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I-SHIRLEY 22
“Rebekah might have sleepwalked or whatever, but she ends up waking up in the middle of the woods, confused on how the hell she’d gotten there. The howls of the wolves in the woods woke her up. She sits up and breathes heavily, as if she had just escaped from someone who almost strangled her to death, or she just came out from the bottom of a river that tried to swallow and suffocate her.She coughed violently, but after that the tension in her breath and the pounding of her heart had reduced. After moments of taking care of herself not to cough out her heart or get a heart attack, she finally noticed the environment. All her efforts of relaxing herself went straight into the bin, because where she found herself gave her more fright than what startled her in her sleep. She looked down at her dress and saw what she was wearing; It didn’t belong to her, neither did she recall any memory of her putting it on. It was a sleeveless overall dress which looked even blacker and darker than a n
I-SHIRLEY 23
I-SHIRLEY 23 A deep passionate kiss woke Shirley up from sleep. She opened her eyes slowly, and the first thing she saw was Gehrig’s blurry face, smiling down at her. “Good morning, babe –” He greeted and planted another kiss on her lips. Shirley smiled. “Hi…” She said as she sent her hands over her face to caress her eyes. “Wait…” Shirley sniffled jokingly. “Is that –” “Yes, it is…” Gehrig interrupted. “ Oh my… I haven’t had that in like forever! No actually, I haven’t had a good breakfast in months… Years even.” Gehrig chuckled lightly. “I’m aware, honey.” “Well, what am I waiting for then?” “Exactly my thought…” Gehrig grabbed her hands and helped her off the bed. Breakfast was soft pancakes and berries, as warm as they would be in the sun, maple syrup threaded upon the top, with a glass of cold orange juice at the side. Shirley dug in, the moment her butt landed on the chair. She closed her eyes and moaned slightly when the pancake came into contact with
I-SHIRLEY 24
i-shirley24Shirley parked her car a few meters from the crime scene and just looked. She knew everyone was waiting for her to throw more light on what had happened; the local police waiting to wrap everything up, the corona was waiting to transport the body for an autopsy, and the press waiting impatiently to get the story or a statement at the very least. The press might have been the reason she got held up in the car, but that wasn’t all. She couldn’t get herself to walk in the building and look at the bloody scene. The angel of death had a habit of making every subsequent murder more unbearable than the previous one. They thought killing a baby was the last line the bastard would, but no, he showed them he had no lines to cross; he did everything and anything he felt like doing.Shirley sighed when she realized she was tearing up. She wiped the edges of her eyes with her thumb.“I’m so sorry --- I’m so sorry…” She repeated; more tears filling up in her eyes.“I’m sorry for the pr
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I-SHIRLEYCHAPTER 25“Smell…? It smells like blood alright. What other smell are you looking for?” asked the Officer.“It does smell like blood, doesn’t it? Does not what we’re looking for.” Shirley answered.“Oh — then what exactly are you looking for?” He continued.“The smell of death itself; you get me?”“Not really, I don’t.”Shirley sighed and caressed her eyes.“When the angel of death visits, there’s this kind of scent that he leaves around the crime Scene. Not the scent of the dead bodies… he’s own kind of scent. Faint but noticeable by us, because we’ve been to all of his crime scenes.” Ackermann mouthed.The officer looked at Ackermann for a while, Ackermann looked back… And then the officer sent his eyes to Shirley for a while. Shirley had her eyes locked somewhere else, lost in thought for whatever.Ackermann tapped her shoulder a third time until she reacted to it.“Ye – Yes…” Shirley answered, blinking her eyes a couple of times.“Why are you spacing out, Shirley?”“Sor
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I-Shirley BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA Peter Benedict saw his reflection and marveled at the way his image was chopped up and scrambled by the optics of the glass. The front of the building was a deeply con- cave surface, soaring ten stories over Wilshire Boulevard, almost sucking you in off the sidewalk toward the two-story disk of a lobby. There was an austere slate courtyard, cool and empty except for a Henry Moore bronze, a lobulated and vaguely human conception off to one side. The building glass was flawlessly mirror like, capturing the mood and color of the environs, and this being Beverly Hills, the mood was usually bright and the color a rich sky blue. Because the concavity was so severe, the glass also caught the images from other panes, tossing them like a salad-clouds, buildings, the Moore, pedestrians, and cars jumbled together. It was wonderful. This was his moment. He had reached the pinnacle. He had a scheduled and con- firmed appointment to see Bernie Sch
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I-shirley 27 The pit boss tapped Peter on the shoulder and whispered, "The manager wants to meet you." Peter blanched. "Don't worry, it's all good." Gil Flores, the floor manager of the Constellation, was sleek and urbane, and in his presence Peter felt scruffy and self-conscious. His armpits were damp, he wanted to leave. The manager's office was utilitarian, equipped with multiple flat-screen panels getting live feeds from the tables and slots. Flores was drilling down, trying to figure out the how’s and the whys. How did a civilian spot something his guys didn't and why did he turn them in? "What am I missing here?" Flores asked the timid man. Peter took a sip of water. "I knew the count," Peter admit- ted. "You were counting too?" "Yes." "You're a counter? You're admitting to me you're a counter?" Flores's voice was rising. "I count, but I'm not a counter." Flores's polish rubbed off. "What the fuck does that mean?" "I keep the count-it's kind of a habit, but
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Michael WillsNancy BridgetMike had a devastating hangover, the kind that felt like aweasel had woken up warm and cozy inside his skullthen panicked at its confinement and tried to scratch and biteits way out through his eyes.The evening had begun benignly enough. On his wayhome he stopped at his local dive, a yeasty smelling cavecalled Dunigan's, and downed a couple of pops on an emptystomach. Next up, the Pantheon Diner, where he grunted atthe heavily stubbled waiter who grunted back at him andwithout exchanging any fully formed phrases brought himthe same dish he ate two to three days a weeklamb kebabsand rice, washed down, of course, with a couple of beers.Then before decamping to his place for the night he paidhis wobbly respects to his friendly package store and pickedup a fresh half gallon of Black Label, pretty much the onlyluxury item to adorn his life.The apartment was small and spartan, and stripped ofJennifer's feminizing touches, a truly bleak uninterest
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Case #5: Milos Ivan Covic, eighty-two-year-old man fromPark Slope, Brooklyn, middle of the afternoon, plunges outOt his ninth floor apartment and makes an ungodly ssOn Prospect Park West, near Grand Army Plaza. His bed-a break-in or robbery. However, several framed black-and-ofWindow is wide open. apartment locked, no STgise photos of a young Covic with others, family probably, are found shattered on the floor by the windowis no suicide note. The man, a Croatian immigrant whwindow. Therehadworked for fifty years as a cobbler, had no living relativand was so reclusive there was no one who could attetohis mental state. The apartment was covered in only on setof fingerprints: his.Will leafed through the stack of vintage photographsAnd there's no ID on any of these people?""None," Nancy replied. "His neighbors were all inter-viewed, we put out feelers among the Croatian-Americancommunity, but nobody knew him. I don't know where toAny ideas?"He pointed his palms towar
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