15 Signs Of Murder (Fifteen thrillers)

by Luis Samways

  I stepped into my apartment and let the door swing shut behind me. I bent down and switched on the portable heater that sat in the open-plan living area. It ticked and buzzed for a couple of seconds and then kicked into gear. The heat hit my feet and warmed them up. I flung my shoes off and flexed my toes as the heat hugged my feet into circulation.

  “Ah, that’s the good stuff,” I said as I cracked my neck and stood there for a few more seconds.

  My relaxation didn’t last long. I heard my cell go off inside my jacket.

  “Goddamn it,” I said, reaching into my jacket and pulling the vibrating phone out. It buzzed in my hand as I flipped the screen and put it to my ear.

  “Frank,” I muttered, still enjoying the toasty feet that I now possessed.

  “Hey, Frank, it’s Shaw. You got to come down to the station. We need to talk,” I heard him say on the other end of the cell.

  “Do I have to? I’ve had a long day. I just came back from the psychiatrist. Can’t you go and annoy somebody else?” There was a pause on the other end. “Anybody there?” I said in frustration.

  “Just come down, Frank, you’re needed. Don’t make me go down there and drag you out myself,” Shaw said, soon hanging up.

  “Great,” I sneered, flipping the screen on my phone back shut and shoving it in my inside jacket pocket. I wasn’t in the mood to do any overtime, but I knew that whatever Shaw needed from me, it must have been important. He sounded agitated on the phone, so I decided I would oblige and make my way down there. Not before having a shot or two of whiskey. That was for sure.

  ***

  Twenty-five minutes later I was getting out of my car and being greeted by more brutal wind in my face. To say I was unhappy would be an injustice as to how angry I was. I would had been just fine drinking some whiskey and watching a movie on TV, but no, I had to come back to the department because Shaw wanted to talk. I didn’t know what he wanted to talk about, but I wasn’t paid to come in for chats — I was paid to solve crimes. And judging by the lack of information as to why he wanted to see me, I took a guess that it wasn’t work-related. Not a murder case, anyway. So I immediately felt as if my time was being wasted. It didn’t stop me from showing up, though; I was always a constant professional. You had to be if you wanted to stay employed. No use bitching and moaning about it. I was free to do so in thought, but I wasn’t going to outright tell anybody they were wasting my time. I knew Shaw wouldn’t appreciate that sort of honesty.

  I strolled down the parking lot and made my way into the precinct. The lights inside dazed me a little. It took me a while to make sense of my surroundings, but soon enough my vision was back to normal. I walked down the hallway and into the main offices. There were a few late-shift workers typing away on their computers, but I wasn’t there to look at other people work. I walked up the stairwell that led to the Chief’s office and knocked on the door two times. I was on a mission, or at least it felt that way. I had a purpose – a goal on my mind. I wanted to know who was dragging me out of my home on one of the coldest nights I had ever witnessed and asking me to show up at the precinct without an explanation. I wanted to know what purpose this served other than to make me angry.

  The door opened, and Shaw stood in the doorway, grim-faced. I knew it must be bad, or he wouldn’t be wearing a frown like that. I stepped in without hesitation, and he shut the door behind me. I sat down without invitation, and he did the same. We stared at each other for a while. He could see I was itching to know what was going on. I didn’t hold back on making my wishes known.

  “What’s going on? Why the long face?” I asked, grabbing a lighter from my pocket and lighting a cigarette. I blew a few smoke rings and put the lighter down on Shaw’s desk. He grabbed it and lit up a cigar.

  “It’s about Ricardo. He’s saying he paid you five grand to keep quiet about you lending him the gun. He’s implicating you in Larry’s murder,” Shaw finally said.

  I shrugged my shoulders and took another drag of my cigarette.

  “That doesn’t come as a surprise to me, boss. Guilty people usually implicate other people to soften their time in prison. You reckon it’s the first time in history somebody has implicated me in something I didn’t do?”

  Shaw nodded his head and took another drag on his cigar.

  “That isn’t the point, Frank. He’s implicating you, and we need to investigate it. Innocent until proven guilty.”

