A Vicious Balance: A Mystery Thriller

by Jolyon Hallows

  A Vicious Balance

  Jolyon Hallows

  Books by Jolyon Hallows

  Non-Fiction

  Information Systems Project Management

  The Project Management Office Toolkit

  A Parkinson’s Life: And a Caregiver’s Roadmap

  Fiction

  The Collapse

  https://www.jhallows.com

  This is a work of fiction.

  All names, places, characters, and incidents are entirely imaginary, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without written permission of the author.

  A Vicious Balance

  Copyright © 2021 by Jolyon Hallows

  Contact: jhallows@jhallows.com

  Publisher’s address and contact information:

  WCS Publishing

  4210 Rumble Street

  Burnaby, BC V5J 1Z8

  Canada

  604-683-0767

  ISBN-13:

  978-1-7778320-1-8 (Softcover book)

  978-1-7778320-0-1 (Kindle format e-book)

  978-1-7778320-2-5 (EPUB format e-book)

  Editing by Joyce Gram

  Cover design by Tatiana Vila

  First edition August 2021

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Nick and Bev

  Prolog

  May 2006

  The young man leaned against a wall, his eyes half closed, his breathing rapid. Nobody clustered around the bus stop took notice of him or wondered about the jacket he was wearing in the searing summer heat.

  A bus arrived. A few people shoved their way off. The passengers began to cram in. The young man eased toward the bus. Hesitant. His steps tentative. Then, as if having made a decision, he squared his shoulders, stepped aboard the bus, and pushed toward the middle.

  He stood, his head lowered as if in preparation for a challenge. Then he took a deep breath and threw open his jacket. A set of pouches encircled his chest. A button hung by a wire. He shouted “Allahu Akbar,” closed his eyes, and jammed his thumb onto the button. The bus jerked to a stop. Screaming. Panic. People dropped to the floor. Threw themselves behind other passengers. Scrambled toward the ends of the bus. As far from the man as the fraction of a second left to them would permit. All awaited death.

  Nothing.

  The man opened his eyes. The bus, still whole. The passengers, still living. His body, still intact. He screamed. His thumb beat a tattoo on the button. The passengers, recovering now, allowed themselves the luxury of recognizing they were alive before they turned on the man. When the police arrived, there was little left of him but the pouches. The passengers had avoided stamping on those.

  1

  Five years later. May 2011

  “Brouer Foundation for the Wrongly Convicted.” The sign, stenciled on a strip of wood, sat nailed above a weathered door. Gord Travathan wheeled his rental car into the gap between two lines of paint that had once been solid before time and weather eroded them. The building was a single story, its stucco yellowed with age. Travathan unfolded himself from the car, slammed the door, and scowled. He had booked a car that would accommodate his six feet, but when his flight landed, this econobox was all they had. At least the air conditioning worked.

  Travathan studied the sign and sighed. Max Kagan was his best friend. Coming here without visiting him was unthinkable. But friendship imposes obligations. Travathan feared that Max would drag him into another of his crusades, an appeal he couldn’t refuse even if the first one had destroyed his career.

  Travathan, an ex-cop, had met Kagan several years earlier, before disillusionment, or perhaps enlightenment, had derailed their life plans. They had been friends since. Travathan looked like a cop, or at least like a cop is supposed to look, someone whose fitness is a byproduct of his life and not the result of some workout regimen. Kagan, six inches shorter than Travathan, looked like someone who had never heard of workouts. Travathan had once asked his friend, only partly in mockery, when he was going to a gym. Kagan had replied, completely in mockery, that he’d go when gyms offered couches and curvaceous hostesses who would feed him tidbits. Travathan said, “You don’t need a gym, you need an owner.”

  The two men shared that they were loners. Neither had married, nor even come close. One evening after they had demolished most of a bottle of single malt scotch, Kagan said, “I was going to get married, but I decided against it.”

  “Why? She wouldn’t feed you tidbits?”

  “No. Because of my socks.”

  “Your socks? You mean the things you wear on your feet that sometimes match?”

  “My socks,” Kagan said. “One day, I moved in with a woman who I figured was the one. Until she did the laundry. When she folded my socks, she looped them together. I showed her how I preferred them. I want each sock drawn down over the foot so that I can just slip them on. That’s how my mother did it. She got annoyed and snapped that life was too short. That’s when I realized this relationship wouldn’t last.”

  “Because she wouldn’t fold your socks right? Are you serious? You never thought of folding them yourself?”

  “It wasn’t just the socks. They were a message. I’ve spent a lot of years creating my comfortable habits. I’d rather keep them than have some stranger replace them with hers.”

  Travathan nodded. His comfortable habit was the clutter on his bedside table that anyone else would want to tidy up, but that held the things he could find in an instant.

