Burnout (Goosey Larsen Book 1)

by James Vachowski

  Squealer tugged a surgical latex glove onto his right hand. The guy had this annoying way of taking his time when he put on gloves, almost as if he had to ensure that the latex material fit perfectly around each one of his fingers. After that, he’d pull the palm of the glove back and release it across his wrist with a loud snap. I shot him a glare, but he didn’t seem to notice. Honestly, Squealer was probably used to people giving him dirty looks. He went to poke the body a few times in different places, watching to see how fast color returned to the skin. “Looks like he’s been in the water for about four or five hours now.”

  No kidding, I thought. I could’ve found that out by asking the campus security guards what time they’d made their rounds the night before, and I wouldn’t have had to touch any dead bodies in the process.

  I rolled my eyeballs at Slipper, who looked as bored as I felt. Squealer ignored us both and kept poking the body with his one gloved hand. Once he’d methodically worked his way down to the corpse’s butt cheeks, Squealer leaned in for a closer look.

  “See something you like?” I asked.

  Slipper doubled over with laughter, and Squealer’s face turned redder than the pools of dark blood which had begun settling on the corpse’s stomach. Slipper’s rookie came back in, leading the paramedics and the goon from the coroner’s office. “He’s all yours,” I told them.

  Squealer hid his burning face behind that giant camera of his and snapped a few more photos as the medics wheeled the stiff out into the hallway. I couldn’t help noticing that the older folks working out in the gym were doing their best to avoid looking at all of us. Most people will usually want to rubberneck at a crime scene, to maybe catch a peek of the dead body, but I guess these geriatrics just figured that it wouldn’t be too much longer before they’d have a front row seat to the afterlife.

  Managing an investigation isn’t brain surgery, no matter what kind of case it is. If the victim’s still alive when you get there, all you have to do is get him loaded into an ambulance so you can conduct the interviews later on at the emergency room. But even if EMS says that the guy’s already dead, the procedure is to leave him where he lies, tape off the entire area, and snoop around for a few minutes like you’re actively looking for clues. Squealer, the crime scene superstar, was taking care of this part for me by wandering around the pool room, probably looking for a smoking gun in the deep end.

  I turned to Slipper for more information. “Who was the 07?”

  Slipper wiped his mouth with his uniform sleeve. “We don’t know. Campus security is going through the patient roster, but no one’s been reported missing. They’re going room to room right now to confirm that.”

  I couldn’t believe that the campus security guards were actually doing work, since those guys never seemed to be around when you actually needed them. “Okay, great, just have them call me at Central whenever they finish up. And have Squealer take a photo of the guy’s face before the coroner’s goon carts him off. The guards can pass it around, maybe, see if anyone recognizes him.”

  Slipper looked at me in disbelief. Usually, there’d be no way in hell that a sergeant would ever take orders from a Private First Class, but rank didn’t matter so much between Slipper and me. I’d been promoted to PFC three separate times, so I figured that my three stripes were equivalent to a Sergeant’s if you added them all together. Slipper just happened to have all of his stripes at the same time, while mine had come and gone along with mountains of disciplinary paperwork.

  “Anything else, Detective?” he sneered.

  “That should do it, Sergeant.” I gave him a grin. Like any other good cop, Slipper had been in hot water a time or two himself but had always managed to dodge a demotion. I’ve heard that his immunity stemmed from the way he would slip a note under the door of the Chief’s office every time he caught hold of a good piece of gossip. That was a pretty common practice at CPD, especially right around the times when our promotion boards would meet. Chuck’s face turned so many different shades of red the first time I called him “Slipper” that I knew that the rumors were true, and the nickname stuck.

  “Just leave your guys’ reports in my box and go home, bro. I’ll get Big Jim to sign off on all the paperwork.” There was absolutely no evidence of any foul play, so this case was sure to be closed out as an accidental death with no further investigation. The whole mess would require me to bang our a one-page report, but I figured it’d probably be worth my effort just to bump up my stats. Some weeks I might not clear a case until Wednesday or Thursday, if at all, so it’s always a nice feeling to start the week with an easy one in the win column.

