The Interstellar Police Force, Book One: The Historic Mission by Raymond Klein (ebook reader 7 inch txt) 📕

noticed her missing. He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in two days. Have you?”

“No, I haven’t. But I haven’t been working lately. Hey, what do you mean, two days?”

“What do you mean ‘What do I mean?’”

“Oh! Let’s not do this again,” Jennifer said. “What I mean is that you guys are inseparable. When did you see her last?”

“I don’t know, the other night. Some guy picked her up.” He opened the freezer case again and took the pack of Klondike’s out. He then shoved them down his pants, turned and started to walk away.

“Oh! Ah, excuse me, Pimples,” Jeff raised a hand. “Mr. Pimples! But you really should pay . . .”

Jennifer placed a hand on Jeff’s arm. “It’s okay, let him go.” Jeff saw the look of concern on her face. They both stood and watched Pimples as he walked out of the store and into the parking lot.

Chapter Forty-Three

Dawson DeLaRue had been with the Westberry Police Department for twenty-five years. He started out as a beat cop and rose through the ranks to become a homicide detective, finally becoming the head of the homicide department with the rank of lieutenant five years ago.

As always, DeLaRue entered his small office exactly at seven in the morning. He took off his coat and hooked it on the wooden coat stand in the corner by the door, then removed his fedora. The only man in the city to still wear a hat, he put it gently on the top of the stand, then walked over and sat behind his desk. He started to go over the night shift reports. The first one was of a murder-suicide. The usual: husband kills wife, then places the weapon to his temple and pulls the trigger. He reached over and turned his computer on.

A uniformed police officer knocked on the open door of his office. “Excuse me, Lieutenant.”

“Morning Chester, what do yah got?”

“Yes, sir.” The twenty-three-year-old, painfully thin rookie walked in and handed him a slip of paper. “We found another one.”

Dawson took the slip and quickly read it, then muttered under his breath, “Jesus Christ!” He sighed loudly, then looked up at Chester. “Get my coat and hat, will yah, son.”

The fifty-year-old lieutenant took the backstairs from his third-floor office. He was 6 foot 3 inches tall and weighed 225 pounds. His doctor wanted him to lose twenty of that, so he tried to use the stairs as often as possible. Born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana, his father was a sharecropper and his mother, a part-time maid. It was always hard making ends meet, and both desperately wanted their only child to go to college. He would be the first in their lineage to do so. And due to their financial difficulties, he wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for Dawson’s ability on the high school football field that got him the scholarship to Louisiana State, where he excelled on the gridiron and in his academics. The National Football League seemed to be the next logical step for Dawson until he tore his ACL in a game against Auburn. This was a disappointment, but by no means discouraging; Dawson always had a back-up plan in the event of a career-ending injury. While growing up he loved watching football and police dramas on television, so he concentrated on another field just as exhilarating as the fight on the football field. Upon graduation he received a Bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and when a friend told him that the City of Westberry was hiring police officers for their city that was growing by leaps and bounds, he jumped at the chance.

He climbed behind the wheel of his dark blue unmarked Crown Victoria, inserted the key and started it up. He glanced once more at the slip of paper to make sure he had the address correct, then pulled out of the Westberry City Police Department’s parking lot. Turning south onto 10th St., he traveled the five blocks through the city of Westberry and entered Old Town.

Traffic was very light and he reached his destination fifteen minutes later. He parked his Crown Vic on the corner of 10th St. and Mason Avenue and got out. The entire block was cordoned off with police cars, barricades, and yellow crime scene tape.

As he approached the yellow tape, he was met by another homicide detective on the other side. The detective held the tape up high so the head of homicide could enter the crime scene. “Morning, Lieutenant,” Detective McVie said.

“Hey, Frank, what do we have?” Frank McVie was forty-five, fit, with a bushy mustache and hair that resembled a helmet.

“The victim was found at five forty-five this morning by this guy out for a jog,” he told the lieutenant as he tried to keep up with DeLaRue’s long strides.

“Press?” Dawson asked.

“Told them it was a mugging that went bad.”

“Good, we need to keep this under wraps for just a little longer.”

“The victim seems to be in his mid-thirties, naked, no ID as of yet, but found like the others.” He looked up at DeLaRue as he kept up with his quick pace. “But this one was posed.”

They both walked in front of the two-story Starlight Club that faced 10th St.. From the 1930's to the 60's, it was a department store. Now, it was a very popular dance club. They both walked around the south corner of the building that faced Mason Avenue, then walked the short distance to the back of the nightclub. There were five uniformed police officers and three crime scene investigators. One crime scene tech was taking pictures, the other collecting whatever evidence that could be found. The third was a short bald man crouching over the victim, who looked up and saw DeLaRue approaching. He got up and met him half-way.

“Morning, Dawson,” the chief medical examiner Doctor Martin Riviera said. “Just like the other three, epidermis folded back, chest cavity wide open.