The Dean's List: An Ethan James Mystery

By Michael Geller

After a failed marriage deepens detective Ethan James depression and he unceremoniously takes early retirement from the NYPD, Ethan has a big decision to make; spiral even further into despair by the constant everyday reminders of his current professional dismay and personal failures, or start a new life in rural Heaven's Valley, Idaho, where his former partner on the force had emigrated following his retirement. Ethan opted for the latter in hopes of getting back to simplicity while enjoying a quiet existence. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483520032

Book preview

encouragement.

Prologue

Driving cross country from metropolitan New York to rural Idaho gives a person, seemingly endless amounts of winding pavement and vast stretches of nothingness in search of something, anything, to occupy the mind. Thus, throwing open the door to certain recollections and confrontations with stark divergent realities of the past: rare and vaguely memorable successes, vividly abundant failures, aborted youthful dreams. There is also the tenuous thread of hope that possibly, just possibly, the future would not be so cruel as to mirror the life from which I am in the process of escaping.

This moment has the compelling potential and opportunity to be the dawn of a new beginning for someone whom, mere weeks ago, was compulsively and obsessively entertaining consistent thoughts of permanently terminating the chronic emotional pain and torment forever. Corrupt delusions of eating a round from my Kimber 1911 .45, or swinging from a rope to alleviate the painfully nagging discomfort dwelled deep within my consciousness. The reason? To put a merciful end to what was believed to be a dreadful failure of an existence. Forty-three years old and this was the best life had to offer?

This just doesn’t happen to me. Not to Ethan James. Not to the cop, the highly decorated police officer the Mayor deemed, just a few short years ago, one of the finest on the force. This final option only presents itself to weak-minded, ordinary people who seem to have run out of choices. Or so I thought. I’d seen it almost every day for 14 years on the job at the 44th in the Bronx. I’d also come across one or two vics who decided to off themselves during the previous two years as a P.I. But not me, never Ethan James. It’s frightening how even the best of us can begin to lose their ironclad grip on reality and begin the unrelenting descent into the abyss where the permanent solution seems to be the only option available to ease the disappointment and discomfort of a life lived recklessly and narcissistically, amounting to a big zero!

As I travel towards what I hope to be a new life, my only myopic escape, my only solace from the relentless and unconscious self criticisms seem to be when I pull off the road momentarily to take a piss or grab something to eat. Then, it begins again…. and again, like an addict hooked on H, whose sole purpose of existence is the next fix. Even though, in the end, it probably will kill him.

I miss my wife. I mean my ex-wife. What an irresponsible jerk I was with Kelly. She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve me. She deserved better, much better. It’s not that she wanted for anything; anything material. We had stuff. A lot of stuff. What she yearned for, and I wish I had known it before the consequences became irreversible, was emotional closeness: a touch, a look, a feeling that she mattered to me. A feeling that we mattered to me. But, you know, I knew what she wanted. What she needed. She told me in so many subtle and not so subtle ways. I simply and subconsciously decided that the status quo worked for me, and I was comfortable with it. She was my breath, my love, my life. It’s just too bad that I was the only one who knew it.

I had no idea, no clue, and it still pisses me off, that she found her solace in surrendering her feelings to an ex-boyfriend from her distant past. It was a chance meeting at a Yankee game one day where we ran into Frank. He seemed like an O.K. guy and definitely non-threatening in my book. I had never been the jealous type. I was always secure in who I was and what I stood for. I even encouraged Kelly to reconnect with Frank because it was a part of who she was when in high school and it seemed to make her happy. I wanted her to be happy. I never minded her having male friends. Little did I know that Frank still had personal and intimate feelings for my wife. And, it now seems I helped nurture their bonding in my ambivalence with her chatting with Frank from time to time.

Well, unknown to me while I was out trying to chase a buck, Kelly and Frank’s chats went from time-to-time, escalating to daily, to numerous conversations per day, to just about all day, every day. Right under my unsuspecting nose and I didn’t even have a clue. Damned embarrassing for a cop who’s job it is to look for clues for a living not to see the biggest, most critical one right under my own roof, staring me right in the face. This one blind sided me.

Kelly was gorgeous and fun, with a great sense of humor and a quick wit. She was the prototypical tall blonde. People often would mistake her for a young Michelle Pfeiffer. She was stunning and refined, and I was a proud fat cat knowing that she was mine. I never imagined that anything would change that, or could change that. Boy, was I wrong, BIG TIME..

Now she’s with Frank and expecting their first kid. I just about lost it when she said she was pregnant. That slammed the door on any delusion I might have dreamed up of our getting back together. We tried for years to have a kid, and nothing. I felt the relentless strain of my world imploding in on me. My wife was gone and here I was, working as a P.I., basically for suspicious or insecure women who hired me to check out if their husbands or boyfriends were doing the nasty with some other chick. I just couldn’t cope anymore. Every time I took a job, it seemed to mimic my own life. It was like I was staring into a mirror, reliving my own issues and my own loss over and over again.

