The glow of blue and red lights shone through the upstairs window from the street below into the room where Ryan was still hiding. More sounds of footsteps downstairs could be heard, alerted to the danger he slid as far back towards the wall as he physically could to where he felt safest. The resonance of the person moving grew louder and louder, Ryan pressed his hands to his mouth one more time. It was a middle aged police detective, with his shoes shined and a tightly pressed suit showing the symbol of professionalism and authority.
“In here sir!” said the detective as he leaned out of the entrance to the second floor crime scene and shouted down the stairs. More footsteps were heard running up the staircase,
“Nice find Daniels, now let’s see what we have here,” said one of the men as they entered the room sounding out of breath. A white sheet was laid over the body of Ryan’s mother and the detectives went about surveying the room,
“Looks like she couldn’t reach the bat,” said one detective,
“Got a picture over here, maybe a husband, probably died in service,” said Daniels looking at the bedside table with the neatly folded American flag alongside a candle and another framed photograph.
“Now how the hell do you know he died?” asked his partner.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked,
“Well not to the rest of us no,”
“This is more of a small vigil being kept, look at the candles,” Daniels replied. There was a small cracking sound; the detective dropped the photograph accidently by the bedside.
“Ah shit!” Daniels said, “I dropped the photo,”
“So?” the other detective asked, “She won’t be needing it anymore,” he laughed.
Another hour had passed and the lifeless shell of Ryan’s mother was being placed inside the body bag as the detectives seemed ready to leave. The zip of the bag covered her face, and Ryan let out one last little whimper before keeping quiet,
“Wait…Did you hear that?” asked detective Daniels as he slowly walked back into the bedroom. Ryan could hear the men talking softly as they approached the side of the bed; they tilted the double bed over onto its side. They were left stunned to find a small boy had been curled up, frightened and covered in blood, lying all alone underneath the mattress the whole time.
“Jesus Christ! Someone get the doctor!” bellowed the other detective as he ran out the room to the ambulance parked in the street. Ryan was reluctant to move and scurried further and further away from the police,
“It’s OK son, it’s OK,” uttered Daniels in a delicate tone of voice, so as not to startle the poor boy any more than he already had been. Ryan reached out, grabbed the detective’s hand and threw his arms around him clutching tightly, he was carried out of the gruesome murder scene of his beloved mother. He was placed down in the rear of the ambulance with a blanket rested around his shoulders to help with any shock,
“Clean him up, I’m going to need his clothes as well that’s also evidence. So I’ll run and grab more for him from inside,” said Daniels as he let go of young Ryan’s hand and walked back inside the house.
* * *
Downtown at the police station it was quiet, still in the early hours of the morning. The building was empty but for a few officers and receptionists dotted about here and there. Ryan was rested on a rickety wooden chair that was positioned next to detective Daniels’ desk, this is where he would usually take a statement or have a talk with the victim or witness. In this case it was the young witness, always the hardest to converse with Daniels found, he had no idea where to begin with the young boy sat beside him.
“So…did you see anything? Maybe what happened?” he asked. Ryan just shook his head, he didn’t remember many of the details and he was far too young to give any eventful account on what happened and Daniels could see this.
“Daddy, when can we go home?” queried a young thirteen year old blonde girl to her father,
“Soon enough sweetheart, I have something I need to do can you keep this young man here company, look after him,” Daniels asked of his daughter as he stepped away from his desk.
“Hi, my names Claire,” she politely opened with as she patted young Ryan on the top of his head. The two kept each other company until her father returned from the break room to talk with his partner,
“So what are we going to do with the kid? Don’t he have any family we can call?” asked Daniels’ partner,
“I don’t know, no more mother, father gone, seems harsh he should be thrown into the foster system after all he’s been through,” he replied resonating his worry about the boy. “I’ll try track down a grandparent or something, see if they can take the little guy.” His partner nodded in agreement and sipped his freshly poured hot coffee.
“I just hope we catch whoever did this…” added Daniels, he left the break room and walked back to his desk where his daughter had finally gotten Ryan to crack a smile for the first time this long evening.
“It’s good to see you two getting along,” Daniels said as he sat back down at his desk.
The next morning, the young Ryan Mathers awoke to the sound of ringing from an old rotary dial phone in the police break room. He had fallen asleep underneath the warmth of Detective Daniels’ coat across one of the hard leather sofas.
“Hey kid, how are you doing?” asked Daniels as he sat down beside him and handed Ryan a glass of water. He gulped it down and gave the glass back; he lay back down on the sofa and closed his eyes as Daniels smiled. Many hours later, Ryan was woken up to find that he would be going home with an elderly lady that afternoon. Detective Daniels had managed to track down the late victim’s mother in law. She had promised to look after the young boy, even though her and her daughter in law had barely spoken since Ryan was born. In fact, she made the point to Daniels that she had never even seen her own grandchild let alone cared for him for any length of time. She was still deeply saddened by the news of Ryan’s mother, but maintained to the detective that she must stay strong, someone had to now look after this boy and it was up to her to provide a loving home for him. She knew one day he would ask her what happened to his mother and father, but until that day she wanted to at all costs preserve his innocence. Ryan lived happily with his grandmother and did in fact learn the truth about his parents when he was fifteen. He kept his head down and studied hard, always wanting to be a policeman. He then joined the academy straight out of college, where he would meet another aspiring hopeful in his class named Harry O’Neill.
