All In A Night’s Work

Crime Fiction by Timothy Tarkelly

I woke up to my door latch being worked over. By the time I could register the noise and climb off of the couch, the two men were in my living room, each holding a pistol in my face.

I slowly reached for the lamp and neither of them moved. When the lights came on I recognized the bigger one. His name was Fred O’Donnel and he was a regular at my precinct. He was arrested often, but nothing ever stuck.

“Freddy,” I said. “Why didn’t you just knock?”

The other man that was with him began to check the rest of my apartment. He was a lot smaller than Fred. Most men are smaller than Fred, but this guy was pretty scrawny. His suit looked like it had been stolen by a child from his dad’s closet.

“Detective,” Fred said, still holding his pistol towards me. “We need you to come with us.”

I rubbed my eyes and took a deep breath. All I wanted was to sleep. The furious pangs of a hangover were taking over my senses. I didn’t want to hear or see anymore.

“I’m not a detective,” I said. “Not anymore, I’m not. You can thank your boss for that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to sleep.”

“No you’re not, detective.”

“Shoot me.” I laid back down and closed my eyes, wishing it was that easy to get rid of them. Fred placed the barrel of his gun into my ribs and I opened my eyes again.

“What could you possibly want?” I almost shouted. The other, scrawny gentleman came back into the room. His suit was dangling from his body, like hand-me-downs that he was still trying to grow into.

“I don’t want anything; you know that.” Fred said.” But, I will tell you that an attitude like that isn’t going to get you anywhere. You want to go back to sleep? Then I suggest you get up, get dressed, wash your face, and get some coffee. The sooner you get ready and come with us, the sooner you’ll be back home and back in bed.”

Fred lowered his gun and turned to the other man. “Hey, go make some coffee.

The scrawny man nodded and disappeared into the kitchen.

“You hire kids, now?”

“Shut up,” Fred said, with a hint of a smile. “His name is Donnie. He may be small, but he’s tough. I saw him boxing for cash. He took down three opponents in a row. I was betting against him, of course. When the fourth guy came up, he jumped in the ring and laid the poor boy out. By then everybody else was betting for him. I made a good sum of money that night. I gave him a job. That’s a good story, no?”

“I honestly don’t care.”

“God, you’re pissy,” Fred barked at me and lit a cigarette. “Besides, the kid will do anything. Never talks back.” He ashed on my carpet and then hollered at Donnie. “Hey, put sugar in those coffees.”

“Sure thing,” Donnie hollered back.

“I don’t like sugar in my coffee,” I said.

“You’ll live. Get up.”

“Fred, I’m sure whatever it is, it can wait until I’ve gotten at least a couple more hours of sleep.”

“I’m enjoying your attitude, I really am, but your charm is wearing off. Get up, get ready, or I’ll have Donnie piss in your coffee, too.”

I got dressed and we drank our coffee in silence. Fred found a thermos and filled it with the leftovers.

“Here you go, detective. This should keep you running for a couple of hours.”

“I’m not a detective.”

“Sure, you are,” Fred said as he opened the door. They led me to the car, and Donnie shoved me in the back seat. I offered no resistance. In fact, I liked the idea of stretching out and getting some more rest. As I drifted back into sleep, I hoped this trip would last several hours.

It seemed as if my eyes closed only for an instant. My nap only made me feel worse. I sat up and looked around. It was still dark outside. We parked under a giant sign that informed me we were at the Pine Cone Motel. There were only four rooms, and only four had a car in front of them. The back door opened, and little Donnie pointed his gun at me.

“Get out.”

“Just give me like fifteen minutes,” I said. I’ll admit, I was trying my best to give these guys a hard time, but fifteen more minutes of sleep would have been fantastic.

“I don’t think you heard me,” Donnie tightened his grip on the pistol, and his hands started shaking.

“You’ve already gone through this much trouble. There is no way you’re going to shoot me for trying to sleep in the back seat,” I said.

“You sure you wanna make that bet?” Donnie asked me.

“Yes. I am positive. I am not a gambling man, but I would bet anything on that. You name it, and I will throw it down on the fact that you are not going to kill me right now.”

Fred laughed, and Donnie’s face turned red. The short, scrawny, criminal type always has something to prove. The more Fred laughed, the harder this kid pulled at my hair and my jacket until I got out of the car. Once I got out, he threw a punch at my left eye, and I went down.

