Grave Mistakes_A Deadly Vigilante Crime Thriller

by Brian Spangler

  The days before I was scheduled to return to Holmesburg prison, I was free of the hospital, of the doctors and the nurses, and their incessant poking and prodding. By then, the world had turned autumn brown with the smell of falling leaves, dried fruit, warm cider, log fires and pumpkin spice in every coffee shop. Steve and I were free to be who we wanted to be too. We lived those days in the old Team Two office, alone, cut off from the world, doing everything. We talked until sunrise, drank bottles of wine, ordered a hundred meals, made love in every room—we fit a year’s worth of time into the few days we had together. And I loved every minute. So did he.

  On the day of my return to prison, Steve and Brian arranged a small party at the Diner—endless milkshakes and fries, extra salt. I finally had the family get-together I’d always wanted. Brian, his wife, Michael and his family, Snacks and a certain beau we all joked with, Carlos. And there was Steve, who gave a speech that made everyone laugh and cry and wishing the afternoon would never end. Pigtails was there too, helping with the food, and then joining us for a drink at my request, though she had no idea why. She would always be a reminder of the good I had done in this world. The day was the gift I’d dreamt of for twenty years and I’d relish it for the months I had to be away from my family.

  It wasn’t all joy. The Wilts had left their mark on our baby girl. Snacks was scarred from the beatings, giving her left eye a slight droop. She’d be forever damaged. But as she’d put it, we’re all a little damaged, anyway. The bright side of her ordeal was having finished her research article, which instantly went national. There were talks of a terrifically huge book deal, and movie deals along with countless job offers. She’d be okay. After all, she was my daughter.

  ***

  I didn’t flinch when the sound of grating metal slammed shut, a sharp clack echoing my sentiment for being back in prison. And I didn’t dare show fear to the guards or to the other inmates as I entered my old cell block. An inmate crossed in front of me, giving me a look, trying to decide if I was fresh. I could sense she knew who I was though, even before her partner tugged on her sleeve and led her in the other direction. Did I still have prison cred? I would have thought the old well was dry, but I’d take every bit of cred if it meant my time would be a little easier.

  As the pair walked away, they traded glances with a few on the balcony who then repeated the same, the news of my return making its way through the prison. I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry, the taste of freedom, of time in the Diner, time with my family, disappearing fast. The regulars were out too, eyeing me, standing and hanging around in the same places they were when I’d last seen them. I saw a few inmates lurking in the shadows, but they weren’t snakes, they were trying to stay unnoticed, more afraid of me than I was of them. The vultures and the thieves came by for a look too, having heard the news of someone new on their block. They eyed me and tried to decide if they’d come in the night and feed.

  There was also the clock. I could feel its eye on me, staring down, daring me to give it a look and chance my sanity. In time, I thought, and moved on at the guard’s nudging request. Good behavior and I’ll be out in 6 months, I assured myself and waved to a few familiar faces—faces I’d never expected to see again.

  “Well, what do ya know, look at this,” the guard said, sounding surprised and pointing to an open cell—my old cell. “Look familiar?”

  “Suppose,” I answered flatly. I straightened my shoulders, grimaced, my belly burning where I’d been shot. I was weak, it was my legs that worried me. They’d already felt like jelly as the prison sights and smells hammered into my brain.

  “I think you know where everything is,” the guard said, giving me a welcome push before leaving.

  “You can do this,” I told myself in a mumble as I entered my old cell, my freedoms draining from me with the reality of being back behind bars. “Six months, good behavior, and you’ll be with Steve and the kids.”

  I squinted past the sting of a tear, trying to hold it in, but felt as though I was suffocating. I clenched my teeth, biting down and tried to control the emotions. There’s no crying in prison. There’s no sign of weakness. It doesn’t matter I’d spent twenty years with these animals. If I showed emotion, if they suspected I was raw, they’d treat me like I was new, like a fish (more slammer slang). And they’d expect me to act like I was new too. I set my things on the empty cot and pressed my hands against my legs, pinching the prison issued fabric, stretching out the creased folds. The uniform was a fresh jumpsuit, new, but I needed it to be worn, looking old like me.

  There was a buzz. Electric. I could feel it vibrating through the floor and along the walls, the news of my return causing a wave that would reach everyone before I had a chance to settle. I closed my eyes, squeezing out the remains of a tear and then listened. The cellblock was busy with activity—women yelling, some arguing, a few cries—there was the daily chaos that was normal. And the smell, the damp concrete smell that’d seep into my pores before long. I was home. I tried to hold on to the taste of what I’d had outside, but it was already slipping, fading.

  That’s when I sensed I was being watched. Someone had taken an interest. I felt it the way a small animal feels the presence of a predator.

