A Stockton Story

By Patricia Sitkin

Naftali Ross had lost Eddy, his best friend and younger brother, to a drunken driver just a year before meeting another seventeen-year-old Eddy who is wounded and dying. He feels compelled to find the killer, as does homicide detective, Dano Obanion.
Dano's search is complicated by fifty healthy marijuana plants, Eddy's popularity with everyone who knew him and the distraction of a woman who claims to have killed her husband only an hour before when the man has been dead for days.
Naftali's investigation leads him to the middle of a gangland shootout, a brave teenager whom he tries to protect from a felony charge and a calculating child psychologist. Meanwhile he must deal with his own symptoms which he believes come from Asperger's Syndrome, Eddy's
twin sister, who has developed an embarrassing crush on him, and a grieving pit bull.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503564176

Patricia Sitkin

Naftali Ross had lost Eddy, his best friend and younger brother, to a drunken driver just a year before meeting another seventeen-year-old Eddy who is wounded and dying. He feels compelled to find the killer, as does homicide detective, Dano Obanion. Dano's search is complicated by fifty healthy marijuana plants, Eddy's popularity with everyone who knew him and the distraction of a woman who claims to have killed her husband only an hour before when the man has been dead for days. Naftali's investigation leads him to the middle of a gangland shootout, a brave teenager whom he tries to protect from a felony charge and a calculating child psychologist. Meanwhile he must deal with his own symptoms which he believes come from Asperger's Syndrome, Eddy's twin sister, who has developed an embarrassing crush on him, and a grieving pit bull.

Book preview

A Limerick Interrupted

"H ello. My name is Naftali Ross, and if you have a moment –"

I do NOT have a moment, and why, every night just as I sit down to dinner –

Dinner at 4:30? Don’t say it. Civility, remember civility.

I’m very sorry. I’ll try another time.

Do NOT try again. Damn all you telemarketers to hell, and when you get there don’t come back.

The slam of Mrs. G. Allen’s receiver set his right ear to tingling, and comforting it with the palm of his hand, Naftali thought about civility. Where was the line which, when crossed, excused one of the explosions of rage to which he had been prone not long before? Aunt Judith knew of these, of course, and probably suspected his nearness to Asperger’s Syndrome. This was, he had to agree, good sociability practice, but so far that was all it had achieved. He hadn’t raised a cent for Aunt Judith’s animal shelter.

He crossed out Allen, G. on the list she had given him. He had promised to call twelve each day, she starting with the Z’s, Naftali with the A’s from the list she had been given by the local food bank. He hoped she was having better luck than he – four no answers, two civil pleas of poverty and the dreadful Mrs. G. Allen.

Amunson, Robert was next and at first seemed promising. He would give five dollars, better than nothing. Would you prefer to be billed for that or to put it on your credit card now, Mr. Amunson?

Hey, your name is Ross – you’re Scotch, huh?

Whisky is Scotch, people are Scottish. Don’t say it, correcting people is not civil.

No, Jewish, actually, used to be Rosenberg.

And you think I’m giving my card number to some Jew kid?

Naftali turned the little phone off, beginning to regard it with the mix of horror and fascination called up by the poisonous reptile exhibit at the zoo.

Then he reached Anderson, Albert.

A no-kill shelter? I read about one in L.A. They were overloaded with Chihuahuas and shipped half of them to New York where there was a shortage of apartment-sized dogs. Saved them all. I don’t know if we can save every dog in poor old Stockton, but we can save some. Put me down for fifty.

His luck had changed. Anderson, M. L. sounded promising immediately – a cacophony of barking in the background. She was good for twenty five and wanted to volunteer when Paws Alive opened.

Next on the list was another Anderson – so far his lucky name. This one answered at the first ring.

Hello, my name is Naftali Ross, and I’m calling –

Naftali! How good to hear from you! There once was a boy named Naftali -

Teen-aged boy showing off. I’m afraid you have me confused with some other Naftali. I’m an unpaid fundraiser for a dog and cat shelter.

"Aah – There once was a boy named Naftali

Who chased cats and dogs down an alley

They turned round to say

We don’t want to play –"

The last line was sure to be filthy, as he knew from his brother’s limericks, and he should probably disconnect, but he found himself amused. It was the kind of patter Eddy might have produced to torture some innocent telemarketer.

Hey, I’ve got a lot of calls to make, and I can’t wait for Stockton’s poet laureate to come up with his last line.