Chapter II
Ryan suddenly awoke in a cold sweat, his face dripping wet as the fan above his bed offered no fresh air. He sat up and tossed the quilt from upon his body to one side, sliding himself to the edge of his bed, he reached for his half empty and tatty pack of cigarettes. As he lit up he opened his bedroom window to listen to the soothing sound of the rain falling on the street outside. He threw what was left of his lit cigarette out of the window and slammed it shut. Then, opening a small cabinet in the corner of his room, he poured himself a drink from one of the many half empty bottles he kept near to his bed. Ryan had been sober for a full week at this point, but felt a drink was needed, he had not had that dream about the night of the seventeenth of August in nearly twenty years, and the same night April was born to be precise. It was obvious to Ryan that he had his personal demons when it came to the women in his life, his therapist made that quite clear to him. Only three people knew of his chequered past and he was determined to keep it that way. Having people think he was vulnerable all the time was not an option, especially if he needed to be strong for his daughter April, who was due to return home any day now and would need a strong father figure in her life from now on. He poured himself another strong drink and winced as he gulped it down, his lips virtually bypassing the glass completely as it travelled down his gullet. Ryan dragged a chair over to the window and sat down placing his feet up on the bed, he stowed the remainder of the bottle by the side of where he was sat so it was always within easy reach of
his arm, though he would hardly touch it. Opening the window once again, he stared out into the barely lit darkness and rain soaked abyss, pondering the harrowing moment in his life that he was doomed to repeat in his dreams.
As the sun rose later that morning, Ryan was still located in the same seat he placed himself in by the window the night before. He chose not to go back to sleep but instead to stay awake, he had to pick April up from the hospital later that morning, he jumped in the shower and blitzed the faint smell of alcohol from his breath using the mouthwash in his bathroom and readied for another day. When Ryan arrived at the hospital, an hour after the time he was supposed to in the back of his taxi, he noticed Jessica waiting outside the front of the hospital entrance with her,
“Wow he’s here, right on time too,” Jessica said sarcastically as she looked at her watch. April had already leaped out of the wheelchair she was forced to exit the hospital in and gave her father a hug. After she had jumped in the taxi and was ready to go home, his very soon to be ex-wife demanded a quick word with Ryan,
“I’m serious now, this can’t happen again Ryan,” she stated to him, he knew full well he had to be more attentive to her and agreed completely. “I’m also serious about the therapy as well, I think it could really help her,” Jessica added as Ryan rolled his eyes yet again. The two continued to complain back and forth for several minutes, their new found civility that they had previously established a few days before was already a laughable failure. Growing tired of waiting in the back of the car for her father to jump in she knocked on the back window grabbing both of their attention. Realising that they were causing a scene they swiftly and mutually said their goodbyes, and Ryan clambered in the back of the yellow cab. While it drove away to take them both home, Jessica was visibly worried about what on earth she was letting her daughter return to. She had made it clear to everyone how bad it could get at times being around Ryan; she put up with it for many years and had told her mother that she desperately didn’t want the same for her only child. Although, creating an argument out of it would only drive her closer to him and forge an even bigger rift between her and April, she could only sit back and watch, hopefully Ryan would know what to do.
* * *
Meanwhile, on the North East side of Washington D.C. was Monroe Street. On the street stood a small, two floored semi-detached house on the corner. The other houses next door were being kept in a decent and liveable condition, but not this one, the pathway leading to the front steps was covered in weeds, some appeared a foot high. The grass on the lawn was lush but not tidied, and gave a clear-cut image of a dense jungle growing to the front of the house. Muddy copies of old newspapers lay on the porch, some still in the plastic protective bags, unopened mail and leaflets were also crammed in the letterbox. The rotting water-damaged wood that the porch was constructed of was all around. The house hadn’t been properly maintained in a very long time, and paint flecks would fall from the door as soon as a person knocked. Some of the windows were boarded up and from the outside the domicile looked abandoned, but a sign that read ‘No entrance’ was on the front metal chain link fence, and a blue Sedan was parked in the driveway and seen coming and going at all hours of the day and night by the neighbours. As you enter the stained carpet covers the once decorative and polished wooden floors, there is no furniture either, excluding an old leather lounge chair in the front room with an old box in front to put your feet upon. Awning the walls of the downstairs room were clipping after clipping, cut from various newspapers and photographs both old and new of City Councilman Eli Walker dotted about. Some had been taken very recently, when he was dampened by rain and seen outside of what looked to be a hospital, talking on the phone. There seemed to be no order to the information, it was all random, but then again whoever did this demanded privacy as the boarded up windows suggested. A portly man in a navy blue jumpsuit then appeared from the kitchen with a bottle of water in his hand, he began to look at the wall intently before walking outside. His hands were hairy and his stubble was as well-kept as his front lawn, the shoes he was wearing were old and falling apart but it was obvious a new pair was a luxury he couldn’t afford. The name tag on his navy blue jumpsuit carried the name ‘Peterson’ and the tattoos on his neck and forearms were still slightly visible. It was Wayne Peterson, the man Eli Walker and Harry O’Neill had condemned to twenty extra years in prison. He was obviously gathering any information he could about Eli Walker, that included following him and keeping tabs on his movements. Peterson knew he was innocent all those years ago, he also knew that he couldn’t have the last two decades of his life back but was determined to see some justice handed down to the man who wronged him, determined to find out if Walker had any hidden skeletons he could use against him. As he left his gloomy and feculent place of living, he kicked the pile of used and unopened newspapers to one side. Peterson threw his water bottle onto the front seat of his car and started the engine, it spluttered for a moment before starting.
