We're back with day three of the Summer Giveaway Hop hosted by I Am A Reader, Not A Writer & BookHounds. Today is part three of Author Wayne Zurl's guest blog, a short story Have You Considered Voodoo, tomorrow is the last installment of this story. 

Biography:

Wayne Zurl grew up on Long Island and retired after twenty years with the Suffolk County Police Department, one of the largest municipal law enforcement agencies in New York and the nation. For thirteen of those years he served as a section commander supervising investigators. He is a graduate of SUNY, Empire State College and served on active duty in the US Army during the Vietnam War and later in the reserves. Zurl left New York to live in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee with his wife, Barbara.

Eight (8) of his Sam Jenkins mysteries have been produced as audio books and simultaneously published as eBooks. His first full-length novel, A NEW PROSPECT, was named best mystery at the 2011 Indie Book Awards by the Independent Publishing Professional’s Group. It is also available on Kindle.

For additional information on Wayne’s Sam Jenkins mystery series see www.waynezurlbooks.net. You can read excerpts, reviews and endorsements, interviews, coming events, and even see photos of the area where the stories take place.

Have You Considered Voodoo - Part Three

Have You Considered Voodoo?

By Wayne Zurl

Copyright 2011

4,400 words

Long Island, New York, July 1977

Louie Demarco and I walked into Lieutenant York’s office. The boss sat at his desk signing reports. He looked more like a banker than a cop.

“Loo,” I said, “Can you get me a couple of Street-Crime guys to sit on that abandoned shack along the railroad tracks, next to Tinsley’s Auto Body?”

“What have you got?”

I told him about the dog’s head in the cooler and how I wanted to put it back where the homeless man found it and wait for the owner to return.

“Animal sacrifice. Marijuana. It is Voodoo. I thought so.”

He sounded pleased with himself.

“I don’t know yet, boss. This is the fourth case with all the same elements.”

“I’ll call Sergeant Woods and get you two men.”

<><><> 

At 10 p.m. that night, the duty sergeant at the Squad called my home. The pair of Street-Crime Unit cops had locked up a subject who came back to retrieve the cooler and dog’s head.

At the office, I found Sergeant Dick Barney sitting at the team leader’s desk.

“Where are they?” I asked.

“Man, you can really pick’em,” he said.

“Yeah, lucky me.”

“March and Lightman have him over in the juvenile room.”

“A juvenile?”

“Yep.”

“Not a Voodoo priest?”

“The boss will be disappointed.”

I walked over to the Precinct and found the two plainclothesmen from Street-Crime standing next to a desk in the small juvenile interview room. One was blond and one dark, each dressed in jeans and sport shirts. Both were well over six feet tall with plenty of beef to them. The red and white cooler sat on the floor and a slightly built, swarthy boy with long dark hair parted in the middle and a pair of ebony eyes that could bore holes in boiler-plate slumped in a chair chewing on a hangnail.

Eddy Lightman, the blond cop, spoke. “Anthony Francisco.” He pointed at the juvenile. “Fifteen years old.”

“You call a juvenile officer yet?”

“Thought you’d like to talk to him first.”

“Thanks. What happened?”

“We were watching the shack like you wanted. After a while this guy goes in, picks up the cooler and leaves. John followed him on foot and I hung back in the car. He walked over to Waterworks Street, behind the old lace mill. I parked the car out on West Main and met John.” Lightman took out a cigarette and lit it with a Bic.

“Then this sick bastard took the dog’s head out of the cooler and set it on the stoop of the last house on the left side of the street.”

“And get this.” John March took over the story. “He drops his pants and is going to take a shit on the walk in front of the stoop. So we grabbed his ass and brought him in.”

“What did the people in the house say to all this?”

“Nobody’s home.”

“You book him?”

“For what?” March asked. “Lugging around a dog’s head or attempted shitting out of doors? Actually, he did have a dime bag of grass in his pocket, but we figger you can charge him with whatever.”

“Yeah, thanks. He have a knife on him?”

March held up a plastic bag he picked up off the file cabinet next to where he stood.

“Nice big one—expensive equipment for a little turd like him. A Buck lock-back.”

“Do me a favor and invoice it to the lab. Let’s see if it’s got animal blood on it.”