  I scrunched my eyes a little as I tried to work out exactly what Shaw was trying to say.

  “Who you referring to? Me or him?”

  “Both of you. Innocent until proven guilty — it works both ways, Frank. In the meantime, though, I need to follow protocol, and that entails me suspending you from work. It’s what I’m obligated to do. I can’t have someone who is being investigated for murder working on homicide cases,” Shaw said without much sympathy.

  “So that’s it, then? I’m automatically put in the same boat as him? I’m already guilty of murder?”

  Shaw shook his head, this time showing me a little bit of sympathy.

  “Of course not, Frank. We’ll investigate his claims and then come to a conclusion. I don’t need to tell you that if you are found guilty, then it could mean you spend time in prison,” Shaw said.

  I got up from my seat and balled my fists up. I was reeling in anger. I couldn’t believe the Chief dragged me down here to tell me that I’m being investigated for the murder of one of our own. After all that B.S about me doing the right thing and not being a rat.

  “This is horseshit! You told me to tell you what happened - and I did. You know where I was that night — I was with you investigating a damn sex-trafficking case. Are you just trying to make me quit? Do you want me gone or something? First you tell me to do the right thing, and now I’m being dubbed a murderer! Fuck you, Shaw,” I said, feeling the anger boil over. My veins felt as if they were about to melt away and the blood that was contained in them was going to come bursting out of every orifice and pore in my body.

  “No, Frank, I don’t want you gone,” Shaw said in a calm voice, still sitting behind his desk. “I just want you to know that I believe in you. I believe that you didn’t do shit other than try to protect another officer’s ass. You did do the right thing, and I’ll go out on a limb here to declare you innocent before your peers. Just know that my word isn’t shit. We need to do an investigation, or the case on Ricardo won’t stand and we’ll be letting somebody walk. Surely you understand, don’t you?”

  I sat back down after a few seconds of seething anger. I calmed myself and sighed loudly. I think Shaw could see that he had gotten through to me. Maybe he was right, but I still didn’t like the idea of being investigated for a cop killing.

  “I didn’t know anything aside from the fact that he borrowed my gun. I didn’t even know he used it until I found out that ballistics had matched the bullet found in Larry’s neck to my weapon. And even then I thought that there must have been some sort of mistake. I just don’t understand how all of this happened. You’re supposed to trust your fellow cops, not suspect them of murdering people.”

  Shaw nodded his head and gave me a sympathetic smile.

  “Everything will work out just fine, Frank. Just take some time off, get your head straight, and come back stronger. You’ll be found innocent. Of that I’m sure. Just know that we will need to do some digging, that’s all. Your life will be scrutinized by law enforcement. So just know that, okay? We’ll be checking bank records and cash deposits to match up Ricardo’s story, but obviously we won’t find any money that shouldn’t be there, will we?”

  I couldn’t believe that he was straight-out asking me that question. I got back up, ready to shout at the top of my lungs, but decided to take the high ground.

  “No, you won’t find any money,” I said.

  “Good, now get back home and rest up. Everything should be sorted soon. In the meantime, take some time out. Visit your psychiatrist if you want to get stuff off your chest
. From this point forward, you aren’t allowed any contact with anybody from the precinct. We have internal investigations running this case, and we can’t be seen talking to you. That’s why I called you and told you to come here, give you a heads-up on the situation so the investigation doesn’t catch you off guard,” Shaw said, toking on his cigar once more. “I know you’ve had a rough time, Frank. Just know that I’m here for you, okay, buddy?”

  I nodded my head and shook his hand. I knew that I wouldn’t be seeing anybody from the precinct anytime soon. I was all by myself until the powers-that-be decided my fate. It didn’t exactly thrill me to think that I might go to prison, but I remember clearly thinking that I’d be fine, because I didn’t do anything wrong. I did the right thing, remember?

  Five

  “You can’t keep doing this to us, Frank. You can’t keep going out in the middle of the night and not returning until sunset the next day. It isn’t how marriages work. We won’t survive like this. We won’t last like this,” I heard her voice say, and then I woke up, covered in sweat, struggling to breathe.