I just couldn’t relieve the pain of how stupid and callous I’d been in putting the job, friends, and even the damn Yankees ahead of my wife. Everywhere I looked was a billboard, a neon sign of how I screwed up something terrific. Monuments to my many failures and how things were irreparable. Who I was disappeared. Something that made me whole. Something that made me who I was. So, I made up my mind to off myself to find the only peace I thought possible for me. I lost my angel. Now, I was in eternal hell.

Then, I got a mercy call, a seeming reprieve a few weeks ago from an old pal. Someone who used to work on the force with me but decided to leave the crime, the filth, the perps, the traffic for a little piece of God’s country in Idaho. He traded in his badge for a classroom full of Special Education kids. His name, J.R. Martin, and I guess I could call him my best friend. Perhaps, the only real friend I ever had. He has been out of the city for about three years. We didn’t talk much, but he could still get right to the heart of my issues. J.R. said something to me that went right for the jugular. He said to me: Ethan, you need to stop spending so much time with yourself. And he was right. I am an expert, a Ph.D. at distorting the truth into something ugly and hanging my hat on it. Something that I could take the blame for and not let go. Self-punishment? Most likely.

Therefore, I made the reluctant, yet hopeful decision to reconnect with the best part of my past. The part of me when I was a caring, thoughtful, and fun individual. J.R. always brought out the best in me. It really wasn’t a difficult choice once I weighed my options. Either leave or die. J.R. thought a dramatic change of scenery would do me some good. My head was so messed up. I couldn’t trust my own judgment. I thought I’d trust his, for now. So, here I sit on I-84 heading west to a place called Heaven’s Valley, Idaho, trying to jump start my life in a new direction and with a skeptical prospect of ever being happy again. Where the hell this place is, and what I will find when I get there, I have no clue. At least I wasn’t concerning myself with constant reminders of Kelly and her new life. The places we’d been. The things we’d done, and what an enormous ass I was. They were everywhere and I noticed every damned memory-filled one of em. This was a good start for me, I hoped.

For two seemingly endless and mentally exhausting days, all I encountered was endless farmland, rolling tumbleweeds, menacingly dark clouds indicating a coming thunderstorm, and a string of impersonal convenience stores. It was finally refreshing and pathetically exhilarating to see communities, enclaves, albeit entire towns that seemed smaller and less populated than the street on which I used to live in the Bronx. What I didn’t expect, welcoming me to Idaho, was the flashing blue and red lights in my rearview mirror. Shit, I haven’t even placed my boots on the ground and now this, getting flagged down by a Sheriff Deputy’s cruiser. Speeding. I had no doubt. I’ve always driven with a heavy foot. I was thinking to myself, Ethan, stay cool, be cooperative and nice. Try to be nice. Don’t give him any crap. It’s a new life. It all starts here. I only wish I still had my shield to get me off the hook. Worked all the time in the city. We would never ticket one of our brothers.

As I noticed the Deputy approaching my Range Rover, I was shocked to see that the Deputy was a woman. A rather attractive woman. I was always able to pick out a good figure, even under all the cumbersome and unflattering department uniform and gear.

License, registration and proof of insurance, she said.

Yes maam,

That would be yes, Deputy, she said.

Yes, Deputy,

Where you headed in such a hurry? she said. You were clocked at 87 in a 75.

Heaven’s Valley, I said. I’m kind of relocating, Deputy, er…..Hayes.

I saw her name above the left pocket on her shirt. Her auburn hair set back in a bun. With the window rolled down for the first time in days, I could sense a sort of sweet, clean, innocent and pure smell to the air out here. Smelled nothing like the soot and grime I was used to. It seemed unusually calming. I wanted more of it. This was a good thing.

You got a job in Heaven’s Valley? she said.

Nope, used to be on the job back East and worked as a gumshoe for a couple of years. Now I’m just trying to relax and get my head together. You know, start over.

Where you from? she said.

The Bronx.

Gonna take a lot of relaxing to recover from a place like that, she said.

Hey, tell me about it. You been a Deputy very long? I asked.

Bout two years in Idaho. Do more investigative work than handing out traffic tickets. Just helpin’ out today.

Just my luck, I said.

Depends how you look at it I guess, she said.

I took the ticket, threw her a slight grin attempting to muster a little New York swagger, and hoped that there were more like her out here. She was quite a doll.

Maybe I’ll see you around, I said.

Maybe. Especially if you keep drivin’ here like you did back in the Bronx, she said.

Might have to if I knew you’d be the one to stop me again, Ethan said.

You never know, Mr. James.

