Rejection: Publishing Murder Mystery (Lou Drake Mysteries) (4 page)

“I do, sir.”

“Drake, you better say something to help me see your side of this. You’ve got to explain your attitude or I may have to suggest suspension. Then it’d be out of my hands. An investigative review could get you canned, and then you will lose your pension.”

“I’m sorry, sir and you’re right — I have been coasting. After the demotion and my wife left I guess my heart just went flat. I used to love the job, now I just want it to end.”

“Maybe you should talk to somebody,” Andrade said.

“You mean like a shrink?”

“Whatever works, you know.”

Drake let out a sad chuckle. “I’ve been to see counselors, dietitians, personal trainers, life coaches, you name it. They all say the same thing; I’m not happy. Even my girlfriend says so.”

Andrade raised one eyebrow. “You’re still seeing, what’s her name? Robin?”

Drake shrugged. “Yeah.”

“How’s that going?”

“We’re on again, off again, depending on whether I feel like answering her phone calls.”

Andrade sighed. It figured. Why would Drake’s personal life be any less pathetic than his performance on the job? It all added up to an easy decision for Andrade.

“It must be your lucky day,” Andrade said. “I’m going to give you a break.”

The trepidation was clear on Drake’s face.

“I’m transferring you to the cage,” Andrade continued. “You’ll have no street duty and hopefully you can manage to stay out of trouble. Just keep your nose clean, do your paper work and in six months you can quit this place and settle down to whatever you want to do.”

The tension seemed to drain from Drake’s body. He slumped down in the chair and ran his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair.

“Thank you Captain,” he said. “It sounds perfect.”

“What do you think you’ll do after you retire? Fish? Play cards?”

Drake hesitated for a moment, but then seemed to decide to open up. “I’ve got a book I want to write, a crime drama. My second.”

“Good idea. Write a book, get it published, make a million dollars and retire in style, right?”

“Something like that.”

The Captain nodded, but somehow he didn’t think Drake’s retirement would have anything to do with style.

* * *

Michael Collins waited in the hallway outside the Captain’s office. He could make out none of the words coming through the door, only the rise and fall of the Captain’s voice like harsh water running over stones in an angry stream. Drake was silent, or his voice was too low to puncture the veil of the heavy oak door.

Finally Drake emerged looking like he had just been through a fifteen-round fight. He seemed barely able to drag his fat bulk along. Collins nodded at him as he passed but received barely a flicker of acknowledgement in return.

“Collins,” the Captain called.

Collins entered the office and handed a folder to his superior.

“This is the report on the body they found in the alley apartment tonight,” Collins said as the two men sat on opposite sides of the Captain’s desk.

Andrade nodded and flicked open the folder. “So give me the short version.”

“It was ugly and brutal. Looks like some sort of ritualistic killing. No forced entry, so the victim probably knew the perp. His lips were sewn shut with thick nylon upholstery thread. The needle was found on the table. The Coroner thinks the victim was probably alive when the cutting started. I don’t know how somebody could live through having your guts cut out like that, but the Coroner says that was most likely the case. He’ll have a better opinion once the autopsy is done. We came up with no witnesses, no prints, no bloody shoe prints, no fibers, no traces of the killer at all.”

Andrade looked at the crime scene photos. “Who is the victim?”

“Lewis Allan Petre. Thirty-two years old, single, full time waiter and as far as we can tell, fancied himself a writer. There were stacks of paper sitting around and what looked like a manuscript. We’ll know more soon. No car, rode his bike to work. We took his computer and we’ll look that over.” Collins looked at his notebook. “His last cell calls were his work, a girl in New Jersey and assorted other acquaintances. He was single, worked at Theo’s over on Broadway, and has no record, not even a parking ticket.”

“A nobody, basically,” Andrade said.

“That may be, but nobody deserves to go like this. His goddamn eyes were cut out and put in his hands.”

“Anything else?” Andrade asked.

“His wall heater was on the whole time. Between the heat and the damp air his corpse was like Jell-O. A real mess when the meat wagon pulled him out.”

“Nice. What now?”

“We’ll work it and hope for the best,” Collins said. “We’ve done a full collection of everything at the apartment and I have my group going through it. Maybe we’ll get lucky. I called the girl in New Jersey and she says she barely knew him. Says she thought he could help her get published. I’ll follow up and talk to other people he knew.”

“Jesus, another beautiful day in paradise. Can you handle this or do we need to call in the big guns from the task force?”

“Nah, we can get by without those assholes.”

“Fine. Any word on how Dodd is making out?”

“High as a kite and still complaining about Drake. The nurses are getting tired of the story.”

“Well, I stuck Drake in the cage so hopefully we don’t have to worry about any more screw ups.”

Collins shook his head. “Hard to see him that way. I remember when he won that bet at the Christmas party by doing a hundred push-ups. That was, what, ten years ago? Now he looks like he couldn’t handle a steep flight of stairs.”

“Yeah, but that was also a hundred pounds ago.”

Collins shrugged and dropped his voice. “Remember, we helped make him that way.”

Andrade gave him a glare. “Stop. That was a long time ago and we made that decision for a reason. Remember our agreement, not a word. Besides, we didn’t make him eat himself into what he is today. Another man would have taken a higher road. I know I would have.”

“Okay, like you said, he made his own choices. Anyway, he’ll be gone in six months and then we can all move on.”

“We should be so lucky,” Andrade said. “Maybe you should go make sure he finds his way to booking without accidentally shooting someone.”

* * *

Drake looked at the three policewomen in the cage, Serena, Regina and Edna. He knew them, but only from this side of the booking counter. He smiled but got back expressions of what looked like dread and impatience. He couldn’t blame them. From their point of view he was an interloper.