  They had one other difference. Travathan viewed the world as a curiosity, a collection of people and events he could analyze with the detachment of an investigator. Kagan didn’t understand what detachment meant. He didn’t take on causes, he immersed himself in them. When acid rain dominated the headlines, he had become an enthusiast. All he would talk about was the havoc it would wreak if society didn’t act. Travathan, curious about what had gripped his friend, did some research and laid out the discrepancies between the extreme claims of some of the environmentalists and the reality. Kagan had been furious, but the next day, his interest in the topic had vanished, only to be replaced by the next passion. But after the case that had destroyed Travathan’s career, he found one that lasted, one that had driven him for the past ten years. The Brouer Foundation for the Wrongly Convicted.

  The reception area was furnished in a style Travathan had once called recycledom, a reflection of Max’s attitude that cheap beats functional. The only adornment was half a dozen photos of men embracing family members, their faces alive with grins, standing outside walls topped by coils of barbed wire. The photos were a testament to the persistence of the Foundation that had freed them.

  The wall also held letters written to the editor of the local newspaper. Kagan, who had given up his career as a journalist to run the Foundation, regarded diplomacy as a sign of weakness. He had become an irritant in the media, so much so that the paper had declined to publish any of his letters in a futile attempt to silence him. That didn’t stop him from hanging them on his wall.

  Travathan paused to read the latest missive.

  “Can’t get enough of good writing, I see.” Kagan stood at the end of the hall.

  Without looking up, Travathan said, “I’m just curious about the career of a journalist who couldn’t even get a letter to the editor published.”

  They clasped hands. Kagan led Travathan back to his office. “So what challenge brings you to town this time? Some wife suspects her husband is cheating on her while he’s on a business trip and she wants pictures?”

  “Max, you are so out of date. I no longe
r deal with such sordid trivia. My client is a wife who suspects her wife is cheating on her on a business trip and she wants pictures.”

  “Ah, why not. Along with gay marriage comes gay cheating, gay divorce, gay alimony, and of course, detective fees. She didn’t insist on a gay detective?”

  “She didn’t ask.” Travathan entered Kagan’s office, gaped at the pile of folders stacked on the desk, and said, “Whoa. Business must be great.”

  Kagan grimaced and said, “The newspaper article.”

  “Yeah. I read that. Not bad. They even spelled Kelly Brouer’s name right. It seems to have gotten you a lot of attention.”

  Kagan handed a slim file to Travathan and said, “Like this?”

  The folder contained a single sheet of foolscap scribbled in pencil.

  Dear Mr. Brower,

  I read where you get off guys who been wrongly convicted. That’s me. I’m doin time for rape. I shouldn’t be here because my public defender wouldn’t try to get some kind of plea. I know lots of guys who done what I done and got way less time than me. It’s not fair and I want you guys to go the court and get me off. I figure I done enough time now and I want out.

  The letter ended with a scrawl Travathan couldn’t read. “Well, aside from getting Brouer’s name wrong and admitting to the crime and blaming his lawyer, I’d say this guy is your kind of candidate.”

  “You did notice that I pulled his folder out of the reject basket.”

  Travathan laughed. “Well, you’re bound to get a lot of crap. Surely there are some possibilities in that pile.”

  Kagan hesitated. “Actually, Gord, there is a case I could use your advice on. Would you mind having a look at it and tell me what you think?”

  Travathan suppressed the concern he’d felt even before he came through the door. “What? The famed Kagan intuition has failed him?”

  “The Kagan intuition is pointing both ways. There’s something here that doesn’t feel right. There’s a kid in prison for life. First degree murder. Happened three years ago. When I look at the file, something doesn’t sit well, but I can’t put my finger on it.” He picked up a folder, thick with paperwork, and said, “Could you have a quick look?”

  Travathan hefted the folder. “This is going to cost you more than lunch.”

  “I know. I’ve booked a table at the burger joint next door for dinner. We smuggle in our own wine.”

  Travathan forced himself to take the folder, cursing the fate that tied him to his best friend. The one he couldn’t refuse. He left the office, immersed in the file.

  2

  Three years earlier. May 2008

  Sherry Galina could feel her heart thumping, her muscles tense, her stomach in turmoil.

  Was it fear?

  This was her plan and if it went wrong, her brothers and sisters in the organization would not be pleased. And their judgment was harsh.

  Or was it lust?

  She studied herself in a mirror. A nightie, cut low in the front with a bow between her breasts, clung to her waist, stopping just below the swell of her hips. She examined herself in the mirror and tightened the knot of the bow to emphasize her breasts. She scowled. They were just glands, but any slug with a pulse would be wetting himself to get his hands on them. But shameful though it was, her mission was stronger than her contempt. Or was it her appetite?

  Intercepting the mailman on his route had been harder than she had expected. She could have waited in the garden, but she didn’t want to approach him within view of her neighbors. He would stride across her lawn, and by the time she could reach the front door, he had dumped a stack of letters and flyers into the mailbox and was halfway to the next house. So she wrapped a brick and mailed it to herself, paying for two-day delivery. Two days was now.

  The doorbell rang. Heart pounding, she assumed a pose, breasts thrust forward, one hip pushed out, and opened the door. A stocky woman in a postal uniform held the parcel. Her eyes surveyed Galina, her face moving from surprise to disdain. The woman handed over the parcel and a clipboard. Galina fumbled and dropped the parcel and scribbled her signature. The woman shook her head and walked back to her van.

