An Accidental Murder

By Kevin Derleth

When Danny "Buzzkill" Cippo kills a U.S. Senator by mistake, he soon learns he's been set up, and the man he killed was not who he was contracted to kill.
Detective Clay Lennon has been assigned the case but realizes within a couple of days that there are more questions than answers regarding this case, and some of the answers don't make sense.
As Buzzkill runs for his life from multiple threats, Detective Lennon finds information about who is really involved in the murder, and how far they'll go to keep it secret.
From New York to Louisiana, Buzzkill stays one step ahead of his pursuers, while Detective Lennon runs into danger in New York when someone tries to kill him in a bar explosion. As the story comes to its riveting conclusion, both Buzzkill and Detective Lennon make decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645756408

Kevin Derleth

Kevin Derleth grew up in Hilton, New York. He is a retired school district employee who now lives in Florida with his wife, Marti. As a former police officer, crime scene investigator, and school safety officer, Kevin has had plenty of life experiences that have guided him to his current career as a writer, providing him plenty of material for inspiration.

Book preview

An Accidental Murder

Kevin Derleth

Austin Macauley Publishers

An Accidental Murder

About the Author

Dedication

Copyright Information ©

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Epilogue

About the Author

Kevin Derleth grew up in Hilton, New York. He is a retired school district employee who now lives in Florida with his wife, Marti. As a former police officer, crime scene investigator, and school safety officer, Kevin has had plenty of life experiences that have guided him to his current career as a writer, providing him plenty of material for inspiration.

Dedication

To my wife, Marti.

This would never have been written without your love, support, and patience.

Copyright Information ©

Kevin Derleth (2020)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Derleth, Kevin

An Accidental Murder

ISBN 9781645363330 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781645756392 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781645756408 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020909811

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published (2020)

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 28th Floor

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Chapter 1

It was 9:00 in the evening, and a black 2016 Rolls Royce Phantom pulled up in front of a well-maintained Victorian home near Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. An early April cold front was in the process of moving through New York City, the temperature rapidly dropping as a light drizzle soon became a steady rain. The forecast called for the rain to change to sleet and freezing rain overnight, with the temperature falling to the low thirties. Earlier in the day it seemed as if the whole city had been out and about, enjoying the sixty-degree weather dressed like it was seventy-five. But now you would be hard-pressed to find many people out at all, much less without a jacket. Those that braved the weather headed to dinner, with some going to clubs, plays, concerts, movies, or some other form of entertainment, like the passenger in the Rolls. The chauffer stepped out of the car, opened an umbrella, and walked to the back-right passenger door, opening it to allow a well-dressed man of fifty-three to exit. The chauffer held out the umbrella, and the man snatched it from his hand.

What a shitty ass evening, the man said, pissed-off as if it was the chauffer’s fault.

Yes, sir, the chauffer replied.

Wait for me, I shouldn’t be more than an hour.

Yes, sir.

The well-dressed man walked up the sidewalk to the front door and rang the bell.

Across the street, sitting behind the wheel of a 2003 Honda Civic which had seen better days, a man watched. His name was Danny Cippo, but most people called him Buzzkill. He had come to kill the well-dressed man.

Buzzkill looked at the photo on his phone and compared it to the man who had just walked up to the front door of the Victorian. The photo looked like the same man. He would give him fifteen minutes to get inside, take care of payment, find a girl and get started. Then he would go in. As he watched the man walk through the front door, he looked again at the photo on his phone. It was definitely the same man, but not what he expected. This man appeared high-class, wealthy, and well-dressed. Buzzkill expected someone much different. The photo the Bonfiglio family had given him showed the man’s name as Bernard Samson, a slumlord who owned an apartment building the Bonfiglios wanted to buy, located in an up-and-coming neighborhood that demanded more money for real estate. The Bonfiglios wanted to buy the building, tear it down, and then build a new high-rise apartment building for the wealthy. The problem was, Samson wouldn’t sell, and you didn’t do that kind of thing to the Bonfiglios. They were a major player in the New York City crime scene known for their brutality. When subtle threats made by the family didn’t sway him, a pair of large gentlemen paid Mr. Samson a visit, to give him a reason to sell. They roughed him up, but he wouldn’t budge. The only reason they didn’t kill him right then was because they didn’t know who the building would be willed to upon Samson’s death. They remedied that several days later when they obtained Samson’s will. The will listed Samson’s fifty-year-old son as sole beneficiary to his estate, so the two large men paid him a visit. Before the men left, an agreement was made with the son to sell the apartment building to a shell company owned by the Bonfiglio family for a generous sum of money upon the passing of the elder Samson, something destined to soon happen. That’s where Buzzkill came in. He was an independent contractor using his skills in the murder for hire business. Buzzkill may not have been the best hitman in the business, but he wasn’t the worst either. He was what the Bonfiglios could afford before buying the building. They didn’t want to get their own hands dirty on this contract, so they made sure Buzzkill knew what would happen if he fucked up. All he had to do was kill the elder Samson and get a quick fifteen k. Now as he looked up at the house on the other side of the street, he checked the time on his phone and realized he needed to get inside.

