Fly In the Milk

T.K. O'Neill

Description

It's March of 1978 and a battered, steaming wreck lays at the bottom of a 50-foot cliff. Former boxing champion and football star Johnny Beam is found crumpled and broken behind the steering wheel. Beam was a gambler, in trouble with the law—and now dead. Was it an accident? Suicide? Murder? How did the former hero end up like this? In the lily-white northern town of Zenith, Minnesota, only one thing was certain: Johnny Beam stood out like a fly in a bottle of milk.

Fly in the Milk is a work of crime fiction, a provocative tale of death, betrayal and hypocrisy spanning three generations.

Sujets

• Crime
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 27 juillet 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780967200644
• Langue: English

Extrait

Fly In the Milk
 
by
T.K. O'Neill
 


Copyright 2012 T.K. O'Neill,
All rights reserved.
 
Published in eBook format by Bluestone Press
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
 
ISBN-13: 978-0-9672-0064-4
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Cover design by Joe Gunderson
 
Thanks to Dr. Jeffrey Youngquist for his editorial assistance.
 
PART ONE
 

Chapter One
March 1978, Zenith, Minnesota
 
One of the harshest winters on record didn’t leave without a struggle, but the cold snap had finally broken, the temperature rising during the night to above the freezing mark for the first time in three weeks. At six a.m. the mercury hovered in the mid-thirties at the airport and slightly warmer downtown by the big lake.
Officer Adams of the Zenith Police Department wondered how the steaming wreck in front of him—a late model Olds with the crumpled body of a black man slumped against the steering wheel—had ended up a battered and broken mess at the bottom of a fifty-foot embankment. There was no ice on the streets, only a little ground fog in the low spots. Shouldn’t have any trouble stopping on that.
The location and condition of the auto suggested that it had blown through the railing at the top of the cliff and bounced down along the jagged rocks to the street where it now rested uneasily, crushed in upon itself like a four-door squeezebox, the front end dented and shattered and all four tires flat.
Poor bastard’s brakes must have given out, Adams thought. Pretty new vehicle, though, to have the brakes go out like that and pick up enough speed to rip through the guardrail.
Adams bent over and looked through the empty hole where the driver’s window had been. Chunks of glass lay on the broad but lifeless back of the man in the seat. His head rested at a crazy angle against the steering wheel, blank eyes facing the passenger window. There was a large bloody dent above his right temple.
A flare of recognition hit Adam’s gut and his heart got heavy in his chest. Something familiar about the shoulders and the dark wool overcoat and the shape of the head.
Adams bent in and peered at the bruised and bloodied face. Then he straightened up and filled his lungs with the damp air and squinted up at the top of the cliff again.
Once more he bent down and stuck his head inside the Olds. He was pretty sure now. The face was swollen and distorted but who else could it be? He heard Patrolman Hayes coming up behind him. Adams took another long look inside the wreck.
It was Johnny Beam, without a doubt.
Johnny Beam looking like he’d lost his last fight.
Adams stepped back and fought away the sick feeling as he watched Hayes bend over and study the body, hands in the pockets of his uniform like he was window shopping.
“Looks like there’s one less nigger on the planet,” Hayes said, snapping his gum.
“Don’t let me hear that kind of shit again, Dennis,” Adams growled, balling his fists. “I knew this man. Used to watch him play football when I was a kid. He may not have been the most responsible guy you’ll ever meet, but he wasn’t a nigger, and I won’t tolerate that shit.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean anything, you know—I was just saying…”
Adams stared down at the body, eyes narrowed. “This is Johnny Beam, used to be the state light-heavyweight boxing champion. Great athlete. And a good guy.”
“Ain’t he the one they brought in on that weapons sting back in January?”
“Yeah, that was him. He’d fallen on some hard times, made some bad decisions.”
“Well, it looks like he’s fallen on even harder times now,” Hayes said, the corners of his mouth rising into a smirk. “You might say he finally hit bottom.” He spit his gum on the pavement, hitched his shoulders and gave Adams a stare.
Adams returned the stare. “You really are an enlightened guy, Hayes. For a fucking cretin.”
A siren wailed in the distance as steam smelling of antifreeze, brake fluid and burnt motor oil drifted across the chunks of broken rock, shards of glass and colored plastic littering the pavement. Hayes kicked at a jagged hunk of metal and stared blankly at the wreck. “You sure pick some funny guys to defend, Adams,” he said. “Wasn’t this guy a bookie and a pimp and every other goddamn thing?”
“Fuck you, Hayes. I knew the guy, okay? It ain’t easy to see someone you know, dead.”