  My stomach was rumbling something fierce as I headed back to my car. Getting called into work early in the morning was always a pain, but what really stung was that there were only a couple of good places to get a quick breakfast on the peninsula. Charleston is more of a brunch city, which really only helps when I can’t get out of working on the weekends. I figured that if I didn’t bother checking back in service on the radio, I’d have just enough time to sit down and read the News and Courier over some eggs. I moseyed along the sidewalk, trying not to move too fast, figuring that a leisurely pace might bring my body back into its natural state of lethargy. In fact, I’d almost made it back to my car when this middle-aged guy sprung up out of nowhere. I thought he might have ambushed me to say something about my parking in a handicapped space, but instead he flashed me a wide smile. “Officer, I’m so glad you’re here!”

  I groaned to myself. I probably should’ve been wearing a sport coat to cover up my badge and gun, but I hadn’t had the time to pick mine up from the dry cleaner the month before. I made a mental note to run back over to James Island and snatch my blazer off the rack, even though it pained me to think of parting with the three-dollar ransom that the cleaners charged.

  “What can I do for you, sir?” I asked, doing my best to fake concern. As a cop, it’s pretty much inevitable that you’re going to have to deal with the public every once in a while, so I always try my best to make those types of interactions as quick and painless as possible.

  The guy held a brown wallet in both hands, offering it up to me as if he had just discovered the Holy Grail. “I found this in the parking lot across the street. No one was around, and it was just lying there!”

  No shit, I thought as I bit my lip and tried to hide my scorn. What did you expect it to do?

  The dude held the wallet out so close to my chest that I had no choice but to take it. I gave him a second glance over before coming to the conclusion that he must have been a tourist. If the black socks, white sneakers and camera pouch didn’t mark him, the fact that he gave a damn about someone else’s wallet did. I looked over my shoulder, hoping to catch one of Slipper’s rookies, but cursed under my breath when I saw they’d both driven off. Our patrol cops aren’t generally known for moving fast, except when it comes time to head for home.

  I turned back to him and said, “Sir, thank you for your concern. If you’d be so kind as to just call our main switchboard number, one of our dispatchers will be happy to send a patrol officer to meet you and take a report.” I held out the wallet, hoping to use his own trick against him, but he just looked disappointed. I don’t know, maybe the guy had been expecting me to conduct a forensic examination or something. “I was about to call the police but then I saw you and thought, ‘How fortunate.’”

  Yeah. Real fortunate. I clenched my teeth as I saw my leisurely breakfast going up in smoke. With a sigh, I said, “Well, I’ll turn it in for you, but next time you should really leave it where it is and call the Department’s main switchboard. If this wallet’s actually been stolen, we might have been able to lift one of the suspect’s fingerprints off it. Now the only prints on it are from you.”

  The guy looked deflated, and he glanced down at his hands self-consciously. He mumbled an apology and hurried off as I flipped through the wallet to see if there was anything worth missing breakfast for. There was nothing but
a driver’s license and a few store discount cards inside, so whatever cash might have been there sure wasn’t anymore.

  If I was a stickler for following our policy manual, I technically could have done one of two things at that point. First, I could have looked up the owner’s name in the phone book, then called them down to the station to pick up their property. Ordinarily that would’ve been fine, but the address listed on the license was all the way out in Summerville, this small town in Dorchester County. If I called him then I might’ve gotten tied down to the station all day just waiting for the guy to show up. It would definitely have been a lot easier for me to go the second route and just toss the wallet into our evidence room, but even that process required me to write out a report for found property and there was no way in hell I was going to turn out two pages of paperwork in the same day.

  I thought about it for another moment before finally deciding to seek out a little more efficiency. As soon as the tourist was fully out of sight, I walked over to a Federal Express drop box and threw the wallet inside. That way the FedEx delivery guy would find it, he’d call the CPD dispatcher to report it, and a patrol cop from Team One would be assigned to take the report the way things should’ve been done in the first place. Yeah, good detective work usually comes down to finding the simplest solution, I thought. My stomach was starting to rumble something fierce by that point, so I backed out of the handicapped space and headed up Calhoun St. toward the City Market. If I hurried, I probably had just enough time to catch the early bird breakfast special at Kasper’s.