She handed me the ticket and slowly headed back to her cruiser.

Call me Ethan, I yelled.

"You never know…… Ethan." She said.

My eyes followed her the entire way back to her car through the rearview mirror. She finally disappeared as she settled behind the wheel of her rig.

Wow, I thought. Welcome to Idaho.

1

Heaven’s Valley seems like the typical sleepy tourist community with great skiing and snowmobiling in the winter, and golf, biking, shopping, and concerts in the outdoor arena in summer. There is an abundance of eateries for all tastes and budgets. Souvenir shops dot the primary foot traffic area of the business district. The air smells sweet and clean, like after a steady and cleansing rain. It has one primary road into town, typically named Main Street, with seven or eight cross streets which then spider out into the outer boundaries of the city. Within the periphery is where you will find the well-to-do residents of Heaven’s Valley. Most of the locals live outside of the city’s center.

The town is immaculately clean and well kept, not unlike many of the women I’ve seen since I arrived here. There seems to be some sort of standard of conformity and uniformity within the architectural styling of the commercial part of town. All of the store fronts to the businesses in the downtown area are done in the same light brown and gray colors. Pleasing to the eye, but lost is the uniqueness and individuality of the business owner to create an extension or expression of one’s creative vision.

It took me a few minutes to find the Sandbagger Bar and Grill, where I was to meet my friend. It too, was cloaked in the brown and gray standard motif. Maybe that’s why it was so damn difficult to find. J.R. was without a doubt my best friend. We always had each other’s back. He was in the vicinity of seventeen years my senior. J.R. had a scarcity of hair on his head and what he did have was cropped, almost to a buzz cut, white and randomized. He walked with a heavy limp in his right leg due to a bum knee. J.R. never had liked to talk about just how that limp came to be once he left the force. I respected his privacy. The fingers on his right hand were virtually frozen in a shape that looked like he was gripping a tennis ball. Unexpected and sudden nerve damage while shoveling snow some years ago was the cause of that deformity. He had a moustache, full, unmanicured and brush-like over his upper lip. He kind of reminded me of Lee Marvin. Always did.

The restaurant was done in a no frills decor. Dark brown wooden tables and chairs with plastic blue and white checkered tablecloths. Paper coasters stacked neatly in the center of each table. The bar had a very ornate glass mirror behind the bar that stretched the length of the entire wall. It was framed in cherry wood, looked very old, very expensive and very out of place. Then again, I probably did too with my cognac lambskin jacket and chocolate brown beaver felt fedora.

J.R. was seated at the table in the far left, at the rear of the restaurant next to the mounted deer head. It was a six-point buck. My friend was easy to spot because there was only one other table occupied when I arrived. This place was typical J.R. style. No unnecessary distractions, with good food and drink although the predominant smell came from the bar, not the food. Peanut shells were strewn across the floor and seemed to be part of the casual and primitive charm of the place. I could see that nothing had changed with J.R. He always had on a pair of old blue jeans, a worn Hawaiian style button-down shirt with white t-shirt underneath, brown work boots with velcro clasps. His hands could no longer manipulate the laces in footwear that required lacing and tying. J.R. always had a Corona with lime in front of him. Today was no different. He had one waiting for me too. Looked like he had been here for a little while. The condensation had already pooled at the base of my beer.

So, here you are. And still alive, J.R. said.

He was always loud, boisterous and full of sarcastic energy.

Nice to see you too, my friend, I said. And thanks for the Corona.

How the hell are you? You’ve had me worried for a long time, he said.

I made it here. It wasn’t easy. In the car, alone, for what seemed like forever, I said.

Too much time to think.

So, any plans on how to keep from going stir crazy here in God’s country? J.R. said.

He asked me to help him get the lime wedge into the bottle, put the beer to his lips and swallowed about a fourth of the contents. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and worked to set the bottle back down.

I know you Ethan. And you, of all people, always need something to do.

I had a chat with the local Chief of Police, yesterday, I said. Just curious how the department works around here. Can’t believe that the police station is in what used to be a small two-story private house, with the chief’s office upstairs over a carport.

Oh, so you met Chief Hatterburg, J.R. said. "Chief Lawrence Hatterburg"

He emphasized the word Lawrence in order to make it sound comically distinguished.

Yeah, he seems to be a little long in the tooth to be the Chief of Police, I said. And a little high and mighty for my taste.

He’s very likeable in Heaven’s Valley and from what I hear, he’ll be retiring in another six months or so, J.R. said. Been Chief here for what, 22 years. I think he’s in his 60’s and thinkin’ about relocating to Florida or Arizona.

Only five officers on the entire force? I said.

Don’t need more. Not much to do around here except hand out parking tickets, and keepin’ an eye on drunks in the bars during ski season, he said. Although, we do get the occasional domestic violence call, or loose dog, you know. But for the most part, they just lean up against their squad cars with arms folded watching all the hot little chippies parade by."

