The Spinal Sisters: A Novella

By Patrick Patterson

Leroy White is an old criminal with a spine the shape of a gnarled tree root, and when he gets the call to visit Teddy Phil’s house he gets some bad news. His kid died. Murdered by a group of women who call themselves The Spinal Sisters. Three of them, all adopted from different countries, all lethal, trained killers under their father, the merciless Eugene. Leroy and Teddy search the crime scene and discover the women left a note. The sisters were searching for something, information. And now Leroy and Teddy have got fifteen hours to find it before the Spinal Sisters come after them with lethal intentions. But Leroy’s got secrets. His back wasn’t always curved like that. Something happened, something buried deep in his past, and as the hours sink away, secrets emerge, secrets that will change everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrick Patterson
• Release date: May 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463961162

Book preview

The Spinal Sisters: A Novella

By Patrick Patterson

Copyright 2018 Patrick Patterson

Smashwords Edition

1

When the door closed, Teddy Phil told LeRoy White his kid died sometime between midnight and breakfast.

They were sitting in thick wooden chairs, with a coffee table in between them that was topped with a white plate of halved lemons, and two spoons. Two glasses filled with ice and brown liquid were on opposite sides of the table, one for Teddy, the other, for LeRoy.

Teddy pulled a lemon off the plate and squeezed it over his glass and stirred it all up with a spoon. He let the handle go and watched the liquid and ice's momentum spin the spoon around in the glass a few times.

I mean, the kid was wheezing hard, LeRoy. Real hard.

LeRoy stayed quiet. The only other noise in the room was his hard sniffling and his light cough afterward.

He wasn't going to make it, said Teddy. Probably never was. Teddy took a sip from his glass and set it down on the table, slow. His chest.

I don't, LeRoy paused. He took a deep breath and continued. I don't care about his chest. I want to know why you left him there. They got hospitals, Teddy. You know that? They got places for him to go. Places for stuff like that.

Well, he wasn't.

Wasn't what?

Teddy bit his lip, like he was about to regret saying something, but he said it anyway. He was speared with a PVC pipe. Went straight through his chest, out his back. You could, you could see stuff coming out his back, all red and wet. Tissue, that kind of thing.

LeRoy just stared at him.

He wasn't getting help, LeRoy. Kid was done before he could finish his abc's. And that's a fact.

The room went silent again. No one said anything for a minute.

Why d'you leave him? Said LeRoy.

Time, said Teddy. It was a matter of time.

You couldn't put him in your truck? In the cab?

Teddy slammed his hand down on the coffee table; it made a flesh on wood smack. And have the police pull us over? Hello sir, I'd like to inquire about the impaled child in your cab. The one that's leaking all over the floor-bed? Teddy shook his head. It wasn't an option.

But if you told them what happened.

I go to jail if I tell them what happened, said Teddy. And so do you and half your family.

Maybe not half.

Well, two, three of them, said Teddy. Does it make a difference?

It could.

Teddy clenched his long hair with his hands. He got a perm two days ago. Felt good.

We cleaned everything up. He's in the fridge in the basement.

You didn't burn him?

For what? Said Teddy. He's your kid. Figured you'd want to see him.

LeRoy smirked and picked up his glass, shook it around some and listened to the ice clink on the glass. He knew better.

I've got to hand it to you, said Teddy. I mean, god, he's your kid?

And?

You're acting like he was the neighbors kid, like he was collateral damage.

No, he's mine.

So go see him.

In a little bit.

Teddy squinted his eyes. So what's up with the sniffling?

Think I'm catching a cold, said LeRoy. That bug’s going around.

You need a bug to bite you, said Teddy. So you can get a disease and have to get an implant.

Implant?

So the doctor will give you an actual heart.

LeRoy grinned; it was a grin Teddy had seen numerous times before. It was an idea grin, a grin of mischief.

Maybe I'll have one soon.

Come again? Teddy gripped his chair arms and looked LeRoy in the face. He was a thin black man with gray hair and he was balding at the top of his scalp. He had two eyes, the left one real, the right fake. The fake eye would sometimes look off and up at the ceiling and into space. It made LeRoy look like an idiot, but Teddy wasn't going to bring it up. He knew better.

