Frontier Justice

By Robert Trainor

Adriana Jones grew up in the roughest section of Chicago where murder was an everyday event. After working as the dispatcher at the police department for three years, she became a cop at the age of twenty-two. "The thing I always noticed about her was that when we had a hot call—things like shots fired—Adriana was the first one out of the cruiser. Always. She seemed totally fearless—she told me once that the only way to deal with criminals was to be meaner and tougher than they were."

During her time in Chicago, Adriana received three commendations for bravery, but she was eventually forced to resign because of an incident where she shot an unarmed man. Six months after resigning, Adriana is hired in New Haven, a suburban town eighty miles south of Chicago. On the night of October 25th, 2012, two teenagers, Billy Watkins and Nathan Smythe, stand on an overpass that crosses the expressway and hurl cement blocks at cars. One of the blocks goes through the windshield of a car, which causes it to jump over the median where it collides with three other cars and kills eight people.

Two days later, Billy Watkins, who had stolen his father's gun, takes Sharise Jackson and her child hostage. Adriana enters the room where Billy is holding the two hostages and is finally able to persuade him to surrender his gun and release the mother and her child, but as Adriana and Billy are walking out of the room, there is the sound of a gunshot.

Sharise, a little unsteady on her feet, left the bed and had just reached the hallway when she heard Adriana say, "OK, Billy, let's go—you first."
About ten seconds later, Sharise heard Billy say, "What?" And then, maybe a second later, there was the sound of a gunshot followed by the crash of someone falling to the floor. "Oh My God," screamed Sharise to two cops who were standing at the top of the staircase, "someone's been shot."
Just then, Adriana came out of Sharise's bedroom and tossed Billy's gun onto the carpet.
"Are you OK?" said the first cop to reach her.
"I'm fine—but he's not," she said as she pointed behind her.
"What happened?"
"Just before we left the room, Watkins tried to grab his gun away from me, but before he could yank it out of my hand, I shot him in the face."

The prosecutor is suspicious that Adriana has murdered Billy—her history in Chicago reads like a one-woman execution squad. Eventually, he hires three crime reconstruction experts, and they all tell him that Billy Watkins was definitely murdered. Adriana is charged with second degree murder and acts as her own attorney.

Will she be convicted? Even more importantly, is her claim of self-defense valid?

Adriana approached the jury box and said, "When I saved that mother and child, it was hardly the first time I risked my life for the innocent, for those who were depending on me for protection. That's all I've ever done—I was given three decorations for bravery while I worked in Chicago, and if I cared about medals and had been willing to talk about myself more, I could have received a dozen. One of those commendations was given to me because I ran fifty feet down an alley while I was being shot at with an AK-47. I did that to drag a severely wounded policeman to safety. That could have been your son or your brother or your husband who was brought to safety. And I'm sure—absolutely positive—that if it had been the prosecutor's brother that I had saved, he would never have brought the Watkins case before you. Never!"

Even so, it's up to the jury to decide the fate of Adriana Jones. How did they vote? And how would you have voted if you were on that jury?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Trainor
• Release date: Feb 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224301881

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

The Legend

To those who have met Adriana Jones, she is as real as it gets. To those who have only heard about her, she is referred to, rather negatively, as a legend. No one could possibly have done what she has supposedly done is something that is commonly said about her. 

To protect Adriana and those she has been associated with, I have changed the names of everyone, including Adriana. And neither did these events take place in the city that I have described. 

Otherwise, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether this book is fact or fiction, truth or legend. 

PART ONE: THE OVERPASS MURDERS

1

A cloudy night six days before Halloween...cool—in the low thirties...a light fog rising across the land.

The two of them hadn’t been thinking of doing anything special that night. School, as usual, had been a big drag—a stupid exam on all that George Washington stuff, and later on, they had to listen to their civics teacher who couldn’t stop yapping away about how important it was to be polite and respectful.

They had known each other for nine years—ever since the time they had gotten into the rock fight on the grammar school playground. No one had liked that, especially their parents, but afterwards, both of them thought it was funny, especially since one of the rocks had ended up smashing a window in the school.