After the well-dressed man rang the doorbell, a pretty brunette in her early twenties showed him into the house. She smiled at him and escorted him to the front counter of the so-called bed-and-breakfast this establishment was purported to be.

A nice-looking blonde woman stood behind the counter, smiling as he approached.

Good evening, Senator Christman. Would you like to see your room? she asked.

Yes, I would, the senator replied. I hope my lady friend is acceptable tonight. I was not pleased with the last one.

Yes, sir, we are aware of the young lady’s incompetence and have taken steps to ensure it will not happen again.

It better not, because I’m paying a lot of money for this service and I’m not a man to be trifled with.

Certainly not, sir. In fact, I believe you will be quite pleased with the young woman who is waiting for you upstairs. And don’t worry about payment. Because of your unsatisfactory experience from the last time you were here, tonight’s stay is on the house.

I wouldn’t expect anything less, the senator said. Now tell me what room I’m in and I’ll be on my way.

Your room number is 213. Would you like a key?

No, I’m sure my friend will let me in.

I think it would be better if you had a key, the clerk said. I believe your friend has something special planned for you, and it requires you entering the room on your own.

Then why ask me if I wanted the fucking key? the senator asked angrily. Never mind, just give it to me.

The clerk handed him his key, and he climbed the stairs to the second floor. When he reached room 213, he turned the key in the lock and entered the room. It was dark, with the only light coming from a candle flickering in the bathroom. He took his clothes off in the outer room and entered the bathroom.

Hello Senator, a sultry voice said from the soaking tub.

The senator looked in the tub to find a pretty blonde woman covered in scented bubbles. The only part of her body visible to him below her neck was the top of her breasts. He stared as the soapy water lapped over them, making them glisten in the soft flickering light of the candle. He shook his head to clear his mind.

Stand up and let me look at you, he said.

The woman stood up to reveal a body that looked as if it could have been sculpted by a master artist. She took his breath away. Every curve of her body was perfect. The soapy water fell off her body, and her nipples hardened in the cool air. The senator found himself getting aroused.

Holy shit, he exclaimed. I thought you were pretty when I came in, but you are one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.

I can tell you like what you see, she said, looking down at him.

He smiled and said, Yes, very much.

Then come into the tub with me.

While the senator had the best sex of his soon-to-be-ending life, someone entered the bedroom behind him. It was a young man of average height and weight moving silently like a ninja. He quickly found the senator’s clothes and removed his wallet from his pants. He then replaced the wallet with one he brought with him and hurriedly hid in the coat closet. It was a good thing because someone else was entering the room.

Buzzkill almost screwed up the job. He was behind schedule. If Samson blew his load too quick, he might leave. He didn’t want the driver to see him cross the street, so he left his car and walked a half block away before hurrying across the street in the rain, making sure to look both ways for cars. He staggered up to the limo, dressed like a bum, carrying a bottle of cheap wine in a brown paper bag. Buzzkill knocked on the driver’s side glass with the bottle. The window quickly came down.

What the hell do you think you’re doing? the limo driver asked angrily.

