Eight Novels

By Robert Trainor

Eight Novels contains the following books, all of which can be purchased separately: The Voice of the Victim, The Blackwater Journal, The Road Map to the Universe, Fairy Tales by Martians, Requiem for the West, The Scriptwriter, The Book of Dreams, and A Tale from the Blackwater River. 

The Voice of the Victim: Not only is this a clever murder mystery, but it is also a satirical tour through the modern world of guns, murder, and mayhem…a mixture of slapstick comedy, dark premonitions, and a sweeping indictment of everything that Western culture has ever produced…sassy and extremely irreverent…sometimes romantic and poetic, sometimes mocking and belligerent…too bizarre for some, too intense for others.

The Blackwater Journal: Sixteen-year-old Alanda Streets is trapped in a room from which there is no escape. There are padlocks on the door, the windows have been boarded up, and Alanda's only contact with humanity is her father, the man who has imprisoned her and told her that she must die because of the terrible secret she discovered in his past. Is there any way out of her terrifying predicament? Or is her life about to come to an end?

The Road Map to the Universe: Who really murdered Karen Breen? Although her husband is convicted of the crime, things change when an informant tells police that her son Jeremy was the murderer. Eventually, Jeremy is arrested, tried, and convicted, but then, while the jury is being polled, an extraordinary revelation occurs—in fact, in the annals of courtroom history, it is probably a premiere.

Fairy Tales by Martians features Charles Dimmer, an eighth-grade science teacher who runs into difficulties when he attempts to explain Darwin's theory of evolution. After suffering through a bizarre class where he is hounded by a student who believes that human beings have evolved from Martians, Charles returns to his house, but when he overhears his wife's new lover plotting his murder, Charles flees to a motel room. The next morning, he's arrested for murder, but bizarrely, his interrogator focuses on claims that he told his students they were descended from Martians.

Requiem for the West features an offbeat romance; the Dilbert-like humor of bureaucrats who can't figure out anything; the subtle but persistent mockery of the widespread belief that our culture is superior to anything that has ever existed; a chain-smoking college president who considers poetry to be the domain of cannabis addicts; and most of all, a poem that you will never forget.

The Scriptwriter is a tale about a man who loves three women: Zena is incredibly beautiful; Darla is incredibly rich; and Anita is incredibly homeless. In the end, which one will he choose?

In the Book of Dreams, Detective Shane Manning has a troubling history when it comes to his dreams because many of them are nightmares that often seem to find their way into reality. This was especially true when he was younger--the dream he had back then would haunt him for years. And now, years later, he's investigating the murder of a young woman, but he still can't seem to get away from his dreams, which are leading him down a deadly path.

A Tale from the Blackwater River: A struggling author named Alanda Streets finds herself in trouble when an old boyfriend begins to stalk her. From the notebooks of Alanda: I suppose A Tale from the Blackwater River might seem like a satire or a parody. But as a matter of fact, my experiences with Kevin Decker aren't really all that funny. I had so much wanted to become a great writer, but then all these bad things happened to me. What I was really hoping to do was write the great American novel, but all I've been able to come up with is a novella that will have people laughing their heads off.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Trainor
• Release date: Feb 22, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224226986