“I’ll bet you the next punch knocks you out.”

“I’ll take those odds. I could use the rest,” I grunted. I was trying to stay tough, but Fred wasn’t kidding when he told me about Donnie’s boxing abilities. That bunch took a lot out of me, and I’ll bet he was holding back.

“Stop messing around. The boss is waiting,” Fred said and started walking up the gravel driveway. I brushed myself off and followed them. I still could not understand why I was here, at a motel, at three o’clock in the morning.           

We walked into the motel office and were greeted by no one. Fred walked behind the desk and grabbed a key.

“Here you go,” Fred said as he handed the key to me.

“What?”

“Take this key and go to number 1.”

“Why?”

“Do you want to sleep or not?”

“Yeah, but…”

“But, nothing. Go. Now.”

I was confused beyond belief. Still, I wasn’t going to argue. There was nothing these people could possibly want from me. I wasn’t a cop anymore. I walked out of the office and to the one motel room that didn’t have a car in front of it. Before I opened it, I rested my ear against the door and listened. I didn’t hear anything.

I opened the door and walked in. Suddenly, I felt very awake.

In the far corner was a woman. She was lifeless and covered with blood. I ran back out of the room and stormed into the office.

“What the hell is going on?” I shouted.

“You don’t like your accommodations?” Fred asked.

“I’m not going to let you guys set me up. Is that what this is? Get me out here, place me in the room with the dead girl. Very clever, Fred. Very clever. Get me to put my finger prints all over the room.” I was basically screaming, and the whole time Fred and Donnie just sat there.

“I’m not a cop anymore,” I continued. “There’s nothing I can do to you, anymore. Why are you doing this to me?”

“It’s not like that, detective,” Fred said calmly.

“I’m not a detective.”

“Look, Pete will be here real soon. Go back in there and have a look around. Pete just wants an unbiased eye. Go back in there and sleep if you want to, and Pete can wake you up himself. I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you’re going to be difficult…

“An unbiased eye?” I asked, and neither of them said anything.

I marched back to the room and slammed the door like a kid throwing a temper tantrum. So, they wanted me to play detective. Pete Bannion wanted me to look at the body. Well, I wasn’t going to. I pulled back the sheets on the bed and laid down, defiantly holding my eyes closed. Let Pete wake me up; let him pour a bucket of boiling water on my head. I didn’t care. I was furious, and I was tired. If he wanted me to play detective, he should have just let me be one.

While I was throwing my little fit and climbing back into the bed, I forgot there was a corpse in the corner of the room. As soon as I remembered, my eyes flew back open, and I felt awake again. I was being stupid. I reluctantly got back up and walked over to the corpse.

She was rather tall: right around five foot, ten inches. Her hair was black, and she had dark skin. There was a knife wound right above her hip and a black left eye. I didn’t move the body because I didn’t want to leave fingerprints. As far as I knew, they could be setting me up as this girl’s murderer.      All in all, this girl would have been a knock out. It was a shame to see her like this: lifeless, no dignity, sprawled out on a motel-room floor.

Eventually, I heard a car pulling into the motel, and all of my anger came rushing back. There was no one on the planet I hated more than Pete Bannion.

Since my first day as a narcotics detective, I was trained to hate him. Every investigation would lead us right back to him. Of course, politics would get in the way. The chief wouldn’t want to pursue him, so we’d arrest a bunch of people below him. No matter how much evidence we had, the District Attorney would claim that we didn’t have a sufficient amount. Finally, we had enough on him that no one could look the other way no matter how crooked of a cop or politician they were. The thing is, Pete Bannion is a smart guy.

A lot of criminals, when being faced with charges, will find ways to discredit the prosecuting attorney, their expert psychiatrist, or people like that. Bannion discredited the entire narcotics task force. One by one we were picked out and terminated. Some of them were framed for crimes they didn’t really commit while some of them were caught red-handed. all thanks to mysterious anonymous phone calls to the police department. I got caught with a prostitute in my own car. Of course, I was passed out, and I don’t remember how we got there. They took my badge away, and the whole investigation got shelved.     

The door opened, and Pete looked at me with an unapologetic grin.

“Looks like you’ve already got a head start,” he said.

“Sort of. I’ll need some gloves or something if you want me to continue examining the body.”

