My first published works were a pair of very short stories in JANUS, the literary magazine at Westminster College where I was a student. It took me years to get back to writing prose, this time in the form of a couple of short stories and three novels. All of them are still looking for a home.

ARSENAL STREET, a St. Louis Story – Adult Fiction

FIC050000 FICTION / Crime; FIC031010 FICTION / Thrillers / Crime; FIC022020 FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Police Procedural

79,000 words – approx. 300 pages

ARSENAL STREET was my very first attempt at writing a novel. The first version, over numerous drafts, featured first person chapters from Detective Lyle Bernadette’s POV alternated with chapters written in third person giving us insight into the minds and motivations of the other characters. However, after several complaints of “head hopping” I abandoned that mixed POV and have written a new version all in third person. As much as I wanted to create a first person detective, I was much too interested in the other characters to make it a one-man show. So, goodbye to an emulation of Chandler and hello to an emulation of McBain. And Ellroy. And Larsson. Here are the first two chapters:

CHAPTER 1

The squelching crunch of tires on wet gravel brought Marge Hempel to the screen door. From there, she could hear voices through the steady rush of rainfall but had trouble making out the words. Venturing out onto the back landing of her third-story apartment, drink in hand, she glimpsed a policeman disappearing into the basement as the door swung shut behind him.

Marge stood back about a foot from the black iron railing. She held the screen door open with her shoulder, making it easier to dart back into the safety of her kitchen, if necessary. From where she stood, her view partially obscured by a shredded curtain of water cascading from a crack in the gutter, Marge could just see the back end of the blue and white patrol car sitting at an odd angle in her apartment building’s parking lot. Across the courtyard, she could see the basement door dead center in the beam of the car’s spotlight.

As she waited, watching the door’s frosted glass for any sign of movement, Marge wondered what the police could be doing in there and who had called them. It must have been one of the tenants. But, none of them had alerted her to a problem. So, how serious could it be? She felt a ripple of fear gurgle up from her belly. It surged through her chest and caught in her throat. She took a long sip of booze to wash it down, then another to keep it there.

Marge almost choked on her drink when the basement door opened violently and slammed against the brick wall. The frosted glass exploded, littering the sidewalk. Marge’s heart jumped a beat and she moaned at the damage. In leaning out to get a better view, she almost lost her hold on the screen door. But she caught it with her slipper-clad foot without spilling a drop. Her liquor and escape route secure, Marge reached out and gripped the cold railing with her free hand.

Two policemen erupted from the basement with a young woman in turns between them, under them, on top of them, struggling to break free. Marge gasped. It was the girl who had moved in with that Morris woman in 4203C. She’d had a bad feeling about that one from the start. To Marge, the girl’s goth waif look was deceiving but no costume. Even from across the courtyard, she felt like she was in the presence of a vampire with that one, a hunter whose blood ran far below her nearly translucent marble-white skin. Now it looked like her suspicions had been correct—that girl would bring nothing but trouble.

The two cops, both big white men, looked like they had their hands full. Their fingers slipped on the girl’s black leather jacket. Her nails scratched at their faces and she landed some good kicks with her heavy boots. The cool air vaporized their exhaled breath and the three of them struggling gave the impression of a grunting, snorting mythological beast slouching its way to hell. In a sudden puff of steam, all three combatants slumped to their knees, panting.

Marge shivered. She took another slug of courage from her nearly empty glass. She glanced over her shoulder, reassuring herself that the warm refuge of home lay only a step or two away through the open kitchen door. In the glass, she caught the reflection of her puffy, pale-yellow face framed with graying curly brown hair. Her eyes were only shadows. She inhaled shakily and turned back to the scene below just as the bigger of the two cops slammed the girl into the gravel slurry, face first.

The girl shook her head and spit water. The big cop pulled out his nightstick, raised it high, and cracked the girl across her shoulder blades. Her head jerked back at the impact, and her mouth opened wide. The big cop shoved his nightstick in between her teeth like a horse’s bit and straddled her back, his knees pressing against her upper arms. He hollered something. Marge nearly leaned into the curtain of water falling from her gutter, but she still couldn’t quite make out what he said.

