The Dead Man at the End of Forever

By J. ARTURO REVELO

He is a private detective in San Francisco, but he cant stay away from Bakersfield. You can call Richard Tessa any day, just dont call him Dick. The Maltese detective from Bakersfield gets cases solved. He treats every client the same way, with contempt. Sarcastic, blunt, opinionated, he always says whats on his mind no matter whos paying him or holding the gun to his face, be a religious zealot or the Canadian Secret Service.
The Dead Man at The End of Forever, are three stories of murder and intrigue. The tales, described as the best detective stories in years, involve the murders of Tony Sebastian, a rich man going punk rocker; Mary Carlston, a public defender killed defending a terrorist; and Oscar Wedemayer Jones, also known to his terrorist friends and his wife as Hans Shepherd. Twists and turns, from the foggy streets of San Francisco, to the top of the Southern Sierra Nevada, from sleepy San Jose to bursting at the seams L.A.
Guns, bullets, corpses and money, the stuff Richard Tessa cant stay away from whenever he is on the trail of who done it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462874859

J. ARTURO REVELO

Joaquin Arturo Revelo is an U.S. army veteran, criminal defense attorney and writer living in Bakersfield. Originally from El Salvador, the moved to the U.S. in the 1980’s at the beginning of that country’s civil war. He left the U.S. Army after the conclusion of the Afghan campaign and moved to Bakersfield from San Francisco in 2005. He is the author of dozens of articles and stories, the novel “The Zia Protocols,” “Poemas de Amor y Angustia,” X-Libris 2011; and the soon to be published “The Castaneda Files.”

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

TONY SEBASTIAN FELT a great deal of apprehension as he drove up the hill. He could almost taste the fresh, sweet scent of apple blossoms floating in the air that evening. He rolled his car window shut, as he stepped out of the Alfa Romero. Man, how he loved that car. Who, could have known that the small red convertible, envy of all who knew him, would never again be found? He wiped his forehead with one of the silk handkerchiefs he always carried with him, in his left pocket, not because it was particularly hot that evening, but because, it had become a habit with him.

The entrance to the horseshoe driveway of 345 Chaparral Road was just a few meters from where he had left his car. The house was very easy to find, there were very few houses on that block. This monster of a house was a clear indication, at least in his mind, that money could simply not buy you a sense of style.

As he gently closed the door to ‘Alfé’ that’s what he affectionately called his Alfa Romero, he turned back and glanced at the city. The little town slowly melted into a delicate silver haze under the clouds. The moon made its slow climb up the faintly blue sky, pierced by the gentle light of the stars, now making their appearance in the early evening. He was alone much like the moon is alone on a starless night.

His own footsteps were the only sound Tony could hear, until his finger pressed the faintly illuminated doorbell button and in response he heard the electronic buzzer. The wrenching sound alerted a figure hidden in the shadows. Down the stairs it ran. The figure then stared through the peep hole of the door, just briefly.

Tony had heard the round chambered into the gun, although he didn’t understand what it meant, until he felt the Glock aimed point blank at his chest. It all become eerily clear to him, when he saw the gunman pull the trigger and the muffled sound of that first round joined the low grunting noise that was to be the last thing he would ever utter.

He hence was on his way to becoming an ‘it’ about to rot in a shallow grave someone else had dug for him at the bottom of the hill.

The human body is over 75 percent water and he was in fact a gelatinous mass a few days later. Fermentation, heat, lack of light and bacteria, all working together to turn what once had been Tony Sebastian into something else, an ‘it’.

Then, by chance, two years later a curious character, a Chinese gardener with the improbable name of Percival Chang, stumbled on to ‘it’, a pelvis bone to be precise. Percival was digging on what he thought was the perfect spot to plant a rare type of Acacia tree, his client wanted to showcase in the garden at the boundary of the lower south east corner of his estate. The garden was the pride and joy of the owner of the mansion, a thing of beauty and tranquility, yet a hiccup of botanical rebellion at the edge of the city of Tehachapi, California. Then a shovel full of dirt and bones, changed this whole serene area into a landing site for forensics’ experts. Much like the ones you see on TV. Latex gloves, white jump suits and breathing masks for as far as the eye could see. It was a set back for Chang, to say the least.

The bones of a man in his late thirties, were finally placed in a plain brown cardboard box, marked only with (male remains—crime lab—number TE 1254) and taken to a medical examiner in Bakersfield. Then quite suddenly, all the Latex gloves, white jump suits and breathing masks were gone almost as fast as they had appeared.

Cops solve murders within seventy two hours or cases become cold. The truth of the matter is that short of a person out right confessing, police work consists in most cases, of simply waiting around for someone to tell them why the shooter pulled the trigger or for anything else short of a miracle. Nothing of the sort happened in the case of poor Tony. It did not help in his case, that there where no family members clamoring in any real sense for the resolution of the case. That did not seem to help one bit. So, the local hounds ran out of steam quickly and the case file went into a dusty dark room near the courthouse, to be forgotten.

*     *     *

To me every morning is just another day. I wake; look in the mirror and see a man much older than my mind believes me to be. Some people call this a midlife crisis. I know it’s just another one of natures cruel little jokes like premature balding, e. d., athlete’s foot and dandruff just to name a few.

All I would come to know about poor Tony Sebastian would be that he was dead and that his family had coughed up the ten thousand dollars I needed to make his last drive, something of my concern. I would be paid to find the trigger man or dame, who had sent dear Tony into the south east corner of Mr. Slevtana Mc Allen’s garden and well on his way to meeting his maker.

It was something of my concern, simply said, my business. I am a detective by trade and in the trade by accident. If you ask around, there may be some good souls out there that would say I am excellent at my work. If so, it is simply because I am lucky. Part of it is my innate ability to jump in head first, into every conceivable place where trouble might be waiting.

