THE
GENESIS FILES
THE GENESIS FILES
GWEN RICHARDSON
Cushcity Communications
www.gwenrichardson.com
Cushcity Communications
14300 Cornerstone Village Dr., Suite 370
Houston, TX 77014
The Genesis Files Copyright © 2012 Gwen Richardson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
ISBN- 13: 978-0-9800250-8-8
ISBN- 10: 0-9800250-8-7
First Printing June 2012
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real commercial enterprises are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places and incidents is entirely coincidental.
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DEDICATION
To my younger brother, Dr. Linwood Daye Jr., who passed away Dec. 23, 2007, long before I ever anticipated losing a sibling. A year before he died, I told him I was going to write this book.
He is forever in my thoughts.
Gwen Richardson
CHAPTER 1
“Lloyd, are you okay in there?” Stephanie called to him from the bedroom. “I don’t hear any water running either in the sink or the toilet.” She paused, listening for a response. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. My stomach was feeling a little queasy and I came in here just in case, but I’m fine now,” Lloyd replied from the bathroom, knowing he wasn’t telling his wife the truth. But what difference did it make? Stephanie couldn’t solve this problem and there was no need to worry her with it.
Lloyd Palmer was not looking forward to another frustrating day as a reporter for the Houston Ledger. When the alarm clock buzzed that morning, he hit the snooze button for the third time. He lay in bed thinking about how fed up he was after ten years working at a dead-end job, for an editor who Lloyd was certain spent his weekends with members of the local KKK klavern.
Stephanie had been lying beside him snoring lightly. He had contemplated waking her up for a quick lovemaking session before heading to the office. He’d had trouble relaxing the night before and wanted to wake her up when he got into bed after midnight, but Stephanie had been sleeping so soundly that he decided not to. Now he was in the bathroom dreading the impending day at work.
He’d had high hopes for his career when he graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in journalism. There were only a handful of blacks there who shared his major, his love for observing events and writing about them. The recruiters all told him he had his pick of journalism positions and could work in virtually any city.
Lloyd decided to go the small town route—get experience at a limited circulation newspaper to learn the ropes of the business. He spent two years at the daily paper in North Little Rock, Arkansas, then moved to Petersburg, Va., for another five years at the Daily Reporter.
Stephanie, who had been his high school sweetheart, made his stints in both cities bearable. But the small town atmosphere didn’t suit him; he needed a little more culture, a little more night life, a little more pizzazz.
About a year before he moved to Houston, he’d broken an important story while in Virginia. A state senator was caught taking bribes from corporate bigwigs and Lloyd’s inside sources had been instrumental in feeding him crucial, salacious details. The story made national headlines and, as a result, Lloyd was thrust into the national spotlight and interviewed on several cable television news programs.
When he received a call from the Houston Ledger to take a job as a beat reporter with promises of moving up the journalistic ladder, he jumped at the chance. The Ledger was the city’s daily newspaper and had the largest circulation in the state of Texas.
As a schoolteacher, Stephanie had always been able to find work wherever they moved. Their daughter, Bria, was just entering first grade then, so the time was right to put down roots in a major city without disrupting her education.
Little did Lloyd know there wasn’t going to be much room for advancement. In order for him to get promoted, some of the old heads had to move on, retire or find jobs in other locales.
With subscribers rapidly going to the Internet for their news and newspaper circulation dropping like a rock, everybody was afraid to take a risk. The old boys were waiting to retire and collect on their 401(k)s, meaning there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hades that Lloyd would move up.
Ed Jackson, Lloyd’s boss, had been at the Ledger literally his entire career, and was among those unlikely to retire any time soon. During his reign as editor, not a single black reporter had ever been promoted even though more than two dozen had worked in the newsroom. And when black employees said, “Good morning” to Ed, he barely acknowledged their existence unless it was absolutely necessary.
According to Ed, Lloyd’s story ideas were either not current enough, not relevant enough or not mainstream enough to be of interest to the Ledger readership. “Just do what I tell you to do and don’t ask any questions,” Ed had said to him yesterday when Lloyd had pitched an idea for a story about a charter school in a low-income area whose students were scoring in the top percentile on state achievement tests. Lloyd despised Ed more and more every day.
At age forty-five, Lloyd should have been at the pinnacle of his career, not stuck in a dead end job with a boss he could barely stomach. Something had to give.
Since he was a little boy, Lloyd had been a star in everything he’d done. He was always at or near the top of his class, a star athlete and well-liked. He was supposed to make a difference. His parents, who lived in Navasota, Texas, had been so proud of him when he graduated from college—the first in his family to go to the next level educationally.
His mother, Rochelle, had been a domestic most of her life, spending her last ten working years making beds and cleaning toilets for a hotel chain. His father, Allen, an assembly line worker, spent thirty years with the same company, but foreign competition forced the older, higher-waged employees into early retirement.