  The sun hangs high in the sky, beating its rays downward and demanding my submission. Like an ancient Aztec, I bow in awe of its power and humbly shuffle about my affairs. The heat parches my throat as I pause for a drink, stooping down near the tranquil waters to gaze at my reflection. My face is much more wrinkled than I remember--- where has the time gone? The water is cool as I scoop it with my hands. It tastes sweet running down my throat, but still I feel this burning inside. Nothing can quench my thirst but revenge.

  Leonard is gone, I remind myself. There is nothing I could have done last night to prevent it, but still I mourn for my friend. The loss hit hard. We’d done battle together and sampled the sweet fruit of victory, not so long ago, but now those days are in the past. Still, even now, I have one last battle to fight, one last adversary to face.

  The question remains: how? Even if the Super Squad were reunited, Doctor Demming still hoards the Cruxion capsules. One of us, even all three of us, would be no match for him now. I’m certain that McGurn is weakening as I am. Time is running short, our window is closing. I need…help.

  Like men before me – and it has become necessary now to admit that I’m just that, a mortal man – I turn to forces greater than myself. Pulling my body away from the waters, I walk with a purpose now. Crippled, yes. Slowly, yes. But with a purpose still.

  Inspiration has always come to me after worshipping at the Temple of Knowledge. I can feel the sideways glances of the other mortals eyeing me as I shuffle through the gardens with my hands open in supplication to the Gods, Goddesses, or Forces that guide me. I am aware of these mortals but pay them no mind since they move through their lives with no sense of purpose. Indeed, having a purpose confuses them.

  The towers of the Temple of Knowledge still aspire towards the heavens. It was much greater once, I am told, but like so many other things the Temple has become a shadow of its former self. The mortals hurriedly pass it by without a second glance, but I kneel on the steps to focus on the problem. Thinking clearly has become a chore as my mind’s disintegration matches my body’s.

  The question is clear: How can I rid the world of Doctor Demming? Saving my own life is no longer an option. I am dead already, of course, continuing to breathe past my expiration date. It was the Doctor who kept me – kept us – alive for his nefarious purposes. He must be stopped, else others will share our fate. Surely a dignified death would be better than this living hell. It cannot be done alone, of that I am sure. The cool wind blows gently past my ears and the sounds of Metropolis fade away. These people, these drones, they are my flock, and like a shepherd I must shield them from harm. It’s such a pity, though, that they cannot seem to focus their energies beyond their mundane existences. They chase the trivial, striving for mediocrity. They will never understand the truth.

  The truth.

  From nowhere, I know the truth. The path is always so clear, the truth is always before us to behold, if only we could lift the veil from our eyes. Once again, the Temple of Knowledge has provided my inspiration.

  The path will be rocky, and danger lies ahead. But unlike so many other men, I now know where the answers lie.

  I must go, and consult the Oracle.

  2.

  There’s something about a greasy breakfast that puts me completely at peace with the world. I hadn’t been down to Kasper’s in months, mostly because I never get up that early if I can help it. Kasper’s was this little hole in the wall restaurant tucked in behind the Li’l Cricket convenience store, down in the City Market where State Street runs into Cumberland. If you didn’t know that Kasper’s was there, you’d probably take one look at all the bums hanging out in front of the Li’l Cricket and just drive right on by. When I pulled up, though, there was a line of regular customers backed out the front door, so I figured that old Kasper must be doing all right for himself. You had to manage your breakfast expectations since some days, the guy just wouldn’t open the store if he didn’t feel like working. Yeah, he was definitely my kind of fella in that regard. The food was okay, probably not the best I’d ever had, but at three dollars a plate the price more than made up for it. After a ten-minute wait, Kasper silently took my money and handed me a heavy foam tray with steam creeping out from under the lid.