“You still don’t trust me?” Pete asked and then walked over to the corpse. He rubbed his bare hands along her face. “There you go. My fingerprints are on her, too. Carry on with the investigation, detective.”

“I’m not a detective.”

“Do your job.”

“Do my job? My job? I don’t have a job. And even if I did still have a job, I would be a narcotics detective. Not homicide.”

Pete lit a cigarette and sat down on the bed. “Detective Tom Flannery. You were a brave and valiant cop, I’m sure you were. You always seemed to have a huge hard on for your job, and there’s no doubt that you miss it. So, take this opportunity to relive your petty profession one last time.”

“Petty? Being a detective is petty?

“Very. I don’t have a whole lot of respect for the police.”

I laughed. “No kidding. I can’t tell you how surprised I am that a criminal doesn’t respect the police.”

“No, you’re misunderstanding here. As a businessman, I always have respect for my competitors. They are also businessmen. We are not enemies in the classic sense; we are both just trying to make a little money. I can’t fault him for doing the same thing I would do, but not all of my competitors are respectable. Every once in a while some kid tries to rise up and makes a lot of noise, so to speak. This man is not a competitor. Business is not his concern. To me, he is a nuisance, and he is taken care of as such.”

“So, I was a nuisance? I didn’t do my job for fame and glory, you know.”

“Sure, you did. Here’s the thing, detective. Oh, sorry. You’re not a detective, I know. Fred told me.”

“Thank you.”

“You see Tom, the police are a nuisance. Their whole purpose in life is to catch people doing bad things. They will find these things, even if they’re not really bad at all. Look at the radar man. He’s not worried about drivers putting other drivers in danger. He’s looking for the guy with the heavy foot, going three miles over the limit.”

“I’m not gonna argue with you,” I said.

“Of course not. Why would you? I make a very valid argument.”

“Sure, you do.” My body was beginning to grow numb from exhaustion. The coffee had no effect on me. “I need a drink and a cigarette.”

“A cigarette I can give you.” He threw me his pack and a box of matches. “However, I’m not sure a drink is such a good idea. I need my detective sharp and alert.”

“I really don’t know what you want from me. This cops and robbers, detectives and corpses game you’re playing is really out there, you know? I don’t want any part of it.”

“I know you don’t. You’re a nuisance. You were a badge and nothing more,” Pete said as he got up from the bed. “So long as the badge brought home a paycheck.”

I was livid. I jumped up and started screaming in his face: “I worked hard, damn hard, to keep people like you off the streets. I gave my life to sniffing out low-life criminals every day. No wife, no kids, no nothing. Just a badge and a lot of heart with it. Who are you to tell me I did it for the money? What money? Do you have any idea how much I didn’t get paid being a cop?”

I was calming down, and Pete hadn’t moved a muscle. He hadn’t blinked an eye, and his color didn’t change a single shade. He was cold, care-free, and sure as hell not scared of me.

“You care about justice, detective?” Pete asked me.

“Yes. That’s all I care about.”

“You care about justice?” Pete asked me again.

“Yes, I said that already.”

“Then why are we arguing? In the corner of this room is an innocent girl. A murdered, innocent girl. In three out of the four rooms of this motel are four suspects: One couple, one bachelor, and one woman. One of these people killed this girl. You have an opportunity to figure out who and why. However, you’re treating this opportunity as a mere inconvenience.

“Now, I’m asking you, safe keeper of Kansas City’s streets, warden of virtue, the perfect Detective Tom Flannery, do you give a damn about justice?”

He was right. This whole time I had been angry with Pete, Fred, and that little bastard that punched me in the head. I had been mad at the corpse in the corner and at my lack of sleep. In all that anger, I forgot that corpse was a victim. The thought of it, as well as the thought of the perpetrator being connected to me by adjoining motel rooms, suddenly made me sick.

“So, detective…”

“What’s the girl’s name?” I asked.

“Danielle,” he said.

I mulled it all over for a few moments. I went back and looked at the girl. I examined the wounds more closely and tried to take everything else in. She was in a nightgown, but not the lingerie type. To me, that meant her intentions were to actually go to sleep before somebody interrupted.

“What can you tell me about this girl? Any information would be helpful.”

“Well, she was a prostitute.”

“Oh,” I sighed. “Well, that changes things.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Look, Pete…Mr. Bannion, this girl could have stolen someone’s money. Maybe she needed a fix and had some kind of episode, or something else. I mean, prostitutes make unreliable victims.”

