The X-Man by Brian R. Lundin (100 best novels of all time .TXT) 📕

executive secretary at the Learn to Read Center at 47th Vincennes, she was very competent and was always at work half hour before the starting time. Today when she failed to come in, my boss Mrs. Anderson became concerned and asked me to go to her apartment and make sure she was alright. When I arrived the front door was cracked, I knocked and called her name, when I got no answer I went in and found her in the bathtub

RINGO
Did you touch or remove anything?

JOHNSON
No, but I knew she was gone. I was a Marine in Iraq during Iraqi Freedom and I know when a person is gone

EVETTA
What kind of person was Robin?


JOHNSON
A really nice young lady, always pleasant and had a big smile for everybody

EVETTA
Did she have any trouble with her co-workers?

JOHNSON
Not to my knowledge, she got along with everybody, such a tragedy

EVETTA (HANDING MR. JOHNSON HER BUSINESS CARD)
Thank you, and if you think of anything else give us a call

Evetta and I watched as Mr. Johnson walked to his car and drove off.

EVETTA
Hellava way to start your day

RINGO
Yep, certainly is, well, let’s talk to some of the neighbors

Evetta rang the door bell at 4325 South Prairie Avenue and got no answer, although she saw the curtains move, we walked to 4321 South Prairie Avenue and I knock hard on the door.

WEAK VOICE
Who’s there?

EVETTA
Police!

After a moment the door was cracked and an old woman peeped around the door, Evetta showed her, her badge and identification.
EVETTA
We’re investigating the death of Robin Honeywell, did you know her?

WOMAN (THE WOMAN PUT HER HAND TO HER MOUTH)
Oh my God

RINGO
May we come in?

The woman opened the door and directed us into the dining room and motioned for us to sit, we noticed how upset the woman was and waited a minute.

EVETTA
Did you know Robin well?

WOMAN
Yes she grew up in the neighborhood and was a nice girl, always polite and mannerable

EVETTA
Did she have many visitors, males or females?

WOMAN
No, not many but sometimes I would see a young man and her going out, but no. not to many other visitors. Matter of fact just last week she seemed so happy she told me she was pregnant and was going to get married

RINGO
Thank you, we’ll be in touch

EVETTA
We know that Robin Honeywell was about two months pregnant and William Smith, her fiancé’ was the father and has an alibi as well as her husband. There were no prints or any trace evidence, just a laceration on her head that Dixon said was caused by a blunt instrument, there were signs of sexual abuse and the murder weapon was probably one of her kitchen knives, no prints

10 June 2008
I needed a break from the X-man case, I thought about Monique and my ex-wife Elizabeth, deep down I knew Elizabeth was right, I loved my job and knew I would not be happy doing anything else, especially being a college professor. I remembered an old saying, “He who can does, he who can’t teach.”I knew the job was dangerous, but right now if something happened to me, there was no wife or children to be affected. It was 2:00 am, John and his alley cat Piper, that he found abandon in a drain lived in the Quadrangle House at 67th South Shore Drive. It was an expensive adult only building and most of the tenants were professionals; school teachers, police officers, doctors and lawyers. John lived on the 24th Floor and all of his windows faced Lake Michigan. It was a warm night and a soft breeze off the lake was pressing through the screened window along with the bright moonlight. Miles Davis, his favorite artist was doing his thing on the CD player while he was winning an Internet chess game with some character named “TheBobby,” when his cell phone ranged. I looked at the phone and knew nothing good comes from a 2:00 am phone call and picked up the receiver.

LIEUTENANT O'SHEA (SCREAMING)
I think we got another one

RINGO
Where?


O’SHEA
4650 South Calumet, your partner is on the way

RINGO
On the way

RINGO (TYPED ON THE COMPUTER)
You win, gotta go

FADE IN:
The weather had changed and I remembered and old Chicago saying, “If don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes it will change.”The winds had picked up and rain clouds were closing in as I parked in front of 4650 South Calumet Avenue. South Calumet Avenue like many of the old buildings in Bronzeville was once an upper-class neighborhood. The once single family homes have been converted into kitchenettes or three-flat apartments.

EXT: 4650 South Calumet Avenue.
Police officers had moved a large crowd across the street, a combination of concerned citizens, neighborhood crazies and the usual sullen homeboys and drug dealers, cursing at the police, a woman and two homeless people were standing around a blazing fire in a trash barrel as sparks leaped into the cold air.

