NaNoWriMo '06 - Day 30

I did it! I made 50,000 words with about an hour and a half to spare. Whoot!

I freely admit that this installment is a bit overdrawn, and I’m thinking that I may drop it altogether once I get around to editing. Oh well, I got it out, and that’s the point. I was pushed to just keep writing rather than worrying and wondering if what I was writing was any good.

NaNoWriMo is a wonderful thing for someone like me. I recommend it, or something like it, to anyone who has always wanted to write a novel but never has. It might not be great, but at least you’ll be writing something. After all, you can always scrap it and start something else once you’ve gotten yourself in gear.
In case anyone is wondering, I’m going to keep writing and posting the results here, it just won’t be every day like it has been throughout November.

For Idle Hands (working title) - Part 25

As I stared down at Andre - or Stephen, whichever - I saw three cops racing towards us through the thinning crowd. of course, those barricades blocking off Church Street from Main Street would be manned by the local cops to make sure no one got hurt and sued the town. They’d seen what went down, and were rushing over to serve and protect. I didn’t know if these guys were on my side or not, and I couldn’t take that chance. Even if they were, in front of all these people they’d have to cart me away, and I couldn’t have that either.

The big man under me was out cold, I wasn’t going to get him moving, or even talking in the next thirty seconds. It was time to bail. Leave him here to occupy the boys in blue - though in Idle the uniforms were a grey so dark they appeared black in most light - and see if I could get back to my bike before they did.

I took just a second to look around for my cell phone, but it had skittered off into the crowd and I had no hope of finding it now. I did see the saddle bags tall dark and ugly had been carrying though, so I grabbed that and slung it over my shoulder. It was even heavier than it looked. Just great.

As I got up to run, only stumbling and nearly falling once in the process, the sun was just falling below the tree line. There was no way I was going to get to my bike before the cops caught me. My only hope to outrun these guys while I was encumbered like this was to find an unlit area and lose them. Church Street was well lit, as was the UMI campus to my left and ahead, and to my right was the beginnings of Idle Village’s downtown area. Up ahead though, the right side of Church Street was lined with, of all things, churches.

At this time of night on a Friday they were closed and locked up tight. Except that I happened to know that cleaning service worked on the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church on Friday nights, and they always left the back door propped open while they worked. With any luck, they’d be there right now. My mother had dragged me to that church every Sunday until I was eighteen, and occasionally after that, and I knew it like the back of my hand. Plenty of possibilities for escape there.

I huffed down the street, shouting for people to get out of my way. I’d piled the saddle bags on top of the same shoulder I had Derrick’s bag slung over, to spare my injured shoulder, but now that one was starting to cramp and burn from the exertion.

I could hear the cops behind me yelling at me and each other, though through the noise of the crowd and my own ragged breaths and pounding heart I couldn’t make out the words. I glanced back to see what they were up to.

One was working on the thug, rolling him over and handcuffing him, and the other two were following me. The two that followed looked to be young guys and in good shape. This just kept getting better and better.

I reached the Unitarian church and cut sharply to run down the side street it sat at the corner of, leaving the crowds behind completely. It was a large building, and had been expanded and built onto many times. The result was a monstrous structure that looked as if half a dozen smaller building had been stacked next to and on top of each other like building blocks. As I pounded down the street the back door - really a recessed door in the side of the building - came into view. It was closed.

I nearly despaired until I noticed the cleaning service’s van parked on the other side of the street. Unless they were just sitting in the van, they were in there. With luck the door was unlocked, they just hadn’t propped it open, possibly to avoid tempting revelers to come in. The door featured one of those large levers you simply had to push on to open it, since this door doubled as the handicap entrance when the church was open. That left one very important question, did he door open in or out?

I didn’t have time to consider it, I reached the ramp leading up to the door with the cops only a short distance behind me and closing. I hit the door at a full run, catching the lever with my free hand an instant before my body blasted the door open. It opened in, and was lighter than I’d expected. I lost my footing and sprawled flat out on the linoleum floor. The saddle bag went flying down the hallway.

As I scrambled to my feet I could hear the faster of the two cops pounding up the access ramp. As soon as I regained my feet I took off down the hall, cursing myself for losing track of the saddle bags. About half of the lights in this portion of the building, the administrative offices, were on. Somewhere in the distance I could hear a vacuum cleaner.
I rounded a corner and headed towards the chapel. Both of the cops skittered around the corner after me, colliding with the wall and landing in a heap. Their uniform shoes weren’t designed to work on linoleum, apparently. Neither were my Bean boots, but they did the trick well enough.

I raced out into the chapel and stopped dead. There were no lights on in here. The sky was clear and the moon had risen shortly before sundown, but it was only a quarter moon. The light filtering in through the stained glass windows did little more than highlight the polished backs of the pews and the clean white lines of the pulpit. A lone, lit exit sign showed the direction I wanted to head in. I ran down the isle towards the back of the room, my legs and lungs burning in protest. I cut left before I reached the main entrance doors - they would be locked anyway - and felt my way along the wall until I found another door and opened it.

This small room was not only a broom closet, but contained a ladder that ran up through a hatch in the ceiling. I’d been up this ladder many times as a child. More recently, before Carolyn and I had been married in this church, I’d shown her this place. It was the path the ministers took once a month to wind the great old clock in the steeple.

I climbed up the first few rungs, feeling my way along, then pushed the hatch open above me. As I did a distant light started sweeping the chapel. One of the cops was standing in the door on the other side of the room searching it with his flashlight. Sure enough, it settled on me as I stuck my head through the opening, and I heard him yelling to his partner that he’d found me.

I climbed up through the hatch and closed it behind me, though I knew it wouldn’t do any good, I had no way to secure it. I fished my pen light out of my pocket and swept its small red cone of illumination over the new space I found myself in. It was much as I remembered it. If anything it was bigger.

When the original roof and steeple of this church had needed to be replaced, the church committee had elected to have the new roof built over the old one. About eight feet over it, in fact, leaving the original in place. Large timbers criss crossed the space in between, but it was otherwise open all the way to the far wall. The effect was bizarre and beautiful during the day. At night, I discovered, it was like a scene from a gothic nightmare.

Getting up into the steeple to wind the clock involved scrambling over the peak of the old roof - using short lengths of two by fours that had been nailed there as hand and foot holds - and down the other side, then up a steep and winding staircase. I had a few options here, none of which I liked. The simplest, and dumbest of them would be to sit on the hatch and wait for them to go away. Of course, they wouldn’t go away, they’d break in or find another way up here, and in any case I would still be caught. I could easily fight them off either here or on the winding stairs. Surprise alone would probably allow me to win easily, but I didn’t need to add roughing a cop to my list of offenses.

There was another option. It was crazy, but then the whole day had gone from bad to crazy and back again several times. There was no reason to buck the trend now.

I tossed Derrick’s bag down the roof, towards the back wall, hoping I wouldn’t need anything it held after all. The I scrambled over the peak of the old roof and slid down the other side, bypassing the hand holds altogether. I could hear the hatch bang open behind me as I reached the bottom. I killed my light tried in vain to quiet my breathing.
Two cones of light swept over the space from the other side, searching. I heard one of them exclaim something then move off to the side. He’d seen the bag. Both beams of light vanished behind the old roof as they searched around and beyond the bag for me.

I crept to the stairs and started climbing, slowly and carefully. It wasn’t easy with virtually no light to work with. The steps were unevenly spaced and narrow, but they were solidly built and made almost no noise as I crept up them. If I made it to the top I would be out of sight until they realized I wasn’t down there and came up looking for me. That would give me a minute or two to work up to the next step.

Then, half way up, I found the one squeaky stair.

They’d heard me, and were rushing back to the makeshift ladder over the old roof. Damn it. I flipped my red pen light back on and scrambled the rest of the way up the stairs. The first of the cops was just reaching the peak of the roof as I reached the top of the winding stairs.

I could see in here without the flashlight so I switched it off and quickly pocketed it. The steeple was roughly ten by ten feet, with the clock mechanism taking up half of that space. Above me a large bell hung, silent and ominous and the light leaking in through the slatted vents on the sides and rear of the structure.

I glanced through the slats at the rear of the steeple to make sure I had the correct side. I could see the ridge of the new roof receding from me. Offering up a quick apology I threw my good shoulder against the slats, crashing through them. I was expecting more resistance and put too much force behind the motion. I fell through the new opening.

I hit the peak of the roof and careened off. Flailing my arms and legs wildly, my ankle caught on the inside of the hole I’d just fallen through and I stopped sliding. I desperately grabbed hold of the moulding around the outside of the steeple and pulled myself up.

I could hear the cops starting to climb the spiral stairs. They weren’t making any effort to be quiet about it and I knew they’d make it up here quickly. I had to move fast.

About seven feet off the level I was standing at, on the outside of the steeple, was a small decorative ledge. I reached up and tested it, it seemed like it would hold if I was careful. I moved to the front corner of the steeple and looked over the edge. I was at least forty feet off the ground. In front of the steeple the roof stuck out about a foot. I reached around and grabbed the ledge on the front of the steeple, then threw my leg around the corner.

A foot at a time - I had no time to be careful - I worked my way out onto that narrow protrudent, holding onto the ledge above for dear life. I couldn’t believe what I was doing, clinging to the front of the steeple in front of the clock’s face. A narrow decorative ledge, a foot of steeply peaked roof, and what strength I had left in my battered and exhausted body was all that stood between myself and at the very least a long hospital stay. By no the cops were probably in the steeple, and this was the only place they wouldn’t be able to see me through the slats.

Sure enough, I could hear them talking on the other side. They were trying to talk each other into going out of the roof, I guessed, and neither one was having it. I hoped they’d hurry up and leave, my arms were tiring and my fingers were going numb in the rapidly encroaching night cold.