Peterson drove all the way to Eli Walker’s office downtown and waited parked across the street. His camera at the ready and his water bottle in hand, in case he got thirsty throughout his surveillance of the office.
“C’mon you son a bitch, where are you?” he thought to himself. This was followed by several minutes of checking his watch, and peeking candidly through the long lens of his camera, aimed directly at the building’s entrance. Wayne was growing tired of waiting for his prey, who was never normally one to be tardy. He reached for his binoculars and grew even more restless, the bags underneath his eyes and the bridge of his nose began to sweat from the constant contact with the rubber cups on the tip of his binoculars. The black BMW that belonged to Eli had finally arrived at the front steps. With his briefcase in hand and his trench coat slung over his forearm he trudged into the district office for another day in the life of a Councilman. Unaware that he was being continuously stalked by a man never in plain sight but always hidden just around the corner, or in this case across the street glancing over the head rest of the passenger seat. Wayne knew he had to be careful, Walker would remember him, after all he did try to take his head off with a closed fist the day he was re-arrested. So far, in the recent few months since his two decade incarceration, Wayne was able to keep his nose clean and stay out of any trouble. The slightest slip up or threat imposed upon Walker could see a harassment charge fall at his doorstep, with Wayne’s past he wouldn’t have much of a chance if Walker wanted to ‘take him off the streets’ again. He just couldn’t take the risk of not seeing the right side of the metal cage until he was a very old man. Whenever Peterson had his doubts or felt he was taking the wrong path, his fingers would begin to caress the small metal golden cross that hung around his neck on a chain with a flimsy clasp. This was a gift from a previous cell mate. Feeling remorse for his precise actions before his mandatory time in state captivity, he felt being a reformed man during his current time on the outside would reap benefits on his death bed in the eyes of the Lord almighty. Many criminals find their faith on the inside of a jail cell, especially those in there the longest, and those whom are looking to repent for the sins they committed earlier in life that caused their lives to be confined.
* * *
The hours passed by as the day grew longer and longer for Wayne Peterson, the key to a stakeout was remaining patient, that’s all it took, time and patience. Meanwhile, inside the offices Eli was receiving a phone call from none other than Harry O’Neill,
“My receptionist said you have been trying to contact me all morning, what’s wrong?” asked Harry,
“Nothing, we just need to talk that’s all,” replied Walker, sounding on edge about something,
“Really? It doesn’t sound like nothing, is it something to do with Ryan’s daughter and yours?”
“No I couldn’t care less about his daughter...This is about a certain man we both know, someone you were trying to talk to me about a while back,” said Eli, reluctantly wanting to voice Peterson’s na
me in case his busy body receptionist just outside the door could hear. Harry immediately caught on about who Walker was referring to,
“You told me not to worry about all of that, and that he wouldn’t have the stones to do anything about it. In fact! You also told me that if I bothered you again with any of this you would try to make my life a misery Eli!”
“Yeah well things change O’Neill roll with it, I received a rather interesting phone call many nights ago, it didn’t bother me at first but the more and more I thought about it, the more it began to fester in my mind. I will not turn into one of those paranoia driven lunatics you see at the bus stop or the ones who fear the government is watching their every move. This gets sorted out; meet me at the usual place,”
“The usual place?” asked O’Neill,
“For fucks sake, Mickey’s! Where else do we go?” Walker replied as he grew impatient with Harry’s growing ineptitude.
“Oh right gotcha, thirty minutes out...” replied Harry. Walker’s previous rant about his fears of becoming a madman ran by his paranoid thoughts, only made him look more so. Eli rolled his eyes on the other end of the phone, he slammed the receiver down as he ended the call and wondered to himself why on earth he ever brokered an illegal deal with the detective all those many years ago. The blood was already pumping through his veins at a fast rate, he felt hot headed and a little flushed in the cheeks. Eli wasn’t a young man anymore, even the slightest things could see him lose his breath every once in a while. He exited the front of the government building offering no excuse for his receptionist to give his afternoon appointments in case he didn’t return.
Chapter III
The Sins of a District Page 9