Robert Trainor

Over the past twelve years (since I retired at the age of 59), I've written nineteen novels, four novellas, four non-fiction books, and seven anthologies, all of which you can find in the Kindle Store. Instead of writing a biography of myself, which seems rather irrelevant, I would prefer to write a biography of my books. Here, in the order in which they were written, is a brief sketch of the plots, themes, and subject matter of these books.1/ The Voice of the Victim describes a series of murders in a small city. I've always felt a great deal of empathy for the victims of violent crimes, especially those who are murdered by guns. What, I wondered, would these people say to us if they could speak? When reading this book, it is important to remember that my intention, from first page to last page, was to present the voice of the victim. And, to me, this voice is not a straight-line accusation of weapons and murderers but tends to veer to a pervasive mockery and total indictment of modern culture. This novel is much different than anything else I have written, and there will be many who will object to what the "voice" is saying.2/ Some Things Are Sweeter than God is somewhat along the lines of a classic murder mystery but is certainly not one of those books where the conclusion is some wild revelation that no sensible reader could ever discern beforehand. The protagonist is a forty-year-old woman lawyer who, in her role as a public defender, is required to represent a man who is accused of brutally murdering his ex-girlfriend.3/ The Road Map to the Universe is a well-constructed novel--at one time, I was a tournament chess player, and this book required a great deal of planning and analysis. Essentially, it's a highly unusual murder mystery, but the perceptive reader may be able to identify a standard plot theme lurking in the background. The Road Map also examines an interesting philosophical question: In a universe of four billion galaxies, what relevance, if any, does the human being have?4/ The Great Barrington Train Wreck, a truly offbeat social commentary, includes a unique type of murder mystery and is one of my favorite novels. Although I almost never include anything from my own life experience in my books, I was, just like the protagonist in the Train Wreck, homeless for many years. So I'm familiar with the lingo and attitude that some of the homeless have. This is a catchy, captivating book where the plot seems to materialize out of thin air until it becomes the elephant in the room. Also, to my mind, this tale could describe what happens to Holden Caulfield, the anti-hero of the Catcher in the Rye, as he approaches forty. It's not all peaches and cream! Especially when he falls in love with the daughter of a millionaire, and even more especially when he ends up on death row.5/ Your Kiss Is Like the Sweetest Fire describes a teenage romance between Jaime and Renee, who were adopted at a young age into the same family. It seems illogical to me, but in almost all states, the law views a sexual relationship between adopted siblings who live in the same family as a crime of incest--exactly as if they were related by blood. So Jaime and Renee have this difficulty to contend with, and also, their mother and father are both rather repulsive characters who are totally incapable of helping them. Wait until you meet Renee--I love her.6/ Requiem for the West is partially based on an apocalyptic poem that I wrote during the 1990's. Ten thousand hours is a lot of time to spend on a seven-hundred-word poem! Requiem is also an examination of some apparently abstract themes that seem highly relevant to me: 1/ The pervasive role of explicit sexuality in our culture and the very different ways that people react to it; 2/ The often farcical, Dilbert-like nature of the modern workplace, in this case a college; and 3/ Is doomsday just around the corner? The 1960-2000 version of myself considered a nuclear apocalypse to be inevitable, but nowadays, I'm ambivalent.7/ Frontier Justice was easy to write because once Adriana Jones arrived on page 10, she took over the book, and all I had to do was keep up with her as she overpowered every obstacle that crossed her path. I hadn't intended for that to happen, but that's the way life goes sometimes. Do I agree with, support, condone, or advocate Adriana's way of doing things? Difficult questions. Adriana is my creation, so I have to take some responsibility for her, I suppose, but I look at it this way: To be true to a character, one has to let the person speak and act in a way that is appropriate to his or her personality. I just can't legislate them into political correctness! Adriana didn't just overpower the other characters in Frontier Justice--she also overpowered me. I really like this book--I wish, as a writer, I could think of more characters who are as dynamic as Adriana.8/ A Tale from the Blackwater River is a novella that is meant to be a satire on a certain kind of story that is showing up far too frequently nowadays, but on another level, it's just kind of a humorous tale that was a lot of fun to write. This book is written in the first person by a forty-two-year-old woman named Alanda Streets. I almost published it under the pen name Alanda Streets because I thought some people might say that no woman would ever write a story like A Tale from the Blackwater River, but for those who feel that way, I hope you will ask yourself this question: If the name Alanda Streets had been on the cover of the book, instead of mine, would you have felt that a woman couldn't have written it?9/ The Blackwater Journal is another Alanda Streets novel--this time, she is only sixteen. I couldn't seem to get away from Alanda--she does have a spunky survivor's attitude towards life that appeals to me. In this book, she has to call on all her resources when her evil father imprisons her in a room and tells her that she has only a week left to live. As the days pass by, the terror mounts on her own personal death row. Does Alanda escape? Maybe so, maybe no.10/ Love Letters (Soaked in Blood) is another murder mystery that has a humorous undertone, which many will probably miss. The problem with writing a murder mystery is that anything that can be thought of has already been done about a thousand times. The only original idea left would be to have the most obvious suspect turn out to be the murderer. Think of it--that's probably never been done! And so...maybe you can guess the rest.11/ The Book of the Dead is about a man who goes to his 25th reunion and meets his high school sweetheart. The two of them embark on an impulsive twenty-four hour car ride that will take them through three southern states and bring them face-to-face with death. This is a tale where the boundaries of ordinary reality are stretched out a little bit! I'll leave it to you to decide whether The Book of the Dead is a fantasy or a reality.12/ Destroyed by Malice sees the return of a character who played a minor role in The Voice of the Victim. He's the world famous novelist Barker Drule, but unfortunately, he (and his wife) exit the book on page 1 when they are gunned down in their driveway. It isn't long before detective Jeff Willard is convinced that the murderer is a member of the Drule family. Perhaps it's Lenore, the older daughter, who was, years ago, secretly raped by her father; perhaps it's the beautiful Raylene, who wrote a novel about a rape victim that her father managed to have the publishing industry blackball; perhaps it's Ricky, the cocaine-addicted son who is desperate to get his hands on his father's money; and perhaps it's Dalton Drule, Barker's irascible eighty-two-year-old father who just happens to own the gun that was used to murder his son. In the end, when the truth finally comes out, there will be very few left to tell the tale.13/ How to Write an Imaginative Novel takes you through the whole process of writing a novel and then uploading it to Kindle. Among the many things covered are: Where will you find a plot? What is the best way to find names for your characters? How important is it to punctuate your book correctly? Is there a quick way to learn punctuation and sentence structure? What is the best way to write dialogue? What kind of things should one avoid in a novel? What is the significance of the first draft and why is it so important? How does one begin a book so that it immediately commands the reader's attention? How does one revise and edit a novel? Is it possible to create the cover for your book without spending any money? How does one convert a book to the correct format so that it can be uploaded to Kindle? And finally, how does one upload a book to Kindle?14/ I Ching 2015 contains a complete translation (minus the Confucian commentaries) of this ancient Chinese classic. Also included are detailed instructions on how to consult the I Ching using either yarrow stalks, coins, or dice. (For those who have been using coins, one should be aware that a significant error has crept into the method that many people use to cast an omen. This error, which involves using either three or four similar coins will seriously affect the accuracy of the omens you receive.) Additionally, there is extensive advice on how to interpret an omen. By using the correct method of interpretation, you will be surprised at how much clearer omens become. As part of this advice, I have posed a number of questions to the I Ching and have then interpreted the omen I received. Finally, for each hexagram, as well as many of the lines in each hexagram, I have included my own observations as to the essential meaning of these hexagrams and lines.15/ Blood and Blackmail is an elegant murder mystery with an unusual plot twist that took me some time to piece together. For those readers who enjoy the challenge of solving a crime before the final chapter arrives, this novel should provide you with a truly interesting puzzle. I doubt many people, if any, are going to see the underlying deception that runs throughout this tale because...if I say anything else, I might help the reader unravel this mystery, and I certainly wouldn't want to do that!16/ Fairy Tales by Martians takes a humorous look at the theory of evolution. Science, of course, claims that the human being originated from an amoeba that eventually became a tadpole that eventually became a frog and so on and so forth. However, I just can't conceive of the fact that ten million years ago, two frogs mated in a swamp and because of that event, I eventually arrived on the scene. What kind of a genealogy chart is that? Neither does the seven-day religious version of events appeal to me, so what I'm left with is a very cynical view of both the religious and scientific theories concerning the origins of our existence.17/ The Book of Dreams repeats a very old idea that has been used in many a novel. But here, in this murder mystery, the idea is taken to another level entirely and contains a twist that not many will see coming. The clues are there, starting with the poem in the Preface.18/ The Dark Side of the Moon is a tale about an attractive high school teacher who falls in love with one of her students. However, Carolyn Black is nervous that her sexual liaison with the student will ruin her career. Eventually, she tries to break off their relationship, but when he threatens to commit suicide, Carolyn is faced with an excruciating dilemma.19/ The Murder of Nora Winters was inspired by John Dickson Carr who wrote a number of locked-room mysteries. In this type of mystery, the murder victim is found in a room that does not allow the killer any means of exit. The doors and windows are all bolted from the inside, and it's considered very poor form for the author to create a room where there are sliding walls or secret panels. The solution to the murder of Nora Winters is, I think, relatively simple, but I've woven in enough deceit and misdirection to confuse all but the most astute readers.20/ The Vanishing Victim is a tale of a psychiatrist and a troubled woman who comes to him for counseling. What she reveals to him proves to be a confession to a brutal crime, but he is unable, because of the doctor/patient privilege, from revealing this crime to anyone, including the police. But even more troubling is that the woman's confession, although it contains a number of factual inaccuracies, turns out to have a terrifying reality of its own.21/ The Fatality Game follows a series of innocuous crimes in a rich neighborhood that seem to be more pranks than anything else. But when a woman is murdered in her bed, Detective Cody Barnes realizes that there is something evil lurking under the placid veneer of swanky mansions that are inhabited by millionaires. And when Cody becomes romantically involved with one of the earlier victims, the beautiful Lucinda Kane, the case begins to take on a life of its own that will eventually lead to the deaths of three more people.22/ How to Write an Intelligent Murder Mystery describes some of the adventures I encountered while I was writing murder mysteries (of my twenty-one novels, thirteen are murder mysteries.) This is a somewhat unusual instructional book that attempts to relate the problems encountered in the writing of a murder mystery to the more general problem of writing fiction in today's market where any new novel is almost instantaneously buried under an avalanche of new novels.23/ The Real Meaning of Life is definitely one of my favorite books. It's written in the first person by Patrick Devlan, a twenty-seven-year-old guy who writes murder mysteries. But his father, who is dying of pancreatic cancer, wants Patrick to write something that will take his readers to a "better place." Patrick decides to follow his father's advice, but a few days later, his roommate's pregnant girlfriend is murdered, and Patrick becomes entangled in a real-life murder mystery. Eventually, after his roommate is convicted of the crime and sent to death row, Patrick is faced with a dilemma that will lead him to the discovery of the real meaning of life.24/ Flight 9525 is a non-fiction book that attempts to answer the question as to why there is so much suffering in the world. For the most part, this book bypasses the usual political, psychological, and social reasons for suffering and examines the following: If God is real, then why do human beings suffer? Why would an all-merciful, all-loving, and all-powerful Being permit its creations to suffer? The usual explanations, such as the hypothesis that God granted man free will, don't answer the question at all. In fact, this is a question that's never been answered satisfactorily.25/ The Scriptwriter is the tale of a man who becomes entangled with three different women. There's the incredibly beautiful woman, the incredibly rich woman, and the incredibly homeless woman. Which one will he choose? Events, mishaps, and character flaws lead him to an interesting decision.26/ The Murder of Marabeth Waters contains a considerable amount of subtle black humor and describes the investigation that ensues after a prostitute is found strangled to death. Detective Devin Driver is quickly able to focus on a suspect; not only did this man send a threatening note to Marabeth, but also, her blood is found in his car. As it turns out, the real murderer lurks elsewhere, and unfortunately, Devin isn't a particularly perceptive detective, so it isn't surprising when the wrong person is convicted of the crime. However, even if Devin had been Sherlock Holmes on steroids, he undoubtedly wouldn't have solved this murder.27/ The Trial of Shada King--a district attorney in Hartford, Connecticut, is charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of the man who had raped her ten days before the shooting. Shada claims that she acted in self-defense, and since she was wearing a recording device at the time of the shooting, her claim of self-defense seems to be valid. But why was she wearing the recording device? The prosecuting attorney is convinced the crime scene was an elaborate stage production that was intended to deceive those who would be listening to the tape and that the victim was murdered in retaliation for the rape.28-34/ Finally, I have seven anthologies on Kindle that combine complete versions of many of the books listed above: Four Novels, 5 Novels, Four Murder Mysteries, The Blackwater Novels, Dark Tales, Six Novels, and Five Murder Mysteries. The purpose of the anthologies is that it gives the reader a chance to buy, for instance, five novels of mine at the rock-bottom price of $2.99.I spend a great deal of time revising my books. After finishing the first draft, I go through the book at least eight more times--first page to last page. Each journey through the book is slow and painstaking--no less than three hours and no more than thirty-five pages a day. From my experience, the kind of errors that pop up on some of the later readings can be rather surprising, if not downright alarming! I particularly look for inaccurate punctuation, lackluster sentence structure, and inaccurate or repetitive vocabulary. I also do not permit confusing sentences to stand--I can't imagine that any reader will want to read a sentence twice because I couldn't find a way to explain myself clearly.Finally, I would ask you all to keep an open mind about novels by an author who has no brand name. I am quite unusual because I do not advertise myself in any way, shape, or form (outside, I guess, of this little biography). My books are well-written, entertaining, and thought provoking, but they are often truly original, and I worry about the page-six syndrome. That's the point where some readers abandon a book by an unknown author because of a single sentence, idea, or attitude that seems amateurish to them. Have faith that there are some genuine diamonds in the Kindle arena and have faith that your instinct to buy one of my books was a good instinct. If you read any of my books to the finish, I think you'll feel that your time was not wasted because these novels are not cheap imitations--they are real creations.