They must have been poking their heads out the hole now, because I could hear their words for the first time. Unbelievably, I was pretty sure this pair were the Chips who’d hauled me in after my ill advised car chase earlier.

“So, what, did he just jump off the damn roof?”

“I don’t know, but he’s not up here, where else could he be?”

“Fine, let’s head down. If he jumped, he’ll be waiting for us at the bottom. If not, then he’s hiding somewhere and we’ll just call in a few people to wait him out.”

“Fine, fine, but if we lose him he ain’t gonna be happy. I’m blaming you.”

I couldn’t hear the other’s response clearly enough to make out the words as they ducked back inside. “He”? The way he’d said that had made it sound like a code name, or a pseudonym. Kind of a “he who shall not be named” kind of thing.
No time to worry about that now though, I had to get back off the edge of this roof and figure out how I was going to get out of here without being seen.

NaNoWriMo '06 - Day 29

Wow, only two days to go and I take the night off. That takes balls. Big brass balls. But enough about my strange, genetically improbable endowments.

The truth is that I was tired, and not feeling terribly well. Maybe if I’d been able to get up off the couch I would have gotten some writing done, but that was not to be. Getting only a few full nights of sleep for a month will do that to you I guess. Also, going to my To-Shin Do (a martial art directly descended from Ninjitsu) class last night probably had something to do with it too. “Sore” only begins to describe how that feels, especially after missing a week and a half.

Note to self: Watch out for small women with attitudes, they fight like mongooses.

NaNoWriMo '06 - Day 28

I’m so close now, so close to crossing that 50,000 word mark and being declared a winner that I can taste it. Fewer than 2000 words left to write before I cross that all important line, though I’ve probably got more like 30,000 to 40,000 words before the story will be over. Oh well, I’ll just have to keep writing through December (which some people refer to as National Novel Finishing Month), albeit at a more leisurely pace.

Winning NaNoWriMo tastes a bit like General Tsao’s Chicken, incidentally. A little nugget of trivia for you.

More big doin’s a happening here fairly rapidly. I got a bit bogged down in the chase scene, that seems to be a sticking point for me, but it’s all there and can be molded in editing. I actually stopped writing half way through this installment for a bit, wondering if the whole chase back into town was a good idea or not. Ultimately I stuck with my “just go with it” rule and just went with it. Besides, I had to get Nick back into town somehow.

I’ve had the thought of a chase through a Halloween event in my head since I started writing this story. The town of Westbrook actually does something similar to this, or at least they did when I worked in town there, and it really did bring traffic to a halt for miles around. A lot of action movies seem to involve chases on foot through random parades (usually Irish Pride parades, it seems), and this was my answer to that particular cliche.

Of course, I don’t think I’d bothered to mention the date prior to this, so the idea of a Halloween event kind of comes out of left field. Again, there’s the editing. In case you’re wondering, this story takes place on October 27th, 2006.

Speaking of editing, I’ve just realised that I mixed up something pretty major early on. In Maine, the local cops don’t do murder investigations. They leave it to the State Troopers. I was right to have the Maine State Police Crime Lab come in to work the scene, but I didn’t follow up on that with the rest of the investigation. Oh well, it’s not going to be too hard to fix that. Gunn seems like the type to perform his own investigation in a case like this, and once he’s been shot that’s the perfect excuse to keep the local cops off Nick’s back, whoever ends up in charge pulls them back so the Troopers can do their jobs. Nick will only have to watch out for them now. Cyr, depending on the direction I take him in (there are a few possibilities that I’m playing with) can either be what he is now, or he could be in charge of the state’s investigation.

It’ll take some replotting, but it doesn’t undermine the whole thing, so it’s no big deal, really. I’m mostly mentioning it here so I won’t forget about this later, and so it’s on record that I know it’s wrong, even thought I’m going to keep writing it the way it is for now.

For Idle Hands (working title) - Part 24

For lack of any better ideas, I continued towards Yadira’s house again. I hit the power-line run, turned left into it, and tore in without slowing down. I rode the throttle hard. The exhilaration of it was gone. I was just pushing the bike faster and faster, seeing what it, and I, could handle. As I vaulted peaks in the ground the engine roared, temporarily freed from the restraint of having to propel the bike and myself forward. As I touched down the tires tore wide swaths of dirt and plant life, throwing it high in the air around me. The messenger bag thumped me on the back a moment later, threatening to topple me. I skittered and drifted, fighting to maintain my tenuous grip on the earth as I pushed the bike even faster. I almost hoped I’d lose that fight, a fitting end to a miserable day.

The sun was sinking low in the sky as I yanked the bike to a stop. Carving a wide crescent I pulled around, leaning hard into it to keep from tumbling head over heels into the ground. Eventually, momentum spent, the bike came to a rest. I could see Yadira’s house from here.

Her house was in one of those small, cookie cutter housing developments that seemed to spring up wherever there was open space around here. Similar to Charlie Dyer’s house, but smaller and less pretentious. The kind of house a woman with no credit could afford on a local cop’s salary. This particular development was in a large rolling field that was bordered at the back by the power line run I was on, though the houses were some distance away from the lines. I was certain that one of the houses directly in front of me was Yadira’s. I remembered that the rear of the house faced the power lines.

In fact, her bedroom window had faced them squarely. I’d only seen the room a few times, when I had helped her move in, but I remembered that clearly.

I was on the up slope of a long gentle rise in the land. I could see most of the houses from here, but not all of them, and the rolling landscape hid the bottom halves of a few of the houses. I brought the bike back around the way I’d been heading and puttered up the hill. At the top I could see the whole development clearly, the houses closest to me would be easy to surveil given the proper equipment. The grass and brush here were three feet tall in places, so there was plenty of cover, and this was the highest point in the land for some distance around. If I were going to spy on Yadira’s house, this is where I’d do it.

I looked around. In front of me, towards the houses, was a matted down patch of grass that measured maybe eight by five feet. If I had to guess, I’d say that someone had laid a blanket down here recently. Very recently, within the last twenty four hours maybe.

Lili and her associates had nearly run me down not far from here this morning. Were they watching Yadira last night? Lili hadn’t said anything about that, but I knew how that conversation would go. I hadn’t asked her what she was doing out here.

That was quite a gig they had going. Local spies for hire who travel by night and by ATV. I could see the attraction for someone like Lili, it sounded awfully exciting.

I would have to talk to Lili again, ask her more questions. If I could face her that is. In the mean time, I’d come all the way out here, taking the scenic route by way of the scrap yard and Rosie’s, I might as well poke around a bit at Yadira’s house if I could. I didn’t see any cops on hand, odds are they’d already gone over the place thoroughly and left, so I didn’t see any harm in looking around myself.

I pointed the bike towards the small houses and gunned it, taking it more easy this time. I’d been traveling on fairly well worn trails up until now, but here I was cutting cross country, and these tall grasses could be tricky. There was no telling where you’d find a two foot dip or a wood chuck hole out here.

As I approached I could tell which house was Yadira’s even from behind. Halloween was only a few days off, and she’d decorated with pumpkin and ghost cut outs in the windows.

They were cut from construction paper I could tell as I pulled up and stopped in her back yard, Alyson had probably helped cut them out when she was here last weekend. It looked as if Yadira was the only one who’d bothered with any decorations. It was a shame, really, people didn’t seem to get into the holidays like they used to.

With a loud whump, most of the windows i Yadira’s house exploded outwards. The glass was followed a moment later by a wave of hot gas and flames that threw me from the bike and showered me with red hot embers and splintered wood. I looked up and the house was nearly engulfed in flames. They licked out of every first floor window, covered every internal surface I could see, and black, oily smoke had started to billow from the upstairs windows.

What the hell was going on? As I lay on my back in the short grass of Yadira’s back yard, I tried to take in what had just happened. Someone had firebombed Yadira’s house. Why? What the hell could warrant the risk and expense of that sort of thing?

I heard tires screech on the street in front of her house. I dragged myself to my feet, shaking the disorientation off as I righted the bike and climbed on. I opened the throttle and screamed around the house, wide enough to avoid falling debris, and burst onto the paved road at a dizzying speed. I quickly corrected direction, skittering sideways then taking off towards the main road.

I could see the person I was chasing, a mountainous man on a motorcycle, wearing a ski mast but no helmet. There were no plates, and a set of saddle bags strapped to the back of the bike bulged.

He must have seen me in his rear view, because he sped up as I approached, taking the winding turns of the development’s roads at dangerous speeds. I wasn’t sure if his bike was faster than mine, but I was probably more nimble, and I kept up with him easily. Finally, after a few minutes, he burst out onto the main road with me hot behind him. He headed towards town.

He turned on the speed, looping wide around cars that had the audacity closer to the speed limit, nearly colliding with cars coming the other way several times. I followed as best I could. As I’d imagined, his bike was faster than this one, but I could weave in and out of traffic more quickly, and I probably put significantly less strain on my engine with my comparatively svelte build, so I was able to keep up. If we hit open road though, I would probably lose him like I lost Wally’s Monte Carlo this morning.

Luckily for me he was heading into town, so the traffic only grew heavier.

---

As we approached the center of town traffic came to a stand still. Being the weekend before Halloween the streets around main street had been shut down at five to allow people to bring their kids out, in costume, and take them trick or treating in safety. Even though the Main Street itself was still open, routing all of the evening traffic down one street had brought everything to a halt.

The man on the motorcycle cut a sharp left, riding up onto the sidewalk and over an embankment and into the parking lot of UMI’s admissions office. His bike was strictly a road model and it slid around on the grass, slowing him nearly to a stop before he hit the pavement. I followed, gunning the throttle and launching myself over the embankment and into the parking lot, overtaking him easily.