  Sherry Galina slumped against the door, cursing. Why hadn’t she thought of it? Letter carriers didn’t deliver parcels. She bent over to pick up the useless package when she heard a tread on the steps. She slid into her pose as his eyes flicked a triangle over her body, the hint of a stirring beneath his shorts. She told him this parcel had arrived, but she had twisted her back, and it was heavy. Could he carry it in for her? He picked up the parcel and asked her where she wanted him to put it. She tugged at the bow letting the nightie fall to the floor and told him to use his imagination.

  One down.

  A week passed. The mailman had taken to stopping by every day whether she had mail or not. It was time for the second step.

  She drove to the supermarket where a beggar normally squatted beside the door. His clothes were torn, his beard flecked with remnants of meals past, his hands and face smeared with dirt. The first few times she had seen him, she wondered why the supermarket manager hadn’t chased him away. Perhaps because the beggar never accosted anyone and even rounded up shopping carts, he had acquired squatter’s rights.

  But today, when she needed him, he wasn’t there. She felt a pang of fear. Where was he? What if he was gone for good? Who would replace him? This could destroy her plans. She stood in the parking lot, her mind whirling with indecision, with confusion. But mostly from a rising panic of having to report that she had failed. Her first mission and she had failed.

  A man came from around the building and strode across the parking lot to a nearby coffee bar. He was tall and trim, striding with authority, the muscles of his arms and chest swelling beneath his shirt. There was something familiar about him. She didn’t recognize him, but curiosity, fueled by an insight, led her around the side of the building.

  Next to a dumpster, a box held a wig of greasy hair. A cap with the logo of some sports team clinging by a few threads. Stained clothes with worn patches and shredded seams. She tried to reconcile the pathetic beggar pleading for change with the vigor of the man striding across the parking lot. She felt relief mixed with a surge of appetite. It was one thing to have a goal, another to revel in pursuing it.

  Her shopping done, she walked into the coffee shop, slipped into the restroom, and removed her bra. She crossed to where he sat reading a book, half a cup of coffee and a plate with a few crumbs in front of him. She dropped a dollar on the table. He glanced at it, shrugged, and told her he’d been busted before. She took the book from his hands, wrote her address on the flyleaf, and said she was blackmailing him. She expected his service at her home this and every afternoon. She leaned forward and undid the top buttons of her blouse. She let his eyes linger for a few seconds and told him the rest of her would be waiting.

  Two down.

  ————

  Jake Handley was in love.

  He had first seen her as he passed by her house shortly after she moved in. She was kneeling on a piece of foam rubber and digging with a trowel in a flower bed. But it wasn’t the flowers that seized his attention. She wore a halter top that ended just below the swell of her breasts, and a pair of stretch shorts that started well below the tautness of her abdomen. He had ducked behind an oak tree that fronted her yard and watched her digging in the earth of the flower bed, patting flowers and shrubs into place. Beneath the fabric that strained to cover her, he could see no lines that revealed anything underneath, only the movements of her body and the tightening of her buttocks as she shifted her position.

  She stood and stretched. Her arms and breasts raised to the sky, her body an arc of muscle and flesh. She picked up the foam rubber and trowel and glided her way toward the house. He watched her hips and calves and thighs move her up the steps to the front door. Only when she had entered the house, when the click of the door latch signaled the finality of her departure, did he realize he had forgotten to breathe
.

  Each day after that, he made it a point to pass her house, to hide himself behind the oak, and to watch her create a tapestry of colors from the yard that its previous owners had treated as an inconvenience. He found out her name was Sherry Galina. Mrs. Sherry Galina. Mrs. As in Married. Restricted. Stay away. Oh, he had heard there were men to whom marital vows were mere nuisances in their pursuit of a night’s recreation. Jake Handley wasn’t one of them, but his restraint didn’t arise from any moral sense, he just didn’t know what to do. He was, after all, only fifteen. So each day, after he watched her sway across the lawn and into her house, he would mount his bike and pedal for home. Hard. Luxuriating in the feel of his thighs massaging his erection.

  ————

  Galina was frustrated. This next step was proving more difficult than she had expected. Part of her begrudged some admiration for her adversary, but mostly, she was angry, unable to relax into the focus on her garden. She knew who her target was. She congratulated herself that she had learned that much. But knowledge was not enough for the next step. She needed a tactic, but nothing she could think of would work.

  A movement caught her eye. There was someone behind a tree, watching her. She called out. No reply. She called again, this time with anger. A boy in his mid-teens slunk out from behind the tree. She gaped at him, barely able to suppress a rising cheer. Sometimes, you get lucky. She couldn’t spook him. This demanded finesse. She beckoned him to come to her. He eased across the lawn, his face a combination of apprehension. And lust. Even expecting a reprimand, he couldn’t stop his eyes from scanning her body. He reached the flower bed and stood, awaiting his punishment. She pointed at a boulder her digging had uncovered and asked him if he could help her move it. He looked at her in surprise and nodded.