Buzzkill shot him in the head with a silenced .22 Ruger. He looked around to make sure he hadn’t been seen, then headed inside the fenced grounds of the Victorian. Buzzkill walked to the back of the house, throwing the bag with the cheap wine in the bushes. He walked to a porch and climbed the steps, leading to a locked door opening to the kitchen, but he came prepared. Buzzkill took out his lock picks and had the door open in less than a minute. He cracked the door open and peeked inside, making sure there was no one in sight. Satisfied, he opened the door and stepped in. Once inside, he went to a staircase located off the kitchen and headed to the second floor, finding room 213 halfway down the hall on his right. Buzzkill listened at the door for about ten seconds, not hearing anything inside the room. He quickly picked the lock on the door and did the same thing as he did with the kitchen, entering the room when he felt it was safe. The room was dark, but the flickering of candles and the sound of someone having a good time came from the bathroom. Buzzkill smiled to himself, wishing he had time for the woman when he finished the job. But he didn’t come here for pleasure, and the woman in the bathroom was being well-paid to play her part. As long as she and the clerk remained quiet, everything should go without a hitch. If not, he would have to return. Buzzkill felt apprehensive about the man he was about to kill. It didn’t seem right for a slumlord to have a chauffeur, so just to be sure, he checked the man’s pants and found his wallet. He then checked the man’s I.D., satisfying himself when he saw that the picture and the name on the I.D. were Samson’s. Buzzkill breathed a sigh of relief, then walked to the door of the bathroom and peeked in, seeing Samson in the tub with his back to him. The woman saw him and gave him a slight nod to let him know she was ready. Buzzkill hid along the wall next to the bathroom door and waited. Two minutes later, the woman entered the room holding Samson’s hand, guiding him towards the bed. As soon as she passed him, Buzzkill stepped away from the wall and put a bullet in Samson’s head behind his right ear. Samson never saw it coming. Buzzkill looked at the woman and held his finger up to his lips. The woman, getting his meaning, nodded her head. Now that he had completed the hit, he noticed the woman was naked. After staring for two seconds, Buzzkill quickly left the room, leaving the house the way he came in. As he walked out the door, he realized he had a hard-on. He laughed to himself, not able to believe he left a beautiful woman like that behind. Buzzkill checked his watch and smiled, still three hours before the bars stopped serving alcohol. Now that the blonde had gotten him horny, he decided to go to a strip club to celebrate.

As soon as Buzzkill left, the woman hurriedly got dressed and exited the room. She left the house the same way Buzzkill did, through the back door. As soon as she left, the man who took the senator’s wallet, opened the coat closet, going back to the senator’s clothes, replacing the wallet and taking the one identifying the senator as Samson. Apparently, his boss thought of everything, because if he had been the hitman, he would have never questioned if he was killing the right person. After wiping down the room for fingerprints, he too left the house through the back door.

Chapter 2

Clay Lennon woke up from a dream with a splitting headache. It felt like there was a construction crew using jackhammers, working in his head. As usual, his dream already faded from his mind as he tried to remember it. The one part he remembered was something about a TV reality show, starring him, but that’s all he could remember. As he sat up in bed, he almost passed out as a wave of dizziness and nausea came over him. He ran to the bathroom, put his head over the rim of the toilet and let loose the fifth of scotch he had been struggling to contain. He made it through a couple minutes of dry heaves and shakily stood up, legs wobbling beneath him. Clay staggered to the sink and splashed cold water in his face, then grabbed four ibuprofen and swallowed them dry. As he popped the pills down his throat, he looked over to the toilet and nearly gagged again. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying hard to keep himself together. Clay left the bathroom and checked the alarm clock next to his sofa bed, finding it to be almost three thirty in the morning. As he wondered what caused him to wake up, his phone rang. The ring tone sounded like it was coming from under the blankets on the bed, but he ended up finding it under his pillow. Clay knew it was the captain without looking as the ringtone he assigned him was the theme to the TV show, Cops. Maybe that’s where his dream came from. He picked up the phone and got ready for the tirade he expected to hear. He wasn’t disappointed.

It’s about time, Lennon, the captain said. I’ve been calling for over an hour.

Sorry, Captain, Clay said. The ringer was off on my phone.

Don’t try to sell me that shit, Clay. You’ve been on the job twenty years. Do you really think I’d believe you’d turn your ringer off?

I don’t know, Captain, seeing as I hardly know you. I’ve only been working for you for a week and a half.

