Eden Bound

by Darrell Maloney

  The killer almost immediately realized he’d gone way too far. He handed the bartender the bloody knife and sat in a corner of the bar, head in hands, crying until the police showed up.

  Over and over, he kept saying, “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

  But sorry didn’t cut it. Not when another man lay dead in a puddle of blood senselessly shed.

  There was a barroom of witnesses. Surveillance cameras captured the whole thing. And the killer confessed to the first officer on the scene. Told to shut up and listen, he did so. His Miranda rights were read to him, he waived them and confessed again.

  This was what homicide detectives called a “quickie.”

  It was open and shut. There would be no long drawn out investigation. No endless series of witnesses to interview. No long list of possible suspects to interrogate. No weeks-long trial or endless appeals.

  Homicide detectives called it a “quickie” because once all the statements were taken, once all the witnesses were recorded, once the reports were filed, the case was considered closed.

  It was the homicide equivalent of finding a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk on your way to work.

  It seldom got any better than that.

  Frank remembered back when he used the term “quickie” at a staff meeting.

  His new lieutenant, freshly transferred in from the Robbery Division, was a looker. Tall and thin, with all the right curves in all the right places. It was impossible not to notice.

  After introductions, the new lieutenant thanked the group for the warm welcome she was given and said she looked forward to working with each and every detective.

  Then she asked each detective to give her a rundown on the cases they were working on.

  When Frank’s turn came around he said, “I just wrapped up a double homicide, turned it over to the D.A. yesterday. We have him dead to rights. He’s confessed to avoid the death penalty. He’ll never see the light of day again.”

  His new boss was impressed. Frank would have scored some brownie points if it had gone no further.

  But Lieutenant Cutie Pie asked him, “Good work, detective. So what’s next for you?”

  Frank said, “Right now, ma’am, I could really use a quickie. I’m so stressed after the last couple of cases I could use some relief.”

  The room suddenly fell silent.

  It was then and there that Frank realized he was getting old.

  And that the younger detectives and the lieutenant understood the term “quickie” to have more than one meaning. Something having absolutely nothing to do with homicide cases.

  That was in Bexar County, Texas some years before. Everyone got a good laugh at Frank’s expense, but no permanent harm was done. Frank and the lieutenant ended up having an excellent working relationship and were still good friends, even after he made the move east to Washington.

  And she still liked ribbing him about it every chance she got.

  The bar murder was a two day case at most. He could stretch it out to three just by taking his time doing the reports if he wanted to.

  Frank was a two finger typer. In his early days in homicide it took him days to do reports. In those days he had an IBM Selectric, considered the Cadillac of typewriters. But for a detective who typed with two fingers, and who wasn’t the best speller in the world, it still took a while.

  Department policy was that any report which had more than three corrections per page had to be redone.

  And retyping a page that was three quarters done before the fourth mistake was struck was the pits.

  Frank tried whiteout to hide some of the errors, but his supervisors wouldn’t accept it.

  Then he tried pretending his words weren’t misspelled, but his bosses caught those as well.

  Frank, more than anybody else in the department, was happy when typewriters went the way of the dinosaurs and personal computers started showing up on each man’s desk.

  But he still typed with two fingers.

  And it still took forever to type his reports.

  So even after drawing a quickie case it took Frank two days, maybe three, to get everything typed up and submitted to the Assistant District Attorney.

  But that was okay. He was back on the firing line, where he belonged.

  Back doing what he loved to do… solving murders and throwing bad people in jail.

  Making the streets safer for the good guys.

  He was back in his element and happy as a clam.

  That was about to change.

  *************************

  If you enjoyed

  Final Dawn Book 19:

  Return to Eden

  you might also enjoy

  Countdown to Armageddon

  Available now at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble Booksellers.

  *************************

  Scott Harter wasn’t special by anybody’s standards. He wasn’t a handsome guy at all. He wasn’t dumb, but he’d never win a Nobel Prize either. He had no hidden talents, although he fancied himself a fairly good karaoke singer.

  His friends didn’t necessarily share that opinion, but what did they know?

  No, if those friends were tasked to choose one word to describe Scott Harter that word might well be “average.”

  If Scott excelled at one thing, it was that he was a very good businessman. And he was also a lot luckier than most.

  And it was that combination – his penchant for making a buck and being lucky, that led him here on this day to the Guerra Public Library on the west side of San Antonio.

  To research what he believed was the pending collapse of mankind.

  Twenty three years earlier, Scott had done two things that would change his life forever. Even back then, he was just an average Joe. He’d had plans to become a doctor, but his average grades weren’t cutting it. So he dropped out of college halfway through his junior year.