I cut my bike hard to the side, slamming his bike behind his leg with the full weight of my bike and myself. He toppled, his motorcycle threw up sparks as it slid wildly on the tar. He rolled end over end, flopping onto his back. I skittered my bike to a stop twenty feet away and threw the kick stand down.

He was on his feet in seconds. Before I could get to him he’d grabbed the saddle bag and taken off across campus towards town.

Running with Derrick’s bag slung over my shoulder was, as you can imagine, difficult. Luckily he wasn’t having an easy time of it with those bulging saddle bags slung over his shoulder.

He chugged towards the Church Street entrance with me pounding after him. He hit the hedges separating the campus from the public sidewalk at a full run and crashed through, bowling over a couple of kids in costumes. I leapt through the hole he’d made after him, dancing awkwardly to avoid stepping on any of the kids he’d knocked over before following him again.

---

Church Street was a zoo. Hundreds of kids in costumes and their parents, not to mention dozens of high school and college kids out enjoying the evening, clogged the street right up to the barricades that closed it off from Main Street.

My subject waded through the crowd, shoving kids and parents aside, screaming at them to get out of his way. I picked through his wake as quickly as I could, zig zagging through the crowd, hopping over the occasional person who’d fallen over as the big man passed.

(note to self: this whole chase is decent, but needs to be punched up, it’s kind of boring)

He kept glancing back at me, seeing me pursuing him, getting closer by the second. He reached into his jacket and I prayed I was wrong about the reason. His had emerged holding a pistol, a Baretta 92M from the look of it. He stopped and started to turn around, the crush of people around him making it difficult.

He was actually going to shoot at me in the middle of a crowd of children. I couldn’t believe it. I also couldn’t let that happen. I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and threw it as hard as I could, baseball style, at his head. Just as he turned towards me and started to bring the gun around, the phone connected with his right eye. Like all modern cell phones it wasn’t very hefty, but it did the trick.

He yelped and jerked sharply, the pistol went off into the air. The people around him screamed and scattered, suddenly too aware that he wasn’t simply a costumed criminal with a prop gun.

As the crowd parted I covered the final fifteen feet between us in less that a second and tackled him full on, bringing my shoulder low, driving it up into his solar plexus and picking him up off his feet.

My momentum propelled us both forward and we crashed to the ground, me on top. He grunted loudly and tried to move. I slugged him in the face three times as hard as I could. My hand screamed in protest, but he’d stopped moving.

I snatched up his pistol before anyone else there could grab it and stuffed it into the pocket of my jeans. I straddled his chest, ready to slug him again if he moved, and yanked the ski mask off.

It was Andre, or Stephen, I wasn’t sure which any more. In any case it was one of Charlie Dyer’s goons. It looked like I would be hitting the club tonight.

NaNoWriMo '06 - Day 27

The way I left things the last time, I had two options for how to procede. I could either have Wally be alive, or dead. Either way would have quite an impact on how things proceded. If he was alive, he’d need to be included in the procedings, if he was dead anything more I needed from him would have to be gotten at a different way. Ultimatelly I went with what felt right for the story, and I’m pretty happy with my choice.

I also decided to bring one lingering question to a close, thoguh hopefully in a way that left a few more questions unanswered, maybe even opened up a few new ones. I’m nearing the midpoint of the story now, having decided that this will run about 90,000 words in total, so it’s about time things got moving. I know I’ll have some pacing issues to deal with in the editing phase, but for now I’m just going with whatever seems to work.

For Idle Hands (working title) - Part 23

I blinked, looking down at Wally, trussed up in the trunk of his own car. Before I could check whether he was alive or not the smell hit me, and I didn’t have to investigate any further. The cold weather slows decomposition, but it doesn’t stop it at these temperatures, and besides there are certain bodily functions that react unpleasantly to a person’s death.

Wally’s hands and feet were bound with duct tape, and a strip had been applied around his head that covered his mouth. He’d been beaten pretty severely, though judging by the bruising on his knuckles he’d put up a pretty good fight. Blood streaked his face and matted his luxurious blond hair in places. I couldn’t see any obvious gunshot or knife wounds, if I had to guess I’d say he’d died of internal bleeding. Whether that had been caused by his attackers’ rough treatment of him, or if the car crash had done him in, I couldn’t say. The car was a crime scene now, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to touch it or anything in it.

This was the second body I’d discovered in less than twenty four hours. I hoped it would be the last. Death isn’t fun, or interesting, or cool. It’s not something to be glorified or romanticized. Death is horrible and messy and terrifying. Violent death, when one person’s life is ended by another, is disgusting and unnatural, and visceral beyond all comprehension until you’ve seen it for yourself. To this day I wretch at the very thought of it. Any man who claims he’s tough enough to just deal with it is a coward hiding behind his own bullshit. I’m told by those who investigate these things for a living that you get used to it after enough exposure, but I doubt you ever quite come to grips with it on the most basic level. It’s just not part of who we are as a species.

After I’d finished vomiting - at least I’ been able to turn around first, the CSIs were going to have a hard enough time with this as it was - Bob sidled up beside me.

“That boy dead?” he asked after a moment.

“Yeah Bob, I’m pretty sure he is.”

“Damn shame,” he shook his head, more critical than morose. “Kid was a punk though, ever since he came to town back in ninety three I been sayin’ ta myself he’s gonna end bad. You live the way he did, was only a matter of time.”

I walked back towards the gate where I’d left the bike, far enough away that I couldn’t smell what was happening to Wally’s body. Bob followed a moment later, hobbling admirably as he attempted to keep up.

“How about you go call 911, Bob. I need to get going.”

“Why you in such a hurry? I know I shot at ya, but i don’ get much company out here. I was hoping you stay a spell.”

“I’m sorry Bob, I’d stay but I have to be gone when the cops get here.”

“Why, you done something wrong?”

“No, well, not really. Someone did though, and I’m trying to figure it out, and I can’t do that if I’m hauled in for questioning. Do you understand?”

“Aw, sure I do,” he clapped me on the back, “you detective types are always workin’ outside the law, figuring crimes what got the police stumped, right? Like in those movies with that little French fellow, Poirot?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “He’s Belgian, actually, but that’s close enough. Just like in the movies.” If only.

“Fore you take off, I got to replace that helmet I up and shot like a buffoon. Stay here.”

He crab walked off, muttering to himself under his breath. Bob was a bit crazy, but I liked him most of the time, the crazy old goat. A few minutes later he returned with what looked like a world war two era metal Army helmet.

“This it the best I got. She’s not much to look at, but she’ll keep yer brain where it’s supposed to be. Now go on with ya, I called the police when I was inside, likely they’re on the way.”

I quickly thanked Bob for the helmet, then jumped on the bike. I strapped on the helmet, it was better than nothing I supposed, and took off, heading west again, though I was feeling completely lost at the moment.

---

I’d covered half the distance back to the power-line run, which I reckoned was still the fastest way to Yadira’s house, when my cell phone rang. Luckily I’d set it to vibrate, as I never would have heard it over the din of the dirt bike. I pulled off onto the should and checked the caller ID. It was Derrick, so I answered.

“Nick, thank god. I figured something had happened to you.”

“I thought it was safer not to try and call, I didn’t know if you’d be alone. What happened with the bulls, they wreck the china shop?”

“Sort of. They questioned me for a bit, and went though the office a bit, but the search warrant was pretty limited so they couldn’t do too much.”

“What did you tell them?”

“The truth, pretty much. Did I screw up?”

“Don’t worry about it, so far all they’ve got me for is leaving the scene of a crime, and I probably saved Gunn’s life, so they’d have a hard time convicting me for anything.”

“How hell did you get out without getting caught?”

“It’s a long story. The short version is that I’ve got most of the cops in Idle pretending they don’t see me until midnight, after that I’m fair game.”

“Then I guess we’d better figure this out before then. Where are you, have you got anything new?”

“You could say that. Reader’s Digest version: Lili is part of Espial Associates - she took those pictures actually - she also got me a change of clothes and I picked up a dirt bike so I’m mobile and more or less incognito, I found Wally’s car, it had been crashed in the woods in North Idle, and Wally was in the trunk dead, looks like someone beat the shit out of him.”

There was a moment of silence.

“So, you and Lili, huh?”I stammered something about how I didn’t say that, and it was none of his business anyway, and she was young enough to be my daughter for Christ’s sake. I could practically hear him smirking.

“But yeah,” he finally said, taking on a serious tone, “Wally’s dead? For real?”

“Wally’s dead,” I said, glad to be back on safer ground. At least I wasn’t responsible for what happened to Wally.

“That’s wild. I guess that rules him out as a suspect then, huh? Do you figure it was someone else who shot at you then?”

“I’m not sure, but my gut feeling is that he was in the trunk when that went down. That leaves the question of who would want both Wally and me dead?”

“Well, who was having those pictures taken earlier this year? Maybe someone’s had it out for Wally for a while?”

“No, Wally was having Yadira surveilled.”

“So, he was paying to have pictures taken of himself doing the nasty?”

“My thought on that is that he either forgot about it or he didn’t care, I wouldn’t put either past him.”

“So what’s your next move?”

I sighed, “damned if I know.”

Just then a mud spattered jeep passed on the road. Something about it seemed familiar. Of course, there’d been one like that at Rosie’s this morning, though it had been a different color. And with that, a thought occurred to me.

“Derrick, I have to go check something out, I’ll call you back.”

“What is it?”

“I’m going to Rosie’s. Wally’s destructive habits may just work in our favor this time.”

---

I skittered to a stop on Rosie’s dirt parking lot a few minutes later, I hadn’t been far. I threw the kick stand down and leapt from the bike. When I burst through the door, Rosie was pouring coffee for a young couple at the bar, she jumped and knocked one of the mugs, thankfully empty, to the floor. It shattered and fragments of ceramic skittered everywhere.

