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    Alice: Book II Texas Trilogy
    Alice: Book II Texas Trilogy
    Alice: Book II Texas Trilogy
    Ebook82 pages1 hour

    Alice: Book II Texas Trilogy

    By Joseph Hefferon

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    About this ebook

    Detective Lieutenant Chucho Zarate picks up the molecules of a decaying corpse drifting on the midnight air of Christmas Eve. No one in the small church notices, but his nose never lies; he knows some poor bastard has met a violent demise.
    What he doesn't know is this murder will unlock an internal gate holding back a spree killer, soon to be set loose upon Southeast Texas.
    As the bodies pile up and the frustration mounts, the governor orders in the Texas Rangers to end the madness, and Captain Lamar McNelly, the synesthetic lawman, leads the team.
    Together, McNelly and Zarate find themselves in a race to catch a phantom, with the next victim just a happenstance away.
    Short Fiction 21,000 words

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJoseph Hefferon
    Release dateJan 29, 2015
    ISBN9781310600951
    Alice: Book II Texas Trilogy
    Author

    Joseph Hefferon

    A former police captain with a penchant for dark humor. I have a keen interest in what really motivates people and the secret lives behind the facades.

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      Book preview

      Alice - Joseph Hefferon

      Alice

      Book II Texas Trilogy

      Published by Joseph Hefferon at Smashwords

      Copyright 2015 Joseph Hefferon

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase another copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are either the product of the author's imagination or they are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

      The first story in the series is Scattergun—A Reckoning in Two Acts

      For Lucius

      Contents

      Act I

      Act II

      Act III

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Act I

      The eastern wind from the Alazan Bay brought the smell of a bloated corpse across the brackish Laguna Salada, falling like a fat dead clown over Sarita, where the church bells rang. The parishioners, called to midnight mass by moon and tradition, swooned in the aroma of the incense, the candles, one hundred perfumed señoras singing along with the canciones de Cristo. Two teenaged Tejanos dressed as Joseph and Mary led the procession along the slim road to Our Lady of Gudalupe, she on a painted burro, followed by the priest and two reverent young boys, their cassocks dusting the cobblestones, heralded by mariachis in white suits with ornate embroidery of black and gold thread, trumpets wailing prayers under picado banners, while the old women stayed home to make the ponche Navideño, frying bunuelos and firing tomales.

      No, they didn't smell it, but someone did.

      Chucho Zarate watched the mass unfold from his reserved seat, saved for patrons of the church, his daughter on his left clutching his pants pocket and his wife on the right holding his boy, an unknowing heir to a left hook that hit like a rifle slug and helped Chucho earn the state middle-weight title in '39. The local hero had joined the Jim Wells County Sheriff's Office after the war, but wasn't given a locker in headquarters with his white counterparts. Chucho didn't care. He knew the path to his family's prosperity would be paved with his skin and he would give you some off his knuckles at the slightest provocation.

      Over time he earned his space in the locker room, rarely using it. He spent much of his free time reading about the law and befriended people in the District Attorney's Office so he could stay informed about his profession. From twenty-yards he could put six rounds from his .38 in a group you could cover with a shot glass. He proved his mettle to his colleagues early on in his law enforcement career at a call to assist the Alice Police in a tavern brawl. Despite his size he waded into the mix first, knocking out Texans with much wider shoulders, exiting with a solid reputation and a bleeding head wound from a bourbon bottle. His credibility, buttressed by his penchant for reading and his innate street savvy, earned him a prestigious assignment. Tough as cowhide and smart as a whip, so went the cliché opinion of the Jim Wells County District Attorney who recruited him for a vice task force he ran for the State AG's Office, formed with the intent of taking down a small but growing Mexican gang running prostitutes and a little cocaine over the border and up into Corpus Christi and Galveston.

      Although the PRI government in Mexico did not generally tolerate crime, it protected drug production and some trafficking in certain geographic areas, as long as the tribute payments kept coming. Elements of those protected groups had begun to establish a corridor into the coastal plains region of Texas and the DA made it his personal Christian mission to stamp it out. Business had been growing steadily, aided by locals of mixed background, but in the braided underworld culture of border towns it's just as easy to find a compatriot as someone who will do you in. Those unreliable alliances made for violent confrontations as disputes over disloyalty were settled. The DA had had enough of the violence and public outcry but mostly he didn't appreciate the distraction from his reelection campaign.

      Zarate joined a team of top performers, the selection alone gave him a sense of pride in his career track. The job sucked off much of his family time. It gnawed at him in a subterranean way, like termites under the floorboards. He allotted what he could to his wife and children. Zarate kept a tight grip on the bonds of family. Some might call it an obsession. Zarate's father had worked in Mexico for Standard Oil Company as a general well mechanic but after President Cárdenas expropriated the facility and cut his salary he moved in with his son's young family in Texas while Chucho fought the Italian troops in the invasion of Sicily. The old man contracted tuberculosis soon after moving to Texas and died in short order, leaving his eldest son, Álvaro 'Chucho' Zarate, the patriarch. Chucho's mother had been raped and murdered when he was a boy and his father succumbed to disease while he was ankle-deep in blood, shit and olive oil on a Sicilian hillside; so yes, family became paramount in his life.

      His extended family lived mostly in Kennedy County, in and around Sarita, so he made the drive down for holiday masses. Chucho smelled the dead body on his way into the church. The decomposing ones are unmistakable. It set off internal triggers. He had a canine nose which could enhance or ruin his dinner, depending on the direction of the wind. He leaned forward in the pew, bouncing his knee up and down in short quick pumps from the ball of his foot, which his wife knew meant something was on his mind.

      What is it, Chucho?

      What is what?

      "Your knee is going. Something is bothering you. What is

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