An excerpt from Dear Crossing
I’m including an excerpt from the first chapter of Dear Crossing. (Please
note: there is some adult language in the book, as might be expected.)
Chapter
1
Saturday, April 3rd
It had only been an hour, but the
jail cell had already begun to close in on Ray Schiller. He had no remorse for
the actions that put him there, only a belly full of scotch and a deep-seated
need to unleash his rage. Ray waited in sullen silence for another head-on
collision with Chief Woody Newell, well aware that fellow officers Neil Lloyd
and Chuck Wilke had already notified him of his whereabouts.
Minutes later, Newell stormed into
the station. “Where’s Neil?” he asked Wilke.
Manning the front desk, Wilke sat
with an apple in one hand, the other extracting a bit of peel from between two
molars. “Neil went home right after him and me got Ray squared away in back,
Chief,” he said, talking around his beefy finger. “Didn’t think there was much
point in his sticking around after that.”
“Damn it. He gets me out of bed and
then takes off before he gives me all the details. That’s
just great.” Newell headed toward
the holding area.
Wilke pulled the finger out of his
mouth. “Sure you want to go back there, Chief? You know what they say about
sleeping dogs.”
Newell entered the hallway to the
holding cells without comment. For the last six months of his thirty-two years,
Woody Newell had been doing his best to fill his late father’s shoes as Widmer’s
Chief of Police. Ray Schiller seemed hell bent on making it as difficult as
possible.
Ray lay in the cell, his trim frame
stretched out on the cot, his head resting on interlaced hands. Crossed at the
ankles, his feet rested halfway up the concrete wall—the picture of
tranquility.
Newell stood outside the cell as
seconds stretched interminably with no sign of acknowledgment. “Okay, Ray, are
you asleep or just being an asshole?”
Ray took his time righting himself.
Elbows resting on his knees, he turned his thirty-eight-year-old,
hardened-choirboy face toward Newell, his pale, gray-blue eyes narrowed, his
lips pressed together in resolute defiance.
Newell pointed at Ray’s cheek.
“You’re going to have a hell of a bruise. What happened at Pete’s Tap tonight?”
Silence as solid and heavy as a brick wall answered him. “Damn it, Ray, you’re a
cop. You’ve got no business getting into a bar fight. And with Bob Buric of all
people. Were you trying to get yourself killed?”
“That’s my business.” Ray ran a
hand through his hair. It was the color of wet sand and just
beginning to thin. “Stay out of it,
Just unlock the cell.” His speech wasn’t slurred, but the glassiness of his eyes
and the reek of alcohol spoke volumes.
Newell planted his hands on his
hips. “If you don’t want to talk ... fine, I’m out of here, Ray, but either way,
you’re sleeping it off where you are.” He turned to leave.
“Did they make you judge, jury and
warden, too, now ... junior?”
Woody did an abrupt about-face.
“You cocky... All right, get it off your chest. You’ve
been aching for this since I was
elected.”
“Elected? Elected? That was
no election; it was a posthumous tribute to your father.”
“Okay. Feel better now,
hotshot?”
“Go to hell.”
“Let me tell you something, Ray. In
Chicago you may have been hot shit, but all I’ve been getting is the stench, and
I’m sick of it.”
Ray leapt up and charged toward the bars. “I’ve got more experience than
you in my little finger, and in a place where it counts, not Podunk, Minnesota.”
“For Widmer, I’ve got all the
experience I need. You’re the only one complaining. A word of advice… If this
town is too quiet for an adrenaline junkie like you, take your withdrawal
symptoms and haul your ass back to Chicago for your next fix.”
“Screw you.”
“Shit,” Woody muttered, “I must’ve
been crazy thinking I could talk to you in your condition.” He started to walk
away. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow. See me before you do the security check on
the summer homes in the morning.” At the door, Woody turned. “Let me set you
straight on something: I’m not your enemy—you are. Open your eyes and stop
tripping over your own damn feet.”
As Woody left, Ray kicked the bars.
He limped back to the cot and settled on his left side. The bruised ribs on his
right felt like they’d met the business end of a sledge hammer. He closed his
eyes and envisioned Bob Buric’s face. The man was big and ugly. Nearly as ugly
outside as in—a former schoolyard bully taking his act to the next level. It
hadn’t been his snide “How’s the missus?” crack but his snicker and the nudge
he’d given his drinking buddy that set Ray off like a Roman candle.
The furtive looks and whispered
comments over the past weeks had taken their toll. Buric was
a loudmouth, more blatant than
most. The fact that the 6’3”, 230-pound Neanderthal stood four inches taller and
outweighed him by fifty pounds hadn’t fazed Ray. His only regret was having been
too drunk to lay the bastard out cold on the barroom floor.
He massaged his bloodied knuckles,
stewing in his own bitterness. Laws existed to protect people from all sorts of
crime, but infidelity wasn’t a crime—it was just a goddamn shame. For fourteen
years, the virtues he’d attributed to Gail made him feel secure in his marriage.
Then Mark Haney had come along. He punched the flimsy pillow bunched under his
head, substituting it for Haney’s face. His scraped knuckles bled again, like
the unhealed wounds inflicted by Gail’s betrayal.