Stop the bullshit, Lennon, I know your secret.

What do you mean? Clay asked innocently.

That you’re a drunk. I didn’t want to take you into Major Crimes, but I was overruled. I think you’re washed up.

Well, I guess it’s a good thing for me that you didn’t have a choice. So, what do you need? It’s three-thirty in the morning, and I can’t imagine that you only called to tell me I’m a drunk.

What, you think this is a nine-to-five job, Lennon? If that’s what you’re looking for, then you picked the wrong unit to come to.

You do realize I didn’t pick this unit. If the Chief of Detectives hadn’t asked, I wouldn’t be here.

That’s true, you wouldn’t be here, and you’re welcome to leave at any time. Look, I understand you’re a good detective. Your close rates are some of the best the Department has ever seen, and you seem to see things that others don’t.

But? Clay asked.

But I think your drinking is too much of a problem for you to handle, and you need help. I understand you’ve had it rough lately, and perhaps that’s why the Chief asked you to come to this unit. But I need people that are reliable, and I don’t see you as being reliable.

Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Now can you tell me what you called me for?

The captain sighed audibly into the phone. We have a case. It has to do with a United States Senator. I’ll tell you the rest when you get here.

I’ll be in as soon as I clean up. It shouldn’t be more than a half hour.

Fine, I’ll see you in a half hour. Just make sure you don’t come in smelling like a distillery.

The captain hung up, leaving Clay looking at the phone in his hand.

As Clay took a shower, he thought on what the captain said about having it rough lately. The man had no idea what Clay had been through. Having it rough lately was only part of a lifetime of having it rough.

Clay Lennon’s mother was a prostitute. She gave birth to him in an alley somewhere in the Bronx but was too far gone and in too much pain to know where. Luckily, one of her friends, a prostitute named Sherl helped her through the delivery. Through dumb luck, Clay and his mother survived. The other prostitutes in the area fed them and clothed Clay until his mother became strong enough to go back to work. Clay and his mother stayed in Hunt’s Point in the Bronx, mostly living on the streets, finding shelter whenever his mother saved enough to rent a room for a night or two. Most of the money she earned, she gave to the drug dealers who sold her crack at a reduced rate as long as she took care of them too. The rest of it went to feeding Clay. He had no idea who his father was, and never would. It might have been any one of hundreds of sperm donors that his mother had serviced before he was born. When he asked her once about it in one of her moments of lucidity, she told him that his father might have been a cop, but she had screwed many of the cops in this neighborhood. That was the best answer he ever got from her on that matter, so that became his reality. It probably wasn’t true, but he needed to cling to something. Plus, it was better than thinking that one of those asshole drug dealers his mother went to for crack, or heroin, or anything else she could find to keep her in her fantasy world, could be his father. By the time Clay turned six, he was pretty much on his own. He slept hungry most nights, and hardly ever slept in the same place for more than two nights in a row. He spent his days scavenging, looking for anything he might be able to sell, use, or eat. Most days he came up empty. When Clay turned eight, he became the sole provider for his mother and himself. She had aged ten years in the last two and barely got anyone to stop at her corner anymore. She spent most of her time smoking crack and sleeping on rags in a warehouse. Two weeks after his eighth birthday, his mother died from a drug overdose. Although he loved his mother, and he cried when he found her, it came as somewhat of a relief to him. He wouldn’t have to work as hard to survive by himself; at least that’s what he thought. Clay had been struggling for the last year trying to take care of his mother and himself, and somehow managed to survive, but he was rail thin and malnourished. Clay figured he only had himself to take care of now, so he should have more. But no matter how street smart he was, being alone made it harder to compete with the rest of the people barely making it on the street. Food was scarce, and he had been beaten more than once trying to take something out of someone else’s favorite dumpster. One day, one of the prostitutes his mother had worked with found him wandering the streets, filthy and emaciated. She took him to a vacant building she shared with twenty other people and fed him scraps she had found in a garbage can outside a Chinese restaurant. The next day she took him to an orphanage where she told him he would have a warm bed to sleep in and food to eat. She left him there hoping for the best but expecting the worst. Life was hard for everyone on the streets, but even more so for a little boy on his own.