Now that they were seventeen, they were all grown up, and since the only older people they had to compare to themselves were their parents and teachers, it wasn’t surprising that they had fallen into the habit of thinking of themselves as superior to everyone else. The other students at the high school were just lowlifes—all they ever talked about was college, which immediately made them even more stupid than their parents and teachers. 

Tonight, they were just chilling. Chilling on some grass one of them had stolen from his brother along with some wicked bad wine that they had lifted from a corner store—two fifths worth as the dopey clerk browsed through a girly magazine. Back home, at one of their parent’s houses, they hung out in the garage and used a space heater to keep warm. The parent figures were having a night on the town, but neither one of them wanted to take a chance on leaving a burning weed smell around the house. The one with the blue eyes had a Mom who was a bit of a bloodhound when it came to that. 

Once they had finished the weed, they began blasting through the rotgut three-dollar-a-bottle wine. As they started in on the second bottle, the one with the soft voice, blue eyes, and sly manner said, We ought to do something crazy tonight. 

Like what? His friend was taller and more physical, with dark brown eyes. Maybe not as smart, but blue eyes was really smart so that didn’t mean much. 

Like something that people will talk about for days. 

How about throwing a rock through old man Davis’s window? said brown eyes. I know where he lives. Vincent Davis was the principal of the high school. 

Let’s do something bigger than that, said blue eyes. 

What about setting fire to his house? We could bring that can of gasoline that’s over there in the corner and torch his place up.

That’s an idea...yeah, I could go for that. 

It wasn’t really like they were criminals or anything. Just a couple of vagrant kids who didn’t have much to live for. School was a waste of time, their parents were jerks, and the hot girls all laughed at them. Blue eyes was too geeky and weird, while brown eyes looked kind of scary. So they had begun to form a gang of their own, even if there were no other members. They’d played around with names and finally decided to call themselves the Dead Street Bullies. At first, they only had the nerve for little pranks, like stealing someone’s textbook and tossing it into the river behind the school. Or slashing the tires of one of their father’s cars—that night was their best night ever, because afterwards, they had snuck around a street that was about a mile from their houses and slashed about forty tires. 

But they were getting older, and it was time to branch out. The previous summer they had both been forced into meaningful work by their slave-driver parents; blue eyes was sent off to flip burgers and make shakes at a local joint, while brown eyes ended up working for a landscaping company. Not surprisingly, neither one of them liked being bossed around by morons, and their downhill attitudes, just like their driving speeds, had accelerated. Brown eyes was infuriated for the two weeks he had mowed lawns across a wide swath of the ritzy section of town. All those fat-cat rich folks staring at him like he was a sex offender as he sweated around some goofy yard on a ninety-degree day. Finally, just to prove to everyone who was really boss, brown eyes had taken the power mower and run it straight at some old matron who ended up fleeing into the house with the lawn mower growling at her heels. And then, before he hit the trail, brown eyes took the lawn mower and decapitated all the flowers in her stupid flower garden. 

Yeah, said blue eyes, when he heard the lawn-mower tale, that’s about all we’re good for. Even if we wanted to, we’d never make it through college, so I guess there’s not much left for us to do in life but lick the toes of the rich. 

My Ma wants me to go to a vocational school and learn to be a plumber. 

Blue eyes laughed. That means she thinks you’re stupid. I’ll bet she didn’t tell your sister anything like that. 

Ashley is all set—Ma has her pegged out for an Ivy League school. 

Your Ma’s always liked her more than you—I saw that the first time I was over your place. 

Yeah, said brown eyes, it’s basically like I’m an immigrant in my own house. 

Blue eyes had a wreck of a car that leaked oil and was terrible on gas, but since he’d recently been nailed for having a noisy muffler, he’d had that fixed, which on a night like this was a worthwhile improvement. It was almost six miles through crosstown city traffic before they reached the upper-class section of town where the principal lived. They circled around the area near his house and finally parked outside a tennis court that was only a couple of hundred yards from Davis’s house. Man, said brown eyes after they had parked the car, I don’t know if we should do this—it’s kind of a heavy crime. 

Arson? said blue eyes. I can think of a lot heavier crimes. Besides, we’re only seventeen so even if we get busted, all we’ll get is a slap on the wrist. Maybe, at most, a big lecture from the judge. 