Allen spent most of his days now relaxing and working in the garden, while his wife, Rochelle, kept house and crocheted. Both of his parents came from a long line of proud, God-fearing people who wanted a better life for their children.
All of these thoughts were going through Lloyd’s mind as he stared in the mirror. His reflection spoke to him: he was still handsome and in relatively good physical shape. Women still flirted with him. He’d even had a few, like Audrey Moore, go beyond flirting to practically accosting him in the break room at work.
“When are you going to ask me for my digits?” Audrey had whispered in his ear yesterday as he was fixing his morning cup of coffee. She practically put her tongue in his ear as she whispered, and he maneuvered his way around her to go to his desk.
“I told you, Audrey. There’s only one woman for me,” he’d said. But taking hints was not one of Audrey’s strengths.
His frustration was not with the way he looked; he was reasonably secure with that. He just couldn’t get over the feeling that he was wasting time, treading water until some cause that was both meaningful and massive entered his life.
Of course, Stephanie knew about the pressures he was exper
iencing at work, but she always reminded him that, in the current economy, he was lucky to have a secure job with good benefits. With their high mortgage, car notes, credit card debt and Bria’s impending college years, he couldn’t afford to make waves. They’d need every penny they’d invested in her college fund to pay her tuition to a decent school.
No, he was going to have to stick it out at the Ledger, for now. Maybe things would get better for him at work soon. They couldn’t get much worse.
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CHAPTER 2
Lloyd was grooving to the sounds of the rhythm and blues crooner Maxwell while he headed to the Ledger headquarters on the I-45 freeway. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper as usual, but not bad for a Friday morning.
He pulled into the underground parking garage and saw his co-worker and friend, Charles Scott, heading toward the elevator. With his blonde, all-American good looks, Charles was easy to like—especially for the ladies. He was single, always juggling at least two or three girlfriends, and drank too much. But he was a damn good reporter. Lloyd got out of his car and ran to catch up with him.
“Hey man, have you heard anything popping this morning?” asked Lloyd. Charles had a nose for the latest gossip and had lots of sources feeding him information.
“Not much so far, but the day is young.”
They both got off the elevator and headed to the news room. The office was humming. Reporters and their aides were already busy checking the Internet for news from the major newspapers, wire services, blogs and the morning talk shows. Just then, Lloyd saw Audrey Moore heading his way. The woman wore too much makeup, showed too much cleavage, and was always hinting, in a not-so-subtle way, that she couldn’t wait to get busy with him.
“Hi, Lloyd,” she said, using her most seductive voice. “What did you do last night?”
“Hi, Audrey. My wife and I spent a quiet evening at home.” Lloyd constantly reminded Audrey of the fact that he was married, but it didn’t seem to matter to her. If she wasn’t one of the most efficient office assistants the Ledger had ever had, he might report her behavior and get her fired. But Lloyd didn’t want the hassle of her potentially turning the tables on him and claiming that he had sexually harassed her.
She wasn’t his type, even if he had been a single man. Lloyd liked to take charge in a relationship, at least at the beginning.
“Well, don’t forget what I told you,” she whispered as she came closer to him. “If you ever need some excitement, I’m available most evenings.”
“I’m not looking for any excitement,” said Lloyd. “But if I think of any guys who may be looking for a date, I’ll let you know.” He’d tried everything to discourage her, but nothing seemed to work.
Lloyd went to his desk and checked his e-mail. He often picked up some of his best leads through anonymous e-mail communications. He scrolled down and checked the stuff that had come in overnight. Nothing even remotely interesting.
Just as he was finishing up, he saw Ed walking in his direction at a quickened pace. At age sixty, Ed was completely bald and always seemed to be sweating, even when
it was cold outside. If Ed was coming to see him this early in the morning, it could mean only one thing, some overnight murder or something just as depressing. Lloyd braced himself.
“Lloyd, I have a hot story I’d like you to cover.” “What’s up, Ed?”
“There’s been a murder-suicide in a high-rise apartment complex in the Galleria area,” he said. “An executive from one of the oil companies caught his fianceé in bed with another guy. He offed both of them and then turned the gun on himself. There may be more to the story, so I want you to cover all of the angles.”
“Sounds pretty open and shut to me,” said Lloyd. “Can’t you give this to someone else? I’ve been working on a story about the new legislation in the state Senate that could create some new charter schools in Third Ward . . .”
“No,” Ed barked. “The story on the legislation can wait. You know how the Senate is—they could debate the issue for a whole year and then do nothing. This story can get you a byline on the front page, and that’s what you’ve been asking for lately, isn’t it?”