Book preview

Eight Novels

Robert Trainor

Published by Robert Trainor, 2024.

Also by Robert Trainor

6 Courtroom Dramas

Six Novels

Six Imaginative Novels

Flight 9525

Six Deadly Dramas

Blood and Blackmail

Nine Murder Mysteries

Seven Novels of Murder and Madness

Crimes From the Heart

Justifiable Homicide

The Black Swan

The Book of the Dead

The Great Barrington Train Wreck

How to Write an Imaginative Novel

The Trial of Eugene Bishop

The Trial of Shada King

Four Murder Mysteries

The Road Map to the Universe

The Blackwater Journal

The Voice of the Victim

Four Novels

Midnight on Death Row

Your Kiss Is Like the Sweetest Fire

The Blackwater Novels

Dark Tales

The Real Meaning of Life

Annabel Poe

Five Murder Mysteries

Hallucinations

How to Write an Intelligent Murder Mystery

A Tale from the Blackwater River

Destroyed by Malice

Four Courtroom Dramas

Requiem for the West

The Dark Side of the Moon

Eight Novels

The Scriptwriter

Some Things Are Sweeter than God

The Book of Dreams

The Fatality Game

The Murder of Marabeth Waters

Frontier Justice

Presumed Dead

The Future Memoirs of a Zone Nine Zombie

The Murder of Nora Winters

Fairy Tales by Martians

The Book of Lost Souls

The Vanishing Victim

Love Letters (Soaked in Blood)

The Great Path to Nowhere

I Ching 2022

Eight Novels

By Robert Trainor

Copyright 2018

By Robert Trainor

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE VOICE OF THE VICTIM

THE BLACKWATER JOURNAL

THE ROAD MAP TO THE UNIVERSE

FAIRY TALES BY MARTIANS

REQUIEM FOR THE WEST

THE SCRIPTWRITER

THE BOOK OF DREAMS

A TALE FROM THE BLACKWATER RIVER

THE VOICE OF THE VICTIM

COPYRIGHT 2007

BY ROBERT TRAINOR

PREFACE

During the month of June, in 1999, I became entangled in a number of tragic events that completely altered the way I came to look at life. Although these incidents remained only locally significant and were not widely reported in the national media, they are certainly dramatic enough to merit their space in print. Beyond that, however, I discovered something that is far more important to me than the juvenile thrill of seeing my name on the cover of a book: As the detection of a certain clue at a murder scene points inevitably to the perpetrator, the experience of becoming a living victim led me to a realization that is actually—despite many humorous interludes—the subject of what you are about to read.

For legal, ethical, and poetical reasons, I have changed the names of everyone who was involved in these crimes as well as the city where they occurred. The names I have chosen were not arrived at casually but are an artistic attempt to portray the essential and true character of contemporary life. It will be said that I exaggerate or that I am cynical and bitter, but I view myself as an advocate for all the vanishing victims of our world because I have experienced, in my mind, the sounds of their screams. They have not gone gently into oblivion but are screaming, screaming to be heard. The modern-day martyrs have something to tell us, and it is, in my opinion, far more relevant than what the living are propagating, which amounts to nothing.

CHAPTER ONE: I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO SAY ANYTHING DISRESPECTFUL, AM I?

Because of an argument with my wife, I was about forty minutes late for work on the morning of Friday, June 10, 1999. However, as a senior detective for the Darwin City Police Department, I was free of the stringent rules that applied to those who were unlucky enough to wear uniforms and ride in patrol cars; I could, as long as I remained within certain well-known parameters, exist without much fear of any disciplinary interference from our beleaguered and incompetent Chief, Randall Prince. But upon entering the station, I was somewhat alarmed to hear my name being paged repeatedly over the intercom. Jackson James! Jackson James! Please report to Chief Prince’s office immediately. If this concerned my tardiness, which had been escalating rapidly over the past year, it appeared probable that the Chief was about to make an example out of me, and before committing myself to any statements that could and would be held against me, I made the mandatory trip to the coffee pot where I had time to reflect on a reasonable excuse for my sins. Unfortunately, I simply wasn’t in the mood to search through my mind for a plausible absurdity that might satisfy Randall, and I decided that it might be more believable if I resorted to blaming my two kids. It wasn’t exactly the heroic approach, but they were teenagers, troublesome teenagers, and even though they weren’t responsible for my hangovers and innate laziness, I felt no compunction in using them to my advantage since they would never hear about it anyways.

Minutes later, when I arrived at the Chief’s office and saw him talking earnestly to my partner, Detective Sherry Green, I knew that my fears of a reprimand, although legitimate, had been misplaced and that this meeting would have nothing to do with my reprehensible conduct but concern our lack of respect for Randall’s sycophant, the thoroughly inept Profiler, Mervin Pines. Sherry and I had been forced, as of late, to participate in many of these absurdly awkward gatherings that were officially termed conferences. Semi-comical and yet infuriating, they were an excellent illustration of the inconsequential machinations and tortured wranglings that exist behind closed doors in the bungling bureaucratic empire of professionals. 

But no! I received yet another surprise; far from being a tutorial on the insults that had been inflicted upon his peculiar personal pet, Randall informed me that the recently appointed Drug Czar of Darwin City, a cop by the name of Clayton Shane, had been murdered in his bedroom sometime during the night.

I’m sure both of you realize, said Randall, who appeared to be shaken by the news, that this has the potential to be a political nightmare. There’s no telling how much mileage the press will get out of this—especially when they discover Clayton was a coke addict. How is it that no one ever told me about that, and why is it that I am always the last person to find out the truth about things that go on around here?

He paused and stared at me for some reason, but I assumed, or hoped, that it was a rhetorical question and said nothing. There was no way that I would venture to tell him the real reason for the clouds of ignorance that swirled around and inside his head.

Realizing that no answer was forthcoming, Randall proceeded to issue us our instructions. As he nervously and aimlessly shuffled some documents that were in front of him on his desk, he said, Now listen to me, for once. How many times have the two of you cut corners and neglected the very worthwhile procedures that Mervin and I have instituted, which, I might add, have all been for your benefit? And then, directly because of your carelessness, those demented dingbats in the press find out something, and it turns into a feeding frenzy for hungry cannibals. So if you have to talk to somebody, you can talk to me, but don’t say anything to anybody else—except, of course, Mervin, who can point you in the right direction if, for once in your lives, you would have the humility to listen to the voice of reason. But if either one of you says a single word to Jablonski about any of this, I’ll chain you to a garbage scow, tow it out into the middle of the lake, and blow it up with all our impounded fireworks. Clear? 