Clay did well at the orphanage and was taken in by a foster family one month after arriving. By that time, he had been eating and sleeping regularly, had been cleaned up, and had his hair cut. He looked like a completely different boy than the one who first arrived. But change on the outside doesn’t always coincide with change on the inside. Those wounds were deep and would take much more time to heal.

The family that took him in, the Baxters, were a childless couple. Neither one of them had what they needed to conceive a baby. John Baxter had a very low sperm count, and his wife Cindy couldn’t ovulate. They wanted children, so they first decided to become foster parents, then possibly adopt a child later. When they took Clay into their home, they realized he might be coming to them with excess baggage. They realized where he had come from, what his mother did for a living, and how she died. But they were patient and caring, and when Clay did something wrong, they talked to him and didn’t lose their tempers. They taught him right from wrong, and to treat people with dignity and respect. They were the first people in Clay’s life to truly care about him since his mother, and he loved them for it. After two years as foster parents, the Baxters adopted Clay. That was one of the happiest days in Clay’s life. To have someone in his life that loved and wanted him came as a big relief. He had treated his foster parents unfairly at first and had been hard to handle as he adjusted to a normal life, but they never gave up on him, and when he eventually realized they truly cared about him, he stopped fighting and accepted their love. After that, everything else fell into place. It had taken Clay two years to catch up at school, but once he did, he excelled. Reading, writing, learning about history and science, these were wondrous things to him. After not being exposed to any of that for the first eight years of his life, it was only natural that he would want to learn as much as possible. Plus, it was a great way to separate himself from his earlier life. He could lose himself in the Revolutionary war, learn about space or find himself lost in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Life was good. Once he got to high school, he grew eight inches and gained forty pounds of muscle. He played football and ended up being recruited by a major university to play linebacker. Clay took the scholarship and started his first year. He was twenty years old and everything seemed to be going great. Then one night he received bad news. His parents had been killed in a home invasion. The news hit him hard. After going home to take care of his parents’ funeral arrangements, Clay found himself in a state of depression. He dropped out of college and moved back to his parents’ house, staying inside, only leaving to buy groceries. After a little more than two months, he finally started to get his life back together. He didn’t go back to school, but instead applied to take the civil service test for the Police Department. It seemed to him that everything in his life had led him to this moment, starting from the time his birth mother told him his father might be a cop, to his adoptive parents being murdered in their own home. He felt a need to bring some form of justice to the world and decided this would be his way of doing it.

Clay Lennon not only helped bring justice to his little corner of the world, he excelled at it. His intelligence, his size, he was six two, two hundred twenty pounds, and his knowledge of the streets helped. But it was his determination that eventually made him into one of the best officers on the police force. When he got hold of something, he didn’t let go. When he didn’t have answers, he would dig that much deeper for them. He worked his way up from police officer to detective third grade after eighteen months of assisting the detectives in his squad at the 109th precinct. Once he made detective, the Department transferred him to the 25th precinct in Manhattan. Clay stayed there three years, worked hard, and was promoted to detective second grade. He didn’t solve every case, but nobody had a better closing rate than him. While at the 25th, Clay met his future ex-wife, who worked in records. Her name was Amber Marie Cortana, and if he had any sense, he would have run away before he started dating her. But being a six-year-old man and seeing a woman who looked like a playboy centerfold model, he became instantly smitten. They were married within a month and divorced six months later. He found out she was cheating on him when he stayed out one night with the squad after closing a case. They had gone to a bar they typically didn’t bother with when he saw her. She was at the far end of the bar near the restrooms. Some guy had her up against the wall with his hands all over her body. Clay didn’t know how to react. He stood there staring as he watched his wife undo the buckle of the man’s belt and pull him towards the door to the alley behind the bar. He was still watching as the door closed behind them. Clay finally got himself together and followed them outside. Apparently, they weren’t wasting any time. The man had Amber up against the wall with her skirt hiked up above her waist. His pants were around his knees and he was thrusting into her hard and fast. Clay walked up to them, not believing his eyes. The man saw him and told him to get away. Amber had her eyes closed and was moaning, but heard her lover talking. Without looking up at Clay she said, It’s okay, I really want it.

Clay said, What the fuck is wrong with you Amber, stop it.