“Listen when I speak. She was a prostitute. She is not one anymore. Furthermore, she is very important to me.”

“I’m kind of lost, Mr. Bannion.”

“She was a call girl. I took her in. She was here to see me. Now, can you show a little more respect?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I’ll need to see everybody. And I think I want to see them all in here.”

“Why in here?” Pete asked.

“Because, I want to see how they all react to it.”

“I’ll also need a pen and some paper. Oh, and a drink.”

He shook his head and opened the door. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He said as he left the room.

I tried to get a good grip on what happened before I had found stories all jumbled up, twisting what little understanding I had. The situation was beyond confusing. I had four potential murderers, a dead prostitute who was also a drug trafficker’s girlfriend, and nowhere to begin. Even when I was a detective, I was in a narcotics unit. I talked to people and followed people. I was out there watching it all go down.

In homicide investigations, the cops show up after the fact. I don’t like having a victim that can’t talk and a killer who isn’t going to tell the truth. I couldn’t check fingerprints or anything. All of this had to be done by my own intuition.

I went back over to the girl and looked at the wound on her hip. It had been a pretty small blade, probably a stiletto or a good-sized pocket knife. The blade would have been single-edged, and therefore was the kind of knife anybody could just go out and buy. I searched the room for the knife. I looked in the trashcan, under the bed, under the covers, in all of the drawers, and in the girl’s suitcase, and I couldn’t turn up anything.

The door flew open and scared the hell out of me. It was Donnie, holding a little notebook, some pencils, a pack of smokes, and a flask.

“You could knock,” I said.

“What do you need privacy for?”

“What’s in the flask?” I asked as Donnie set everything on the desk.

“I don’t know. It’s Fred’s. But knowing him, I’d say it’s something cheap.”

“Then that should be just fine,” I said, and we both chuckled.

“Got it figured out yet?” Donnie asked.

“Not even close.”

We stood in silence. I took a pull from the flask and started jotting down what I noticed about the stab wound.

“Who found her?” I asked.

“I did. We got a weird call from her in the office. I came to check it out, and she was in the corner.”

“So, you guys work here?”

“Well, Pete got this big idea about a year ago. He bought a couple motels and had us work in the office one or two nights a week. That way we all have legitimate jobs. Not to mention, motels are a good place to conduct a lot of our business. And if we own them we don’t have to worry about them calling the cops if they get spooked.”

“That’s really smart. You guys were in the office the whole time?”

“Yep.”

“Who can attest to that?” I asked him and his face went blank.

“Fred and Pete.”

“Gotcha.”       

“Anyway, good luck. Call us when you’re ready to see everyone. They’ve all been instructed to stay in their rooms until the police got here. So, make sure you act professional. We don’t want them to know we’re doing this our way.”

“All right.”

I made one more sweep around the room after Donnie left and took a couple more drinks. After a few minutes, I called the office. A few moments later, there was a knock at the door. The first suspect was the single woman, and she was escorted by Pete

“Here you go, Mrs. Morris.” He was saying as he led her in. “I’m detective Bannion, and this is Detective Flannery.”

I winced at the realization that he was posing as a cop. I didn’t want him getting too excited and ruining our cover.

Upon the sight of the dead body Mrs. Morris vomited. She told us she was passing through to pick her husband up from Leavenworth. She also swore he was a guard there, not a prisoner, and that she didn’t commune with criminals of any kind. I believed her, and so did Pete, so I collected her contact information and sent her back to her room.

I couldn’t see this woman as a murderer. Although, I had been surprised before.

“Detective Bannion?” I asked, as soon as Mrs. Morris was gone.

“Well, this has to look real. How many detectives work alone?” He had a good point.

“Who’s next?” I asked.

“Well, I’d say the couple is next.”

“OK, but let me ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“Well, do you have any ideas? I mean, do you suspect one of them over the other?”

“Yep,” he said plainly. “But I’m not a detective. I want you to figure this out. Killing is a dirty business, and I don’t want to have to do it unless I’m sure I’m killing the right guy.”

I didn’t speak. Just then it finally occurred to me that the person I found guilty was going to be murdered.

“By that you mean turn them into the authorities.”

“Whatever you have to tell yourself,” Pete said with a laugh.

We walked down to the third room and knocked on the door. There was no answer. Pete knocked even louder, and we didn’t hear a thing.