Sherry and I walked out to our unmarked car. In the parking lot, we met Randall’s nightmare, the hard-bitten street cop, Jake Jablonski, who was arriving for duty. I knew that among the many people on the force that he disliked, Clayton was near the top of the list. There’s been a terrible tragedy in our official family, Jake—the Drug Czar has been assassinated. 

What a shame! Perhaps I can sign up for the grief-counseling sessions and get some time off. Are you going to be a good boy, Jackson, and deliver the eulogy for the departed sleaze ball? 

Come on, Jackson, will you? said Sherry who was not a major fan of male banter.

As I was about to get into the car, Jake came up to me and said in a low voice, If I were you, I’d check out Clayton’s daughter, Crystal. I can tell you something about her that you wouldn’t believe.

Let’s go, Jackson, let’s go! said Sherry, who was probably wondering if Randall was gazing out the window and could observe us breaking his commandment of silence to the leader of the heathens. Much as he disliked me, I knew he despised Jablonski with a fervor that while unwarranted was certainly understandable. Everybody knew that Jake had made many unkind remarks about Mervin over the years, but I would prefer to leave these unspoken as I find profanities (as well as prayers) to be tedious, tasteless, and trite.

As we drove out of the parking lot, Sherry said, Here’s something that I know, Jackson. A few months ago, Crystal Shane came into the station looking for her Dad—he wasn’t around, and we ended up talking for almost an hour. She told me that Clayton had sexually abused her and that she was moving out with her boyfriend. I thought it over and talked—around the edges, you know—with Clayton who claimed that his daughter’s boyfriend was a thug, a lower-level drug lord over on the East Side.

I don’t suppose you were able to steer the conversation into his activities as a parent, I said with detached amusement.

Not really. It was a difficult topic to bring up with a man who was clearly one of the Chief’s special projects. I certainly tried; I told him that I thought Crystal was a wonderful young woman who would surely become successful and—

Did you believe that?

Sherry laughed in her hearty but easygoing way. Hardly. I found her to be spiteful and very weird, but when you consider the nature of the world we live in, I guess it’s fair to say that a person who possesses those qualities does have the potential to succeed.

We turned onto Blackbriar Street, parked the car, and walked up a winding staircase to the second floor of an apartment building that seemed seedy for the newly appointed Drug Czar of Darwin City. We were met near the front door by the veteran cop, Buster Madison, who had obviously helped himself to a king-sized refreshment from a nearby liquor cabinet; behind him, his rookie partner, Billy Wheeler, was sitting on a large couch with his head in his hands and had apparently just thrown up on the living room floor after viewing the bloody remains of Clayton. Buster was in a jovial mood. I never liked Shaneboy, to tell you the truth, but he has a great stash of booze. Whoever killed him must have been a teetotaler. His daughter Crystal was the one who found the body—I sent her out to the kitchen because she was so obnoxious that I wanted to punch her in the face. It’s lucky for her that Clayton’s been dead for a few hours; otherwise, I would have arrested her on the spot. You’ll see what I mean when you talk to her.

Crystal Shane presented a formidable appearance: Appearing to be in her early twenties, she was dressed in black jeans that were topped by an ugly, food-stained charcoal-grey blouse, while her jet-black hair, undoubtedly dyed, was pulled severely back from her face and tied in a snarly knot behind her head. She may well have been attractive, but it was difficult to discern that possibility as she peered owlishly at us through a large pair of black-rimmed glasses. When we entered the room, she was sitting at the kitchen table and, apparently in high spirits, swigging vodka from a bottle. Sherry literally had to wrest it from her hands before we could sit down opposite her and begin our interview.

Hey, back off, Crystal said in a voice that was flat and rather harsh. I’m in mourning; my—whatever you want to call him—just got turned into certified Swiss cheese. A little belt off the bottle isn’t going to hurt anyone. He sure had his share; every day he had at least a pint of vodka and that was before he went out at night and started his eight-hour tour through the bars and brothels. He was a roaring alcoholic, if you’d like a professional diagnosis. And I’m not even counting the specialty booze, the little two-dollar bottles that he carried around with him and was popping down all day long. Guzzlehead Shane. According to him, she said as she narrowed her eyes shrewdly, everyone was more or less trashed down at the station; he used to call it Vomit City. 

I thought to myself that Clayton had undoubtedly been referring to the political realities that existed within the Department, which were enough to turn anyone’s stomach.

OK, Crystal, I understand this is traumatic, but we need to ask you a few questions, said Sherry smoothly, as if Crystal’s attitude was a normal reaction to encounter in the daughter of a murder victim. 

Who are you two? I thought cops were supposed to identify themselves, or are you just a couple of sightseers that barged in off the street?

This is Detective Jackson James, and my name is—

Crystal seemed startled by the mention of my name. What was that again? she said, turning so that she could stare into my eyes with what seemed to me to be total amazement. 

After I had repeated my name, Crystal burst out laughing. Oh, that is a good one, I heard her say to herself. She was about to say something else to me but changed her mind; addressing Sherry, she said, How did they ever pair you two up? I’ve seen some ridiculous looking couples in my life, but—

Crystal, said Sherry interrupting authoritatively, do you think we can talk about what happened to your father? We can either do it here or down at the station, whichever you prefer.

Well, he was murdered—can’t you figure that much out? In case you haven’t noticed, he must have about a dozen bullet holes in his carcass. As far as I’m concerned, they ought to give the person who did it a medal for meritorious service. I know the correct thing to do at a time like this is to go into some advanced state of mourning and start blubbering like a baboon because my so-called father got wiped off the map. Good for him! He finally did something that makes me feel proud to be his daughter. So stop judging me, she said to Sherry with unexpected vehemence. I know you’re just trying to do your duty, but what if they didn’t pay you, and you were forced to make your living flipping hamburgers? Then I think we’d see some of the air come out of your tires, she said with a malicious laugh. Turning in my direction and peering at me fixedly through her gawky glasses, she said, Now this is someone that I might be able to converse with. To be totally honest, Mr. James, you look like a derelict who’s making an unsuccessful attempt to kick the sauce, but you’re obviously not the type of person who would dare to give me a sermon about my lack of morals. Why don’t you ask me a question? I might, she said with a deliberately comical sexual suggestiveness, be able to give you exactly what you’re so obviously looking for.

Rather brassy, but it didn’t prove much; if anything, I thought a guilty person would at least make an attempt to be respectful. Perhaps, I said, you can tell us what time you came home and what you found when you arrived here.

Alright, Mr. Detective. Let’s see...I need to be precise because my father was forever telling me tales about how they were able to convict people for irrelevant, microscopic inaccuracies. I came back here about an hour after sunrise, a little after six. I assumed the ugly hippopotamus would be gone, but I’d forgotten that his hours were changed after he’d been anointed as our new savior from the modern scourge that is sweeping our land and destroying the lives of our children. Amazingly, she had winked at me as she said the lives of our children.

I thought, she continued, that he was joking with me when he first told me that he had been appointed as the new Drug Czar. At least, I reasoned to myself, he had plenty of first-hand experience, since he was always snorting up the white stuff. Instead of the pompous title that they gave him, he should have been named Darwin City’s First Nose. Every night, he had something that he called a coketail, which was six ounces of vodka along with three of those infamous little white lines—except, in his case, the lines were very obese. All confiscated stuff that he stole from the station, in case you’re interested. At any rate, to get to the part that you think is so important, as I was coming up the stairs, this black guy, blacker even than you, she said to Sherry, came charging past me.

Can you give us a description? asked Sherry.

Crystal was now squinting at me in an exaggerated way. A multiracial couple—I don’t think that’s very wise. Have you two ever solved anything, or is this some attempt by the city to display their advanced state of tolerance? There’s a virtue that I can dispense with. I tried that out for a while with Mr. No Longer Here, and I ended up tolerating things that no one should ever have to tolerate. I should have had my boyfriend, Pavis Kran, come here, and he could have answered all these insane questions—I can tell you right now that he doesn’t take to people like you very kindly.