SHOUT
Get the fuck out, pig motherfuckers

Ringo looked around to where the shout came from and saw a young boy maybe ten, swaggering off with a group of other young boys. A crime scene had been established that included the entire three flat structures and I told one of the Crime Scene Unit technicians to video tape, photograph and sketch the entire crime scene. Officers were stationed to keep the curious away as teams of detective began canvassing the building and neighborhood. As I retrieved my flashlight from the trunk the clouds erupted and I got soaked to the bone as I jumped over pools of dirty water gathering in the gutter and hurried across the broken sidewalk. Inside the building lobby gang graffiti, smoke and water stains covered the molded wall that reflected their lost and forgotten tenants.

RINGO (CAREFULLY WALKING UP THE BROKEN STAIRS AND TALK TO A YOUNG OFFICER)
Who found the body?

YOUNG OFFICER
The maintenance man, he’s inside being interviewed by one of the detectives

As I passed the uniformed officers and ducked under the bright yellow crime scene tape, I smelled the bitter afterglow of sweat, stale cigarette smoke and the sweet odor of marijuana that I found so disgusting.
When I reached the second floor I noticed an apartment with no door. I stopped and scanned the room with my flashlight and looked inside. A shabby dressed man was under a pile of newspapers spread over the bare floor and there was a glob of shit in a filthy toilet.

RINGO (SHAKING THE MAN)
Wake-up!

After a few hard shakes the man opened blood-shot eyes.

MAN
What the fuck?

RINGO (PULLING THE MAN TO HIS FEET)
How long you been in here?

MAN (RUBBING HIS EYES)
All night

RINGO
Did you see or hear anything unusual?
MAN
Fuck naw, I was pretty fucked-up, I just crashed

I summoned one of the officers who escorted the man from the building. On the third floor a two man forensic team was foraging for clues around the apartment, collecting and bagging items that might be significant. The maintenance man, George Wills was talking with a two detectives. He was short with stooped shoulders and a mat of dirty gray hair. His dark red lips had the signs of a wine drinker and looked to be in his late fifties.

RINGO (TALKING WITH DETECTIVE RODRIQUEZ)
What you got?

DETECTIVE RODRIQUEZ (THE DETECTIVE FLIPPED THROUGH HIS NOTEBOOK)
Mr. Wills stated that he live in the basement and is the janitor, rent collector, maintenance man and security for the building. He further states that he had informed the victim last week that he wanted to exterminate her apartment and she suggested today because she had an early morning class we were just leaving to go to his office

The maintenance man led us into a large well-organized basement apartment/office and gave me Cynthia White’s folder. There was a copy of her pictured Indiana Driver’s license that revealed that she twenty-one and a signed six month lease three months earlier, in the employment box on the lease application she had marked “Student.

RINGO
What kind of young lady was she?

WILLIS
Quiet, good tenant.

RINGO
Boyfriends, friends?


WLLIS
I don’t think she had a steady fellow, but on some Fridays a group of her friends would came over, look like they were studying because they were all carrying books and book bags

RINGO
Thanks, I’ll send someone over to get the folder so we can make copies

I returned to the third floor apartment and entered the small bathroom, the smell of blood and putrefied flesh was overpowering. I watched as some of the younger officers rushed out the room and emptied their stomach in the kitchen sink. I was reading the preliminary report when Doc Dixon, Charley Turner and Evetta Lunden arrived and a few minutes later Patricia Woods arrived. Captain Patricia Woods blond hair was tied in a bun and stuffed under a Chicago Bulls basketball cap. She was shapely but not especially good looking. She was white and the Ist Deputy Superintendent trouble shooter and reporting directly to him. She knew John Ringo only by reputation and had followed some of his cases. She noticed how handsome he was and the air of confidence and strength he generated. Based on what she heard, she was curious about this police officer with a PH, D and worked the most ghastly homicides. He seemed to be respected by the other officers, crime scene people and the EMS personnel. She noticed his easy going matter, shaking hands with some officers, patting shoulders and occasionally sharing a smile, he obviously had charm and charisma. Patricia was smart and knew when to be feminine and when to be tough. Unlike some of the other female police officers who received promotions or good assignments by kissing asses or flirting with the bosses she earned her way by hard work, working harder and working longer hours than her male colleagues, and she never dated other cops. I moved closer to the bathtub and knelt over the blood soaked body. The victim was an attractive dark brown skin woman with short black hair, a supple body and large breast. Her naked body was in the tub a black, knotted pair of panty hose was tied