The cage was twenty feet long and ten feet wide, with glass walls and a scarred oak counter surrounding the enclosure. The space was a relic of days gone by, though it had been brought up-to-date with fancy wiring and technology. Drake opened the half door and felt the demotion hit home as he stepped inside the cage for the first time. A feeling of emptiness settled into his gut.

“So,” he said, “what do you need me to do?”

“For now,” Serena said, “you can start by entering the handwritten reports into the computer. And I want to see everything you do before it gets uploaded to archive.”

“Okay, I can do that.”

Serena pointed to a desk. “That’s where you’ll work. Welcome to the cage.”

* * *

The bookstore was quiet when Drake arrived and he was grateful for the warmth inside. Outside the colder weather was taking its toll and once-green leaves were dying with beautiful shades of orange.

He knew he should call Robin and tell her how things went with the captain, but that meant rehashing the pain and he was not up to it. He needed something familiar and comforting to shed his funk. He needed the bookstore and the coffee shop, where he could surround himself with published volumes and eavesdrop on the writer’s group that gathered there most nights.

Drake previewed the racks of new arrivals and read the synopses on the dust jackets. He picked the latest Patterson thriller, paid for the book and settled down in coffee shop with a muffin and some coffee.

* * *

By six o’clock the usual suspects strolled in. Members of the group tended to arrive in ones and twos, slipping past the stacks of newly arrived books as though avoiding lepers, and taking their seats around the cluster of tables. The group was loose, with no regimented meeting schedule or order to their affair. They were a congregation of kindred spirits, each drawn by the need to commiserate with fellow souls.

At the age of 63, Sandy Alexander was their unofficial leader. He had published a collection of short stories in 1982 and this momentous achievement gave him seniority. He never published another thing. Sandy carried a copy of his book encased in a plastic cover and stored in bubble wrap. He often pulled it out and said things like, “This is the reason we do what we do!”

Kevin Pooter put his laptop on the table next to where Sandy was sitting and then went to order his coffee. Kevin was African American and his skin was so dark it seemed to swallow light.

“Hey man,” Sandy said when Kevin returned with his drink. “Have you changed your name yet?”

Kevin just grinned. He was used to this by now.

“I’m telling you,” Sandy said, “no agent is going to take you seriously as long as you keep typing Pooter on the cover page.”

Kevin spent his free time researching the trends in publishing and speculating on what would be next big thing. He was famous for proclaiming that the success of the first Harry Potter book was a fluke and the market could never sustain a series based on a children’s story. His wife had a great job and he took care of the kids, the consummate househusband.

Dale Thomas stomped his feet at the door, though there was no snow or slush to remove. Dale was scarecrow thin and tall, with a shock of red hair that stuck out in all directions.

“Hi troops,” he said as he pulled a third chair over to the table. With a steady postman’s salary and great pension plan, Dale always joked he could never be a starving writer.

“There’s Nordstrom,” Sandy announced.

Tall and handsome, Brad Nordstrom wrote pretentious poetry full of purple prose that left most readers scratching their head. He had started a novel seven years ago and could not seem to find an ending. Sandy once looked over some of his pages and ended up scratching his head.

“Hello my fair fellows,” Nordstrom said. “I need coffee, strong and black, just like my men.”

“Are you still working on the epic?” Sandy asked.

“Got it right here,” Brad said. He pulled out a manuscript wrapped with a rubber band and dropped it dramatically on the table. “I’m up to one hundred and ten thousand words.”

Kevin produced a floppy disk from the breast pocket of his shirt and held it high. “I passed fifty thousand this morning on mine,” he said.

Brad gave him a thumbs up. “Rock on, bro.”

The core group was complete when Franny Jacobs arrived. She stood five-foot-ten, which translated to over six feet if she happened to be wearing heels. Unfortunately her height was coupled with a build that resembled a left tackle. She habitually dressed in black, as she believed it to be slimming. She always wore a silver chain with the female symbol, which hung between her ample breasts.

Franny seared her pages of feminist dogma with a quill pen. Her work was often published in local feminist newsletters and she once had an article in Vogue. Her career might have taken off but she offended the opinion editor for the Post. Franny had no sooner draped her black jacket over the back of a chair and sat down when Sandy leaned forward and beckoned them all to move in close.

“There he is again,” Sandy murmured, pointing surreptitiously over Kevin Pooter’s shoulder.

The group turned to look. A large man sat a couple of tables away reading a Patterson hardback. He moved only occasionally to absent-mindedly reach for his chocolate chip muffin.

“I don’t even think he’s reading,” Sandy said. “He hardly ever turns the page.”

“So what?” Pooter whispered back. “He’s not bothering anyone.”

“I think he’s listening to us,” Sandy said.

Franny chuckled. “Maybe he’s an editor and he’s looking for new talent.”

“No, he’s a cop,” Pooter said. “I heard him talking to someone in the stacks one day. His name is Drake.”

Sandy nodded slowly. “Well he may be a cop, but I bet he’s also a writer.”

“Either that or he’s staking us out,” Franny said with a grin.

“Mark my words,” Sandy said. “Our heavyset friend over there wishes he were part of our little community, the village idiots of Malcolm, New York.”

“Maybe we should ask him to join us,” Franny whispered, then they all stared at the back of Drake’s book with curious intensity.

Sandy broke the spell. “By the way, are you all attending the book fair in Greenwich next month? Remember, the best way to get an agent or editor’s attention is to have them as a captive audience.”

Everyone agreed they were going.

“We’ll take my van,” Pooter offered. “That way we can all ride together.”

“Does anybody actually get a deal at those things?” Nordstrom asked.

“I should hope so,” Sandy assured him, “or else why would they put them on?”

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