Tell us about your boyfriend, said Sherry with an edge to her voice; undoubtedly, she was beginning to lose her patience with this strange specimen of humanity.

What’s he got to do with it? Oh, I know what you’re thinking, Mrs. Sherlock—you’ve concluded he’s a foreigner because of his name, and now you’re assuming he’s a drug dealer because he’s a foreigner. Real tolerant, aren’t you? Actually, I don’t have a clue as to what Pavis does, but I can tell you this: He’s a stud, and not all studs are drug dealers, at least not in my experience. He’s got some real life in him, and that’s something you won’t find in the dejected, washed-up local boys who are flopping around this disgusting city.

Although I had a relatively high threshold for oddballs, Sherry was not a woman who put up with nonsense.

Crystal, if we take you down to the station, it’s going to be a long day and an even longer night. Do you understand what I’m saying? Why don’t you make it easy on yourself and answer our questions.

Is that a question? It sounds like a threat to me.

Exasperated, Sherry looked in my direction. Do you mind telling us what you did last night? I asked her.

Speaking slowly and distinctly as she stared directly at me with her piercing black eyes, Crystal said, This is going to disappoint you, Mr. Holmes, because I know how much you would like to arrest me, but I have an excellent alibi, probably a better one than either of you have. By the way, who’s to say it wasn’t another cop that bumped him off? I would think they’d be prime suspects, wouldn’t you? Of course, there’s always the danger that you might find something foul under your own rug, but I think that people would definitely be better off if they cleaned up the messes in their own back yards before they went prowling around the neighborhood looking for trouble.

Would you please answer the question, said Sherry. Where were you last night?

Yes ma’am, she said sarcastically, I was at a nightclub called Roosters and Hens from midnight until almost six in the morning. I’m sure that you can find many people who were there that will remember me. One of the bartenders, Adam Grant, will surely be able to corroborate my presence, she said smiling enigmatically.

What can you tell us about this black man that you saw on the stairs? I asked her.

For one thing, he was real black—about the blackest person that I’ve ever seen, said Crystal as she glanced scornfully at Sherry. "To me, he looked exactly like something out of a horror movie; the most striking thing about him was his hair, which was dyed a nasty shade of bluish-green, and I also noticed that there was a large swastika on his shirt. He couldn’t have been more than twenty or twenty-five, and it’s possible he was wearing a black leather jacket, but I can’t say for certain because the stupid dimwit almost bowled me over as he passed by me. 

When I got upstairs, I saw that my...I don’t know what to call him because knowing my mother, as I unfortunately do, he probably wasn’t even close to being my real father. Oh, pardon me, she said with a subtle, mysterious menace, I’m not supposed to say anything disrespectful, am I?

What happened next? I asked her laconically. 

Just the facts, right? Where she bestowed haughty and contemptuous looks upon Sherry, I was treated to something that seemed fierce and mocking. The fact is that the black dude had given me a creepy feeling, and when I entered the apartment, I had a premonition that something awful had happened. I saw that the door to my father’s room was open, and when I looked in, it was like YUCK! Very gross. I wish that he could have done me at least one favor in his stupid life and arranged to have himself shot somewhere else. Who wants to look at that kind of bloody mess? 

I see that you’re familiar with swastikas, Ms. Shane, said Sherry.

I knew from the unusually sharp tone of Sherry’s voice and the oddity of the question that I must have missed something.

What is that ridiculous statement supposed to mean? said Crystal.

That is a tattoo of a swastika on your arm, isn’t it? said Sherry.

I saw it now, of course. On the outside of her arm and just above the elbow, it was at least an inch and a half across.

For once, Crystal was silent. Quite silent. Finally, perhaps sullenly, she said, What of it?

I don’t know why, but when she spoke those words, I suddenly sensed danger. An image of a cobra came into my mind, a cobra about to strike. Intuitions, as I would discover, often have a long time span that conceals their murky method of expression.

Did you know this man who passed by you on the stairs? Sherry asked her.

He was black! I don’t associate with black people, she said leaning towards Sherry and speaking with intense, barely controlled contempt. Given the color of the hand that you’ve been dealt, I imagine that’s a difficult concept for you to grasp, she said tauntingly. Let me make it real simple and put it into words that even you should be able to understand: Much as he deserved it, I did not kill my father. OK? 

Sherry stared at her impassively; I knew she was impervious, or virtually so, to the racial insults and was attempting to decipher the relevance, if any, of Crystal’s recklessly confrontational attitude. By now, I had come to the obvious realization that the tattoo on her arm was not the result of a teenager’s over-exuberant vicious whim.

I have my own instincts—the more they talk, the farther they go. This one might go a long way if I could wave something red in front of her; I also have to admit that I was incensed by the extreme arrogance that Crystal had directed at Sherry. Anyone who’s been a cop knows what it means when somebody attacks your partner. Speaking casually, I asked her, Doesn’t It seem odd that a black man would be wearing a shirt with a swastika on it?

You’re asking me? How should I know? Am I expected to be your scientific expert on unusual attire? Maybe he was broke and bought it at a yard sale for fifty cents because he was so culturally illiterate that he thought it was a religious symbol from the Far East. But at least you’ve finally gotten one thing right: There is no way that a black person could ever be a Nazi.

So you consider yourself to be a Nazi? I asked her.

She paused before she answered, started to say something, stopped, and then said, What of it? Does that make me guilty of a crime, Mr. Detective?

How about your boyfriend—is he a Nazi? Angry myself, I was trying to arouse her anger. 

What is it with you people? Would it make you feel better if I told you my boyfriend was actually a Russian lover? But what business is it of yours? I thought I heard a rumor that this was a free country; are you going to arrest me because of my beliefs? Not only do you not know the first thing about Nazism, but also you’re not as far from being a member of the Gestapo as you like to believe. Tell me this, Mr. James—do you believe in evolution, or are you some kind of religious fruitcake?

No, I said good-naturedly, I do not attend church.

"Good for you! I can’t imagine a less inspiring image than worshipping some sorry critter who committed suicide by having himself nailed to a cross. Whether you realize it or not, without Nazism we would still be mired in the Dark Ages of religious superstition; it was the Nazis who took the theory of evolution and transformed it into a reality, the reality that’s become the modern world: Might makes right, the survival of the fittest, the extermination of the weak and the racially inferior, the cleansing of the blood to produce the master race. That’s the exact same thing as Darwinism, which is merely the fancy modern synonym for Nazism."

CHAPTER TWO: IT’S SOMEBODY WHO’S CLOSE, REAL CLOSE.

That’s enough, said Sherry to Crystal; you’re free to go.

That must mean I’m guilty, said the dark-haired maid with the swastika. When was the last time the cops in this city ever got anything right? How many times have you let murderers and rapists loose, and how many times have you incarcerated the innocent because you were too inept or too cowardly to go after the real criminals?

Ms. Shane, said Sherry firmly, we are going to find the person or persons who committed this crime, and when we do, we will prosecute, convict, and sentence them to the full extent of the law. You may not be aware of it, but in this state, the murder of a police officer carries with it the possibility of a death sentence.

You’re really up on your threats, aren’t you? Well, I have one for you: I won’t forget the disrespect that you, you of all people, have shown me.

Get out of here! I shouted at her with a vehemence that surprised even me. There was no reason for us to take any more of this abuse. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sherry look at me reproachfully, but although I rarely lose my temper, I had heard enough. Out of control, I left my chair and stood threateningly above Crystal; I wanted to grab her by her filthy, ill-fitting blouse and shake her, but fortunately, I abstained. Instead, I said, This is now a crime scene, you no longer have any right to be present, and if you are not out of here within thirty seconds, I will personally drag you down to the station and interrogate you, with or without a lawyer, for twenty-four hours. 