“Hey mister!” she yelled at me, “you owe me a new mug, eh?” She squinted at me as I headed towards the far booth, ignoring her. “Nick? You should know better, you owe me two mugs!”

I skidded to a halt in front of the furthest booth. The booth Wally had been sitting at when I’d come in this morning. The one he’d been carving something into.

Near the edge of the table, carved in crude inch high letters, was one word: Alyson.

---

The phone rang three times before my mother picked up. As it was ringing I stalked from Rosie’s, tossing the ten I’d weaseled out of Wally this morning at her before leaving.

“Did you know, Mom?”

“What are you talking about, Nick? Did I know what?”

“Did you know that Wally McCollin was Alyson’s biological father?”

“Did Wally tell you that?”

“Wally’s dead, mom. Someone beat him to death and shut him in the trunk of his own car.”

“Oh my, that’s terrible.”

“Did you know that he was Alyson’s father?”

She only hesitated a moment, then answered in a voice that told me she wasn’t going to bullshit me, and I’d better return the favor.

“How did you find out?”

“Wally and Yadira have been sleeping together for at least the past three years. Wally came to Idle around the same time I brought Yadira back, probably following her from Boston, though I never made the connection until today. Just this morning he carved Alyson’s name into a table at Rosie’s after hearing about Yadira’s murder. The only people who knew about Yadira at that point were the cops, me, Derrick, and you. Wally has never been on good terms with the Idle PD, I doubt Derrick told him, and I know I didn’t, so that leaves you.”

She sighed, a long tired sigh.

“How long have you known, mom? Why didn’t anyone ever tell me?”

“I’ve only known since Yadira and Alyson started spending time together. Yadira didn’t tell me, Alyson did, and I didn’t feel it was my place to spread that around. What a girl tells her mother in confidence, even her adopted mother, is only for the two of them. I don’t know why Yadira didn’t tell you, I can only guess that she didn’t think you’d understand.”

“You’re damn right I wouldn’t understand,” I yelled into the phone, “that man was a brute and a criminal. What the hell was she thinking? How stupid could she be?”

“Come now, Nick, don’t judge her too harshly. From what you told me about Boston, she was in a bad place. I’m sure Wally started out as just one more mistake. After he cam here, who knows? Maybe she loved him, or thought she did.

“Maybe after you left her, she just needed someone to hold her?”

“No, don’t you dare put this on me! I bent over backwards for that woman. I couldn’t be with her anymore after all she’d done, but I did not just dump her on her ass and leave her to fend for herself.”

“Watch you’re tone, don’t forget that I’m your mother.”

“And where was Wally when Yadira needed someone to cosign her mortgage loan? Where was Wally when she was in labor for fifteen hours? Where was he for the last twelve years of Alyson’s life when she needed a father more than anything, and all she had was me?” I collapsed to my knees in the dirt next to my dirt bike, fighting back tears. “I tried, mom, I tried so hard. It was just never enough. She needed a father, her real father, and all she got was a burned out vet with a bullshit PI gig who couldn’t even save his marriage to the most wonderful and forgiving woman in the world. She deserved better, Mom.”

“Maybe Wally was never a part of Alyson’s life because she already had you. Even with all of your faults, even though you weren’t always there, you always tried. Yadira could have changed the way things were, but she didn’t, because she saw that things were just fine as they were.”

“So why did she keep seeing him? It’s been going on for at least the past three years, maybe longer.”

“A woman has needs, Nick, maybe that’s just all there is to it.”

I wiped my eyes. I supposed she was right, Wally was even less the father type than I was. Still, Alyson had known, and now she’d lost her biological father too without ever getting to know him. She was such a good kid, it just wasn’t fair.

She deserved so much better than all of this.

NaNoWriMo '06 - Day 26

Things are starting to happen faster now, I’d say we’re definately into act two at this point. The hardest part is just figuring out how to keep things moving, and how to bring out everything that needs to be brought out. I’m also nearing the finish line for NaNoWriMo, and I’m looking good.

As for the ending, I figured it was time to drop a real bombshell. Enjoy!

For Idle Hands (working title) - Part 22

I crossed the rest of the campus without drawing much attention to myself. Dressed as I was - all in black, a hood pulled up over my head, and an overstuffed messenger bag slung over my shoulder - I looked like a hundred other people walking around here. No one seemed to notice my mud caked boots, or didn’t care if they did, and no one looked closely enough at my face to see that I was twice the age of anyone else here.

I crossed Main Street at the intersection with half a dozen students, most of whom turned towards the Idle House of Pizza after crossing. I headed up a side street and followed it around behind the town library and a few other shops. Harvey’s Garage was tucked in behind the Hannaford Bros grocery store, well off Main Street, and this little cross street lead right to the side street it was on.

When I walked into Harvey’s, he laughed so hard he had to hold onto the dented and scored counter top to keep from falling over.

“Yeah yeah,” I said, “get it out old man. I’m incognito.”

Harvey was a big man my father’s age. He was bald except for a ring of gray hair that ran from ear to ear behind his head, and that he kept braided into a long pony tail that reached half way down his back. He also had a scraggly white beard that looked as if he cut it using a hedge trimmer. With his eyes shut. His beer gut shook ponderously as he laughed, his grease stained and weather worn face crinkled, making him look even older. His eyes though, were baby blue and younger than mine, and sparkled with the joy of a good joke well told. He was a crazy old man, but damned if he wasn’t a great mechanic, and he’d always treated me right.

“Shamus, you look like them kids come in here with those damned rice burners and cock racers. The hell are you all prettied up like that for? You gonna ask me to put some of them ‘go faster’ neon lights on Bertha now? Ooh, maybe you want a fancy retarded spoiler on the roof too?”

“Are you done now Harvey?”

“Not hardly, but don’t mind me, I’d go on all day if you let me. So what d’you need?”

“I need a loaner, something inconspicuous.”

“What’s wrong with Bertha? She don’t get much more inconspicuous than that.”

“I can’t use Bertha right now. There are some people looking for me and I need something they won’t recognize.”

“What people’re after you? Need me to crack some skulls or anything? I could use the exercise.”

“The less you know the better.”

“Ah, cop trouble, eh? Well, no matter of mine. Come on,” he gestured to follow him as he headed towards a door in the back of the shop, “I’ve got a couple of things out back might suit your need."

---

The selection Harvey offered me consisted of an old clunker of a Buick Celebrity that I was sure hadn’t moved since Reagan was president, a Chevy Cavalier that was equal parts black, green, and white Bondo, and a rusted out Ford Festiva with three flat tires. I was about ready to give up when I noticed something behind the Buick.

Moving closer I saw that it was an old but otherwise pristine looking dirt bike. It was matte black with red highlights, and it had a legal plate and a headlight. Nothing about it to draw attention, aside from being a dirt bike. It wouldn’t be a comfortable ride, but it would get me there, and if need be I could take it off road. In this type of area, there were off road trails all over, and who knew how handy that might come in if I had to avoid the main roads or make a quick get away.

“What about the bike?”

“What, that stupid thing? Some kid gave it to me because he couldn’t pay and I wouldn’t give him his car back until he did. Damn near killed him to do it, but I don’t let no one stiff me a bill, ‘specially not some kid I don’t even know. Didn’t think you were the type though, Shamus.”

“Once upon a time, Harvey. If you can part with it temporarily, I think that’ll do for what I need.”

“It’s yours, so long as you bring it back in one piece. You break it you bought it, right?”

“Of course.”

The way today was going, this bike would probably end up in the bottom of some ravine somewhere - likely on top of me - but I didn’t have much choice at the moment.

“I’ll take it. Did the kid give you a helmet too?”

As I left Harvey’s Garage in my bright yellow helmet with the reflective lighting bolts on the sides and the bright purple face guard, I questioned the wisdom of riding with a helmet for the first time in my life. I just prayed that if I did crash it would kill me instantly, so I wouldn’t have to be found wearing this thing.

I headed south from the village, into West Idle. I figured it was time to check out Yadira’s house to see if that had anything to tell me, and to see if I could track down Wally.

My shoulder still hurt where I’d been shot, and it hadn’t escaped me that I could just as easily have been killed if I hadn’t reacted when I did. Depending on how my reunion with Wally went, I knew I wouldn’t hesitate to return the favor.

---

Once I hit the power line run I swung left and took it off road. Yadira had lived to the west of here, and this would be the quickest way there, assuming I didn’t kill myself in the process.

I’d forgotten how much fun it was to do this. I gunned the engine up each rise and shot over the top, touching down with a bang on the other side, holding on for dear life. Moving fast and trusting to the gyroscopic effect of the tires and my own momentum was the best way to keep upright, as terrifying as it is to experience. So I just went with it and had the wildest ride of my life.

As I approached the main road, where Lili and her friends had nearly run me down this morning, I slowed to a stop. I wasn’t going to make their mistake, and besides, there was often steady traffic at this time of day.

I was right, traffic wasn’t heavy today, but it was steady. Looking in either direction I could see that I was going to be here for a few minutes before breaks in both lanes lined up so I could cross. The lane closest to me, heading into town, finally broke, and I could see a large gap after a tow truck coming the other way. I prepared to gun it across the road as the tow truck passed, but caught myself short as I recognized the car being towed.

It was a black Monte Carlo SS with tinted glass and a skull decal in the rear window. Wally’s car. The front end was smashed in, it looked as if whoever had been driving it had lost a dispute with a tree. Judging by the thick layer of caked mud over the car’s bottom half, it had probably happened far off the road and had been sitting there for a while. Maybe the bastard had crashed shortly after outpacing me this morning. It would serve him right.

The break in traffic in the near lane was near to closing when I snapped to attention and gunned the throttle, leaping from the shoulder in a spray of gravel and whipping left to follow Wally’s car.

