~ T S Brock ~ A Novel ~
CHAPTER ONE
Some days are better than others. And some days are strange. Karen Wellington was baking two loaves of bread while having her morning coffee. She preferred to be naked after she woke but on this occasion she put on her robe as she was summoned to her balcony by the waves making a peculiar sound.
When she looked down upon her long bed of daisies near the dock there hugged a dead body floating in the shallows. It was tapping against the shore like a watery metronome. The body’s hair caught moments of brilliant sunlight waving in the waves in an animated and orange absurd fashion. It wasn’t a dummy. It was a dead body. She called the police.
Detective Cray Morris and his partner Pepper Hendricks had just arrived having been caught off guard on a quiet Sunday morning. There were a few neighbors scattered along the narrow lake road. Some in their pajamas. Others just bewildered.
Cray sketches a long resume. He was a petty criminal in his youth but now he’s been a bona fide police officer for twenty odd years. Pepper is a human leopard. She’s not a rookie. Nothing moves from her gaze.
The two, Pepper and Cray. They had a real friendship. It wasn’t a passionate love affair. Pepper liked women. Divorced with family far away, Cray was now a bachelor. Why would anyone marry a cop in the first place? His wife, girlfriend from the ninth grade, just, well… She left with two young children… to her mother’s home a long way away. Namely, San Diego. If you want to know the details, well, just read between the lines.
Anyway Cray was handsome and popular. He wasn’t alone… Lonely is something else. He sent money to Colice and her children every week and lived like a saint. But he was never really alone. Life. Just live it!!
Pepper was the best daughter a mom could have. In my opinion, friendship is the beautiful connection that all people experience, and love is the bond that friendship offers… and we accept it…So everyone on the planet can experience friendship and love… Pepper was more instinct-driven. It was sometimes hard to say if she had even a spoonful of compassion in her make-up… One can only guess.
See a man in a colorful cotton pajama and a couple in jogging sweats. They appear dazed and confused by the presence of the police cars. After all, police cars are rarely seen in this quiet lakeside community. Their whispers and chatter are absorbed by the deep woods all around them.
Doc Burdock, the local forensic, soon arrived in an old Ford squad car. It was black, and there was a ton of metal around it. It puttered out and he got out. He was thin and tall and could have been handsome were it not for his over-sized ears.
“Hey Doc.” Cray spoke past the toothpick in the corner of his mouth.”
“Looks like a big dead man, Cray.” Doc was clear and resounding.
“I would say a somewhat familiar big dead man at that.” Pepper added.
“Soon to become front page news.” Cray completed the picture.
“Apparently being dead didn’t improve his looks any. Though he was kinda ugly in his own right.” Pepper offered.
Cray held back a laugh and pretended to cough. He glanced at Pepper.
Doc leaned into the dead man… “He has contusions on his head and it appears his neck is broken… as far as I’m able to judge… Well, I suppose he fell onto the rocks and drowned.”
“Is this your first, Pepper?” Doc asked.
“Nah. I saw my dead grandma. She looked much better than this guy.”
“Jesus, Pepper…” said Cray.
“Are you kidding. I’m from Chicago.” Pepper spat then drank from her coffee.
“You got a COD, Doc?” Cray asked as the doctor took hair samples from the clothing.
“Well it’s probable his head dashed against the rocks.”
Doc paused to look at Pepper. Frankly, she was fit and attractive. And the doctor was just like anyone…except he was 70 years from his birth… Everyone loves beautiful people for that matter and forever. He was human and in his youth, he would have asked her to dinner. Maybe a Martini… He fantasised. In that moment he was young again.
Yet, Pepper did not like men. The story is the same story and I will not tell it here. She is who she is. Strong and beautiful. She liked to be intimate with women. Yet, there was a dead man on the table.
He continued. “There are weeds and even a snail on his clothes. We have to check for water in the lungs. Of course there is blunt force trauma to the cranial region… but that looks like the work of the rocks near the shore.
Doc looked up at the sky then cleared his throat then pulled the thermometer out from the dead man’s liver. He continued. “I would say round midnight… Let it be noted, August 31st 1952… exactly 10:11 am. Yes, I call the time of death at around midnight. It’s a wrap.”
“It’s a shit show, Doc.” Pepper side-stepped away from the scene.
“She did get that one right.” Cray followed.
“We’ll have to put him on the old porcelain slab for some answers.” Doc offered.
Cray and Pepper turned around in unison with puzzled looks on their faces. How did a corpse cross a lake in just 10 or so hours.
“Yet the time of death wouldn’t put him here. This place shuts down early.” Pepper stitched her brow and cossed her arms in contemplation putting her left hand to her chin.
“Yah. These folks are teetotalers and bible thumpers.” Cray added.
“That’s right.” Doc said, “He came from the other shore. For sure.”
Cray and Pepper continued walking away as the onlookers on the road above grew in size. Newly arrived police advised the curious crowd to move on. few stayed behind.”My advice is to go home and do whatever ya do.” Doc called out. “I’m gonna have breakfast then take a nap. I suggest you do the same.” His admonishment was swallowed up by the din of nervous humming voices.
They seemed to be complaining while moving back to their summer cottages to sleep… Then to wake up to a breakfast of orange juice, pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, and coffe and milk. Perhaps just another day.
A sudden gust of wind bristled the pines and a strong scent of rotting wood rose and wafted from out of the forest.
“Do you smell that?” Pepper coughed.
“Yah. That’s the forest.” Cray sighed.
“No Cray. That’s the smell of a dead man.” Doc looked at them with a wry smile from down below. Turkey vultures began to circle. The ambulance arrived and they hauled the corpse up a flight of old rickety wooden stairs.
Neighbors woke and eventually took their places along the road most of them dulled by sleep or just hungover. Eventually they returned home. Cray and Pepper drove into the forest and back into the city.
Note: Links to nine more chapters below…
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