“Well, you have a point there,” said Lloyd as he acquiesced. “What are the victims’ names and what’s the address?”
“Everything’s here,” said Ed, as he handed Lloyd a printout of the basic information about the victims. “The police have already taped off the area, and the Forensics Department is there now. I want you to do the usual—talk to the police, interview the neighbors, see if anyone has heard them arguing, throwing things . . . .”
“I get the picture,” said Lloyd, as he began packing up his note pad, digital voice recorder and laptop for the thirty-minute drive to the Galleria. “What’s my deadline?”
“Send me something with the basic facts as soon as possible, by two o’clock this afternoon, so we can get it uploaded on the web site,” said Ed. “You can send revisions as you conduct the interviews and gather more facts. Get moving.”
Lloyd walked briskly out of the office to the garage, got in his car, and headed toward the Galleria. When he got close to the high-rise apartment where the crime took place, there were multiple sheriffs’ vehicles and a station wagon from the Harris County Coroner’s Office. He parked, walked toward the entrance and showed his media credentials to the sheriff. Then he took the elevator to the fifteenth floor. When he got off the elevator, there were at least ten cops who were collecting evidence, taking statements from other tenants on the floor or communicating on two-way radios.
Lloyd approached the sheriff in front of apartment 1504, where the shooting had occurred. “Can you point out the officer in charge?” Lloyd asked.
“That would be Sheriff Arnold over there,” said the officer, as he pointed to a tall, dark-haired, heavy-set man wearing sunglasses.
“Thanks,” said Lloyd and he walked over to Sheriff Arnold with his pad and digital recorder. The victims were covered with sheets, but Lloyd could still see their limbs sticking out from underneath and blood-soaked carpet around the bodies.
There was blood on the walls and on the lamp shade that had been knocked to the floor. There were bullet holes in the walls too, and it looked like there may have been a struggle before the shooting.
“Sheriff Arnold, may I ask you a few questions about the crime scene?” Lloyd asked as he flashed his media credentials.
“Sure. We have a forty-year-old white male, identified as Henry Banks, shot at close range with a 32-caliber weapon from what appears to be a self-inflicted wound,” said Arnold. “Another white male, identified as Joseph Frank, was also shot at close range with the same weapon, with multiple gunshot wounds. A thirty-five-year-old white female, Laurie Doolittle, has a gunshot wound to the head.”
“Time of death appears to be approximately 2:00 o’clock this morning. The next of kin have been notified.”
“Was there a suicide note found anywhere?” asked Lloyd.
“No, but one of the neighbors reports hearing loud voices—what sounded like an argument—before hearing several gunshots in succession. The nature of the argument is unknown at this time, but from the looks of it, this was a lovers’ quarrel,” continued Arnold, as he made some notes on a police report form attached to a clipboard.
“Do you know which oil company Banks worked for?”
“ExTron Oil and Gas. He was one of the top executives there. Apparently, he had an ex-wife and two kids but, except for child support payments, he’s been estranged from them for a number of years,” added Arnold.
“Anything else I should know about?”
“This was definitely a crime of passion,” said Arnold, “since Banks shot his fiancee’s lover at least ten times, which means he had to reload his weapon. I guess he saved the last few bullets for himself.”
“I’ll go make my rounds now among the neighbors and see what else I can find o
ut about him,” said Lloyd. “I may have a few more questions for you before I leave.”
“I’ll be here another hour or so,” said Arnold.
Lloyd exited the apartment and decided to get started right away interviewing neighbors while the facts were fresh in their minds. He knocked on the door of the apartment immediately across the hall and waited for a response. No one answered.
He then knocked on the door adjacent to Banks’ apartment. He thought he heard a television playing and movement inside. A woman’s voice asked, “Who is it?”
“I’m Lloyd Palmer with the Houston Ledger. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your next door neighbor, Henry Banks.”
“Okay,” the woman replied, and Lloyd could hear her unlatching the chain on the door. Everybody wanted their fifteen minutes of fame. People liked getting their names in the paper, unless there was a possibility of retaliation from someone involved with the crime. In this case, the perpetrator was dead.
An attractive, red-haired woman in her mid-thirties opened the door. She had on a silk robe, but no makeup. The scent of her perfume was overwhelming. “How can I help you?” she said.
“Did you know about the shooting next door?” asked Lloyd.
“Yes. I woke up about 2:00 a.m. to what sounded like gunshots. I was sound asleep when it happened; but the noise woke me up, and I heard several gunshots after that. I called 911,” she said.
“Did you know Mr. Banks?”
“I only knew him in passing. I’d mostly speak to him coming and going. Sometimes I’d see him and his girlfriend coming in late at night, but he and I never had a real conversation about anything,” she said.
“Ever overhear any of their conversations?” asked Lloyd.
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