A few blocks to the east, an ambulance careened onto Superior Street and roared toward them with the siren screaming. Further back a tow truck and another squad car were also rolling toward the body of Johnny Beam.
“I got a question for you, Adams.” Hayes said, squinting at the approaching ambulance. “How do you think your friend went off that cliff? Think he was drunk—at six o’clock in the goddamn morning? Stinks like booze in there, but still—couldn’t the son of a bitch use the brakes?”
“That’s a good question, Dennis. A question I’m sure somebody is gonna want answered.”
“You never know, the brakes coulda failed,” Hayes said. “You know how them niggers are, never fixing anything.”
Adams swallowed hard. Was about to respond in kind when the ambulance came careening to a stop and the paramedics jumped out. Swirling red lights sliced through the steam and the fog and the grayness.
Like some kind of horror show, Adams thought. “We got a dead man in there, boys,” he said. “Go easy on him.”
The ambulance jockeys looked at the body with wide caffeinated eyes, searched for a pulse and grimly nodded to Adams.
Who’s gonna care about a dead nigger in this town? Patrolman Hayes thought. Sure, there’ll be a few like Adams who’ll moan about it long enough to make sure everyone knows they feel real bad. And then they’ll forget about it just like everyone else.
The tow truck rumbled up alongside Adams, who was scratching his head and trying to reign in his emotions. The gnarled-faced driver leaned out the window, cigarette smoke seeping from his nose and mouth. “You want us to drag that thing out of the way, officer?”
“You bet, Jack,” Hayes snapped, stepping between Adams and the tow truck. “We got traffic that’s got to get through here.”
Adams bristled. “We’re gonna have to leave it where it is until the chief and a medical examiner get a look at it. This could be a crime scene, Hayes. You go up to the top of the hill where he came through and look around.” He pointed at the arriving squad car. “Bring McNally and Ledyard with you. Put some tape around the area and make sure the tracks and everything are left intact. I’ll wait here for the brass.”
Hayes blinked and thought about saying something but instead launched a gob of spit on the damp pavement and strutted toward the patrol car. He leaned a hand on the driver’s door and filled in the inhabitants.
As the squad car pulled away, the chief of police and the chief of detectives arrived from the opposite direction in separate Ford Crown Victoria sedans, one blue and one brown.
Chief of Detectives Harvey Green was a friendly, heavyset man who was smarter than he looked and well liked by most. His personal motto was Do a good job but take care of you and yours first. He seldom thought or felt too deeply about anything and as long as the larder was full, life was good.
Police Chief Ira Bjorkman was old and tired and had been on the job for too long. Everyone on the force knew it and so did he. A recent increase in local crime coupled with the intrusion of the national press covering the Norville murder trial into his previously serene existence had stoked his growing desire for retirement. There was just too much bullshit going on these days for someone who was raised on Live and let live .
Harvey Green let the chief walk slightly ahead of him as they approached the wreck.
Adams watched them come, waited for the slow-moving pair.
“What have we got here, officer?” Chief Bjorkman asked, bending over and peering in the car.
“What appears to be a dead man, sir, who I believe is Johnny Beam, the boxer. But I didn’t look for I.D. I haven’t touched anything.”
“Very good,” Bjorkman said. “Looks like we got another one for the coroner. That fat son of a bitch hasn’t worked this much in his whole goddamn career.” He turned around and looked east along Superior Street. “And the asshole better get here in a hurry.”
Chief of Detectives Harvey Green bent over and peered inside the Olds.
“Looks like this could be the end of the line on the ATF boys’ case, eh, Harvey?” Bjorkman said, pawing at the damp pavement with his worn wingtip.
“Maybe so, Ira, maybe so. You think someone got to Beam here? He’s pretty battered. Nobody ever hit him that much in the ring.”
“Driving off a cliff will do that to ya.”
Green pulled a clean white handkerchief from his trouser pocket, draped it over his left hand and reached inside the dead man’s coat. He came out with a long wallet that he placed on the roof of the car then leaned back in and sifted the outside coat pockets.
“Here’s a winner for you,” he said, holding up a set of keys. “Still got his keys in his pocket. Look at the little gold boxing gloves. Must be a spare set there in the ignition, just got a plain chain. That’s a little off, wouldn’t you say?”
“A man gets older, starts hitting the sauce, there are times he’ll forget just about anything. You telling me you never thought you lost your keys and then found them later.”
“No… but not like this. This is a heavy set of keys. Man’s gotta know it’s in his pocket.”
“Yes and no. If a man has been up all night hitting the sauce and the foo-foo