She rose slowly and disdainfully from her seat with the obligatory smirk on her face. As she reached the doorway that led out of the kitchen, she turned to say something to me, but I was ready for that melodramatic trick and had a taunt of my own ready for her. Stepping towards her, I said, Go ahead, Crystal. What is it that you want to tell me? She knew what I meant, turned, and without saying a word vanished down the corridor, but it was hardly a surprise when we heard her laugh loudly as she exited the apartment.

We decided that Sherry would remain at the scene and conduct a search of the building; we were especially interested, of course, for any signs of a forced entry. Besides that, we were hoping that the medical examiner, who had only just arrived, could give us an approximate time of death. Meanwhile, because Crystal’s attitude had been so abnormal, so utterly off the wall, we felt there should be no time lost investigating her alibi, and I would go immediately to Roosters and Hens in an attempt to locate Adam Grant or anyone else who could vouch for her presence there the previous evening.

We had discussed her for at least fifteen minutes; on the one hand, as I mentioned earlier, her behavior did not fit the psychology of someone who has just committed a crime. While I sat there talking with Sherry, my mind was running and rerunning various segments of our conversation with Crystal, and I could not find any reasonable explanation that was compatible with her guilt. Granted, her insolence was somewhat comparable to what we had to endure from the punks that we busted for minor drug transactions. They didn’t feel they had much to live for, had been around long enough to know that selling a dozen grams of coke in Darwin City amounted to another suspended sentence that would be placed on top of the one they were currently serving, and consequently amused themselves by insulting us.

But as the severity of the charges escalated and the stakes increased, the mindset of the criminals we faced underwent a change. They became, especially if they were guilty, much more cautious and quietly devious unless they were psychotic, utterly desperate, or hopelessly strung out on drugs; none of these possibilities seemed to apply to Crystal who may, it is true, have been mildly psychotic, secretly desperate, or under the influence of any number of substances, but not to the extent that would explain her behavior towards us. Neither did she fit the profile of a sociopath as those characters were invariably polite and charming when they were confronted by authority. I was left, then, with a puzzling question: What kind of person hoping to convince an interrogator that they were innocent would mock their intelligence and disparage their race? 

But, on the other hand, both Sherry and I felt something that was difficult to put into words. We had never encountered anyone even remotely similar to Crystal; she was, so to speak, a new breed of cat, and neither one of us was quite sure that the behavior of the other cats on the block could be used as a measuring rod. Her rage, although well-controlled physically, had been so intellectually and emotionally violent that, most ironically, it seemed she might be comparable to the psychopathic fanatics that used religion to justify their behavior. It was virtually impossible for us to discern the truth that lay behind her hatreds; perhaps, we thought, her father had abused her, and she had felt justified in killing him. Then, in the adrenaline rush of the aftermath, she had lost any interest in her fate and was essentially telling us that no matter how the law and its detectives looked at it, Clayton deserved to die. That would make her, I said laughing to myself, an idealist.

I knew that when I had reached this point in my analysis, I must have made a serious mistake, and I was left with the not so simple question: Who was this motley warrior of the underworld?

Around noon, I arrived at Roosters and Hens, which was a third-rate restaurant by day and a classless dance club at night. Over the years, its license had been suspended by the City Council on numerous occasions for allowing drugs, especially cocaine and heroin, to be sold on the premises. Behind the bar, I saw the owner, the heavyset Harrison West, who recognized me and cast a wary, unfriendly look in my direction.

How’s it going, Harry? I said while trying not to laugh; the guy gave off the unmistakable impression that he wanted to shoot me but was inhibited by the unpalatable nature of the legal consequences. It occurred to me that if the penalty for murder were reduced to two weeks in prison and a fifty-dollar fine, I would, by now, have received some nasty metal messengers from Harrison and found myself rapidly departing from the earthly plane. And, to be rather wry about it, I am sure that I would have been merely one of a vast throng unexpectedly approaching the Pearly Gates. 

What do you want? he said with a weak attempt not to be too surly. So far, this hadn’t been an especially enjoyable day to be trudging around as a cop.

Chill out, dude, I felt like telling him. Nothing much, it doesn’t have anything to do with you. We’re trying to establish the alibi of someone who claimed that she was here last night.

Harry looked at me suspiciously and said nothing. He’d probably fallen for that kind of fishy line before, and it was obvious that as far as he was concerned, everything a cop tossed out was the bait at the end of a lethal legal hook.

Have you ever heard of a person named Crystal Shane? I asked him.

Sure, he said cautiously, she comes in here fairly frequently; her father and I were friends—at least before he became a cop.

Did you know that Clayton was murdered this morning?

Murdered? He was visibly astonished. What’s Crystal got to do with it?

Probably nothing but it would help us if we could positively eliminate her as a suspect.

He looked at me as if I were crazy. Crystal? You must be joking. She’s about the most level-headed person that I’ve ever met in my life; I’d give anything if my daughter were like her.

I wondered whether we were talking about the same person, or perhaps Harry, besides having some extremely irrational acquaintances, was burdened with the kid from hell for a daughter. Can you tell me if—

The phone rang, and he picked up the receiver. I know, he said, I just heard about it....They’re crazy; you ought to know that by now, Crystal....Sure, it’s still working; we use it all the time....That won’t be hard because one of them is here now....I’m not kidding you—he’s standing right in front of me. Would you like to talk to him?

With a sinister look, he handed the phone over to me. Well, Mr. James, said Crystal, you’re rather quick on your feet today, aren’t you? I’m a little surprised, but then again, I know how anxious you are to convict me. Have you managed to calm down yet from your ugly, unprofessional explosion?

What do you want? I asked her warily.

I suppose you must be checking out my alibi, and I’ve just learned of something that will be of use to you, although, unfortunately, it does conclusively establish my innocence.

What would that be?

I’m afraid I have an airtight alibi, and I want you to know the reason I’m talking to you is that I’m trying to help you so that you won’t lose your temper again and do something that will make you look like a total idiot.

I wanted to laugh at this malicious being with the massive superiority complex. Somehow, someday, life would bring her down.

Now, she continued, if you will be kind enough to direct your attention above the bar, you’ll see two video cameras. They’ve had a few problems lately with bartenders swiping money from the till, so they installed them to tape the transactions that occur at the cash register. Last night my guardian angel must have been hovering nearby because, as it happened, I sat just to the right of the register almost the whole time that I was there. Of course, being a nosy cop, you’ll want to know what I was doing, and even though it’s none of your business, I’m sure that you’ll be able to tell from the tape that Adam, the bartender, and I are quite fond of each other. Actually, to be honest, I don’t like him that much; he’s far too good-natured and laid-back for my taste, while I prefer men who are strong and decisive. I’m just stringing him along because he gives me free drinks. It always amazes me how stupid and gullible men are when they haven’t had sex with a woman for a while. You ought to know all about that, Mr. James! But listen, I do have a tip for you, a theory about the crime.

You already told me that you think it was a cop, I said.

Or somebody connected to one, she said with conviction. That’s the trouble with you, Mr. Holmes: You’re afraid to look at all the possibilities, including the fact that someone you know might have done the dirty deed.

What about the black man that you saw? He certainly wasn’t a cop.

That’s an easy one, she said with a laugh. Clayton was always hanging out with weirdos like that; he’d probably run out of drugs and was looking for a quick fix. You wouldn’t believe the characters that he associated with when he was desperate. So, what probably ended up happening was that this street dealer, whoever he was, came over to make some money off the Drug Czar and whoops!—can you imagine the look on his face when he stumbled onto that gory scene? What a shock that must have been; no wonder he came flying past me down the stairs.

Why would any cop, I said with real curiosity, want to kill Clayton? What would be the motive?

Maybe he was about to bust somebody in the Department. Have you ever thought of that? If you want my opinion, Detective James, it isn’t somebody far away; it’s somebody who’s close, real close.

There seemed to me to be something personal in her voice. Close to whom?

