Black Bag: Chap 1

Chapter: 1 Murphy's Law


Leatherville, Northern Hills Road……

         Sometimes I ask myself "why homicide? Why not some factory job?" I always wanted to be the murder poh-leese to solve crimes and to put away the animals of Love City. My illusions of granger have only made me regret ever thinking such a chiliastic thing. After I finally got over the dead bodies, and brutal murder scenes, I thought I could handle anything.
Detective Anthony Holms thought to himself as he was driving home.

         But "anything" has a way of surprising you. Murphy's law, it does not care about anyone, it shows no mercy, and can take everything from a person. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It is like the unlucky number that haunts every human being alive. It waits, it hunts, and when it catches it's prey in sight, there is no fighting it. 3 years on the job, I have learned one thing that remains a constant; don't take anything for granted.
Anthony continued to drift off into a depressive state.
         As he drove down the winding street, he picked up a bottle of tablets from his center divider. He popped a handful in his mouth and chewed them up like candy.
"Damn heart burn." Every time I get stuck with a missing child case this happens. I know the outcome; I wouldn't get the case if the child was alive. It's always  the ones that are unlikely to be actual runaways. Cases like this make me miss home. My lovely broken marriage, who would think I would miss it? The pain of watching us drift apart, as torturing as it may be, is nothing compared to the alternative. Before the murder poh-leese I hardly ever drank, now it is a battle royal just to keep myself from below the blood alcohol level. I am getting too old for this shit, 36 years old; I have a fucked up marriage, a job I hate, and a drinking problem. Some super cop I turned out to be.           Almost home. Now I get to hear my wife bitch about something for no real good reason.
Holms thought as he got out of the car. His mind ran back and fourth between his marriage and the case that he is on. He was vexed. He continued to contemplate his madness as he slid his key into the door and went inside his house. He looked around the living room and saw a mess of ribbon and lace. White and blue wrapping paper buried the coffee table. The television was on but the sound was low. Anthony immediately switched his attention to the news report.

“It has almost been 3 weeks since 15 year old Natalie Summers has gone missing, she was on her way to school August 23rd walking along the side of the busy Randolph Street, and then suddenly vanished. Still no witnesses have come forward with any information on her disappearance. Since the first week we have kept all of you updated on the situation, and police have no new information as of yet. Her parents say that she was a shy kid, who loved to go to school and did well in her classes. Fliers with her picture have been posted all over Leatherville as well as neighboring towns. If anyone has seen this girl please call the number below… In other news, a group of teenagers died three weeks ago in a car accident when the diver Forrest Tuner in an intoxicated haze decided to drive without the headlights on as they ran smack into a train.  Also in the car were 17 year old Michael Boyer, 15 year old John Saxton, and 15 year old Racheal Martian. Tuner was 18, and had 2 DUI’s on his record.
This has not exactly been a good week for parents as too many young lives have been lost…..”     

"Damn news, always rubbing my face into the damn cases."
Holms said under his breathe as he snatched the remote and turned off the tv.

"Honey..." Holms's wife yelled from the other room as she came walking into the living room with a plastic Rubbermaid tote full of decorating junk.
"Yes dear?"
Holms said as she sat the tote down on the couch.
"Are you going to be ready tomorrow?"
"Ready for what?"
"You forgot? Wow, this is a new one."
"Chereece, you know the pressure I am under."
"Yeah, pressure. Cause we all know how hard it is for you to make time for your family!"
"C`mon Chereece, don't be playing me like that. Not today, I have enough shit on my plate already."
“Could you just make time? 10 minutes Tony, 10 fucking minutes for your wife….. is that really asking too much?”
An angry wife asked her husband. She was small and slim, with a cute narrow face, and a milk chocolate tone to her skin. Her shoulder length wavy hair barely grazed the base of her neck. She stood there glaring at her husband with her hands on her hips.
“Chereece, I love you, but I am in the middle of a case….”
Holms tried to explain. Even with him towering over his domineering vixen wife, he had a hard time not wanting to cower from the sheer power of her feminine look that she held in her eyes. Even with his beer-gut, and the fact he never works out, he still is a strong and capable man; and yet she captivated his mind.
"That is always your fucking excuse! It is always a case with you."
"An excuse? Chereece, can you hear yourself? You are so ignorant, and so fucking stupid."
“I swear Tony you are more in love with your work than your own family! Maybe if I was dead, you would actually give me some of your time!”
"Chereece!"
"I told you about the damn baby shower two days ago, and you go and forget. What the fuck Tony?"
“I don’t expect you to understand…”
“Understand? Oh I get it; you feel the need to exclude your family so that you can ease your conscious. Like you are the only homicide detective that can speak for the dead!”
“It is more serious than that Chereece...”
“Tony, you are a good man, but sometimes you are just too good. What about me? What about your daughter? If you are going to throw all of your time away you can at least spend some of it on us.”
"I never said I wouldn't go, I just fucking forgot."
"I am just tired Tony, tired of you tossing me aside like I am not important. My sister is having the baby shower tomorrow, I would just like for us to pretend to be happy. So that I can for one day act like nothing is wrong."
“Okay hunny, I will go with u.”
“Thank you sweetie,” Chereece said as wrapped her arms around her husband. “And tomorrow if you could just go to the store to pick up some things for the house that would be great.”
“Are you going to be busy tomorrow?”
“Yes dear, I am going shoe shopping in the morning then I have to meet with Chandra’s teacher.”
“Shoe shopping?”
“Hunny, do you realize that to go longer than a month without new shoes is crime?”
“I missed that one on the detective exams.”
“Well it’s an unwritten law, one punishable by your wife’s continuous whining!”
“Hunny, you have 28 pairs of shoes….”
“Old shoes, and not all are shoes. Some are sandals, some heels, open toed, and non open toed. Then there are the clogs, again some open toed, and…….”
“Okay fine, buy some more shoes to add to the collection, God knows shoes more than 6 months old are just wrong!”
“Thank you baby, I love… do you love me?”
"Yes hunny, I love you."
Holms said, as he held his wife Natalie's face haunted his mind.