“Mr. and Mrs. Templeton open the damn door,” Pete shouted.

Eventually, we heard some stirring. The door opened and Mrs. Templeton came stumbling out of her room, rubbing her tired eyes, and wearing an embarrassingly conservative night gown. She had to be seventy years old.

“How can I help you?” she asked and Pete smiled.

“Hello, Mrs. Templeton,” Pete said. “We’re here to ask you about something that has occurred here this evening. Someone was hurt.”

 

“I thought they were all instructed to stay put until the police got here,” I said, confused.

“Well, these two didn’t want to wake up. Deep sleepers.”

“Who got hurt?” Mrs. Templeton asked.

“Nobody, ma’am. There’s been a mistake. Come on, detective,” I said, but Pete ignored me.

“Mrs. Templeton,” Pete was all laughs now. “Strictly for research purposes, could you try and stab me? Just to see if you could.”

Her eyes got big, and she started creeping back into her room.

“Never mind, Mrs. Templeton. Have a good night,” I said quickly and pulled Pete away.

“Yeah, I had a feeling it wasn’t them.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“Yes it is, detective. I had a feeling it was the bachelor. Now, I feel pretty sure about it. I should be a detective.”

I shook my head, and Pete continued to laugh at his own antics.

“Before we talk to the next guy I want to do something,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“I want you to grab the two from the office, and I want us to all look around for the knife.”

“We don’t need it, do we? We know who did it.”

“Well, I’d feel a lot better about all of it if we could find it. I don’t want to just assume it’s this guy. You’d be surprised how wrong those assumptions can be. I want him to confess, and it would be a lot easier to make him confess if  I wave the murder weapon in front of his face.”

“Whatever you say, detective.”

So, we all looked around the motel. I made them all start and then walk out five or six yards. I figured that was a good distance if someone were to throw a knife in a hurry. I started by the cars, Fred started by the road, and Donnie started in the hedges by the office. Pete sat this out, of course. Nobody found anything. About half an hour later, Pete and I went and got the bachelor.

He was a peculiar man. He seemed handsome, except he was poorly dressed and poorly mannered. His name was Jonathan Stout, and he was a college professor, traveling to the Ozarks to document the over-population of some kind of plant.

We took him to the room, and his reaction was very similar to Mrs. Morris. He started shaking and gagging as the questioning began.

“Jonathan, tell me about your evening,” I said.

“I, uh, what do you mean?” he asked.

“Describe your evening in great detail.”

He mumbled a long and descriptive story. According to him, and the office ledger, he showed up around seven o’clock that evening. He made himself a sandwich from salami that he had brought with him, and he watched television until around nine o’clock. Then, he called the office for a wake-up call and slept until he had been informed that there was going to be a police investigation.

“So, you’re a scientist, right?” Pete blurted out.

“I’m a botanist. I study plants, yes.”

“What kind of tools does a botanist use?” Pete asked.

‘What do you mean?” The professor’s mumbling grew fierce.

“What kind of tools do you use? Do you go walking in the woods with nothing but a notebook? Do you take little baggies with you to collect whatever stuff you find? Do you take gardening implements? Shovels? Scissors? Knives, maybe?” Pete asked with a smile. I was kind of impressed.

“I have all kinds of things. Um, shovels, knives, shears, and some other stuff you mentioned.”

“Good.” Pete said and stood up.

“Where are you going?” I asked.       

“To get the knife out of his room.”

John Piped up. “No, um, all of my tools are in my car.”

Pete winked at him and left the room. Moments later, we could hear glass breaking. John’s face turned bright red, and he started mumbling again.

“So, Jonathan, do you have anything you want to tell me?” I asked.

“No, nothing.”

“Why’d you do it, Jonathan? Lonely? She was a pretty girl.”

“I know. But I didn’t do anything,” he was stammering over his words.

“You know? You met her before we brought you in here? I thought you guys were strangers. You were locked in your room all night.”

“Well, I saw her when I was checking in. She was with that little guy.”

“Look, I get it. A guy like you doesn’t get girls too often. You went to her room, she told you to back off, and you lost your temper.”

“No, I didn’t do anything like that.”

Pete stormed back into the room with a wooden toolbox.

“Jackpot, detective,” He said. “We got more blades in here than I could count.”    

Jonathan leaped from the bed and started crying. He was trying to say something to us, but I couldn’t understand any of it.