It takes little or no effort, if you act that way, to add your name to a roster of fools meandering at the shores of the sea of catastrophe waiting for their turn to drown.

*     *     *

It was Paul Kangas who gave her my name. He told her I was a sucker for cold cases. He probably meant to tell the lady that I was flat broke back then. I needed the cold cash to pay off among other things my part of the rent. He was probably also too busy to take the case, himself and too nice a chap not to throw me that bone.

Paul tells me it would be worse if I had to pay two ex-wives like clockwork at the end of the month. He tries to cheer me up that way sometimes, especially now because my leg’s still sore after the big fall from a motorcycle accident. He sold me the bike and neglected to tell me about the bad brakes.

No matter, she found my address easily and caught me in one of those rare moments of sobriety when the smoke of my last cigar was as blue as the mood I was in those days. The job was going to take me back to Kern County. Long buried memories came rushing in as the tall, fair woman was putting the money over the desk right next to the picture of the sad looking chap, Tony Sebastian, the stiff. His life had been over the moment he decided to become the rock star, he was never meant to be. However, he did not know that then and if he did, it was probably too late to make a difference.

When I get a case the first thing I do is find a way to care for the stiff. It helps when you are turning around like a loose wheel on a cheap car and you feel like a hundred bucks an hour is simply not enough to make it worth your while to keep digging into a heap of trash meant to be forgotten for a damned good reason.

I firmly believe that if someone went to the trouble of putting a bullet into ‘someone else’, that the ‘someone else’ probably deserved a piece of lead wrapped in copper. And, that for obvious reasons the shooter that aimed to send that ‘someone else’ packing his bags into a field of daisies, doesn’t likely want to be found.

It is also a necessity to keep my opinions to myself and keep a tight zipper on my mouth, just in case it decides to go on ‘auto pilot’ and tell the would be client that the dearly departed was probably the scoundrel the shooter was aiming at and for a rally good reason at least.

In this case the nice lady with the bag of dough was a gentle looking dame with a nice pair of green eyes, the nose of a Greek goddess, the legs of a model and the mouth of a sailor. She certainly was not afraid to point out that dear Tony was truly a character undeserving of the many ‘Grade A’ choice delicacies he got to taste; except that also definitely was not enough to get him a hot dose of a ‘full metal jacket’.

Listen love. She said lighting her own cigar with a rather nice piece of a lighter she pulled out of her purse. Let me be perfectly clear, Tony was no Boy Scout, it wouldn’t help to lie about that. Nevertheless, he was my kid brother and as much as I am going to save in the yearly ceremony of keeping him fed and out of my sight, that does not mean that I don’t want the muck ball, that killed him breathing in hydrogen cyanide gas, in the gas chamber for it.

I took the pile of cash from next to Tony’s mug and put it in the desk drawer right by Mr. 9 mm. I then took a second look at the photo of the departed. Not a bad looking chap, in fact, the kind of pretty boy from back east that makes it big filming soaps in Hollywood.

You must have loved him dearly.

Don’t go getting lovey-dovey with me, Dick. May I call you Dick?

I prefer Richard, if it’s the same to you, Ms. Sebastian. And no, I don’t mind. I just want to make sure I understand how hard I need to work for this case.

Turner, the name is Mrs. Turner, I kept the name of my ex-husband; sentimental reasons, you know. I thought it was a nice touch considering the large amount of money I can trace back to his little harmonica.

What she meant by that I don’t know, I suppose the old chap was a musician. Mrs. Turner sat back in her seat and put her legs up on my desk. The blue dress that was meant to try to hide that monument to womanhood was failing miserably. I could see the boundaries of her curbs and feel the scent of her perfume, invading my personal space (not that I mined one bit). She made things much worse by blowing her smoke in my face. The dress rolled down her legs stopping mid way on her thighs.

What do you mean by working too hard on a case, love? the words mixed with smoke came out her mouth in perfect harmony.

Well, it would not be the first time that a trigger man, went to get himself a private hound to get some sort of a cover story if the real hounds were you know, smelling up his crotch, if you know what I mean.

The dress went down just like any good silk would have; slowly nevertheless surely. Then, her eyes threw me one of those looks, full of poison. The little twitch on her lip was a clear indication that the anger she felt was real, not part of the act. The sand paper covering her throat was obvious, as she called me once again by the worn-out nickname of my childhood.

Listen to me, Dick! I want the shooter and this is for real! I hope you can save some of that crap you just threw at me, for the people you are going to be talking to down there in Bakersfield. I have it from a good source that the cops down there take offence to punks becoming embroiled in their business. Perhaps one would make it their business to push that rather large nose of yours back further into your knucklehead. Keep me posted, love.

With that she walked the walk to the door and went on her way leaving me once more alone. I went back to counting the pile of cash that Mrs. Turner left me, for a second time.

The death of her little brother was then officially the subject of my concern. The dough should last me about two months. The mystery of who had killed one Tony Sebastian, budding rock star was now all mine.

CHAPTER 2

IF YOU ARE going to be frying your buttocks on vinyl seats in Bakersfield where the heat can be something of a hindrance to you if you never thought it necessary to install an air conditioner in your car, it is better to do it not a second more than it is absolutely necessary. In any case, Tony had the good sense of flying into San Francisco from Boston to begin his journey south into rock and roll nirvana. Green eyes left me a list of contacts in the area, including an address in the Tenderloin. All good private investigators know that to start digging for information on someone, especially if the person you are investigating is already dead, it’s best to start from the bottom of the barrel and work your way up. So there I was, cold and annoyed at the distance I had to walk to the apartment of none other than Oscar Wedemayer Jones.

Forth Leavenworth Kansas has all the best San Francisco can offer except it’s no where near as dank. There were a number of