"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?" Chad Zemmith yelled as he stared into the eyes of  a somewhat familiar face. The man had tan skin, with jet black hair, long and in a ponytail. He had a full circle mustache and beard neatly trimmed. He seemed so distant, and estranged. Chad looked at the man as though he was a forgotten demon from the past. The face steamed over as Chad realized that it was his own reflection. Chad took a hand towel and wiped the fog of the mirror. His face now didn't look so handsome. The left side of his face appeared a little more haggard. The doctor's had said that the muscles in his face were stretched a little bit and would never tighten back up. He could still  walk but with a slight limp. Chad distracted himself by gargling mouthwash as he spit it out into the sink he started coughing hard. He could not stop, he finally stopped only to notice the sink was now red. His ulcers were bleeding again. He held his chest as it felt like steel spikes were being driven into it. 
         The anxiety was kicking in early today, only to be followed by a depressive drain. "You are lucky to be alive..." the doctor told him when he had woken up. Two weeks in a coma and he had finally come out of it. It would take a couple of months for him to walk again, and another year and a half before he could do it well. He had a neurological breakdown, A viral encephalitis brought on by acute stress. Just a fancy way of saying he had a stroke from being over worked. Chad was in the middle of a hundred and fifty two cases, and he fought to close as many as he could. He had already closed 6 serial killer cases, so he was feeling like he was on a roll. 
         Chad rinsed the sink out and continued to the bedroom where he spontaneously found himself in a murder scene. His bed was covered in blood; there were three bodies in the room. Two of them he did not recognize, they were on the floor one on each side of the bed. The 3rd body was him, and he was sprawled on the bed. He was on his back with his chest cut wide open, as if he had been through an autopsy. Then suddenly he sees himself killing a baby. 7 and half months old, he is choking her with his bare hands. He is in a house; the parents are shot in the head execution style. An eight year boy shot in the back lies on his stomach. It's the baby he came for, the kill he lives for.
         He feels himself now in a coma, the sheets he sleeps on are soaking wet. Through the darkness he feels needles pricing his body, sharp blades cutting into his flesh. Has he gone back to being a victim of a serial killer? He jerks awake as if falling at an extreme rate. His eyes slam open, the room is dark. He can a heartbeat monitor in is ears as if it was pulsating in his head.
         The needle marks, the incisions are all gone. The pain has gone, and the beeping has faded. His bones shake as if he was electrocuted. His hand trembled hard and without let up. He had chills shooting out throughout his body as his face continuously perspired. His shaky hand reached for the lamp by his bed. He could now see a bright blur as to oppose to darkness. He could feel it in his stomach, his insides are ripping apart. He knows this pain all to well. Just like the beginning of his dream, the ulcers were tearing him apart.
         He runs into the bathroom sink only to be a little to late. He spews blood all over the sink and mirror. He continues to cough blood as he hangs his head over the sink. He finally stops and looks up. It's his face, as distorted as it has become, it is him. Through all the redness on the mirror he can still see that it is him. It's 3 in the morning and he is up for good.