The other cop grunted and snapped his cuffs onto one of the girl’s wrists. He yelled something that sounded to Marge like, “The other one!” The big cop pulled on his nightstick and leaned forward, snarling something to the girl. She twisted under his weight and the other cop grabbed her free hand, wrenching it back to cuff both hands together. Marge thought she heard a muffled cry through the nightstick. Then she inhaled sharply.

That Morris woman had emerged from the basement and stepped out onto the sidewalk. She stood tall, oblivious to the rain, her chest heaving as she watched the action. In one hand she clutched something that looked like a small piece of white cardboard, several shades lighter than the woman’s skin. With the other, she reached for the damp brick wall at her back, her fingers spread like a white cave spider. Her polished red nails scraped at the kiln-fired clay.

Marge released her grip on the railing. She stepped back—hoping she wouldn’t be seen—and drained her glass. That Morris woman had always frightened her—to Marge, she had seemed more than a little unstable from the moment she first moved in. On the other hand, she never failed to pay her rent on time.

Marge looked back and forth between the crazy woman pressed against the wall and the vampire girl struggling with the cops in the courtyard parking lot. Steady rent or not, she wished the police would take them both.

The cop who had cuffed the girl’s hands stood up and patted his partner on the shoulder. He wiped a hand across the scratches on his cheek and kicked the girl’s legs for good measure. The big cop wrenched his nightstick out of her mouth and she eased her face forward into the gravel, turning her head to keep her nose out of the dirty water. The big cop stood up and held his stick at the ready. With his other hand, he reached down for the back of the girl’s head.

A sheet of lightning illuminated the scene without mercy. The Morris woman looked up at Marge with amber, raptor-like eyes that seemed to burn right through her. Marge dropped her glass, shattering it on the metal landing. The lightning flickered out, taking with it all the lights on the block. That left only the cruiser’s spotlight to catch the girl’s cold, hard eyes in her bruised and bleeding face as the big cop lifted her up by her long, dark hair. Marge screeched and bolted from the scene, letting the screen door slam behind her. Thunder rumbled deep and heavy in the night.

CHAPTER 2

There were only two night shift detectives in the Lynch Street squad room when Sarah Kelley was hauled in. The others were out on calls.

Detective Lyle Bernadette sat at his desk typing up his report on an assault and a reported burglary from earlier in the shift. His partner, Detective Corporal Andy McKerrow, sat at his desk, not far from Bernadette’s. A Vietnam vet who had kept his light brown hair just a quarter inch longer since returning to civilian life, McKerrow had at least ten years and a good thirty pounds on blonde beanpole Bernadette, but the younger detective had him on height. Paperwork, too. It didn’t take Bernadette too long to get through his. But McKerrow, slow and steady, pecked away at his typewriter, one thick ivory finger on the keyboard at a time, like a woodpecker. Peck, peck, peck, peck, peck.

The phone on McKerrow’s desk rang. McKerrow groaned and stopped typing. He looked up at his fellow detective with a scowl and reached for the little bottle of corrective fluid on his desk. He shook it with one hand while he turned the typewriter’s platen with the other. Bernadette took the hint and answered the call from his own phone. “District Three, detectives,” he said. After listening a few seconds, he said, “Okay,” and hung up.

Waiting at the front desk were Officers Gareth Kohl and his partner Jory Teper, both twelve-year veterans who had been working the streets of the Third when Bernadette had been stationed there back in ‘78. The bigger one, Kohl, he knew as a head breaker and an equal opportunity bigot. The smaller one, Teper, had proven to be a good solid cop with an even temper. Some of the detectives at the Third thought of him as Kohl’s keeper.

The two officers, their scratched faces looking as much red as white, stood on either side of a black-haired girl with an equally battered face and hate-filled eyes. They each had a grip on the girl’s upper arms. Their night sticks dangled in their free hands. They were all keyed up and breathing hard. Kohl looked at the girl and growled. Teper reached up, felt his chin with the back of his stick hand, and checked to see if it came away with any blood.

The girl stood straight and stiff, her jaw muscles working under the bruises. Sergeant Althage, with his yellow-blonde buzz cut and angry pink face, stood behind the big marble desk filling in a booking form. The golden deco grillwork made him look like a teller at a shaky bank sweating the latest withdrawal. He glanced up occasionally at the three of them and shook his head, mumbling under his breath.

Bernadette stepped up beside Officer Teper and leaned on the desk. “Duty officer said you had something for me, Sergeant?”

