Graffiti Creek

by Matt Coleman

  Bright ran out of the theater and sprinted toward theater twelve. She was shouting, “Sameer! Sameer, don’t watch! Don’t look, Sameer!”

  * * *

  Cary could see the footage starting through the squares of dark glass looking into the theaters. She surprised herself by how little she cared about what was on the disc. She simply wanted it known. Whatever they wanted to hide, she wanted to expose. Once certain the video was playing, she grabbed the man’s employee keycard and ran for the elevator. As soon as Thompson saw the film playing, he would be coming for her in the projection booth. She didn’t plan on being there when he arrived.

  * * *

  As soon as he yelled out, Sameer ducked into a crevice with a trash can to let people run past him. They were almost all cleared out when the screen changed. He started out but stopped suddenly when the sound disappeared and was replaced by frightened breathing. Sameer turned around. Behind him, Detective Hudson shouted his name. But on the screen. On the screen was his Seamus. Seamus. On his knees. Handcuffed. Scared. The video was shot from too far off to comprehend what he said, but he was clearly begging. Begging for his life. Two men stood over him. They laughed. Talked to him. They wore cheap suits and they stood with sad, defeated postures. The postures of broken men who can only find it in themselves to break others so they aren’t alone. One was fat. The other tall and thin. The tall one stepped forward and shot Seamus. One shot. A quick spray of blood and then he slumped to the ground. The camera shook violently and the person filming started to run before everything went dark.

  Detective Hudson stood at his back. She placed a hand on his shoulder and said, softly, “You shouldn’t have had to see that. I’m sorry.”

  Sameer turned and fell into her and he sobbed and shook.

  * * *

  Mark struggled to stand. He had taken the shot from Shelley in the shoulder, it felt like. He started walking out before the screen showed Jolly shooting the reporter. He didn’t want to see that again. Shelley turned to watch, so she let him walk right past her. He stepped into the hallway and stood for a moment. Let himself bleed. He looked down at his gun, glanced over at a trash can, and tossed the gun. It landed with a thunk. Mark took out a cigarette and fumbled for a lighter which wasn’t there.

  He looked up and found Cary creeping toward him with a gun held level with his chest. Mark smiled. “Hey, Cary.”

  Shelley stepped up behind him, her gun drawn and pointed at his back.

  Bright Hudson walked out of a theater helping a man who was crying on her shoulder. When she spotted Mark she started up with her own gun, but Mark waved his hands and smiled around the unlit cigarette clutched between his teeth. “Enough already. I get it, I get it. I just want a light.”

  Shelley stepped past him and took Cary’s gun as Bright began to recite Mark Thompson’s rights.

  Chapter 55

  A few weeks later, Cary was in the front seat of a car with Shelley Doyle, who was driving them out to Graffiti Creek. Shelley balanced a bouquet of flowers in the backseat between the fold down console and a box of charred things from Dante’s apartment. She brought the flowers to remember Dante, even though he hated flowers. The whole scene had been roped off for days after Mark Thompson got arrested. Bright Hudson worked him down—got him to show roughly where he remembered Dante being buried. It ended up being not far from where they found Johnna.

  Cary and Shelley hung out a few times after it all ended. They went to Seamus Fitzgerald’s funeral together. Forced Sameer to let them take him out for dinner a few nights later. Once with Shelley and once alone, Cary went to sit with Carlos Moya in the hospital. He’d taken quite a few hard hits to the chest, cracking ribs and collapsing a lung. And one shot had missed the vest and messed up his gut a bit, but he’d be okay. He had showed Cary a card from Bright Hudson that read, “Thanks for being pudgy.” It made reference to working some things out to put him on the path toward becoming a police sketch artist, so Cary brought him a sketch pad and some charcoal pencils.

  They even met Bright for drinks one night. She couldn’t tell them everything, but she confided in them a few bits and pieces. Reynard took a quick attempted murder plea for shooting Moya in exchange for his cooperation. Thompson was being charged as an accessory to four murders—Seamus, Dante, Johnna, and Karen Webster. The evidence on Seamus was ironclad, so he was likely to die in prison. The district attorney’s office was not currently pursuing anything on Bright’s father. But she filled Cary and Shelley in on the cold case and swore she wasn’t letting it drop.

  Shelley and Marlowe went back to life as normal for the most part. So much so they carried a little guilt over it. They had both gotten to where Dante was a rare occurrence in their lives. Life without him became way too normal way too quickly. They both had to work to keep his memory fresh. Marlowe set up an account to work toward offering a film school scholarship in his brother’s name. Shelley visited the bridge every couple of days. She claimed it felt more alive with Dante than some tombstone.

  Cary refused to go with her the first few times after it was cleared. But she finally gave in. Cary had been staying with Johnna’s grandmother. Although they cleared her of everything—including the death of Detective Jolly—the fallout still cost her a graphic design job she genuinely enjoyed. But Sameer got her an interview with his company for a similar job, and she did well enough to get a second interview lined up. If it worked out, she could afford to find her own place within a month or two. In the meantime, Ms. Langley enjoyed the company, and Cary liked the neighbors—it was like having little sisters again.

