Deacon's Defender

by Pandora Pine

  DEACON’S DEFENDER

  By

  Pandora Pine

  Deacon’s Defender

  Copyright © Pandora Pine 2020

  All Rights Reserved

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, events, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First Digital Edition: July 2020

  Contents

  PROLOGUE 4

  1 8

  2 13

  3 17

  4 24

  5 27

  6 33

  7 37

  8 41

  9 44

  10 50

  11 53

  12 59

  13 65

  14 70

  15 73

  16 79

  17 84

  18 89

  19 94

  20 100

  21 105

  22 110

  23 114

  24 118

  25 125

  26 129

  27 134

  28 139

  29 143

  30 148

  31 156

  32 160

  EPILOGUE 164

  PROLOGUE

  Ozzy

  New Year’s Day 1998…

  How long does it take for a typical person to break their New Year’s resolution? A month? Six months? A week? Ten days? Nope, here in the Graves house, New Year’s resolutions last forty-five minutes, give or take a couple of seconds.

  Yesterday started with so much promise. My father, Paul Graves, came home from work with a giant bag of Chinese food from Jade Palace, my favorite restaurant. Usually, Dad came home with some catch of the day, courtesy of the fish packing plant he worked for out by Gloucester Harbor.

  “We’re celebrating tonight!” Dad said when I’d asked him about the Chinese food. If my calculation was correct, there was about two hundred dollars’ worth of food sitting on the table. I’d never seen this much food at once in my ten years on this planet. Not wanting to look a gift egg roll in the mouth, I’d eaten my fill; so much so, my stomach hurt.

  TBS was airing a Three Stooges marathon, starting at eight and running through the morning. I’d been looking forward to watching it in my room on the tiny black-and-white TV my father had picked up for me at a yard sale. It didn’t matter that the set was black-and-white. So were the Stooges.

  I didn’t want to be anywhere near him when the drinking started. Two cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon sat next to our dented refrigerator. Neither case had been opened yet, but I knew from experience that by the time I woke up tomorrow morning, both cases would be empty with the cans littering our apartment like toy soldiers after a mock battle.

  Try as I might, nothing I’d ever said or done made my father stop drinking. I might not be able to do anything to stop him, but I would be damned if I was going to sit in the living room and watch it all unfold. Sometimes Dad was hilarious when he first started knocking them back. Sometimes he’d get emotional about my mother, who’d died in a car crash five years ago. Those emotions didn’t last long as he got deeper into his first case of beer. He got ugly after that. Accusatory. Blaming me for everything that had gone wrong in his life from the cradle until the present moment. According to him, I was the root of ninety-five percent of his problems. The other five percent had to do with the fact that his own father hadn’t given him the time of day. He never seemed to grasp the hypocrisy in that, but I understood all too clearly.

  “Ozzy, my man,” he’d said, after we cleaned up from the Chinese food feast, “I have something important I want to talk to you about. Come sit.” He’d patted the seat next to him at the table, the one I knew had been my mother’s while she’d still been alive.

  “Yeah, Dad?” I slid into the chair, half my ass hanging off the seat, one foot on the floor in case I needed to make a quick getaway. I hadn’t smelled liquor on his breath, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t loaded himself up at the local bar before coming home with dinner. The more I thought about it, the more I realized my father being shit-faced was the only reason he would have come home with this much food for only two people.

  “I’m turning over a new leaf!” My father slapped a beefy hand against the kitchen table. “I’m finally going to do it! Tonight’s the night.”

  New leaf? What, was he going to switch from Pabst Blue Ribbon to Coors Light? I kept my mouth shut, knowing a wiseass comment like that was likely to earn me a slap to the side of the head. “Tonight’s the night for what?” I pasted on a fake smile and tried to sound as excited as I possibly could.