As I followed I considered the possibilities. The tow truck was the old one that Bob Kifner, who rant the scrap yard in West Idle, owned and used to collect wrecks to add to his yard. The police wouldn’t have called him to take the car away, at least not until they were ready to release it once the investigation had concluded, and only then if the owner didn’t want it back. Bob would take any car for free so long as he didn’t have to leave town to collect it. That meant that either the cops had gotten it and released it already, which didn’t seem likely. More likely they hadn’t been called. Maybe Wally had called Bob to collect it, knowing that he wouldn’t ask questions, so he could get rid of it. Eventually, if they were really looking, the cops would call Bob, but it would’ve bought Wally some time.

All of that meant that I could conceivably see the car before the cops got to it. It wasn’t strictly legal, but then neither was anything I’d done after leaving the scene of Gunn’s shooting. I figured I could take a quick look, and so long as I didn’t touch anything I couldn’t be accused of contaminating any evidence. Well, I could of course, so I would have to see if I could get Bob to watch so he could vouch for me. He was a crotchety old man with a definite disdain for authority, but he was also known for being a plain talker and a straight shooter.

Of course, first I had to talk Bob into letting me in, and into chaining up the twin rottweilers he let run loose in the yard to discourage intruders.

I don’t know why, but dogs didn’t seem to like me, and I didn’t think Bob would be too keen on helping me if I had to shoot his dogs.

---

Bob pulled up to the gate in front of the yard and I pulled in behind him, killing the engine, dropping the kick stand, and stepping off the bike. Bob jumped out of the truck - if anything an eighty year old with a severe limp and life long asthma does can be called jumping - and pointed a long, ancient shot gun at me.

“What do ya thing yer doing, punk, tryin’ ta sneak up behind me and mug me eh?” He yelled, taking a few halting steps towards me. “I fought the Nazis in dubya dubya two, you don’t scare me!”

“Bob!” I shouted back, raising my hands and hoping he could hear me through the helmet and his own bad ears, “it’s Nick Shamus, you know me!”

“Nick who? Are you on the pot, ya punk?” The gun was quivering, the tip bobbing all around. I had to get him to put to down quickly, before he shot me by accident.

Risking moving, I tore the helmet off and tossed it to the ground so he could see my face. Bob jumped at the sudden move, tracked the helmet, and shot it. It exploded in a shower of plastic and padding. Luckily I’d tossed it away from myself and the bike, so we both escaped unscathed. As the dust settled I closed the fifteen feet between us and yanked the gun from his hands.

“Bob!” I screamed, I was getting really tired of being shot at today. “It’s me, Nick Shamus, the detective, you know me!”

He squinted at me for a moment, then his face lit up.

“Nick, why didn’t you say it was you? I thought you was some punk all hopped up the pot tryin’ to rob me yard.”

I sighed. His rottweilers had come running at the sound and were barking furiously on the other side of the gate, jumping against it generally scaring the shit out of me.

“Sorry ‘bout your helmet, kid, I gets a bit twitchy when I think I’m being jacked.”

The shotgun was a single shot breach barrel type. I cracked it open and the shell popped out. Instinctively I snatched the spent shell out of the air and jammed it into my pocket. I double checked that the barrel was clear, an old Army habit, before I closed it and handed it back.

“Next time,” I said slowly and clearly, “keep your finger off the trigger until you’re sure you’ll need it. Now I need to talk to you about that car you’re towing.”

He nodded absently, “what about it?”

“First, let’s talk about keeping those dogs away from me before I have to shoot them."

---

Bob told me that he’d gotten a call a couple hours ago to pick this car up off the road in North Idle. The name of the caller, as he’d written it down, was “Dolly”, I figured that was Wally as filtered through Bob’s ancient phone lines and obviously poor hearing. He agreed to let me check the car out, and to watch me as I did so he could back me up if it became an issue.

As I approached the car, a smell started to make itself known. Very faint, but slightly rotten and sweet at the same time. I leaned in through the smashed driver’s side window and fumbled to get the keys out of the ignition without touching anything else. The thick work gloves Bob had insisted I wear didn’t help any, but I finally got them out. The little plastic skull dangling from the ring didn’t surprise me one bit, neither did the skull knob on the stick shift or the chain ring of the steering wheel.

I went to the trunk, the smell was definitely stronger here.

“Bob!” I yelled, though he was only about ten feet behind me, “did you notice the smell when you picked up the car?”

“What? Smell? No, my nose hasn’t worked right since dubya dubya two. Shrapnel in my nasal cavity, you see.”

“Fine, could you come over here and watch this?”

He sidled up and stood next to the trunk, eyeing me suspiciously. I put the key in the lock and turned it slowly, not really wanting to do this but knowing I had to. The latch popped. I said a silent prayer and swung it open.

It was Wally.

NaNoWriMo '06 - Day 25

Ah, the fallout from an unexpected tryst, especially when the people involved have very different notions of what happened and why. Never been there myself, thankfully, but boy is it good for a little drama. I’m particularly proud of the opening scene here, especially becasue it just happened that way without any planning. It’s an amazing feeling when you’re so into your own story that it starts telling you how it should be told.

I ended up cutting this night’s writing a bit short because I wasn’t feeling well (a major, major headache pretty much floored me for the evening), and I wasn’t sure I liked where things had gone, again.

For Idle Hands (working title) - Part 21

I opened my eyes and glanced quickly at the digital alarm clock next to Lili’s bed. I’d only lost twenty minutes, good.

I lay on my back, the yin yang bedspread pulled self consciously up to my chest. Lili was next to me, already awake and studying my face with shining eyes. She was on her side, uncovered to her knees, the graceful arc of her hip rising out from under the comforter.

“Why?” I asked after a moment.

“Why what?”

I sighed. “Everything. Why did you invite me up here? Why did I accept? Why did we do what we just did? How could I have been so stupid?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Nick. And neither did I. I’m not a child, I knew what I was doing.”

“I’m old enough to be your father.”

“But you’re not,” she leaned over and tried to kiss me, but I turned away. I sat up and swung my legs off the bed.

“I should take that shower now, I need to get going.” I stood up and pulled on the jeans and sweatshirt Lili had procured for me. I wasn’t about to go walking around a college dorm in nothing but a towel. I glanced back at Lili, “where do you keep your towels?”

She was sitting up in the bed, covering herself with the comforter. She looked upset, vulnerable. I was making a real mess of things, and I knew it.

“Lili, I’m sorry, I just… I’ve been having the worst day of my life, and it seems like no matter what I do I keep making things worse. First I’m too late to save Yadira from being killed, and I keep finding more and more evidence that she was a dirty cop. Then I wreck Derrick’s car by being a moron. Then Gunn takes a bullet for me, his replacement is way out of his league, and half the cops in Idle are looking for me. And now this.”

I have a suspicion that if looks could kill I would have dropped dead. She stood, taking the comforter with her, and pulled a white towel from the dresser next to the bed. She threw it at me then stalked back to the bed and sat down, very distinctly not looking at me.

I’d really screwed up this time, I’d hurt someone else. How could I have been so stupid? I never should have come up here.

---

The shower was hot and the water pressure was delicious. I was careful to keep the bandage on my back from getting too wet, and I had to shield the cuts on my forehead and chest from onslaught, but otherwise it was three minutes of heaven. I toweled off and dressed before leaving the shower stall.

Glancing in the mirror I was reminded that I hadn’t shaved in two days. When I was younger, around the time I’d first had to shave, whenever I would get overwhelmed and start to feel out of control, I would shave whether I needed it or not. It was a simple action, and something I had control over. I could use some of that therapy now, but there was no time, I’d wasted enough already.

When went back across the hall to Lili’s room, I found her dressed as before in her leather skirt and halter, sitting cross legged on the floor of her room, with my notes and the photos I’d gotten from Emmett spread out on the floor in front of her. I didn’t say anything as I shut the door. After what I’d done, I didn’t feel I had the right.

“It looks like you’re not the only person in town who had a past with Yadira.” She pointed to the picture from earlier this year, “or maybe a present.”

“Do you know Wally McCollin?”

“I do, among other things he’s a regular at the club.”

“What about the guy in the helmet?”

“I don’t know, it’s hard to tell, I can’t see his face.” She was lying, she was good at it but I’d been dealing with liars for too long to miss the signs.

“Just tell me who it is, Lili. I know you have a helmet like that, and it’d be a hell of a coincidence to find that on the same day that I get that picture, and the day that I’m almost run down by a couple goons on four wheelers in those getups.”

“I’m sorry about that, Nick. I didn’t know it was you, not that it makes any difference. People usually aren’t walking around out there in the middle of the night.”

“Who is that talking to Wally, Lili?”

“Isn’t the more important question, who took the picture?”

I didn’t answer, I didn’t now how to answer. Then something clicked, some small thought in my sub conscious broke free.

(note to self: add mention of camera to description of Lili’s room, or mention of her minor)

“You did, didn’t you?”

“I’m a photography minor, in fact, though this is hardly representative of what I can do. Surveillance photos aren’t about artistic expression, after all.”

“But, why?”

She shrugged, “it’s a job.”

“You’re Espial Associates??”

“I’m one of he associates, you could say. He’s another,” she tapped the photo of the man in black talking to Wally. “But no, I won’t tell you his name.”

“Who’s your boss?”

“I won’t tell you that either.”

“Who paid you to spy on Yadira?”

“Spy is an awfully negative word. And yet it is synonymous with ‘espial’, so I guess it is apt. I’ll tell you who our client was because I believe that you’re trying to do a good thing, helping a former lover even though that love is long gone. I can respect that. Wally was our client, he paid us to watch Yadira.”

“Wally?! Why?”

“All I know is he said he was worried about her. I don’t handle the fine points, I just take the pictures. This one,” she tapped the photo of Wally and the man in black again, “was insurance. While they’re discussing the details, I snap the picture, ensuring that the client can’t disavow any involvement, in case it comes to that.”