Yeah, but what if someone doesn’t make it out and gets burned to death? 

Blue eyes laughed. They’ll get out—it’s only two stories, and even lowlifes like that know how to jump. 

OK, let’s do it. Davis doesn’t care whether we live or die, so why should we care about him?   

Blue eyes took the gas can from the trunk of the car, and they walked down the road a few yards before they came to a side road that ran behind the principal’s house. A minute later, they clambered through some underbrush until they reached the edge of the yard. By now, it was a little after ten, and there were no lights on in the house, so they just walked up to the back part of the house and splashed the gas over a twenty-foot area. How are we going to light it? said brown eyes in a whisper. If we toss a match into it, we might get scorched. 

Blue eyes picked up a small crooked stick and went over to where they had splashed the gasoline on the house and rubbed one end of it through the dripping gas. Coming back to brown eyes, he said, Go on—light it. The front part of the stick went up in flames and blue eyes tossed it against the side of the house. Whoosh! 

They ran back to the side road, and as they raced up it towards blue eye’s car, they could see the flames sweeping up the side of the house. 

By the time they reached the car, they began to realize that no one had seen them, and once they were a mile away from Davis’s house, they began to relax. That was too easy, said brown eyes. 

I knew it would be—the lowlifes who live in that section of town think they’re above everyone else, so they don’t take any precautions. 

I know what you mean, said brown eyes. If I lived in a place like that, I’d have about four hungry Dobermans prowling around the yard. Hey—look what I’ve got. He reached under the seat and pulled out a fifth of whisky. 

Where’d you get that? 

Ripped it off from my Dad’s stash—he’s got about six of these, so he’ll never know the difference. I put it under here yesterday afternoon while you and your Ma were yelling at each other about your homework. 

As they started swigging from the bottle, blue eyes drove out of town until they came to a narrow, little used road that led over the expressway just past exit 9. When they were about halfway over the bridge, brown eyes said, Stop the car for a minute, bro. They weren’t brothers but they liked that word. 

The two of them left the car and walked over to the edge of the road where there was a four-foot-high horizontal metal railing with vertical bars that were spaced a couple of feet apart. As they watched the traffic speeding by below, blue eyes said, Are you thinking what I’m thinking? 

Like maybe we should drop some rocks on these lowlifes? 

I was thinking boulders, said blue eyes. 

Yeah, but where are we going to find them? 

I know a place, said blue eyes in an excited voice. It’s an old construction site about a mile from here. Laughing, they scampered back to the car and took a couple of belts from the whiskey bottle before they drove off. 

This will be the best night of our lives, said brown eyes. 

Blue eyes jacked up the volume on the radio. An old song was playing—Hungry Like the Wolf. Seemed perfect. 

They found the place blue eyes had been talking about and loaded ten blocks of cement into the back seat and trunk of the car. What we’ll do, said blue eyes as they drove back towards the expressway, is dump the blocks off on the bridge and find a place to stash the car as close as we can. That way, we’ll be almost invisible. 

They unloaded the blocks in front of the railing and then had to drive a little bit past the bridge before they found a place where they could pull off the road into a small patch of grass. After another swig from the whiskey bottle, they staggered back towards the bridge—by now, they were both so drunk that it was difficult for them to see straight, much less walk straight. 

Finally, after bumping into each other and falling down a couple of times, they reached the place where they had left the cement blocks. Brown eyes reached down, picked up one of the chunks of cement, and went over to the railing. Bombs away, he shouted as he hurled one over the edge. 

They watched as it hurtled down toward the pavement where it hit harmlessly a couple of feet off the side of the road. Were you aiming at anything? said blue eyes, who hadn’t seen any cars passing by. You didn’t even hit the road. 

I forgot about that part, said brown eyes. 

OK, bro, let’s see who’s the best shot. Blue eyes moved over so that he was standing above the passing lane and waited until the next car came whizzing down the road, but by the time the block he had tossed over the railing hit the road and broke into three pieces, the car had already passed under the bridge. Annoyed, he reached down and picked up another block, and this time, by what would turn out to be an unlucky chance, his aim was perfect, and the two of them watched as a large chunk of cement shattered the driver’s side of the windshield and went plunging into a car. Bull’s-eye, he said softly. 