  I sat up as the sweat poured down my face, drenching my eyebrows, nearly sticking my eyelashes together. At first I found it hard to see, but then the light slowly flooded into my vision, and the black spot I woke up with draped across my right eye disappeared. I blinked a few times, washing away the abnormalities of my sight. Then everything became clear. I could see, and my breathing relaxed. I sighed as I reached into my drawer and pulled out a flask of whiskey and some smokes. I multitasked as I opened the flask, downed some liquor, and got to puffing on some nicotine. My eyes felt wide as the chemicals hit my bloodstream and got me to that place where I so needed to be. Finally I felt better but still sat in my bed, looking around at my bedroom.

  I had been having some bad dreams lately. They resembled real life, they were so scary. Sometimes I could nearly touch the people in them. I would wake up and still feel their presence. You know what they say about dreams, though; if you die in them, you die for real. I wished that was really the case. Then maybe I wouldn’t have to live this shitty life.

  The room was drenched in the early morning light that is a mixture of unspoiled sun and cloudy darkness masking the winter mornings of February. Spring was a little ways off, but I could hear the unmistakable signs of birds chirping away in the trees. Soon the cold would subside and the sun would warm my skin, but that was still a long way off, forcing me to deal with the inevitable cold fact of reality.

  I rubbed my hands together for some warmth and caught a glimpse of my watch on the bedside table next to me. It was upside down, but I managed to work out the time after a few seconds of pondering.

  “Six forty-two,” I said as I stretched and inhaled some more smoke. “Goddamn smoke,” I muttered as I squinted my right eye from the barrage of hot smoke that was making its way into my sinuses.

  I got up and dashed the ash off my chest. I still had the cigarette crooked in my mouth. I breathed in a few heavy breaths and let the cig drop to the ground. I didn’t care — I didn’t have carpet. My bedroom had concrete flooring; I just stamped on the cigarette with my bare foot. The heel of my foot was nearly invincible to heat. Must have been all that walking I’d done through my career, built some sort of force field of dead skin and God knows what else on the soles of my feet.

  I stumbled down the hallway and walked into my bathroom, going up to the toilet. I took a piss and sighed once again. It felt good to be off work. Even under the circumstances, I wouldn’t trade time off from the hell that is a murder case for sunshine and martinis. It was a shame about the lack of sun, and cocktails at that. I guessed I’d have to make do with whiskey and Marlboros.

  I washed my hands briefly and opened my cabinet up to the sight of a sea of pill containers sitting snugly in the cupboard. I picked one at random and chugged a few pills into my already dry mouth. I shut the cabinet and walked into my hallway, still donning no shirt. I was in my boxers and proud. If it was up to me, I’d only ever be naked, but people would frown upon that when I walked down the street. Another reason I loved being off work. Freedom to let everything hang out!

  I walked into my open-plan living room and was just about to turn the TV on when I saw something posted under my door. It looked like a note of some sorts. So I went up to it, half intrigued, expecting a late electricity bill or something, only to find something completely out of the blue. I bent down and picked up the single letter-size piece of paper and unfolded it. What I saw struck me to my core.

  YOU BETTER TELL THE TRUTH, YOU FUCKING LIAR, OR YOU’RE GONNA BE A DEAD MAN. GOT IT? PAY UP OR KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT AS AGREED.

  The letter wasn’t signed, but I knew who it was from. I knew Ricardo had paid me a visit, but how? I thought he was in county. Maybe those cold streets outside had more than chirping birds waiting for me. Maybe I’d be confronted by someone who had an invested interest in Ricardo being kept out of prison, and me lying in a ditch. I scrunched the paper up and threw it over my shoulder. I stared at the front door for a long while, catching the light creeping in from under the crack in the door. I stared at that light for a minute or two, making sure nothing else was behind the door, and then I got back to business. I got back to resting up and taking a shower. I wasn’t going to let any goddamn letter frighten me into silence. It would take a whole lot more than that to stop me in my tracks.

