awkwardly on her side on the hall rug against the front door. Another man, much smaller, stood over her. “Where is it, goddammit?” the man ranted. “You know what was in the box, don’t you? And you know it’s empty now. So tell me what was in it and where your old man put it, or I swear I’ll have Sava beat it out of you.”

Momma! Jillie whispered.

Seeing her, Ada closed her eyes and fell back against the door.

 

Turning to understand what Ada had seen, the man looked not up but down the hall to the rear of the house, noticing for the first time a white paneled door at the base of the stairs, almost invisible against the white paint of the hall. Easy to miss with only a recessed pocket-door pull to reveal it. “What’s that?” he hissed.

“Basement. Our basement,” Ada wheezed, eager to send him there and away from her.

“Sava!” he yelled. “There’s a basement here. Did you look in the basement?”

“Nah,” Sava replied from above. “I don’t know nothin’ about no basement. There’s three rooms up here. I’m doin’ one now. Get to the others in a minute.”

 

The annoying squeak the basement door made when it slid open told Jillie the little man was going down into it. Gathering herself, she looked to ensure the big man couldn’t see her and raced down the stairs to Ada. “Hurry, Momma, hurry!” she urged as she helped her mother to her feet and propelled her into the kitchen and out the back.

“We have nowhere to go,” Ada said in a small voice when they reached the back fence. “Where can we go?”

“I have the key to the Westcotts’ house. They’re away for the week. I’m feeding their cat, remember?”

“No.”

A run-down Chrysler with chipping paint sat parked in the alley against their fence. “That must be their car,” Jillie whispered, as much to herself as Ada. “We’ll walk in their tire tracks to hide ours. Hurry now.”

Three houses down across a narrow side street, they came to the Westcotts’. Jillie’s breath was coming fast, her heart pounding. Ada slumped against her, all her strength gone. A key to the house lay under a flowerpot on the back porch. Retrieving it, she unlocked the back door and led Ada into a mudroom lined with hooks lined with winter coats, rain gear, sweaters, and other outerwear. Ada let out a deep sigh as she slouched onto a bench. Now Jillie could see how badly she’d been beaten. Red welts covered both sides of her face, and blood ran from her nose and mouth down onto her chin and neck. A red bruise was forming on her right wrist where one of the men must have gripped her, and she cradled it gently in her lap. “Oh, Momma!” Jillie groaned. “Look what they’ve done to you!”

“Why is there no heat?” Ada groaned. “I’m so cold.”

“The Westcotts turned the heat down when they left,” Jillie responded. “But we can go upstairs. There are beds and blankets there. We’ll be warm and I can tend to your cuts.”

A purring sound made both women jump. But it was just the cat coming to investigate the noise.

 

“Jesus Christ!” Luther cursed when he emerged from the basement. “Sava! Sava!”

“What?” Sava called back from the upstairs hallway.

“Where’s the old lady?”

“I thought you had her.”

“She’s gone.”

“Gone? You were supposed to watch her while I—”

“Shut up!”

“Where the hell would she go? Wait. Hold on.”

“Hold on for what?”

Striding across the hallway, Sava quickly surveyed a middle room, then passed on to Jillie’s. Flipping on the light switch, he stepped in and scanned the room. “Did you know there’s a kid lives here?” he called down to Luther. “A girl by the look of it. Teenager maybe. And she ain’t here now.”

“A kid! Jesus. Nobody told us about a kid!”

 

I’ve worked as a professional writer and journalist for many years, initially as a reporter for a small North Carolina newspaper and, later, The Arizona Republic in Phoenix. Subsequently, I worked as a corporate communications manager before establishing my own agency. I’m now retired. The Damaged Detective is my first novel.