The car they had hit disappeared under the bridge, and a few seconds later, they heard an intensely loud squeal of brakes and just after that, the sound of two cars colliding. Running over to the other side of the bridge, they could see that the car blue eyes had hit with the cement block had jumped over the median and collided with a van and that a third car and then a fourth car had plowed into the wreckage of the first two cars. 

That doesn’t look good, said brown eyes. We have to get out of here. 

They ran down the road and jumped into blue eye’s car. I never thought something like that would ever happen, he said. 

Neither did I, said brown eyes. I hope no one was killed. 

2

The incidents described above occurred too late in the evening to make it into the local newspaper, the New Haven Daily Herald, but on the following day, the entire front page, as well as three other pages, were devoted to the story.

SEVEN VICTIMS IN EXPRESSWAY CATASTROPHE

At 11:15 P.M. on Thursday evening, seven people, all from New Haven, were killed on interstate 87 when a car from the northbound lane veered over the median and collided head-on into a van. Also involved were two cars that were travelling in the same direction as the van and were unable to brake in time to avoid the car and the van. Pronounced dead at the scene of the accident was the driver of the northbound car, sixty-five-year-old Thomas Smith, along with his wife Janet who was riding in the passenger seat. The remaining five victims, all from the same family, were riding in the van and were also pronounced dead at the scene. Their names and ages are as follows: John Synder, 39, his wife Andrea, 38, and their three children—Mary, 14, John Jr., 12, and Susan, 8. Besides the fatalities mentioned above, four people have been hospitalized, with three being in critical condition. The injured were all riding in the two cars that were unable to avoid the collision of the car and the van. 

Initially, the police assumed that the collision had been an accident—perhaps the driver of the car had fallen asleep or suffered from a medical condition, but these ideas were quickly dispelled when a large chunk of cement was found in the wreckage of the car that had jumped the median. Since the accident occurred just after a bridge that crosses over Interstate 87, police officers searched the bridge and found a number of cement blocks directly over the expressway. 

The police have, up to this point, been deflecting all inquiries about the crash and have scheduled a news conference for noon today. If you go to our web site at noon, we will be streaming the video of the press conference. 

Like most streaming videos, the picture was certainly not high quality, but it was easy enough to make out the picture and hear the voices. Standing in front of the microphone was the Chief of Police for the New Haven Police Department, Andrew Baines, while slightly to his right stood the chief of detectives. Her name was Adriana Jones, and she had a well-deserved reputation for ferocity when it came to the apprehension of criminals. 

Andrew was the first to speak. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a short statement to make and then, if you have any questions, I will let Ms. Jones answer them since she has been placed in charge of this investigation. After taking out his reading glasses, he read the following: At approximately 11:15 P.M. on Thursday, a four-car collision took place on Interstate 87. Although our investigation is still in its early stages, I can tell you that this collision was not an accident. It came about when a chunk of cement—roughly two feet by a foot by six inches—was thrown onto Route 87 from an overpass that occurs about a half mile after exit 9. The overpass allows Brandon Road to cross over the expressway, and we know exactly where the perpetrator of this act stood because we found seven other chunks of cement lying along the southern side of Brandon Road. I also have the sad duty to inform you that one of the critically injured has died, which brings the total number of fatalities to eight. 

The Chief stepped aside and Adriana took his place. She had come to New Haven two years previously from the Chicago area, and it was rumored that she had been forced to resign her position there because she had fatally shot an unarmed suspect. She was hired in New Haven because her recommendations and her performance in the hiring interview were excellent, and despite some initial misgivings about the abrasive nature of her personality, she was now viewed as an extremely capable and resourceful woman. Adriana, thirty-one, was tall and wiry, with dark-blond hair that fell almost to her shoulders, and she spoke in a voice that was somewhat more pleasant than her personality. 

Since there had been so little information released about the crime, the reporters were understandably inquisitive. 

Ms. Jones—do you have any leads as to who might have committed this crime? 

"As a matter of fact we do, and although it is not in the Department’s best interest to talk about all of these leads, I will mention one that could be quite significant. Around 10 P.M. on the evening of the crime—this would be seventy-five minutes before the collision on the expressway—a house was set on fire in the northern section of town on Cedar Street. At this