“You got it,” March said.

“Need us for something else?” Lightman asked.

“See if you can get me something on the owners of the house on Waterworks and give me a call.”

“Sure, anything else?”

“No, I’ll take it from here. Thanks. Good job.”

“Okay,” March said. “We’ll go out there and keep the county safe for democracy.”

The two street monsters left the precinct.

<><><> 

“So, Anthony, what’s the story?” I asked.

“Aren’t you supposed to advise me of my rights?”

“You’re not under arrest yet. I just want to talk. You ready to tell your side of the story?”

“To you?”

The kid’s attitude annoyed me. “No, nitwit, to Genghis Khan. Don’t make me smack the shit outta you. Tell me about the dog’s head.”

“I just found the cooler and didn’t know anything was in it.”

“Why did you put the head in front of that house?”

“They’re friends of the family. Guy works with my brother Vito. It was a joke.”

“What’s their name?”

“I forget. Guy’s name is Joe or something.”

“Yeah, right. How many times have you been arrested?

“I’m a juvenile and I want a lawyer and I need to call my mother for her to get me one.”

He started gnawing on his finger again.

“You into Voodoo or anything like that?”

“Get real, man.”

“That was a lot a grass for one little shithead like you. Might be felony weight.”

“A dime bag, man. You from outer space or something?”

<><><> 

I asked the desk sergeant to call in the duty juvenile officer in to write up Anthony’s detention and call his parents. Then I phoned the desk man at the Juvenile Section at headquarters.

“Juvenile Services Section, Detective Kiley.”

“Bill, Sam Jenkins. I need a favor.”

Kiley and I had gone to the academy together.

I asked him to search the juvenile records for any involvement they had with Anthony Francisco. He came back shortly with a story about how Anthony had been arrested and charged with torturing, killing, and dismembering a neighbor’s puppy—something he lured to him with left-over Italian sausage. The Family Court judge recommended probation with psychological counseling, released him to his mother’s custody, and sealed the records.

“Look, Sam,” Kiley said, “You never got this information here and certainly not from me.”

“Okay. If a judge asks, I’ll think quickly and make up a story.”

“Just, for God’s sake, don’t tell the truth.”

“No sweat. Thanks, I owe you.”

“Yeah, okay. See ya.”

<><><> 

Leo Schmidt was the probation officer who handled Anthony’s case. I disturbed his otherwise tranquil evening.

“This kid’s been killing animals and harassing Jamaicans, Haitians, Puerto Ricans, and tonight a couple originally from New Orleans. You get any indication he was into Voodoo?”

“I read the psych reports every week. The court appointed shrink wouldn’t tell you anything, but I’ll tell you this: The kid’s one sick bastard. Voodoo, my ass. He’s just plain evil. But remember you didn’t hear that from me.”

The conclusion to Have You Considered Voodoo Tomorrow...

Sam Jenkins never thought about being a fish out of water during the twenty years he spent solving crimes in New York. But things change, and after retiring to Tennessee, he gets that feeling. Jenkins becomes a cop again and is thrown headlong into a murder investigation and a steaming kettle of fish, down-home style.

The victim, Cecil Lovejoy, couldn’t have deserved it more. His death was the inexorable result of years misspent and appears to be no great loss, except the prime suspect is Sam’s personal friend.

Jenkins’ abilities are attacked when Lovejoy’s influential widow urges politicians to reassign the case to state investigators.

Feeling like “a pork chop at a bar mitzvah” in his new workplace, Sam suspects something isn’t kosher when the family tries to force him out of the picture.

In true Jenkins style, Sam turns common police practice on its ear to insure an innocent man doesn’t fall prey to an imperfect system and the guilty party receives appropriate justice.

A NEW PROSPECT takes the reader through a New South resolutely clinging to its past and traditional way of keeping family business strictly within the family.  

Wayne will be giving away ten eBook's of A NEW PROSPECT to ten randomly drawn commenter's on August 5. 

Lorhainne Eckhart will be giving away three copies of her new release THE CHOICE, to three randomly drawn commenters at the end of the summer hop. Don't forget to leave your contact information when you leave a comment. And remember to visit the other blogs participating in this summer giveaway by clicking on the link I Am A Reader, Not A Writer & BookHounds.