She laughed. Close to all of you; I’ll bet that if you ever discover who did this, which isn’t likely given the track record of the police in Darwin City, you’ll see that it was someone that knew both you and Clayton. 

But why? Why do you think that?

For one thing, when I entered the apartment, I saw no signs of a break in. Do you realize that you two never asked me anything about that? There’s an example of real shrewd detective work! Sometimes, when I witness things like that, I wish I were a criminal because the police around here are so dimwitted that I realize I could rob a bank, and it would be just like taking candy from a paralyzed baby.

Ho hum, your day will come, baby. But if Clayton opened the door for this person, I said, why was he lying in his bed when he was murdered? That doesn’t make any sense, does it?

Can’t you think of anything, Mr. Holmes? You might want to consider taking up jigsaw puzzles for a hobby, as they could sharpen up your wits a bit. Maybe the murderer had a key, a key that Clayton had given them.

Sometimes, I feel that Crystal’s derogatory comments were not so far from the truth. Many times over the next few days, I became lost in a bewildering forest of events that prevented me from perceiving what was, indeed, very close. Close this way, close that way, close every way. However, that is an easy thing to say from a distance, and as I sit here now, many years later, I am inclined to forget that it was inevitable and natural that I would be blinded by the overwhelming intensity of my feelings; further, I was an ordinary, relatively honest person, and it was beyond my capacity to follow the trail of the one who was, in a way, ever so near, the one who was a diabolical master of misdirection.

Before sitting down to view my long double feature of the Irksome One, I ran her name through the state and national crime databases. As Crystal would have said, it was quite disappointing; the only blemish on her record was a speeding ticket, which had occurred three years previously—forty-four mph in a forty mph zone. Very serious stuff. She had undoubtedly been one of the many victims of Operation Clean Sweep; this avaricious program had been the result of Randall’s desire to boost the revenues for the Police Officer’s Pension Fund, which was augmented by twenty-five per cent of the fines that were collected by the Traffic Enforcement Division. Please note the use of the word Officer; of the roughly two hundred employees in the Department, there was a grand total of exactly six officers. For well over a year, it had been a fabulous boondoggle, but when the President of the City Council, the irascible Otto Van Bender, had been arrested and charged with reckless driving for going five mph over the speed limit, he had caused the whole sordid can of worms to unexpectedly explode into the public consciousness. Randall had raced to his own defense with uncommon alacrity by penning a guest editorial that appeared in the city’s leading newspaper, the Sentinel. Entitled The Law Is the Law, it was basically a concoction of high-handed drivel and pompous moralizing concerning the necessity of maintaining respect for the authorities. Besides that overworked balderdash, there was a long didactic sermon about criminals; the thesis of this feeble argument was that the road to prison began with petty infractions that the authorities had unwisely ignored. To top the whole mess off with some truly rancid frosting, Randall asserted that far from being castigated for his actions by the mob of modern cynics and deadbeats who have infected our culture with their disrespect for rules and regulations, he should be commended for the diligence of his efforts. Nevertheless, in an attempt to reach out to the community, Operation Clean Sweep would, against his better judgment, be terminated—effective immediately.

Retreating from these unpleasant reminiscences, I began my tour of duty with the six-hour video that I had retrieved from Harrison. Even assuming it contained a decipherable picture, which was hardly a sure thing, I did not think it was likely that the tape would provide Crystal with a satisfactory alibi. I had timed my journey from Clayton’s to Roosters and Hens, and in the noontime traffic, it had taken me only sixteen minutes. At four in the morning, she probably could have done it in five or six minutes; there was also, of course, the time it would take to reach her car from the bar, the time it would take to murder her father, and the time it would take to return, park the car, and reappear in front of the camera. Fifteen minutes was perhaps possible but certainly unlikely; however, I thought twenty minutes was well within the realm of possibility, and my instinctive feeling was that somewhere in the six-hour period beginning at midnight, Crystal, innocent or guilty, would have wandered off somewhere for at least twenty minutes.

As I began to watch the tape, which was of surprisingly good quality, I was immediately struck by the dramatic difference in Crystal’s appearance. With an elegant, formfitting blouse, no glasses, and her wavy black hair falling to her shoulders, she was an attractive young woman. While she had not the looks of a model or movie star, she presented herself in a way that was at once businesslike and sexy, and I could easily see her playing a role as a conniving secretary in a sit-com. Perhaps, too, my prejudices were affecting my powers of observation; had I not known her, I probably would have used the words competent and alluring to describe her. 

The obvious question was not why she had changed out of her stylish, much more revealing blouse to what she had worn when Sherry and I had talked to her. That  could partially be explained as a natural reaction to the prospect of facing an interrogation, but why had she gone to the extent of deliberately marring her appearance so that she came across to us as an ugly, obnoxious bookworm?

As far as my afternoon at the cinema went, it proved to be extremely disappointing. First of all, I had received a call from Sherry who told me that Clayton had been shot between two and four in the morning; upon my request, when she inquired of the medical examiner the absolute far range of the time spectrum, he had moved the hours out to between one and five, but because the body had been discovered so quickly, it was, in his opinion, much more likely that he had been murdered around three. 

Secondly, the tape, according to the time that was encoded upon it, started at five minutes after midnight and continued without interruption until the bar closed at six. Crystal was there when the tape began and her final appearance on the screen came at ten minutes before six. Third, and most significantly, I was able to zip through the footage quickly because Crystal rarely left her post by the register where she cavorted gaily with the overly solicitous Adam; when she did disappear, it was only briefly—bathroom breaks, probably, of no more than five minutes. The only exception occurred around quarter to four when she had vanished for just under eight minutes. I now knew, even before we talked to Adam, that unless the tape was somehow fraudulent, she could not possibly have murdered her father.

CHAPTER THREE: THE QUEEN, THE TWO DOPES, AND THE GLORIOUS ONE

For reasons that are not yet obvious, it is necessary for me to step back from my adventures with Crystal and place into the record an extremely abbreviated summation of my life at home. This is certainly not done out of any sense of pride that I have in my family, as one can legitimately surmise from the title above, nor is it another version of the irrelevant, monotonous familial histories that have engaged the modern writer to the point of obsession. Unfortunately, the obscure meanderings of our most decorated authors, which are hailed as artistic revelations by the critics, have proven to be nothing but the entrance to a bewildering canyon of yawns that has quickly propelled the modern reader into the slumbers of the deep. 

Although the feelings I would hold for my wife and children would shortly change, at the time of Clayton’s murder, I was exhausted with the responsibilities of being a father and a husband. Twenty years previously, at the age of twenty-four, I had married Gloria Monroe; she was, shall we say, spawned from an upper-class family who found my pedestrian middle-class origins to be just slightly worse than repulsive. During our courtship and the early years of our marriage when we were basking in an understandable self-adulation that was fueled by our very intense physical passion for each other, the feelings of her overfed, pontificating elders were no more consequential than a ripped-up three-dollar bill. 

But as time passed, the weight of the past began to outweigh the pleasures that might be inherent in the present, and the two of us slowly began the long slide, which seems to be so common nowadays, into the deserted regions of Outer Mongolia where we were left stranded within the modern angst of a seemingly meaningless existence. As the ship slowly and unknowingly began to flounder, we managed to distract ourselves by producing two kids who, by now, had become certified brats: Darnell, who would turn seventeen in late September, and Cassandra, who was fifteen. 