Sleep approached, crashing like
waves over his thoughts of the next day’s routine. Summer homes ... The Bautistas. Michael and
Lydia Sumner. Paul and Valerie Davis ... The names and faces drifted into an
abyss as Ray relinquished control and surrendered to troubled sleep.
Ray awoke to a sensory overload the
next morning. Irene Herman, the station’s white-haired dispatcher, shook his
shoulder, her tobacco-ravaged voice grating in his ear—her fragrance du jour:
baby powder and Bengay.
“Wake up. C’mon, Ray. For crying out
loud, will you get up? I’ve got to pee. You have to watch the dispatch console
for a minute.”
Ray’s body felt as though it had
been pulled from a car wreck. He opened one eye. “Get
someone else to do it, Irene.”
“We’re the only two here right now.
You getting up?”
Thirty-five years as a dispatcher
for the Widmer police department made Irene Herman more than an employee; she
was an institution. She presided over the station like a PMS-stricken den
mother.
A bolt of pain ripped through his
ribcage as Ray rolled onto his right side. “Where is
everyone?”
“The Chief called. He’s running
late. Neil’s over at Hank Kramer’s place looking for a
rustled cow, and—”
“What?”
“That old fool figures some
archenemy of his dairy empire made off with one of his four-legged milk
containers. The other guys are out on ...” Irene fidgeted. “Look, I don’t have
time to give you a run-down.” She squirmed, her need to visit the restroom
growing greater. “Are you going to help me out or not?”
“Go ahead. I’m coming.”
“Thank God.” Irene hurried from the
cell toward the restroom. “These days when this old bladder talks, I listen.
I’ve learned the hard way.”
“Too much information, Irene.”
“Fine. When you reach my age, you
can find out for yourself.” She hurried faster. “Just for the record, you smell
like a goddamn distillery, Ray.” She stopped at the restroom door. “When I’m
finished in here, you’d better get cleaned up before you start your
shift.”
He gave her a sloppy
salute.
“Smart ass. You should...” Her eyes
widened as she locked her knees together and hobbled into the
restroom.
The phone rang as he dropped into
Irene’s chair. Holding the receiver in one hand, he
pressed the other over a throbbing temple. “Police department. Officer
Schiller.”
A male voice
came back, frantic, garbled. He couldn’t make it out. ”Wait a second. Who?”
Grabbing a notepad, he scrawled down the name Ted Barton.
Barton’s bass voice climbed an
octave, his words running together like bits of molten metal.
“Take it down
a notch,” Ray told him. “What? Repeat that. Where are you calling from?” He
scribbled more notes on the pad. ”Are you— Yes, okay, I heard you. You’re
absolutely sure? Positive? All right. Calm down and listen to me. Get back in
your truck and wait right there. Don’t touch anything. Not a damn thing. Do you
understand? Good. Stay put. I’ll want to talk with you. I’m on my way.”
Ray slammed
the receiver down without a goodbye. He sprinted across the room and pounded
on the
washroom door. “Irene, call Woody. Have him meet me at the Davises’ place ASAP.
We’ve got a 10-101.”
He heard a
flush and her muffled voice. “A what?”
“You heard
me.” Already halfway through the station door, Ray shouted, “Get him over there.
Now.” With the sound of Ted Barton’s panic still ringing in his ears, he rushed
to his squad car. “Blood,” he’d been told. “Lots of it. Everywhere.” Hysterics
weren’t Barton’s style. On automatic pilot, Ray reached over, switched on the
flashers and siren and sped through town.
The Davises’ summer house stood at
the edge of Lake Hadley nearly one hundred yards from the entrance of their
driveway. The initial steep downward slope of the land made the structure
virtually invisible from the road. Locals simply knew it existed there below eye
level, nestled on the property like a baby in the crook of its mother’s
arm.
In accord with their wishes, the
property had been only minimally cleared. The landscaping remained predominantly
wild although tamed to some extent by regular professional attention. Other
homes dotted the shoreline, carving out widely separated niches in the dense
woods surrounding the lake.
Ray’s squad car fishtailed into the
mouth of the driveway. He picked up speed over the initial
flat portion
of pavement before racing down the steep slope beyond. He pulled up beside a
rusty, green truck parked in front of the house. Waiting as ordered, Ted Barton
sat slouched behind the steering wheel. Barton jumped like he’d been shot when
Ray tapped on his window.
Barton cranked it down. “There’s so
much blood,” he said. “She’s dead. Gotta be.”
Author -Marjorie Doering
http://amzn.to/JQqo5y
“Small Town Authors” caught my eye, Audrey. I’m certainly one of those. My
husband and I live in a lovely little town in NW Wisconsin. My typical joke is
that it’s about the size of a large prairie dog colony. The fact is, I’ve always
lived in small towns. Maybe my “Mayberry-style” life explains why I write murder
mysteries; it could be the vicarious thrill. In any case, I enjoy writing
exciting mysteries, which keep my readers thinking. I’ll be publishing Shadow
Tag, the second book in my Ray Schiller series, very soon. In the meantime, Dear
Crossing—(the title’s a play on words)—is available in paperback or as an e-book
at http://amzn.to/JQqo5y
I’m including an excerpt from the first chapter of Dear Crossing. (Please
note: there is some adult language in the book, as might be expected.)
Thanks very much, Audrey.
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