I noticed J.R.’s hands wouldn’t even allow him to tactfully pick up the peanuts he was enjoying with his beer. I did it for him and placed them in his hand.

"The only serious police work that went down around here were two missing girls a while back," he said.

Oh? I said. Runaways?

Don’t know. The girls never turned up, he said. Police investigated and came up empty. No clues, no witnesses, no leads, nothing. The cases are still open. First one, then about three years later, the other. Some say they ran away, some say foul play. Nobody knows and nowadays, nobody talks about it.

You got a place to live yet? he said.

Found a condo at the end of 6th Street for now, I said. It’s quiet, at the end of the street and out of the tourist zone.

Congratulations, Ethan my friend. You’re now a local J.R. said. Still talk to Kelly at all?"

I could feel the air getting heavier to breathe at the mere mention of her name. No, I can’t keep opening that door. I just get angry and pissed off at myself all over again. Haven’t talked to her since I told her I was moving out here. That was almost two months ago. Besides, she’s remarried….. and pregnant. Don’t think Frank would appreciate my hanging around. She deserves a fresh start. I owe her that.

So, what are you gonna do to keep yourself sane around here? J.R. said.

"Not sure yet. Day at a time. See what comes up. I thought I’d put in for my P.I. license in

Idaho, get my carry permit updated, and take a bike ride. Check out the area."

It’s a start, J.R. said.

Come to find out that Idaho is one of the few states that doesn’t issue P.I. licenses, I said. I’ll just flip the one I have from back East should the need arise and go from there.

You thinkin’ about getting back into the business? J.R. said.

Options…. Like to keep all options open, I said.

We talked for what seemed like hours. Had a couple more beers before heading home.

As I was leaving, J.R. blurted out, in his all too familiar raspy and gruff tone:

Hey James, how bout’ those Yanks! And remember, don’t spend too much time with yourself!

God, I’ve missed him.

2

I found myself driving south of town to a gated and exclusive community called Westbrook. The word exclusive used in this context always signaled filthy rich and pretentious. I had received a telephone call from a Courtney Dean who said that a friend of hers, a J.R. Martin, recommended that she visit with me. Mrs. Dean’s name rang a bell. I had seen her on the local news. She was the wife of the school principal, looking very distraught and giving interviews about her husband Maxwell, who was one of the victims in a murder/suicide over the Memorial Day weekend. As a favor to J.R., and out of a need to feel useful, I decided to see Mrs. Dean.

As I approached Westbrook, I could visibly see my surrounding dramatically change from moderately well-off to obscenely wealthy. The manicured roads and driveways, the hedges that looked like individual works of sculpted art and the smell in the air that unapologetically wreaked of abundance. On a high school principal’s salary? I thought. As I pulled up to the gate, a guard who looked like he could be my grandfather, whom, by the way, is eighty nine, wearing a security uniform consisting of gray pants and a light blue shirt, both of which seemed to be about two sizes too big, asked who I was here to see. He spoke very slow and deliberate trying to muster as much authority in his voice as possible without wheezing. Like this conversation was all he had to do today and he wanted to draw it out as long as possible. I told him that I was here to see Mrs. Dean. She was expecting me. He called the house to validate my story, pushed the button, causing the security gate to swing open. And there, grandly before me, sat the land of Oz.

As I weaved my way through the pristine streets towards the Dean residence, 745 Sterling Drive, I wondered again how, on a principal’s salary, the Dean’s could afford this type of lifestyle and luxury. Made no sense to me. Standard signs of this type of living: clubhouse, golf course, homes the size of small castles where a dozen people could inhabit at the same time and not run into each other for the entire day. A couple of the mansions even had their own heliport on the grounds. Oh well, perhaps Dean had a trust fund, inheritance or had a very savvy stock broker. I was never any good at picking winners in the stock market. My winners came from the four-legged variety at Belmont Park. And they too were few and far between.

As I pulled into the Dean’s driveway, I could see that their house was in the same tradition as the others I have seen making my way through Westgate. Off-white tudor style home, balconies off of either side of the rooms on the upper floor facing the front of the house. Beautifully sculptured ornate bunting draped the top of the house. I could see the corner of what looked to be a swimming pool jutting out from the right rear of the house and a red cobblestone walkway from the driveway to the front door. About a hundred feet of it. This was the type of house, and neighborhood that always made me uncomfortable. Like wearing a cheap suit on a hot and muggy New York summer day. It seemed so cold, so sterile, unfriendly and intimidating. I was used to the five story apartment houses and the brownstones in the Bronx where we used to play stick ball in the street while dodging speeding cars that always trespassed across our carefully chalked home plate and second base markings.

As I pulled up, Courtney Dean met