“A college student, a bar tender, and a hired spy. That’s a busy schedule.”

“I’m a multi-talented girl.”

I looked away, trying to hide my look of shame at what I’d done. Lili stuffed the photos and my notebook back into the bag and stood.

“You should go.”

I nodded. I turned my soiled clothes inside out and stuffed them in the bag too. As I walked out the door, I turned back.

“Thank you for the clothes.”

She smiled tersely and slammed the door in my face. I walked the three flights down in a fog, I had too many new things to consider, too many new questions, and a new item to add to my list of sins.

NaNoWriMo '06 - Day 24

I had fallen about two days behind at this point in terms of wordcount, but I had the whole day off and no concrete plans so I figured I’d be able to catch up. It took most of the day to really get started, but once I did I managed to pound out over 4000 words, meeting my goal for the day and putting myself right back on track.

I’ll apologize right now for the gratuitous padding, in the form of a childhood memory, that happens right in the middle of this installment. I think that in editing I can pare it down to three or four lines while still keeping the important part, but for now it stays, if only to help out my word count a little. By the way, that memory is a true story, it happened to a friend and me years ago pretty much exactly as told here.

Now, as for the way things end. Well, it just seemed to fit, and I think in this particular genre it’s something of a requirement. I tried to handle it in a way that would get the point across, so you could see the progression and the slow breakdown of resolve, but without getting graphic or exploitative at all. It needs a little tweaking in editing, but I think it works pretty well.

For Idle Hands (working title) - Part 20

Bertha was parked at the back corner of the parking lot. Her back hatch was situated directly in front of me, though there were at least twenty feet between us. I knew that I could cover twenty feet in a matter of seconds, but that was more than enough time for someone to spot me. And even if I made it, then what? Was I going to just drive away and hope no one spotted me? Not likely. I couldn’t quite see it from here, without leaning out into the open further than I’d prefer to right now, but I imagined that the cops had blocked off the parking lot just in case I decided to try something like that. The gashes in the front lawn bore testament to the fact that there were other ways to get a car onto the street, but that was a bit showy, and I wasn’t sure that with her far heavier body and rear wheel drive Bertha wouldn’t just sink into the lawn and refuse to move.

Whatever, for now I just needed to get away from the building, maybe into the woods, and Bertha would make a decent stop over on the way there. Besides, my backup gun was in there and since I only had the one clip for the pistol strapped under my arm, I might need the five rounds it held. I hoped not, but I wasn’t planning to chance it. Also, I thought while wrinkling my nose, the dumpster reeked, and I sure as heck really didn’t want to be caught hiding behind it.

I tightened the bag to my back so it wouldn’t flop much, then got up into a crouch. I took a deep breath and immediately regretted it as I choked on the rancid fumes from the dumpster. I would have to call the company that took care of that and have a little talk with them. I closed my eyes and took a few more calming breaths, then went for it.

I dashed out in a crouching run like we did in the Army when under fire. I ran up Bertha’s driver’s side, fumbled the key into the lock and unlocked the door. I threw the door open, jumped in, and slammed it shut. I slumped down in the seat, hoping I couldn’t be seen from behind, the direction of the building, and tried to catch my breath.

“Not bad, Shamus.”

I started at the voice and had one hand on the door handle and the other cocked and ready with a back handed strike instantly. It was a cop, he was in the passenger seat slumped down like I was. I didn’t know him, but he threw his hands up in a surrendering gesture, so I decided not to hit him. At least, not right now.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Ralph Brandt, I was Yadira Cheevers’ partner.”

I lowered my right hand to my lap, but kept my left on the door handle. I glanced around, then in the rear view mirror. I could see a light on in the basement that hadn’t been on when I was there a few minutes ago, but there were no cops anywhere outside that I could see.

“What are you doing here? Are you going to arrest me?”

“No, I don’t think so. You’re trying to figure out who killed Yadira, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the idea.”

“Personally, I think you have as good a chance as we do now, maybe better. I want whoever did it found, and arresting you would keep you from doing that.”

“What do you mean I have a better chance ‘now’?”

“Now that Gunn’s in the hospital and Detective Cyr is heading up the investigation. He’s a good cop, but he’s no Gunn, and I don’t think his heart is really in it.”

“How is Gunn doing?”

He smiled at me, as genuine a smile as i’d ever seen, “he should make it, from what the docs at the hospital said. He’s still in the ICU, but he’s stable.”

“He’s a tough old goat,” I said, smiling back a bit, “he’s probably too stubborn to die by being shot in the back.”

“The docs also said you probably saved his life by stopping his blood loss right away like that. As it is they used five pints on the way to the hospital to keep him going.”

I nodded. I’d never liked Gunn much on a personal level, but I’d always respected him as a professional, and the idea of dealing with anyone else at the Idle PD was unappetizing.

“You said Cyr’s not really into the investigation? Why not, I thought cop killers took top priority with you guys.”

“They usually do. I don’t know, he’s following up on what Gunn had going, and he was sure interested in hauling you back in as soon as we got the search permits, but other than that he doesn’t seem to think we can do anything more until the lab results are back. I suppose there’s some truth to that.”

“Bullshit. You’ve got Wally’s car to look for, for one thing. You’ve also got physical evidence from whoever shot Gunn, if he was dumb or inexperienced enough to leave two spent shells behind, he probably left a lot more. Then there’s the bullet that missed me, it should be stuck in a wall at the station and with luck it’ll be relatively intact. You should have people right there that can tell you what to look for. I’ve got a few things to check out myself, so don’t tell me there’s nothing left to look at without those lab reports.”

“I’m not, I’m just telling you what Cyr is saying. You’re not the only one who thinks that’s bull.”

“So why is he doing it?”

“I don’t know. Personally, I think he’s way out of his depth here but he loves being in charge too much to jeopardize it. I don’t think he’s detective material at all, actually. He only got the promotion because he’s a kiss ass.”

“They picked him over you, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, but it’s not the first mistake they’ve made, it won’t be the last.”

There was a moment of silence.

“So,” I said, “you’re not going to arrest me?”

“No. Like I said, I want to know who killed Yadira so I can see him nailed to the wall. You seem more up to it than Cyr is at the moment. Most of the cops on duty right now agree, so we’re going to let you do your thing and see what you can find. For now.”

“How long?”

“We’ll look the other way until midnight tonight. Or until you do something that we can’t ignore. We’ll do what we can to keep Cyr and his crew distracted until then.”

Midnight. That gave me roughly another ten hours to figure a bit more of this out. It wasn’t much time, but I couldn’t ask too much after everything that had happened.

“Fair enough,” I said, “but can you answer a question for me?”

“Sure, if I can.”

“Did you know that Yadira and Wally McCollin were… involved?”

He laughed, a bit too loud for my tastes.

“Wally? No way, not a chance.”

I fished one of the photos out of Derrick’s bag and handed it to him. His eyes went wide when he saw and he cursed under his breath.

“Is this legit?”

“As far as I can tell it is. I got a series of those from a contact of mine who says he got it from a PI firm that occasionally does less than ethical work. Most of them are from three years ago, and it’s obvious he was following Wally. But this one is from earlier this year, and I’d wager the focus is on Yadira. Do you know any reason someone would be having her followed?”

“No,” he said, a bit flapped, “no reason I can think of. I… Wally? I had no idea, none. I spent at least nine hours a day, five days a week with Yadira and I had no clue.”

“Apparently,” I said, taking the photo out of his trembling hand, “she was very good at keeping certain parts of her life hidden, even from the people she was closest to.”

He looked at me, studying me for a moment.

“You two had a history, didn’t you? She didn’t talk about her past much, but I know that someone got her out of trouble in Boston and brought her up here, helped her clean herself up. That was you, wasn’t it?”

“You’re right, choosing Cyr over you was a mistake.” I glanced in the rear view mirror again, I could see a hand resting on top of the dumpster. Someone was crouching behind it. They’d probably crawled out the window I had, and now they were preparing to lift themselves up. “I have to go.”

I opened the car door and bailed out, making a dash for the woods, half running and half sliding down the embankment at the edge of the parking lot, dodging trees and roots as I went.

I burst into the neighbor’s yard at a run, then dashed across and plunged into the forest on the other side. I didn’t have my normal resources, I didn’t have a car, I only had one clip for my gun, there was at least one shooter out there who didn’t have any qualms with shooting at me, a handful of the police in Idle were still out to drag me in and lock me up, and I only had ten hours until the rest of them joined in the witch hunt.

Besides all of that, I desperately needed a good night’s sleep and a bath. I was right, this was going to be a long day.

---

I wasn’t going to make it far on foot, I knew that. Idle was a small town, but it was spread out over forty plus square miles, most of it rural and heavily forested. Sticking to roads was the only way to get anywhere in any sort of hurry around here, but on foot eve the roads were a slow way to get around, not to mention that a walker outside of Idle Village was an odd sight. Even though I had the better part of the Idle PD off my back, I still needed to lay low and not draw much attention to myself if I could help it. And, of course, I’d been shot at twice today already, and whoever had done it was still out there.

That brought me to my first order of business, securing alternate transportation. If anyone would have something I could use, it would be Harvey. Harvey’s Garage was located about a mile down Main Street from the office, near the middle of the village, and on the other side. From where I was now, I could cut around behind the village, sicking to the woods, until I came to Church Street. Then I could cut through the UMI campus and cross Main Street there, where I was less likely to run into anyone who knew me. Then I could cut behind the office building there, behind the Town Library, and come at Harvey’s the back way.

I’d just turned a ten minute walk into at least a forty minute hike. Great. Best to just get moving and not dwell on it, time is suddenly short.