Once upon a time, I had harbored fond hopes for these two, but I now privately referred to them as the Nasty Dope and Queen Cleopatra. To begin with, although he made some half-hearted efforts to keep his habit hidden, there could no longer be any real doubt that Darnell was seriously addicted to grass. It had become a dreadful, even humiliating experience to hear him as he coughed and hacked his way through the house towards the kitchen where he would become loudly engaged in another one of his inelegant bag-at-a-time eating episodes. Potato chips, chocolate Oreo cookies, whipped cream, and root beer were his invariable staples, and as soon as our snack-happy son had finished with his grotesque repast, Gloria and I would be treated to the sound of him belching obnoxiously as he swaggered back to his bedroom for another round of a video game—most likely Kill the Dwarfs or Slam the Sluts, which were his favorites. Gloria, the Glorious One, was under the impression that I, the second dope in the family, should take decisive action about our problem. However, we had so many problems that I had long since given up coping with reality and had effectively vanished from the scene by retreating into my lazy, self-created philosophy of inaction or, to put it bluntly, doing nothing. According to the seductive commandments of my superstitious wisdom, anything that I did in response to a perceived difficulty was likely to make the situation worse, and while it is true that an exceptionally shrewd person might have been able, somehow or other, to act decisively and prevent the catastrophe that would soon descend upon all of us, I am still of the opinion that non-action is almost always preferable to action.

Apparently, if I understood Gloria correctly, a massive invasion of Darnell’s room with the intention of discovering and rooting out the vile weed that was destroying his brain had become an imperative necessity. In increasingly obvious terms, she began to hint at the necessity of this search and destroy mission, but at the same time, annoyingly, it was made more than clear to me that I would not only serve as the Commander in Chief of this in-house swat team but would also be the sole foot soldier to participate in the upcoming crackdown. As a member of the police force, Jackson, she said pointedly, you surely must be able to understand that Darnell is placing himself into a position that imperils his future, and if I had the expertise that you possess when it comes to home invasions, I would do something drastic. I’m telling you for about the millionth time that Darnell’s going downhill fast, and we have to act before he ruins his life. Do you hear me over there? Are you awake? Say something!

I was faced with so many absurdities that I didn’t know which one was the most laughable. Running rapidly through my mind were a number of very strong candidates with exceptional platforms and unimpeachable integrity who were now contending for the prestigious title of First Absurdity. Luckily, the selection of the winner in this self-defeating but hilarious contest was not a problem, and I found the following scenario to be quite amusing.

I had no trouble imagining myself as I searched through Darnell’s castle for a small bag of marijuana; there I was on my hands and knees still entertaining the notion that I was a moderately benign liberal while I very sheepishly groped for drugs under my son’s bed. But what was this? From under his mattress, I extracted a sex magazine! Then, as I was kneeling by the bed looking at the lurid cover of that bizarre thing, Darnell, who we had assumed was gone for the day, would suddenly emerge from out of nowhere to be standing in front of me, and now it is anybody’s guess as to which one of us has been caught red-handed. How many decades would it take for the two of us, or at least me, to live that one down? Maybe, in about thirty years, if we were lucky enough to share a drink together, he could laugh and say, Remember the time you found that filthy magazine under my bed? There was no doubt in my mind that this possibility, or a variation of it, was the reason that Gloria was attempting to foist the onerous and risky task of interdiction onto my shoulders.

And then there was Cassandra, the Queen in residence. Pouting and puffing with all her airs and a barrage of shopping bills that would send you to a therapist if you had any money left to spend on that kind of overeducated nonsense. She’d made it quite plain to all of us that our presence in her life soiled her pristine aura, which presumably accounted for the two hours she spent in the bathroom each day as she frantically scrubbed herself off and pampered her exotic moods before the large god-awful garish mirror that she had installed over my futile, counterproductive squawks. At least she wasn’t a pothead, but of course, like everything else in my lame life, that had an unexpected downside when she went to Gloria and gave her fair warning that she would call the real cops if she ever caught Darnell smoking the weed that drove everyone crazy. 

Apparently, some overwrought sophomore at the high school had cooked up a batch of brownies that contained, as a major ingredient, almost two ounces of marijuana. Feeling somewhat nervous about his experiment, he had begun to nibble on his chemical repast in a cautious manner but after fifteen minutes still felt no effects whatsoever. Disappointed and then enraged by the realization that he had been ripped off by his local drug dealer, he proceeded to wolf down everything on his rather large plate—up to and including the crumbs. As you may or may not know, when it is ingested, it takes about a half hour for the dreaded cannabis to reach the brain, but this was far beyond the scope of our drug chef’s meager knowledge, and with a heavy heart, he tramped off to school for another boring day of spoon-fed regimented nonsense. Upon arriving there, however, he became delirious and disoriented; after removing all of his clothes outside the principal’s office, he had raced up to the second story, stormed into Cassandra’s accelerated math class, and leaped out the window. Fortunately, he had landed on a small plot of grass where he was not seriously injured, but my obviously naïve daughter was convinced that this was normal behavior for those who dared to dabble with the demons that are so deceptively disguised within drugs. 

Even worse, she was now convinced that the slightest exposure to the fumes that might come pouring out of Darnell’s room at any moment would fry her brain. Second hand smoke—do you know what that can do to a person? she yelled at me one night. Look what it’s done to you! You’re brain dead just like everyone else around here—even if they don’t realize it. You’re a vegetable without a cause! I’m afraid people will smell that stuff on my clothes, and then they’ll arrest me. If they do, I’m taking you all down with me. How does that sound? Won’t you look good on the front page of the Sentinel as you waddle into court in shackles for running a disgusting pothouse for your lamebrained son? How did I ever get stuck with you two for parents? That’s why I don’t believe in God anymore; nobody could have been dimwitted enough to create creatures as bamboozled as you and that pathetic puffed-up pumpkin you call your wife, the one and only, the glorious monstrosity, the creature from outer space, the— 

SHUTUP!! I roared. For once, I lost my cool; Cassandra fled to her room and apocalyptically banged the door shut. To hell with everyone, I thought. I could hear Darnell’s ornery laugh as Gloria entered the room and informed me in no uncertain terms that I was a disgraceful parent. It was true, she said, that I needed to be firm with the kids, but yelling back at people—my daughter, no less—was a sign of immaturity, poor upbringing, and a deranged, possibly psychotic, mentality. She wouldn’t tolerate it, and any further infraction of the house rules would result in the application of severe disciplinary measures directed against myself. Go ahead, she said trying to sound appropriately ominous, make my day.

CHAPTER FOUR: FIELD MARSHAL BRANKLIN FELL

Branklin Fell, now fifty-six, was nearing the end of his ninth three-year term as the Mayor of our thriving city. By anyone’s reckoning, he would have to be considered as supremely successful; in fact, he had become more than a local hero and was now a living legend who, after he passed on to his eternal reward, would surely have parks, museums, buildings, streets, and auditoriums named or renamed in his honor. He had, through the strength of his magisterial vision, taken Darwin City from being a tiny suburban watering hole (not much bigger than a frog, speaking in evolutionary terms) and transformed it into a teeming, growling lion of a metropolis. During his nearly thirty years in power, so much has changed that it is almost impossible for me to portray the astonishing transformations that have occurred in our neck of the woods. I have seen photographs that were taken before the beginning of his reign; the bucolic streets are narrow and lined with quaint, pleasant, unpretentious houses that have spacious backyards. These have, not so naturally, gone the way of the dinosaur, and one can now enjoy the scenery of wide vulgar roads that are copiously decorated with gas stations, fast-food joints, video stores with large fluorescent XXX signs, muffler-replacement shops, run-down ghetto apartments, and an assortment of decaying business ventures that are teetering on or toppling into the abyss of bankruptcy.

No one would consider the main drag strip, the treeless eight-lane mega-thoroughfare, Dogwire Drive, to be a walker-friendly zone. Many years previously, the pedestrian lights had been recalibrated so that only a track star with specially designed running shoes (the new Rubber Rockets from Sweatshop Unlimited) could possibly hope to arrive on the far shore before the growling herd of gas-guzzling robots lurched forward. Despite Darwin City’s self-proclaimed reputation as the most evolved city in the nation—which, even if true, wouldn’t be saying much—the Drive has seen its share of unfortunate incidents. The latest occurred on a drizzly, dreary May evening when four homeless people (completely bombed, of course) had unwisely attempted a passage through the roaring high seas of tumultuous metal and were summarily flattened by a massive forty-ton truck. Even though it was clearly a case of the survival of the fittest, the city had received very unfavorable publicity and what was worse, a huge bill from