  ***

  “I’ll take a Quarter Pounder with cheese and some onion rings. Make them extra crispy. Throw in a strawberry shake and we’re good,” I said into the drive-through speaker.

  “Make your way to the front, sir,” an uninterested voice replied through the speaker.

  I immediately had the image of a pimply boy in my mind that matched that voice. The type of guy to have slick, greasy long hair. In my head the guy had a greasy towel draped over his shoulders and was picking his nose while he waited for the next customer. That obviously wasn’t the case as I pulled up to the side window and rolled down mine. I saw a greasy-looking fellow, but he wasn’t pimply. He wasn’t young, either. He had quite a gut on him and didn’t look much older than I was.

  “Ten bucks exactly,” he said in the most uninterested voice I think he could muster. “Would I be able to interest you in a club card? You get fifty cents off every pound of meat you consume with us. We send you the difference in vouchers at the end of the year,” he said to me as he handed me my bag of food. I shook my head. He didn’t try and push a hard sell on me; I could tell he just wanted me gone. So I obliged and beeped my horn in courtesy to the guy. I drove out of the drive-through and got to speeding down the street.

  I pulled into the familiar street that was Day Square, right next to the Boston Insurance Brokers place. I parked and started psyching myself up for another session with the good doctor — Dr. Martins.

  I sat there for a while, eating and smoking and eating some more. I ended up pigging out on the food I bought. I guess it was because I hadn’t eaten for a few days. I had my mind on the sex-trafficking case — not to mention the burden of somebody dying at the hands of my own service pistol. I was in a world of my own. The radio was turned off, and all I could hear was the constant patter of raindrops hitting my windshield. I was sucking on my straw, thinking about my problems, when I heard someone tapping on my window. I turned my head to the left and saw somebody holding a bat. Suddenly my window exploded, and the bat came crashing through. I didn’t have time to react, so I clenched my fist and got ready to defend myself. That’s when the guy grabbed me by the neck and pulled me out of the car. I hit the hard concrete with a thud. The wet raindrops hit my face, making my vision blurry. Then I saw him standing over me.

  “Keep your damn mouth shut, McKenzie,” he said as he raised his bat and swung down. Nothing but darkness followed. And then that sound once again.

  I opened my eyes and realized I had fallen asleep in my damn car. I turned my head to see the window, and somebody was outside my car. It was Dr. Martins. I looked at myself in
the rearview, checking for bruising to my face. I had dreamt the whole thing. This time off business was really fucking with my head. I then noticed I had managed to spill Coke all over me.

  “Fuck sake,” I said in frustration.

  There was another rattle on my window. I turned to see Martins still standing there.

  “You going to stay there all day, or do you want to come in for your session?” I heard him say through the window.

  I mouthed to him wait a second, but in reality I wanted to beat the shit out of him for making me spill my Coke. “I’ll be with you in a second. Meet me up there,” I said, this time out loud.

  Martins nodded and gave me a wink. He walked off, and I hit my fist against my steering wheel.

  “Goddamn it, Frank. Get your shit together,” I blurted out.

  I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out some pills. I tilted some into my mouth and swallowed. I was feeling like shit. I couldn’t believe the dreams were returning. First the one with my wife, and now a hypothetical of me being beaten up by some goon of Ricardo’s. Was I actually going mad?

  I looked at myself in the rearview for a few moments. I noticed my cold blue eyes were a tad grey that day. Maybe I needed a little more rest. Maybe I’d get through it with a couple more Zs. I decided that I had been long enough and got out of the car. The rain I’d heard in my dream was just that – a dream. It was sunny, and the winds were calm. But then again, I had imagined someone breaking into my car with a bat and smashing my window – dragging me out for a whupping, but that was also a dream. I started to wonder what else I’d managed to concoct in my head. Was the letter through my door that morning a dream? Probably not. Either way, I didn’t have time to speculate. I was due a visit to the head shrinker. I was just a bit worried about the possibility of Martins playing another drum solo on my head. I figured I’d risk it. I was starting to believe I needed somebody to talk to about these things, or my dreams would probably consume me. Or worse – become true.