  “My New Year’s resolution is to stop drinking.” My father got up from the table and grabbed a worn shot glass from the dish rack. He’d bought it for himself the one time he’d taken me to Fenway Park in Boston. After so many uses and times through the dishwasher, the team logo and park were gone, washed away on a wave of booze, like so many of my memories.

  After picking up the glass, my father grabbed a bottle of Maker’s Mark, pouring himself a shot. Quitting drinking seemed to be at odds with the amber liquid filled to the rim of that shot glass. I kept my mouth shut. There was an entire carton of Chinese chicken wings in the refrigerator, and I wanted to snack on them later during the Stooges marathon. I wouldn’t be able to do that if my father hit me in the face and loosened my teeth.

  “This is it, Ozzy! This is my last drink! To you, Osbourne Van Halen Graves. To us!” He toasted me with the glass before knocking it back smoothly and slamming the glass down on the scarred kitchen table.

  I hate to say it, but I didn’t believe a word he said until he got up from the table, grabbed the bottle of whiskey, and dumped it all down the sink. My eyes widened, as I watched with horror as the final drops splashed against the yellowed porcelain sink. He was going to be fucking pissed later when he realized what he’d done.

  “First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll get rid of all this beer. Leave it in the building lobby or some shit like that. Then we’ll head over to the harbor to see the lights and ice sculptures. How does that sound?”

  The City of Gloucester had a holiday tradition of setting up an enormous Christmas tree made entirely from lobster traps. The massive structure was wrapped in white Christmas lights inside and out, and local schoolchildren colored ornaments to hang on it. It wasn’t so long ago that my ornaments hung on the tree, not that I’d ever been to see them. To celebrate New Year’s, artists with chain saws and blocks of ice would carve ice sculptures that looked like fish, crabs, and lobsters. I’d only ever seen them on television. Could it be possible this would be the first year I’d actually see them in person?

  “Sounds great, Daddy.” I ran to him, hugging him close. My dreams were finally going to come true.

  I actually believed that shit about my dreams coming true, right up until that moment at 12:45 a.m. when I heard the crack of a flip-top can opening. In that moment, I knew I would never believe another word out of my father’s mouth again. With tears wet against my face, I rolled over and fell asleep.

  “Ozzy! You dirty motherfucker!” My father screamed in my face, simultaneously waking me up and scaring the shit out of me. “Where the fuck is my whiskey?”

  I scrambled backward, lodging my body against the headboard and the corner wall, making myself as small as possible. “Y-You dumped it out, remember?”

  “No, I don’t fucking remember!” My father reached out, grabbing my shirt and yanking me toward him. The scents of sour beer and sweat washed over my face, turning my stomach. When I was close enough, he grabbed my left arm an
d dragged me out of bed. My body slammed hard against the dingy carpet while my arm ached from the vice-grip he used to hold me.

  My legs crashed into the doorjamb, as my father continued to drag me behind him. My calves would be bruised in the morning. Reaching the kitchen, he yanked me up to my full height and slammed me against the sink. “You fucking tell me why this bottle is empty!” As if for emphasis, he shoved the empty bottle of Maker’s Mark in my face, smacking my nose with the cold glass.

  I’d never seen my father this angry before. He still had hold of my upper arm. If he squeezed much harder, he was going to snap the bone. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. I knew he didn’t believe me when I told him he’d been the one to dump the whiskey down the drain. On the other hand, if I told him I drank it, I would be in for the beating of my life. In a split second, I chose my path. “You dumped it out, Daddy!” I screamed. “You said you were done drinking. You said you’d take me to see the ice sculptures in the morning. You promised! You promised me you were done. I hate you! I fucking hate you! I’d be better off living in some foster home!” I was screaming at the top of my lungs. Never before in my life had I taken a stand like this. “It’s not fucking fair! You promised you would change. You promised we would have a better life. You broke that promise. You always break your promises.” With all the strength I had, I yanked my arm away from him. I had almost gotten away when he grabbed me again at the last possible second, throwing me back against the sink, knocking the breath from my lungs.

