by Terrence Aym

Created on: August 26, 2009

Excerpt from the novel: "Dark Heart"

Detective Richard Jameson stomped into his tiny office and tossed his archaic fedora onto the black vinyl chair crammed into a corner next to a dented, four drawer steel filing cabinet. It had been a hell of a day what with Judge Crawley and some tramp found gunned down in the judge's own house the previous night.

At the location of the murders, after he had seen the half-nude girl, he had thought maybe that was an angle that could be played-the jealous boyfriend scenario, that kind of thing. The possibility had lasted about two hours until the facts emerged that she was a seventeen-year old runaway who had been turning tricks on the streets the past eight months. How the judge had hooked up with the likes of her was anybody's guess. Jameson had shrugged it off thinking that what they said was true it takes all kinds. So, as usual, he had to return to the old drawing board with an empty pen. The press would have a field day with it though: a double murder and sleazy sex scandal pairing an esteemed member of the community with an underage prostitute. Brother, as if his job wasn't hard enough.

"Brozeck!" he yelled down the hallway. "Has forensics come up with that report on the bullets yet?"

"I just got off the phone with them, sir. It'll be here soon. They're going to fax it to us."

"Damn screw ups," the sinewy detective muttered. "Supposed to be here this morning."

He rolled out his chair and sat down behind his desk. Typing a few passwords into his terminal he accessed the Crawley file and re-read it. Studying it a second time added no more clarity to the crime than it had the first time. The murders made no sense. The house hadn't been broken into and nothing had been taken. Both victims had been shot through the head. That fact might qualify the killings as execution-style murders but for the fact that they were almost point-blank shots to the front of the head, not the back or the side.

The detective groaned, rubbing his weary gray eyes. His mind wandered. The department had lowered voluntary full retirement age to sixty-two. Three long years still separated him from that magic number. Retirement appealed to him more every month that passed. He was getting tired and he was getting old. The rookies coming out of the Academy nowadays were starting to look like grammar school kids to him. That was a sign, wasn't it? He really was getting too old for this job.

Officer Dorathea

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