  Outside, I felt the worn seat of my khakis stretching out over my ass as I leaned back against the trunk of my cruiser and dug that plastic fork deep into the runny eggs, hash browns, and sausage links. Kasper’s restaurant is so small that there’s literally no space to put benches inside. Some of the other cops grumble about having to take their food to go, but I see the standing room only policy as another sure sign of Kasper’s brilliance. Having no indoor seating meant that he could cycle more customers through, and he never had to clean up after them. Yeah, if I ever moved up out of my apartment into a house, it’d have to be a small enough place to make any guests uncomfortable. With the sad state of my checking account, though, that day was still a long way off so I put the thought out of my mind while I mashed my eggs into the hash browns, stabbing them lovingly with a flimsy plastic fork.

  The homeless bums in front of the Li’l Cricket were giving me the hairy eyeball as I ate, probably waiting for me to leave so they could get started on their day drinking. I wasn’t about to interrupt my meal by running them off or by shaking them down for crack pipes, but I did my best to piss them off by eating just as slowly as I could, savoring every mouthful. Finally, after a couple more minutes I was down to scraping the grease drippings off the bottom of the tray, so I made a big show of that before I pitched the whole mess into a trash can and climbed into my cruiser.

  That warm feeling of contentment started spreading outward from my stomach and across my entire body. I could tell I’d had too much to eat because I could feel a nap coming on, and my vision started to blur. I knew that I’d probably regret my gluttony later on that day, but who cares about the after-effects when the food tastes that good? I could almost hear the seams on my pants screaming in protest as I leaned forward to adjust the steering wheel. I made a note to disappear from the office for an hour or two and swing over to the Citadel Mall to pick up a couple new pairs. One of the best perks of being a detective is that you can turn off your radio and screw off as much as you want, so long as you check out on some kind of a “follow-up investigation.” Me, I always tried to keep a few cases open just in case I needed a ready-made excuse to disappear somewhere for a quick nap.

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nbsp; The sun was high in the sky and it was shaping up to be a beautiful spring day, warm but not quite hot and sticky. It was one of those days where it was almost too nice to go to work, so I didn’t. Instead of heading down Beaufain Street toward the station, I signaled for a left onto Rutledge. I still hadn’t checked back in service from MUSC so no one would be looking for me just yet, and I was of a mind to ease through the quiet streets South of Broad. Cruising past those old houses always puts me in a good mood, and if anyone ever questioned my route I could just say that it was a proactive patrol to keep the streets safe.

  The sun’s glare reflecting off Colonial Lake made me wince in pain, and I yanked the visor down and wondered where in the hell I could have left my sunglasses. When my vision returned, I saw this old crackhead bum crouched down over the edge of the lake. From a distance it looked like he was trying to bend over and drink some of that brackish water, and I almost felt sorry for the guy. Some people just can’t catch a break in life, you know?

  A lot of people were already out on such a perfect morning, and most of them were giving the bum a wide berth. I hunched down in my seat, hoping that no one would spot my Crown Vic and flag me over to run the guy off. The light changed, and I released all my held breath in a whoosh of relief as I turned out of the danger zone. In the safety of my rearview mirror, I saw the bum finally stand up and shuffle off toward Moultrie Park. It was probably time for him to catch some sun on the ruined steps of the old Charleston Museum. I’ve got this scientific theory I’m working on that bums must really be cold blooded like snakes, since you always see them laying out and catching rays when the weather turns nice.

  Seeing the ruins of the Museum just kicked my good mood out from under me, though. The Old Charleston Museum, or the Old Charleston Library, or the Old Whatever-It-Used-To-Be-But- Isn’t-Much-Of-Anything-Anymore, was this building that burned or collapsed during a fire or earthquake or something more than a hundred years ago. The only part left standing was the four columns and the front steps and of course, the city could never bring themselves to knock those down because of the historic value. In my opinion, that’s why Charleston will always be a straight B-list city: the Board of Architectural Review would rather prop up the remains of an unsafe, decrepit old building than knock it down and put up something new. They’ve actually got some dumb law on the books prohibiting new buildings in the downtown peninsula from being any taller than the highest church steeple. To me, those old columns were nothing more than a reminder that I was getting older and still spinning my wheels, wasting my life helping to prop up a city which had reached its peak over 150 years before.