“Shut up, will you?” Pete demanded. “This guy killed her, detective. I knew it. As soon as I got here I knew this was the guy. If I would have known I wouldn’t have bothered with you in the first place.”

Jonathan was a writhing mess on the floor by now. Pete kept yelling at him to stop.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “About not knowing until you got here, I mean.”

“Huh?”

“You weren’t here when it happened?”

“No,” Pete said before he pulled Jonathan to his feet. “Now listen! I want to hear you say it.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Jonathan cried.

Pete marched over to the toolbox and removed a knife. “Let’s see what you look like holding a knife. Maybe, you’ll act like a man again when you have a knife in your hand.” Pete threw the knife at Jonathan. He caught it in his right hand, and our case fell apart.

I told Jonathan to go back to his room, and I told Pete to wait in the office. Before I met up with him there, I went to look for the murder weapon. This time, I started at the hedges by the office. Sure enough, I found a little Buck knife, all bloodied up.

I marched into the office and tossed the knife to Pete. Then, I punched Donnie in the eye.

“She tell you that you were too little of a man?” I asked.

Donnie came back up at me, and Fred was holding me back. Pete grabbed Donnie by his jacket.

“What are you saying, detective?” Pete asked me.

“It was him, Pete. I’m sure of it.”

“That’s bullshit, Mr. Bannion.” Donnie was the one stammering now.

“Oh yeah? Well, what about the knife? I found it by the hedges, where you were supposedly looking for it.”

“So, I didn’t see the knife. That’s hardly a reason to call me a murderer.” Donnie said.

“Okay,” I conceded the point. “Well, the only time any of our guests have seen the victim was when she was talking to you.”

This time, Pete was doubting me. “That’s nothing, detective. I mean, that doesn’t prove anything.”

“Okay. I suppose he didn’t exactly lie to me when he said you could vouch for his whereabouts. He said you’d back him up, but he didn’t say you were here. So, that too isn’t enough to support my theory. Forget about his link to the victim; that too is circumstantial. And I’d even let go the blindly bumping around in the bushes. It was dark outside, right?

“Then what is all this?” Donnie asked me. His eyes were wide with anger or fear.

“Well, it’s the stab wound in the hip. Pete saw himself that the last guy was right-handed. And the thing is, the hip is such a weird place to stick a knife.  A little shit like you could have done it no problem. And then, when she bent over, you gave her that left hook of yours. It’s great, if you ask me. If you hadn’t punched me, I might not have figured it out so quickly.”

Donnie’s whole body tightened, his jaw and fists clenched, but he didn’t move or speak.

“What about the phone call, detective?” Fred asked. “I was here when he got it.”

“Well, who took the wake-up call for the professor?”

Nobody answered.

Pete spun Donnie around and punched him square in the jaw. Donnie went down, but he still had some life in him. Regardless, he didn’t fight back. Instead, he sat on the floor, defeated.

“Why’d you do it?” I asked.

Donnie didn’t respond. I could only imagine what occurred. He seemed like a dirt bag, like a lonely and frustrated dirt bag. He came onto her, she said no. I’ll bet he wouldn’t let up. The guy gets pushed around at work, but he wasn’t going to take it from a woman. Donnie went into her room, and she said get out or she’d tell the boss. Maybe, she even went to scream, but Donnie pulled out his knife and laid her out.

Pete and Fred led him out the door and threw him into Pete’s car. A few minutes later Fred came back in.

“Mr. Bannion wants me to inform you that after he is done settling this matter you are to be reimbursed for your time.”

I thought for a minute. I had just sentenced a man to death by foregoing all the principals that made me a detective to begin with. The weird thing was, I didn’t feel bad about it. There weren’t going to be any technicalities that would result in his release, no jurors to be persuaded or bought, and no taxpayer’s money keeping him alive and happy in the process.

“Tell him that will not be necessary,” I said.

“Have it your way, detective. I trust that you won’t be going to any authorities about any of this?”

“Not at all, Fred. I just want to go to sleep.”

---

Bio: Timothy Tarkelly’s work appears in Guilty Crime Story Magazine, The Daily Drunk, Flyover Country, and more. He’s authored several books including One Night in Prague, Love and Death in Istanbul, and A Horse Called Victory. When he’s not writing, he teaches in Southeast Kansas. 

Cover photo by:Pexels/Laura Reed

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