  He’d have loved to have married a beauty queen, but his average looks certainly did nothing to attract any. Neither did his average amount of charm. So instead he started dating Linda Amparano, who was a sweet girl but somewhat average herself. They seemed to make a perfect, if slightly vanilla, couple.

  The second thing Scott did that year was buy a dilapidated self-storage unit on the north side of San Antonio. It was one of those places where people rent lockers to store their things when their garages have run out of space. Or their kids go off to college. Or when they just accumulate so many things that they’ve run out of room to put them all.

  Pat, the guy who sold the property to Scott, was a friendly enough sort, but not a businessman at all. He didn’t understand some of the basic principles of running such an operation.

  Not that Scott was an expert. At least back then he wasn’t.

  But even back then, Scott knew the value of curb appeal, and that a fresh paint job and a few repairs could attract a few more customers. And a few more customers would help supply money for advertising, and special offers, and long-term lease discounts. No brainers, actually.

  So by the end of that year, two things happened. Scott had turned around the business and turned it into a money-making operation. And he married Linda.

  The pair said their vows on December 17th of that year. It was bitterly cold that day. The coldest December 17th on record for that part of Texas.

  If the cold was an omen, though, neither of them saw it. If either of them had, and had gotten cold feet, their lives would be so much different today.

  But they just laughed it off, as young couples in love are wont to do. And they went ahead with their nuptials and started their lives together and never looked back at that cold day in December when they ran headlong into a marriage that shouldn’t have happened.

  The marriage lasted nine years. It produced two great sons, so there was that. And Scott and Linda remained friends. That was something else. So there was a good legacy, of sorts, left behind by their mistake that cold December day.r />
  Scott adored his boys. There was Jordan, his oldest, who was intelligent and talented and a bit of a goofball. And there was Zachary, who Scott was convinced would someday become a scientist or a highly successful engineer. Zach was always taking things apart and making other things with them. His curious mind never stopped working, and he loved exploring new things and new ideas. Zach was sweeter than a bucket of molasses. He was everybody’s best friend.

  Yes, Scott was lucky as a father. No problems with his boys at all.

  He was also lucky in that he lived in Texas at the time of the divorce. Texas wasn’t an alimony state. So he wasn’t saddled with monster alimony payments like his brother in Atlanta was. His brother Mike was divorced the same year as Scott, and was ordered by the court to pay forty percent of his before-tax income to a wife who had cheated on him multiple times.

  No, Scott had no such problem. He paid child support, of course, and was always on time with it. And he doted on his boys and bought them nice things.

  But since he didn’t have to pay alimony, he was able to take that money instead and use it to build his business.

  After the first storage facility was turning a healthy profit, he was able to buy a second. Then a third. And with each one he followed the same business model. He’d do some cosmetic improvements to attract a few more customers. Then he’d turn that additional income into air time on the local radio station, or ads in the local paper. Getting the word out drew more customers, which in turn would supply more money for special deals and discounts. Which would provide more money for another new facility.

  It was a business model that had served him well.

  And now, twenty three years later, Scott Harter owned a chain of thirty one storage facilities spread throughout San Antonio and nearby Houston.

  So even though he wasn’t as handsome as a movie star, and would never be a candidate to join Mensa, he was doing all right. And that was good enough for him.

  Linda had remarried within a year. The marriage only lasted two years and was full of problems. She waited a bit longer to marry her third husband, and the third time seemed to be the charm for her. The third husband, Tony, was a good man, who treated Linda and the boys well. At least it appeared that way to Tony. He didn’t know that since their divorce, Linda had gotten very good at putting on airs and keeping secrets. Keeping the ugly truth from Scott made it easier for Scott and Tony to be casual friends. Scott eventually found out that Tony was a con man and a user, who’d taken Linda for pretty much everything she had.

  It was Scott who helped her get back on her feet. She banished Tony from her life, and swore off marriage forever.

  From that point on, Linda chose a life less complicated. A life with an endless stream of boyfriends who didn’t provide a sense of stability. But they were a lot easier to get rid of when they didn’t work out.

  Their boys had been brought up in a stable environment, which meant they were well behaved and relatively problem free. Neither of them ever got into drugs, or ran away from home. Neither of them had gone to jail, or left a string of broken hearts. Both of them were good kids, who had bright futures ahead of them. Or so they thought. Actually, there were problems ahead, which none of them knew about, but which their father would soon discover.

  Yes, all in all, Scott was a lucky man, despite his being just an average guy. And he was living a pretty comfortable life.

  But not for long.