  “Show you’re strong. Show you belong,” I mumbled, ignoring the sudden fear, of wanting to hide beneath the covers in my cot. I forced myself to stand at the opening of my cell, forced myself to step back into the skin of the person I was before, and guard my stoop. I turned to face the cell-block and leaned against the wall, shoving my shoulder into the metal frame, finding the familiar stance and the grooves I’d left behind.

  “Aw Snap! Is it my Birthday? Never think to see you in here again,” a voice called from across the cell block. I lifted my head, slow and steady, trying not to show any care or reaction. But my heart was in my throat and dread filled my gut. It was Roxanne, her huge frame filling the cell opening directly across from me—a vicious smile on her face, curving like the brim of a hat. Roxanne put a hand to her mouth and blew me a kiss. I shrunk back with a chill racing through me. She winked and told me, “Welcome Home, Baby!”

  Sometimes you have to die to save your soul.

  THANK YOU

  Thank you for reading the third book in my series, Affair with Murder. If you enjoyed reading Grave Mistakes, I would appreciate it if you would help others enjoy my book.

  How can you help? Tell your friends and family about the great book you just read. Reviews are a great help too. Post online and let me know that you wrote a review so that I have an opportunity to thank you.

  As a bonus, I’ve added a short story to the end of this book. In Sickness and in Murder. The short story provides a glimpse into the life of Amy’s husband, Detective Steve Sholes, taking place around the end of book two.

  Want to read some of my other books and keep in touch? Click my newsletter link, or navigate to http://writtenbybrian.com/sign-up to subscribe and stay informed.

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  Happy Reading,

  Brian

  ALSO BY BRIAN SPANGLER

  C
rime Thriller Series

  Affair with Murder—Having an affair with murder is easy. It’s what happens afterward that’s deadly.

  Deadly Tide—The exciting adventures of Jericho Quinn. An officer with the Marine Patrol on the beautiful coast of North Carolina. A missing child. A serial killer on the loose, and a murder mystery.

  A Cozy Mystery

  An Order of Coffee and Tears—Friendships, romance, secrets, and forgiveness come together in this cozy mystery.

  Supernatural Suspense

  Superman’s Cape—A grim tale of a boy lost in a forest that holds all of his fears.

  Short Stories

  Naked Moon—For one young traveler, a naked moon may mean the difference between life and death.

  Some Sci-Fi and Dystopian Thrillers

  From the Caustic Series—An Apocalyptic and Dystopian series:

  Fallen—Book One

  Endure—Book Two

  Deceit—Book Three

  Reveal—Book Four

  From Hugh Howey’s World of Wool

  Silo Saga: Lottery—What happens when you have one too many mouths to feed?

  For more, visit my site and subscribe to my newsletter, WrittenByBrian.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU?

  I’M A WALRUS!

  Brian Johnson—The Breakfast Club

  Who am I?

  I’m a resident of Virginia. I live there with my wife and children, along with four cats—sometimes more—a mouse, a parrot, a lizard, and the funniest chinchilla on the East Coast.

  Although I live in Virginia, my heart is still in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where I was raised. And I hope that, one day, I’ll be able to call Philadelphia home again.

  Growing up, I liked to read short stories, but struggled with the words. You see, I had a secret, a sad little secret. Ashamed and embarrassed, I was the little kid in the back row of the schoolroom quietly moving my lips along with the class while everyone read aloud. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t write. I hoped nobody would notice, but they did. They always did.

  By the time I reached the fourth grade, my secret wasn’t a secret anymore. The teachers knew something was wrong. Dyslexia. Maybe that’s why I liked science fiction so much? All those crazy-looking glyphs on the screen, glowing, flashing.

  The fix? Back to the third grade for me, and then special classes three days a week. But it worked. Once I started reading, I never stopped. Stephen King, Piers Anthony, Dean Koontz, and even the Judy Blume books my sisters discarded.

  I’m still one of the slowest readers I know, but school was never a problem again. I finally graduated from the third grade, and then kept on going until I finished my master’s.

  These days, I work as an engineer and spend my nights writing, editing, and thinking up the next great story.

  Happy reading,

  Brian

  In Sickness and In Murder

  MY WIFE IS A MURDERER. She’s not a bad person, but she is a killer. I’d come to learn that painful truth while investigating the death of a homeless man. As the lead detective on the case, I broke every rule, every promise, every law I’d vowed to uphold. After all, up until then, the greatest thing I’d ever done in my life was to love my wife, and we have vows too.

  I was convinced she’d killed the homeless man in self-defense. Only, she didn’t stay at the scene like you’re supposed to. She didn’t scream for help or call the police or wait to tell her side of the story.

  Instead, she ran.