The forest close to town is generally a mess. Parts of it are natural, which means that there’s not a lot of underbrush and obstructions, since the canopy above blocks the sunlight from hitting the forest floor. The biggest problems in this type of forest are mud holes maintained by small creeks or ground water close to the surface, and the occasional clump of thick ferns or thorny bushes. The biggest problem with thick fern stands is that they’re favorite hiding places of all kinds of woodland creatures. Outside of the very rare black bear or pissed off moose, there aren’t many animals in the forests of southern Maine that can hurt you, but they can sure scare the hell out of you if you’re not paying attention.

When I was a kid, a friend and I were traipsing through the forest out behind his house. We were in the bottom of what looked to be an old river bed that dried up after the last ice age. The flat land we were exploring was about half a mile wide and went for several miles in each direction at least, the land on either side rising at an angle of around fifteen degrees. This bottom area was very flat and the trees there were tall and bare up at least thirty feet. What was left was a forested valley that looked very open but which was perpetually in shadow from the canopy above.

We were wandering around with our new BB guns we’d gotten for our birthdays, which were only a few days apart. We weren’t really using them for much beyond making ourselves feel tough and grown up. We came to a large expanse of three foot tall ferns where the tree tops let in some sunlight. Since we were in the exploring mood we plunged right in, trudging through like we were exploring the deepest darkest jungle.

Suddenly something was moving under the ferns, causing them to thrash this way and that. My friend jumped to one side d it went past him and came towards me. I backpedaled furiously and tripped over a fallen tree branch, falling and tumbling backwards. Together we watched as whatever it was zig zagged through the fern stand. Finally it reached the other side and out popped a small fawn which bounded off into the woods.

After we finished laughing at ourselves for nearing crapping our pants, it occurred to us to wonder where the fawn’s mother was. We fled from the forest then, hearing things behind and around us for the whole way up the slope out of there. Any animal protecting its young is not something you want to deal with.

So some of the way was easy going, so long as I watched out for marauding animals and patches of mud. Unfortunately, where the village protruded into the forest, things became messy. Added sunlight penetrating the canopy lead to new tangles of undergrowth, and clearing to build new houses or sub-developments always seemed to leave downed trees and other debris scattered about. I skirted these areas as best I could, but still I spattered myself with mud and muck, and my coat and pants caught on broken branches and thorny bushes and tore. The effort caused me to sweat and wheeze in the extreme. Once I stepped nearly up to my knee in a patch of wet mud. Eventually I took my coat off and stuffed it into Derrick’s bag as best I could.

By the time I reached Church street - clawing my way up the steep embankment just beyond the last houses before West Idle, with its forests and fields - I was an absolute mess. I could go around looking like this or I’d be arrested simply on suspicion of being a vagrant. My blue jeans were several shades of brown from the knees down and streaks and splatters of the muddy color decorated the rest of the pants as well as the black t-shirt Gunn had given me. Both my shirt and jeans were torn in several places, and I had a pretty good set of scratches across my chest. I hadn’t examined them closely yet, my hands were so caked with mud and pitch that I would probably do more harm than good if I tried to clean them out, but they stung like a son of a bitch.

I wiped my face and hands as best I could on my poor coat then used it to pat off my clothes some. I draped it over the bag and decided to drop it into the first waste bin I came across. It had been a good coat, but after the hole in the shoulder, the blood from my wound, and now this it’d had it. I knew well enough that it would never come completely clean.

I headed down Church street towards town, towards the UMI campus, wary of any traffic.

---

I hadn’t imagined that there would be so many people out and about on campus when I got there. My plan had been to walk right through unnoticed, but in my head I hadn’t looked like Grizzly Adams on a bad day, and there hadn’t been students and faculty swarming all over the place. People stopped and stared at me as I passed, some openly pointing and making comments to their friends or whoever happened to be standing nearby.

This wouldn’t do, sooner or later someone was going to get the wrong idea and call in campus security. If they called in the police on me, even if Brandt himself answered the call he’d have to take me or give up the game completely. I had just decided to try cutting further around the campus when a voice off to my side stopped me.

“Nick Shamus?”

It was a young female voice, somewhat familiar. I turned to find Lili Tsao, the Sienna Club’s bar tender and likely one of the maniacs who’d almost run me down with a four wheeler this morning. She still had the long coat on, and the short leather skirt, but she’d covered the halter with a light blue sweater. She smiled at me, her dark almond eyes sparkling.

“Yeah,” I said, not sure how to react, “after a fashion.”

She walked up to me, looking me up and down appraisingly.

“What on earth have you been doing?”

I sighed. “It’s a long story. A really long story. Aren’t you working tonight?”

“Yeah, but the club doesn’t open for another hour and a half, I was just helping get things ready for the weekend earlier. I just came back for a little lunch.” She smiled at me again, that radiant too red smile. “Well, I’m just heading to my dorm room at the moment. You want to come up? You could grab a quick shower, and I’ll bet I could score you some clean clothes. Unless you like looking like a Survivor castaway, of course.”

A bell went off inside my head, but I tried my best to ignore it. This girl was just that, a girl, and there was no way I could justify going up to her room, no matter how tempting that sounded. Of course, said a small voice in my head, a shower and clean clothes would help a lot, and she probably didn’t mean what you’re thinking, you dirty old man. Then, of course, there’s the fact that she was likely one of the four wheelers I saw this morning, and they’d had dealings of some sort with Wally. She might know something of use, so it would be foolish not to take advantage of any offer of this sort from a potential source of information. The more people feel they know you, the more they have invested in some sort of relationship with you, the more likely they are to tell you things.

“Won’t bringing a guy who’s old enough to be your father up to your room cause some raised eyebrows?”

“Maybe, but if anyone asks I’ll just tell them you’re my uncle.” We both had a good laugh at that one. “Besides, I’m a big girl, they can say whatever they want about me. I don’t care.”

“I suppose that’s OK then, as long as it won’t cause any trouble for you. I could use a shower and some clothes, but that’s all, I don’t have much time to spare.”

“OK,” she said, nodding, smiling mischievously. “Come on.”

---

I followed her into a large building that had the depressing, institutional look of a public building built in the 1970s. He room was on the third floor. On the second she stopped and knocked on a door. A burly kid, probably a football player, answered the door and Lili talked a pair of black jeans and a hooded sweatshirt out of him in exchange for forgiving some outstanding debt he owed her. After that we continued up to her room.

She had a single that was supposed to be a double. She explained that her room mate had gone home after the third week due to emotional problems, leaving the room to her alone. The room was decorated with a combination of posters for bands and movies I’d never heard of, and decidedly asian flavored items. A large chinese fan was pinned above the door and a set of boken - wooden replicas of the katanas samurai carried which ere used for practice - sat in a display rack on the wall as if they were real swords on display.

“Are these just for show,” I asked, gesturing to the boken, “or do you know how to use them?”

She smiled broadly, “I use them on occasion, though the school frowns on it.”

I dropped my bag and took one of the boken off the rack. It had been a long time since I’d handled anything like this, I’d forgotten how good it felt in your hand. It felt solid and the weight of it fairly begged to be swung and arced through the air. The leading edge, what would have been the blade had this been a real sword, was pocked and dented, it had indeed seen extensive use.

I grasped the handle with both hands and swung the boken around myself, careful not to hit anything. There was just enough space in the center of the room for one conservative swing, though the low ceiling made it a bit more difficult. Lili took the other boken off the rack and assumed a fighting stance, her eyes glittered on either side of the implement’s point.

I took a playful and leisurely swing at her. She parried it easily and slapped my shoulder with her weapon. I took another swing, a bit faster this time, and again she knocked it away, this time knocking the tip of her boken against my temple.

I tightened by grip and lunged, still faster than before. She deflected my attack and angled her sword so that I ran my chest into the tip of it. The cuts on my chest burst to painful life. I yelped and quickly stepped back.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

I swung again. Too hard I realized too late. She brought her boken up instantly, encircling my blade with hers then whipping the tip in a tight arc, tearing mine from my hands and sending it skittering under her bed. She flowed from that motion into a cutting strike.

Her blade ended up resting diagonally across my torso, her body mere inches from mine. I looked down into her porcelain featured, her eyes flashing, breathing heavily from the exertion and excitement of it. For a long moment, neither of us moved.

“I’d better go take that shower now,” I said, gently directing her boken away and down. She replaced her boken on the rack, then traced the gash on my chest with the tips of her fingers.

“We should probably take a look at this first, see if it needs to be cleaned out or bandaged at all.”

I nodded, I was starting to breath deeply myself.

“Take your shirt off,” she said. It didn’t sound like a request so I complied. I felt self conscious in a way I hadn’t since high school, standing in this your woman’s room with my shirt off, my graying chest hair and slight middle pudge on display. She ran her finger tips over my chest again, tracing the gashes and making my whole body shiver. She looked up at my face then ran her fingers over the cut on my forehead and down the side of my face. Her skin was so smooth I imagine my second day stubble probably felt like sandpaper, though she didn’t let on if it did.

“You’ve had a hard day. While you were talking to Charlie Derrick told me you’re looking into Yadira Cheevers’ murder. Did you love her?”

“Once upon a time,” I said, my voice cracking slightly, “though I suppose I never stopped completely. But I don’t know.”

She smiled, “to be going through all of this, I think you still loved her. Probably more than even you were aware.”

She was nearly pressed against me now, the proximity was making me dizzy, I was having trouble breathing.

“I think you deserve a break,” her breath was hot on my neck, “if you keep pushing like this you’re going to get yourself hurt for real.”

She wrapped her arms around me, running her hands up my back. She kissed my neck lightly, sending electric shocks through my entire body. I brought my arms up and cradled the small of her back in my hands. Oh god, I’d forgotten how good it felt to hold a woman like this, to feel her lithe form and smooth body against me, such a contrast to my own hard and craggy exterior. She withdrew her arms from around me and pulled her sweater and the leather halter underneath off over her head in one motion.