Don't worry about it, said LeRoy, his fake eye snapped back into action and joined suit with LeRoy's real eye and looked back at Teddy, like a kid in class who just realized he was daydreaming.

LeRoy stood up from his chair and brushed his stomach off with his hands. He was about six- feet even, with a slight curve in his posture. Teddy thought it was scoliosis, or maybe some degenerative muscular disease. He didn't tell LeRoy about that either, the man was content not knowing. Or maybe he did know, but he never brought attention to it. It was how he dealt with things. If it didn't have an immediate impact on his life, then LeRoy White couldn't care less. But his kid did though. Teddy knew the kid dying was a death LeRoy couldn't afford. It was something that had an immediate impact. It was a problem.

Let's eat, said LeRoy. You got any food in there?

Maybe a couple bananas, some coffee.

You got sausage?

Teddy knew LeRoy's stress food was sausage. It was what he ate when everything was about to go to Hell.

Think so, said Teddy. What you want, links?

LeRoy patted his stomach with his thin ashy hand. It was wide and long, like a claw in one of those arcade centers. He had on a heavy brown coat with a popped collar and white stains near the crease on the zipper line, black pants, and thick leather shoes.

You better believe it, said LeRoy. You got them in the kitchen freezer?

They aren't next to your kid in the other one.

LeRoy headed for the door and pulled it open. Teddy stayed in his chair. LeRoy turned his head to the side, only his head, the rest of his body stayed facing the door. Let's go, said LeRoy. My stomachs growling.

You're not going anywhere without me. You don't know where it is.

LeRoy turned his face toward the door. Guide me.

And that's what Teddy did. He stood up and followed LeRoy through the door, giving directions from behind. LeRoy liked to lead even if he didn't know where he was going. It was a character flaw, a heavenly accident.

They walked through a narrow hallway with chipped wooden walls and fist sized balls of lint and toilet paper scattered across the floor and baseboards. They walked straight down the hallway and took the last door on the right. Teddy heard the gurgle and click of the coffee machine through the thin doorframe, and once LeRoy opened the door, they stepped into the kitchen.

The kitchen smelled like a mixture of burnt coffee and bleach. It had cracked linoleum flooring tinted yellow by the lights hanging from the ceiling. There was a counter space and cabinets and sink and table with four chairs, and a fridge in the back right corner of the room, nudged between the end of the countertop and an oil painting of a stalk of corn that was hung up on the right wall. LeRoy pulled a chair from under the table and dragged it to the right side of the room, near the fridge. He turned it backwards and sat down on it, like a horse saddle.

You said I don't know where anything is.

Teddy gave LeRoy a look and walked up to the fridge. LeRoy was going to prove his point, Teddy wouldn't challenge. There was no point in challenging. LeRoy White would always be right, or he wouldn't be LeRoy White. He'd have been killed by now if he weren’t. Teddy hated that about him, the aura of arrogance about the man. It oozed out of LeRoy, like sweat.

Teddy looked at the fridge. It was divided into two parts with two handles for each door compartment. The top third was the freezer; the bottom two-third was the regular fridge. Teddy pulled the freezer door open, pulled out the sausage links in the plastic zip lock bag, and placed them on the countertop. They were freezer burned. Teddy could see the little jagged fuzzy lining of white ice surrounding the sausages in the bag. He closed the freezer door.

I can't eat that, said LeRoy. It's bad.

It's food.

You're not wrong. Its food, just bad food, said LeRoy. Not going to chance it.

Teddy coughed once and rubbed something hard and wet out the corner of his eye, rubbed it on his shirt.

I'll take coffee though. Where's your coffee?

Teddy walked to the kitchen table and pointed at the coffee maker. He felt the hot steam hit his forearms. Hasn't moved since we got here.

Sure hasn't, said LeRoy.

Definitely hasn't, said Teddy.

A quick pause.

Well? Said Teddy, folding his arms over his chest. You going to make some, or just sit there?

Might just sit. It's a little hot in here anyway, too hot, for coffee anyway.

So what you do you want? Said Teddy. Pick something. You've got to pick one."

LeRoy scraped his chair