  At some point, she’d even gotten rid of whatever evidence there might have been. But she missed some of it—she just didn’t know it at the time. It was the way the homeless man had died that clued me onto the fact that something was off. The Captain and my colleagues didn’t see what I did. They looked uncaringly at the crime scene, missing it, dismissing it much the same way the homeless man had been dismissed. In my career, I’d seen dozens of murders—a hundred maybe. I’d seen mortal wounds, self-inflicted wounds, and I’d seen my share of defensive wounds. But what I saw in the alley that night told me a very different story. What might have started as self-defense had ended up a murder.

  Later, when I discovered my wife’s involvement, I turned a blind eye. For the first time in my career, I saw what I wanted to see, lying to myself, convincing myself that she’d done what she had to do to survive. So I guess I shouldn’t have been all that surprised when she killed again. But I was, and now another man is dead.

  My name is Steve Sholes. I’m a detective, a husband, and a father. My wife is Amy Sholes. We met in a romantic, storybook fashion, finding one another amidst a sea of stirring lights and sweaty bodies, rocking and thumping to a hard dance-club beat. Seeing her was like the taste of honey—sweet and wanting more. The world disappeared around us, and we played a flirty game, swaying slowly and talking softly. Before I knew it, we’d found ourselves in an intimate bubble where we quickly fell in love. We fit. We were the puzzle pieces that completed the picture we both wanted to see. And it was a beautiful picture.

  Then came the day when she walked into our home, her face flushed a deep crimson red, her clothes torn, her hands and knees scuffed and blood-stained in a way that triggered alarms in my head. She’d told me she’d had an accident, she’d tripped and fallen while leaving the library. She laughed sheepishly at her own clumsiness, but I could hear her forcing the tone and trying to make light of the scene in front of me.

  I wish I’d been more careful then, but the detective in me came out like a Dr. Jekyll to his Mr. Hyde. I barraged her with question after question, prodding and probing, unable to stop myself in searching for an answer she refused to reveal. She held to her story, though, and the intuition that told me she was the victim of a robbery or maybe an attempted rape was dismissed. Thinking back, if I hadn’t been home, if I hadn’t seen her walk into our kitchen in the state she was in, I would have never been able to place her at the scene of the murder. Amy did a good job of cleaning up after herself, but in her haste, she left the buttons from her blouse that the homeless man had seized in his hand, clutching them in a death grip as his life spilled from his neck. The image of Amy stayed fresh in my mind for days. Her hair pulled out, the scratches, her torn clothes. There are some images that remain forever.

  Being the lead detective, I got a call from the coroner, asking that I meet him at the morgue. I had no idea what it was he wanted to show me, but if he was calling, then he had to have found something worth a look. I was eager to prove to the Captain, and to everyone else, that the case was more than just a few homeless caught up in a knife fight over a bottle of rotgut.

  The memory of that day is as cold as the air that had rushed past me when I entered the room where the dead speak. I remember how I jumped at the sound of the doors shutting behind me and how the coroner held back his laughter. To him, I had to have looked out of place—I rarely visit the morgue, preferring to read the reports rather than stand in a room and stare at dead bodies. I was a tourist in a strange city, and I hated the smell of the place too. I hated the refrigerator cold even more.

  “Put this on,” Walter Nolan had instructed and handed me a small container of what he called an odor inhibitor cream. He spoke with a slight lisp and dabbed his upper lip, adding, “It makes the room smell like vanilla.” I waved off the cream, deciding to breathe shallowly. I was eager to see what he’d found and didn’t plan to stay long.

  “Did you find something?” I’d asked.

  “Well, I heard from the Captain, and the thinking in this case is it might be a robbery gone bad . . . maybe two homeless fighting?” he began as he opened the morgue’s refrigerator door. The handle clanked, and one of the hinges protested before the dark interior revealed two blue feet through a frosty vapor. A toe-tag hung limply like an ornament from the dead man’s left foot, showing the date and time of death as best estimated by our findings at the crime scene.

  “A robbery, yes,” I answered, watching him take the body out o
f the refrigerator. I heard the squeal of metal as the tray carrying the homeless man slid into place, locking with a loud clack.

  The man had been dead two days, and even with the refrigeration, the smell made my stomach lurch. A taste of bile rose into the back of my throat. I clenched my jaw and nearly gagged, but held it back. He was an older man, and the dirt on his face made him look like some kind of ancient refugee, but the paperwork identified him as being in his early fifties. My eyes shifted to the wounds on his neck which had already turned as black as road tar, save for a few spatters of blood on his face and chest that had dried thin and showed a hint of red. His skin was paper thin and riddled with a heavy traffic of bluish veins that branched in long sweeps from his head to his toes. But what was most surprising was how frail the man was. Beneath the heap of shirts and coats he’d worn, he was as thin as a rail.