Wait, wait, I almost have it – A moment of silence, then a different tone.

Aren’t you early? Pause. It’s beside the stove – no, the second drawer. Hey, what do you want that for? Not funny – stop it – no – no! You on the phone, call 91 – Silence.

The kid was good, must be the star of his drama class: that transition from banter to greeting to doubt to panic. Good enough to make Naftali dial the number once more to no answer. Maybe, just maybe he should make a fool of himself and call 911.

I hate school holidays, the responder said. These brats are bored out of their tiny minds. Not to worry.

That had not been so bad, and he had done his duty as a citizen. Baker, T. was next on the list, and Naftali had dialed two digits before discomfort set in. It was possible, after all, that the kid had not been acting, that an intruder had pulled something lethal from that kitchen drawer, and he had been in genuine danger. The odds were against it, but even so – Twelve Celadon Way, the Victor Anderson address, was quite close, a ten minute walk at most.

He called Roxy and held out her leash. She oozed from the top of his bed, sighing deeply to let him know he was asking an enormous favor. She was only four but acted fourteen, an old, old dog ever since the accident.

Victor Anderson lived only two or three long blocks from them on Millionaire Lane, as Celadon had been dubbed, partly from admiration. Its Christmas displays were magnificent. Naftali remembered his father, the easy going secular Jew, driving him and Eddy past each year to view them, while his lapsed Catholic mother objected to the religious message. She would join them finally, saying, I can’t resist those lovely lights.

Setting out with a reluctant Roxy, Naftali passed a couple of medium sized houses like his own on Morgan Lane, then turned onto Celadon whose way meandered. Huge lots extended yards and yards back to Five Mile slough, and manicured lawns were lined with topiaries or bordered brilliantly with June flowers.

Here now was a pink Italian palace followed by two large, very white southern style mansions. The blaze of color from the gardens was pleasing, but he found the architectural variations discordant.

Number Twelve would be that gleaming white house, one mansion down. Beside its neighbor a white-haired elder was trimming his hedge – or his employer’s. It seemed unlikely that suburban nobility did its own yard work.

Hey, I like your dog, he said. Roxy seemed to understand that and pulled Naftali closer. I’ve got a pit bull of my own in the house here. So he was the householder after all. He reached down and gave Roxy’s head a nice rub just behind her ears.

Naftali smiled at him. I like hearing that. They get such a bad rap in the press.

Naftali turned Roxy back toward the white house and its long gravel pathway lined with tree roses heavy with yellow blossoms. Yellow – bad luck coming unless it could be canceled out with its opposite, purple. No patch of purple in sight, and there were eight rose trees on one side of the path and nine on the other. Asymmetry was bad too –

Cut that out, he told himself. OK to find such things unpleasant, but to let himself be frightened away by them would mean letting himself slip over that edge he must guard against.

The doorbell was the nose of a brass lion head and when he pressed it, the door flew open, and a tall boy croaked at him, You’re too late, then fell straight out on top of Naftali, knocking him flat on the gravel pathway. His head rang from the impact, and something hard was gouging into his right side. Liquid, warm liquid, was running down his neck, soaking his shirt. Blood. Again.

A Death And A Green Surprise

"I t’s almost certainly some kid clowning around. But if anybody in North Stockton isn’t terribly busy, it wouldn’t hurt to look. You could give the kid a good scare, anyway."

That’s what the 911 dispatcher said, and Dano Obanion and the rookie, Walt Banning, were not busy, only a little depressed, having just returned an unlovely fourteen-year-old runaway into the unloving arms of her parents. It was a hot July afternoon, and the squad car’s air conditioner was under performing. The dashboard claimed it was 103 outside and admitted to 85 in the cab as they reached Lincoln Center.

Don’t black guys sweat? Banning asked as two drops of it snaked down his forehead onto his cheeks. This was OK from Banning – the kid was no racist.

Oh, I sweat, but it has to get hotter. My ancestors must have lived on the equator. Let’s take that Celadon call. It’s shadier there and giving some smartass kid a scare might be amusing too.

Obanion and Banning arrived at 12 Celadon Way just as its front door flew open and the probable householder fell out of it straight forward and directly upon someone who had apparently shot, struck or stabbed him. Drawing their guns, they found both victim and assailant unconscious. A large pit bull stood beside them, her lips curled in warning.

Not Eddy is on the ground, not moving. There is blood,