She was naked from the waist up, her small, perfect breasts pressing into me, her golden skin nearly glowing in the low light of the room. She wrapped her arms around my neck and drew my head down, her eyes looking deeply into mine, reassuring me that this was OK. She kissed me lightly on the cheek first, her shuttering breath playing against my ear, pushing me over the cliff I’d been teetering at the edge of. I caught her up in my arms and lifted her into a kiss.

She clung tightly to me, reflecting my own longing and urgency back to me in every motion, every breath, every gasp and shudder. She continued to do so as I laid her down on her bed with the intertwining yin and yang bed spread. As I laid with her all of creation fell away. For a short time there were only two people in all the world, and we were the only thing that mattered for all eternity.

NaNoWriMo '06 - Day 23

Given that today was Thanksgiving, I don’t feel too bad about not getting anything written. I had a great day, a good meal, and we ended it all by sitting down and watching a good movie. Laura went to bed early because for some reason she wanted to brave the madhouse that is shopping the morning of Black Friday.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

NaNoWriMo '06 - Day 22

Well, time for more exposition apparently. I hope it’s at least interesting and moves the story ahead. I figured I’d bring a little real detective work into things, though I’ll have to do a little rewriting to blend it in a little better with the narrative.

As for the last part of this installment, I wasn’t sure I liked what I’d done there, so I just kind of stopped for the night. I made a promise to myself when I started that I would just go with whatever I came up with, otherwise I would spend too much time rethinking and rewriting everything and I’d never get it done.

For Idle Hands (working title) - Part 19

Derrick’s coffee was, as always, very hot and very strong. I’d gone through four mugs of it by the time Derrick convinced me to show him the photographs of Yadira and Wally. I hadn’t wanted to, it didn’t seem right, but he was a sharp kid and maybe he’d figure out something I couldn’t. Maybe he would even be able to show that they were faked, though I doubted it. Besides, after what had happened at the Sienna Club, I owed him. Stupid or not, he had probably saved my life, or at least saved me a trip to the emergency room.

No, he was in this now, and I had to let him in on everything I had. His eyes went wide when he saw the first of the pictures, and they only got wider as he flipped through them. When he’d seen them all, he whistled.

“Wow, Yadira and Wally? Never saw that one coming. Did they even know each other?”

“As much as a guy like Wally knows any of the cops in town. They’d had some run ins, she’d arrested him a few times, he’d hit on her and gotten his nose bloodied for it, that kind of thing. But this, this is something else entirely.”

“According to the date stamp on the pictures, assuming it’s accurate, these were taken almost three years ago, so this wasn’t a recent thing.”

“Yeah. Emmet said the guy who snapped these was working that big rape case a few years back. I was working it too, he was working for the other girl’s parents. That was the summer of 2003.”

He flipped through the photos, settling on another one.

“This one was taken more recently. Just last spring, actually.”

He held it up for me to see. It was Yadira’s bedroom again, but he was right, the decor had changed slightly and what we could see of the room was in a different configuration. Her hair was different too, it had been shoulder length in the other photos but here it was cropped very short. A pixie cut I think it was called.

Derrick continued, “was he checking out Wally again?”

“I don’t think so, he hasn’t been in any real trouble since that rape fiasco, aside from the occasional bar brawl I’d imagine.”

I took the photo from him and looked at it more closely. This one was taken a bit differently too. It was the same telephoto shot, from the same place apparently, but the camera’s attention was focused differently. After a moment it hit me, this picture was meant to show Yadira’s face clearly, while the others had been focused on Wally. It wasn’t that the technique was any different, but the moment chosen to photograph was distinctly Yadira’s.

“He wasn’t investigating Wally,” I said, “he was spying on Yadira.”

“Huh, well that means the other photos aren’t just showing a one night stand. This was an ongoing thing.”

“Yeah,” I wasn’t really listening though, I was trying to remember if I’d heard anything that would explain this guy watching Yadira like this.

There hadn’t been any troubled cases or accusations against her that I knew of, and I couldn’t imagine who would have reason to contract this kind of surveillance. Of course, I hadn’t known that she’d been sleeping with Wally for the past three years, at least. What the hell did I know?

“Do you know who took these?” Derrick asked.

“No, Emmett wouldn’t tell me. He just said it was a PI out of Portland, though that could just as easily be a lie.”

“Do you think maybe he was stalking her?”

That stopped me cold. I honestly hadn’t thought of that, though it made sense now that I was thinking about it. He’d been hired to investigate Wally, and in the process saw more of Yadira than anyone outside of her doctor and past lovers had ever seen, and this picture had been taken for personal reasons. If that were true though, why would he have given it to Emmett? Quickly rifling through the pictures, this was the only one that hadn’t been taken in 2003, it was probably included by accident. That certainly lent credence to Derrick’s question.

“I know I have to figure out who this was now, to find out.”

---

The Talking Phone Book covering the Greater Portland area listed twenty seven names under “Investigators - Private”, including Shamus Investigations. A few of the others had bold print, and two actually had small box ads, completely overshadowing our entry. No wonder business was so lousy.

Of the twenty five names, four were duplicates. Of the remaining twenty four, one was in Falmouth, two were in Bangor, one was in Kennebunk, one was in Biddeford, and another in Waterville, all places that seemed too far away to be worth calling to investigate a townie in Idle. That left seventeen names, concentrated mostly in Portland, South Portland, Westbrook, and Cumberland. Half a dozen of those focused almost entirely on protection and consultation services, and another three did only corporate and insurance work.

Eight possibilities, assuming the company in question was listed, was still in business, and existed in the first place.

The problem was in trying to get the information we needed out of them. Ethically, no private investigator could divulge information about any case, past or present, to anyone their client hadn’t approved. It was a good rule meant to protect all of us, but luckily there was an easier way.

I had Derrick pull up court records for the second half of 2003 and run a quick search for a case listing Wally as defendant. The case hadn’t made it past the Grand Jury, it was thrown out for lack of evidence. My name was listed for the deposition I’d given, reporting to the defense attorney what I’d found during my investigation, for the court records. There was another investigation firm listed, Espial Associates, LLC. That wasn’t one of the eight from the phone book.

That meant we had no contact information. Derrick tried to look them up online, but with no luck. Who the hell was Espial Associates?

Just then there was a knock at the office door. Derrick peeked out through the closed blinds, then recoiled from what he saw.

“Damn it, Nick,” he said in a low voice, “it’s the police.”

---

“I’m surprised it took them this long. They must have been tied up at the station for a while.”

“What are you going to do? If you get arrested, who knows how long it’ll be before they let you out. That’s assuming they ever let you out.”

He was being a bit of an alarmist, but in a way he was right. I’d fled the scene of a crime, I was present when Gunn was shot, I was the one who found Yadira, and I’d torn up part of Idle Village just this morning. They would probably try to keep me for as long as they could. I couldn’t afford that, I had a case to solve.

“See if you can throw them off, I’m going to see if I can get out of here without being seen.”

“How?”

That was a fair question. Without a doubt they had at least one officer at the back door in addition to the one at the front door. Most likely they had one or two more watching the building from different angles, just in case I tried to do what I was going to try to do.

“I have no idea, but I’ll figure something out.”

I dumped out Derrick’s messenger bag, then grabbed the photos and stuffed them into it, along with the notebook I’d been taking notes in, and the phone book. I quickly opened the small safe under my desk and pulled out the only spare clips I had, one for each of my pistols. Not grabbing these before heading to the Sienna Club had been a mistake I wasn’t going to repeat.

I headed to the back of the office, to the door that opened onto the stairway that lead in both directions, up to the apartments and down to the basement. The primary tenant entrance was here, and it was locked. I didn’t have much time to figure this out, part of the delay in getting here was probably spent getting search warrants in order. For all I knew they’d been watching the place for some time and knew for sure that I was in here. If that were the case, Derrick didn’t have any hope of keeping them out for long.

As I closed the door into the office behind me, I heard Derrick’s side of the conversation as he answered the door.

“Why, no, he isn’t here… Oh, that, he wrecked my car so I’m borrowing his until it’s fixed… No, no I don’t think so… Oh? May I read that please?”

Damn, they had a search warrant. Making a quick choice, I headed down into the basement.

The foundation was likely older than the house that currently sat on it. The walls were a patchwork combination of large stones, brick, and concrete, and the floor had been dirt before I installed a wood framed floor over it. There were certain advantages to having a wood framed floor in your basement.

I reflected on some of these as I pried up a loose floor board in one corner. Inside, wrapped tightly in plastic to prevent a whole host of problems, was the emergency kit I’d put together years ago. In it was a bottle of water, a couple chocolate bars, a large two million candle power flashlight, a Leatherman tool, some random other items, and my fake IDs. I tossed this into the messenger bag then started checking windows.

Sure enough, there were cops on all sides of the building, though there weren’t as many as I’d feared, only five in all. They had the entire building covered so far as I could tell, except for the ares behind where the stairway stood out from the building, where the dumpster was located. That looked to be an unwatched alcove, and with a little luck I could effect an escape from there.

The windows in this basement were large, definitely big enough for me to crawl through, but I had to be careful as they were very old, and getting caught by breaking a window during my escape would be rather embarrassing. I could hear multiple footsteps upstairs, as well as Derrick’s voice, which had taken on an air off panic. I needed to get out of here fast.

I carefully opened the only window located in that alcove with the dumpster. I leaned my head out slightly and looked around, but I couldn’t see anyone. I tossed my bag out the window, then climbed through myself.

So there I was, crouched down behind the dumpster trying to figure out how to get out of here without being spotted. I leaned around one corner slightly and saw that the cop that had been there was gone. Leaning the other way I could see that this one as well had gone. Noises from inside told me that they had probably left to join in the search. I didn’t have to worry about them spotting me from out here, now I just had to worry about being seen out a window or something.