Aw shit, she said calmly, opening her eyes. Clay, what are you doing here?

Instead of responding, Clay grabbed the man who continued to fuck his wife and spun him around to face him. The man took a swing at him, but only one. And that was because Clay literally beat the man half to death while Amber stood watching and smiling. When he regained his composure, Clay turned to Amber and asked, Why did you do it?

Instead of answering his question, Amber said, You totally turned me on, what you did to him. You’re making me horny all over again.

Clay couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

What the fuck is wrong with you, Amber?

What are you going to do? she teased. I know you want to hit me, but I’ve got a better idea. I want you to fuck me, Clay. Do it here in this alley, in front of this guy you just beat the shit out of.

Clay really wanted to punch her in the face. Did she really believe he’d want anything to do with her after what she had just done? Clay now realized that Amber was a slut and probably had been fucking around on him since the day they met.

We’re done, Amber. I don’t want anything to do with you anymore.

Oh come on, Clay, I’ll make it up to you. Everything will be better in a few days.

He didn’t want to say anything he would regret, so he left her there in the alley and left for home. He moved out a week later after finding a studio apartment he could almost afford. Amber kept his parents’ house, but he didn’t care, because living there brought up too many memories he wanted to suppress. And the house was the only thing he let her have in the divorce, not like he had anything else. His life changed for the worse. He started drinking heavily when going out, sometimes waking up in an alley or next to a dumpster. It might not have been so bad if he didn’t have to see Amber every day at work. He did his best to avoid her, but that was impossible working in the same building. He applied for a transfer and got it two months later, along with his promotion to detective first grade. Apparently, it had been in the works for a couple of months. He was heading to the 75th precinct in Brooklyn. It should have helped, but he kept drinking. It had become a habit.

That year, 2001 ended up being the worst year ever for New York City, and one of the worst ever for Clay. When the towers came down, he was in Cypress Hills investigating a robbery at a seven eleven. He heard the first plane hit the north tower and saw smoke billowing out the sides. As his radio came to life, he found out that they considered the crash to possibly be a freak accident. However, when he saw the second plane fly over New York Harbor and crash into the south tower, he knew that wasn’t the case, but a possible terrorist attack. The events of that day would always be embedded in the mind of Clay Lennon, along with the rest of the country. He had lost friends and colleagues, feeling helpless as he watched the towers crumble in the distance. In the years that followed, Clay came to realize that life was fleeting, and he might die at any time, so he lived his life fast and hard. He fell into a habit of binge drinking on his days off, always managing to make it in to work, sometimes a little under the weather. Clay worked in one of the busiest precincts in New York, so that helped him keep his focus on work. His close rates continued to be some of the best in the Department, and some colleagues were jealous that a drunk did better solving cases than them. He didn’t care. If it wasn’t for the fact that he loved his job, he probably wouldn’t be alive. It was the only thing that helped him with his depression. But eventually, things got better. He met another woman who he fell in love with. This time he checked into her past before committing to a relationship, then waited a year before asking her to marry him. Her name was Eve Dollinger, and his marriage to her lasted almost ten years. During that time, Clay managed his drinking, and though he didn’t entirely go off the wagon, he didn’t drink to excess.

The turning point in their marriage came when several years had passed and Eve decided she wanted children. They tried for several months to no avail. Eve made an appointment at a fertility clinic, and the results came back positive. She had nothing wrong with her reproductive system. When she asked Clay to go, he refused. He told her that if he was infertile, he didn’t want to know. She called him selfish and uncaring of her feelings, but the truth of the matter was that Clay had never told her about his early childhood before moving in with his adoptive parents. In fact, she didn’t even know he was adopted. So when Eve didn’t get pregnant, it made Clay realize that maybe he shouldn’t be having kids, that possibly he wouldn’t be the best person to raise them. He didn’t want to bring a child into a decaying and corrupt world which would take more than it gave. He saw the things that happened on the streets every day, but he didn’t know how to put his feelings into the right words to tell his wife. So he kept quiet until after she had her appointment at the clinic, finding out she was fine. That’s when Clay told her about his past life, the part he never told anyone. When Clay tried to explain to Eve why he didn’t want kids, she got