  “This is all your fault! You killed your mother! Whining and bitching about wanting a Happy Meal for supper. You made her go out that night!” My father roared at me. Flecks of spittle and God knew what else hit my face. I felt as if I was wrapped in a beer cocoon. All I could smell was Pabst Blue Ribbon. “You want to go live in foster care, you little fucker? That’s fine with me!”

  The shattering of the whiskey bottle frightened me to the soles of my feet. Shards of glass rained down on my head and face. I could feel blood trickling down my right cheek. If I thought I’d been afraid by the sound of the breaking glass, that was nothing compared to having the broken end of the bottle shoved under my chin. The wicked sharp edges of glass cut into my skin.

  “Yeah, I’ll send you to fucking foster care all right! But it will be with something to remember me by!” My father’s eyes glowed red. I’d never seen him so angry in my entire life. He jabbed the bottle harder against the underside of my chin.

  I started screaming. Begging for my life. Begging for him to stop. Telling him I loved him. I screamed everything I could to make him stop what he was about to do. “Mom wouldn’t want you to do this!” I wailed.

  “Fuck you and fuck her too!” Pulling and yanking against the iron grip he had on my arm wasn’t helping me to get away. It only made him dig his fingers in deeper to the flesh of my upper arm. With one slash of his wrist, I felt the bottle cut the left side of my face. Blood flowed freely down my neck, soaking into my ripped T-shirt.

  As I slipped toward blessed unconsciousness, I could hear fists pounding at our front door. From the living room, I could hear a chorus of Auld Lang Syne. It was midnight in Chicago and fireworks were bursting over the Sears Tower.

  Here, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, it was an hour past midnight. Gone were my dreams for a brighter tomorrow. Gone was my family. Any minute now, I would be gone too.

  1

  Ozzy

  August…

  If it got any hotter in the firehouse, I was going to melt into a puddle. This was the fourth heat wave of the summer, meaning temperatures had topped ninety degrees for at least three days in a row. If I remember correctly, this is now day nine.

  “Captain Ozzy Graves? Any news on the Scorcher?” My foster brother, Dallas Hagan, asked as he threw himself into one of the chairs in front of my desk. He was dressed in his paramedic uniform.

  I frowned, causing the scar on the left side of my face to twist. “No. There’s no goddamned news on that son of a bitch.” Ordinarily, I wasn’t so grumpy with my younger brother, but these were far from ordinary times.

  The Scorcher was an arsonist who’d been plaguing the City of Gloucester with fires since the spring. Responsible for setting twenty blazes and killing four people, they were still at large. Not only was the arsonist responsible for the damage he was doing to the community, but he was also responsible for damage done to Firehouse Three. Back in June, the widower and father of three of The Scorcher’s victims had taken the fire station hostage, with disastrous results. Lost in the confrontation, was one of my paramedics. Since it was too painful to think of permanently replacing our fallen colleague, I was hiding out in my office and letting the paramedics figure out this week’s schedule without me.

  “I don’t understand how this fucker has set so many fires and we haven’t been able to track him down yet.” Dallas scrubbed a hand through his bright red hair.

  The last thing I needed were my brothers hanging around the station. Last week it had been Kennedy sent here to babysit me. This week it was obviously Dallas’s turn. I just wanted to be left alone, but none of my four foster brothers were getting the message. “Why are you here? Don’t you have a job to do?”

  “I’m doing it.” Dallas smirked at me.

  “What the hell do you mean, you’re doing it? You’re sitting in my office annoying the fuck out of me. How the hell is that doing your job?” Dallas had been a member of Firehouse One for the last ten years.

  Dallas’s smirk stretched into a smile. “It’s an employee’s job to annoy the piss out of his boss. I should be up for Employee of the Month after this meeting.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Oh, Christ… It hit me all at once. “You’re my new medic, aren’t you?” The chief had sent me several emails about filling the vacant paramedic position. I’d instantly consigned them to the trash. Dallas must be payback for my stubbornness.