  Shelley parked with her car angled to face the side of the bridge with the bulk of the graffiti. She reached back into the backseat and snagged the flowers. “Do Right hated flowers. I don’t know why the hell I keep bringing them.”

  Cary laughed. “Because nobody knows what to do with death. You know how many casseroles Ms. Langley has gotten?”

  Shelley smiled. “Too many?”

  Cary shook her head. “Lord, no. I love casseroles. But it is an odd thing to bring in response to a death. So are flowers. It all is. Nothing makes sense.”

  Shelley got out and started toward the bridge. She brushed the flowers she had left days ago off into the stream below and placed the new bouquet. “Maybe that’s the point.”

  Cary stood several feet back, allowing her a moment. “What?”

  Shelley turned around. “Not making sense. Maybe that’s the whole point. Maybe it’s our way, as a society, of saying ‘this didn’t make any sense, and I’m sorry it happened.’ So we show up with flowers and food and all this stuff. Not making a damn bit of sense. Because neither did the death.”

  Cary nodded and shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. Or maybe it’s to remind the people still here that we’re still alive. You know? You still have to eat. You still can see and smell and taste.”

  Shelley walked over and took Cary in an embrace. They stood, holding each other, for several minutes. They each listened to the other’s sniffles and pretended not to notice. Cary broke the silence by reaching into her purse. “You know what does make sense though?”

  Shelley smirked. “What?”

  Cary came out with a can of orange spray paint. She pushed her purse toward Shelley and started shaking the can. “Hold this.”

  Cary trotted over to the spot where Mark Thompson had spray painted, “I love you, Johnny. I’m so sorry. CAT.” She glanced back at Shelley and flipped the cap off the paint. Working over the y, Cary managed to turn Johnny into Johnna. She stood back and admired her work. Shelley walked up to her smiling and put an arm around her shoulder. Cary held the can over toward her. “What do you say?”

  Shelley laughed and grabbed the can. “Hell yes.”

  The End

  Acknowledgments

  I tend to shy away from politics in my writing. I enjoy writing mystery and comedy and sometimes I mix the two together. This book deals with some social issues which were weighing heavily on my m
ind during the few months I frenziedly wrote it. I made every attempt to avoid being too “on the nose” about those issues. And for good reason. I have no place inserting myself into the dialogue. So this book is a crime novel. Plain and simple. My hope is that it’s a fun read and a decent mystery, with a couple of twists and turns which were fun to take along with the characters. I am, however, a writer, which makes me an empathizer. So it was also that. It was an exercise in empathy. As those issues weighed heavily on me, I tried to listen to those who do have the right to insert themselves into the dialogue. And I tried my damnedest to empathize with the many victims for whom I felt such deep sorrow. When I write, I try to further empathize through creating characters I love. There are a lot of characters I love in this book.

  With that said, I would like to thank my family—my parents and my sister—who taught me how to be an empathetic human. I would like to thank my daughters, who helped me care about the world around me. I would like to thank my Pandamoon family (especially my editors, Zara, Jessica, Forrest, and Rachel) and Matt Lyle, who have always pushed me to become a better writer. And I’d like to thank Sam. Not only did you tell me the story that this all grew from, but you’re also just you. Thanks for that.

  About the Author

  Matt Coleman’s first pieces of writing were about his great-grandmother’s homemade beer and his own childhood trips into the backwoods of southern Arkansas to search for Bigfoot. Since then, both his writing and his life haven’t strayed too far from his Arkansan roots. He lives in Texarkana, Arkansas, where he is a single father to two daughters.

  Matt graduated from Texas A&M University-Texarkana with an M.A. in English. While finishing his degree, he worked with the East Texas Writing Project. After college, he spent five years teaching seventh grade English in a rural East Texas town. He then returned to Texarkana to teach for another four years at the high school where he graduated, while also teaching night classes in writing and literature at a local college. His career in education has also included work in adult learning with teachers of all levels. This work in adult learning has led to an expertise in teacher training and leadership development. For the past several years, he has served as a director of school improvement, dealing primarily with teacher development, strategic planning, and leadership.

  As a writer, Matt has long been inspired by crime writers such as Dashiell Hammett and Walter Mosley and southern writers like Flannery O’Connor. Matt’s second novel, Graffiti Creek, is a crime thriller following Cary Trubody through a nightmare of mistaken identity and police corruption. His debut novel, Juggling Kittens, drew from his experiences as a first-year teacher through the fictionalized account of Ellis Mazer and his search for a missing student through the wastelands of a small Arkansas town. He also spent three years as a writer for the comedy podcast, The City Life Supplement, and was able to return to his love of comedy writing by co-writing (with Matt Lyle) the upcoming play Raptured: A Sex Farce at the End of the World (coming Spring 2019 from Theater Three in Dallas).

  Thank you for purchasing this copy of Graffiti Creek by Matt Coleman. If you enjoyed this book, please let Matt know by posting a review.

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