Althage looked up and glared at him. “Yeah, I got something for you. Come here.” He waved Bernadette to the end of the desk and joined him by the Dr. Pepper machine.

“Where’s McKerrow?”

“Paperwork.”

“Great,” he squinted. “You been back, what, a week?”

“About a week.” Bernadette had recently been transferred after finishing a two-year assignment at the Seventh, north of Forest Park.

“Uh huh.” He jerked his head toward the two cops and their collar. “Okay, did you get a good look at that girl?”

“Good enough to see she took some beating.”

“And?”

“Teper and Kohl should have taken her to City for treatment before bringing her here. Right?”

“I always said you were a bright boy.”

“Yeah? How come I never heard that?”

“Look, wise guy, you got two veteran officers here that maybe got a little carried away in their work.”

Bernadette glanced at the officers in question. “And you want—?”

“Interview the officers, interview the girl, write it up. And do it all before some cocksucker with a briefcase catches sight of her.” He pointed his thick forefinger at Bernadette’s chest. “You’re gonna be here for a couple of years. So, do not fuck these guys, they’re good cops. You got it?”

Bernadette nodded. “I got it, Sergeant.”

“Good.”

“What’s the charge?”

“B & E, resisting arrest—you want more?” He stared hard at the detective.

Bernadette shrugged and walked back to the corner of the desk. “I’ll take her,” he said.

Teper moved back and let go of the girl, happy to be rid of her. Kohl held on and snarled. “You’re going to need some help with this one. Detective.” He worked his lips into a first-class sneer with the word. He stood maybe an inch taller than Bernadette, or he would have if he’d bothered to straighten up.

Bernadette smiled and looked at the girl. The girl did not smile back. She didn’t even look at him. He reached over and placed his hand on her upper arm, gently, but firmly. It felt like an iron rod, hard and unyielding. The girl turned her head and her eyes found him. The hate hadn’t gone anywhere but they squinted slightly as she seemed to lean toward the detective just a little.

“I’ll take her,” he said again.

Kohl let go of the girl’s arm and flexed his fingers. His knuckles cracked audibly inside his leather glove as he relaxed his grip. He raised his night stick a little, ready to swing it if the girl made a wrong move.

“Come on,” Bernadette said to the girl. “This way.”

He pulled a little. She shuffled her feet at first, then walked along beside him into the detectives’ squad room. Along the way, he flagged the matron, a tall black woman in her thirties named Gladys, and motioned to the girl’s face. Gladys nodded and went to find a first aid kit.

At his desk, Bernadette sat the girl down on a metal folding chair the color of modeling clay, leaving the cuffs on just in case. She sat there, lips tight, eyes watching. The marks on her face contrasted sharply with her white skin and she appeared to be soaked to the bone. He sat down and fed a booking sheet into the typewriter. Gladys arrived with a first aid kit and he asked her to find a blanket. “Of course,” she said, and walked away.

Bernadette opened the kit and dug out some cotton balls and alcohol. “What’s your name?” he asked. The girl didn’t move. He looked more closely at her face. A couple of the fresher wounds were dirty. One of them even had what looked like a tiny piece of rock in it. He opened the alcohol and got a cotton ball wet with the stuff.

McKerrow’s phone rang again. He stopped pecking at his typewriter and threw up his hands. With a snarl, he picked up the receiver and listened.

“I’m no nurse,” Bernadette said, “and I’m no EMT. But I can tell you this is going to sting quite a bit. Are you ready?” She didn’t move. He reached up toward the wound with the bit of rock in it. Her nostrils flared.

McKerrow hung up and pushed his chair back. “Hey. Lyle.”

“Yeah, what?”

“Althage says to go into the locker room and talk to Kohl and Teper so they can get out of here.”

Bernadette looked at the ball of cotton in his hand. McKerrow stood up and walked over. “Now.”

“Okay, Andy.” Bernadette set the alcohol and cotton on his desk and stood up as Gladys returned with a blanket.

“I’ll clean her up,” she said.

Bernadette left McKerrow and the matron to deal with the girl and made his way back to the locker room. He could hear McKerrow say, “This is gonna hurt, but you take it and you’ll heal faster.” It occurred to Bernadette later that maybe Gladys and McKerrow had saved him from getting his ass handed to him by a girl with her hands tied behind her back.