  Getting up from his seat, Dallas shut the office door. “Speaking as your brother and your friend, I know how hard the last few months have been on you. We’ve all seen the physical toll. You’re not eating. Not sleeping. Not living.”

  “You’re not my mother, Dallas.” I knew I had one toe on the line with my hasty remark. I’d met Dallas, and the rest of the McCoy family, after getting stitched up at the Gloucester Mercy Emergency Room that awful New Year’s morning when I was ten years old. Mandy McCoy had been in the room with me, holding my hand while the plastic surgeon did what he could with the ruined left side of my face. I thought she was some kind of nurse or social worker, when in fact, she turned out to be my saving grace.

  “No, I’m not your mother. I’m your lifeline.” Dallas extended his hand.

  I flinched at those words. Mandy had said that exact thing to me after I’d melted down in the hospital, not wanting to leave with this strange new family. Eventually, I’d taken Mandy’s hand that night, changing the course of my life. Was I brave enough now to do the same thing?

  Standing up from my desk, I approached my brother. His usual frown was firmly in place. Dallas didn’t give an inch, not that I expected him to. He was the toughest S.O.B. I’d ever known, never one to back down from a fight. Instead of swinging on Dallas, I pulled him in for a tight hug. “I’m so lost,” I whispered, finally giving voice to my shredded feelings.

  Dallas held me tight. “No, you’re not. You’re right here.” He pulled back to look me in the eyes. “Let me help you. I’m not a replacement. I’m a concerned brother lending a hand. Telling the guys that I’m temporary will make it easier on all of them. Maybe on you too. When the time is right, we’ll find a new paramedic together. What do you say?”

  Nodding briefly, I stepped back from Dallas. The thing I loved most about my brother was his way of playing peacemaker. He was the smallest out of us all, only five-ten, but Dallas was always the first one to wave a flag of truce or insist his brothers make peace over whatever small squabble was causing us to fight.

  “Who
se idea was this? Yours or the chief’s?” I supposed it didn’t make a difference either way. Dallas was here and he was here to stay, and that was that.

  “It was mine,” Dallas said casually. “I’d been hearing rumors that he was going to saddle you with the greenest rookie in the Gloucester Emergency Services. I knew the last thing you needed was a baby medic, with the ink still wet on his certification. I’m the sacrificial lamb.” Dallas waggled his eyebrows.

  My brother had a point. I had very little patience for anyone right now. The only thing worse than getting a replacement paramedic would be getting one I, and the other members of the firehouse, would have to spend time training. Dallas had ten years’ experience. The members of my firehouse knew and loved him from the Sunday dinners I was famous for hosting in the firehouse kitchen. A kitchen which had remained empty since the incident. “You’re right. I would have struggled with a newbie.”

  “You’re going to struggle with me too, Oz. I’m not here to hold your hand or baby you. Life as you know it here at Firehouse Three is over. Everything changes today.” His smile gone, a look of determination shone in his eyes.

  I opened my mouth to argue but snapped my jaws together when Dallas held up a hand to stop me. It seemed I had a little patience left, after all.

  “One last thing, we’re bringing back Sunday dinners. I’ll cook, if I have to, or I’ll let Gunnar loose in the kitchen. Rumor has it he’s been practicing at home.”

  “He’s practicing something at home, but it isn’t cooking.” Gunnar Prince was the newest member of the firehouse. I’d brought him on after he’d set his own house on fire cooking a hamburger. Gunnar also happened to be Kennedy’s shiny new fiancé. “That boy isn’t stepping one foot in my kitchen.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Dallas laughed. “I brought groceries with me. I’m dying for your seven-alarm chili and cornbread.”

  “Seven-alarm chili? Christ, Dallas, it’s nearly a hundred degrees outside. The guys will revolt.” I’d missed those Sunday suppers, and hell, the firehouse had central air.