The True Soul

 

Chapter 1

 Running.

Her feet skimmed across the moon-washed stone, lungs burning as she scrambled up the craggy slope. She could hear the labored breathing of the others around her, the older ones struggling to maintain the pace. She barked a word of encouragement; the guns were just behind them. To stop now would be certain death.

As if to punctuate the fact, a sharp crack shattered the restless night, followed by a flash of heat whizzing past her head. She ducked and bore down, pulling every last ounce of strength from her legs. The ridge was just ahead. Another blast, and a bush next to her exploded. She dodged left and slipped, her body slamming against the rocks while thunder filled the night.

“Jennings! Get up!”

Sharla gasped, covering her head, but the assault continued. Another round of thunder; the sky was falling.

“JenningsBopen the goddamned door!”

Door?

The night faded, the sun searing through the chinks in the cheap blinds. Four walls. A room. My room. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, head spinning as a male voice called her name again. AI’m coming,@ she muttered, untangling herself from the twisted cocoon of sheets. She stumbled to the door, yanking it open as Watson’s fist poised to launch another assault.

“I could’ve woken the dead easier,” he puffed, bursting past her into the room. “Come on, get dressed.”

She stared at him, waiting for her brain to catch up with her body, a feeling like jet lag holding the two out of sync. “Don't you sleep?” she finally managed as the mother of all headaches launched an all-out attack.

If she’d had any self-control, she would have left the bar early last night. Would have stuck by her good intentions instead of waving a vain protest at the pitcher hovering above her empty glass while Watson continued to pour, promising, “There’s only a little left. Help me finish it off.”

“She hasn’t got the stomach for it.”

Yeah, she remembered that. Lee Reynolds’s sanctimonious grin from across the table, the implication of his comment penetrating the fog in her mind. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Don=t get defensive, Jennings. I just think you might be in over your head sometimes.”

The words echoed through her memory, crawling under her skin. What the hell did he mean? And why should she care? Reynolds was just an old drunken has-been.

“Could we light a fire under it, Jennings?” Watson growled, snapping her back to the present. He was digging through her closet, pulling out jeans and a tee shirt, tossing them on the bed, scrabbling around among the dust balls on the floor for her shoes, some balled up socks. She was too hung over to feel shame.

“Put those on.”

Sharla glance at the clock; 7:08. It was Saturday, right? Her first full day off in weeks. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Never mind that. Just get dressed.” He was tugging at her tee shirt; she wrenched away from him.

“I can do it; I’m not an invalid.”

“Then do it.”

“What’s the big deal, anyway?”

“Double homicide; heard it on the scanner. This is it, Jennings, the big one. I can feel it.”

Great, just what she needed right now; another of Watson’s Big Ones. The fevered pursuit of the Great American Story. John Grisham trapped in Jimmy Olson’s body. “You’re babbling,” she mumbled, pulling the shirt over her head, wishing she was back in bed, weird dreams and all. Her head felt like someone had strapped a jackhammer to it.

“Here, take your camera,” Watson said, pushing it into her hand and shoving her out the door. “We don’t have time to get a photographer over here.”

“I need to comb my hair, brush my teeth‒”

“No one will notice.”

“But‒”

“Just go.”

“Where?”

“Fifth and Fourteenth.”

“Fifth and four‒” She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, causing him to plow into her, nearly knocking them both to the tile floor. “That’s three blocks from here.”

“And the way we’re moving, it might as well be three miles. Go!”

 

♦ ♦ ♦

 

Fifth Avenue was lined with flashing lights and the frenetic activity of two television crews when they arrived.

“Great, Channel 8 and 10 are already here,” Watson spat as he jumped out of the car.

“Gee, maybe they have scanners, too.”

He threw her a withering look. “Maybe they don’t have partners who could sleep through a war.”

“Maybe they don’t have days off either,” she muttered to his back.

Two men from the medical examiner’s office swept past them with a gurney and Watson motioned for her to follow, flashing his press pass to the crime scene officer, who nodded with vague disinterest. Sharla pulled out her camera and started snapping pictures of the victim‒black female, mid-twenties, nude, severe lacerations to face and arms, throat slashed from ear to ear. Her stomach did a somersault; she took a couple of hard swallows, keeping the nausea at bay. For now.

Watson muscled up to the attendants like he owned the place. She had to give him credit; the man had some serious stones when it came to getting to the story. “What happened to her?” he asked.

“Garbage man found her behind the dumpster,” one of the attendants replied as he slipped the bottom of the body bag over the feet, waiting for his partner to tuck in the head before zipping it up. “Looks a hell of a lot better than him.”

“Him?” Sharla glanced around, noticed a crowd near the end of the alley, grabbed Watson’s arm. “Over there. This one's done.”

The second body was laying on its back among the weeds and dust and broken beer bottles, the flesh bloated and gray, insects already oozing from the wounds. White male, nude from the waist down, his pants still tangled around his ankles. Sharla stared at the body for several minutes before realizing what had struck her as strange.

“Watson, what happened to his‒?” She met his eyes, her words caught in her throat as the remnants of last night’s libations did a back flip. “Oh crap,” she burped, diving for a clump of weeds as her stomach threw in the towel. Great; she’d never live this one down.

“You all right?” Watson called when the heaving had stopped.

Sharla wiped her mouth on her sleeve and nodded. “Peachy.” She caught his sardonic grin. “Not a word or I’ll kill you.”

He shrugged and changed the subject. “Let’s go find someone who will talk to us.”

Sharla nodded and looked around, recognizing one of the detectives. “Lt. Myers,” she called, hurrying after her partner. “Lt. Myers, can you give us a statement?”

The lieutenant strode away, pretending not to have heard, but Watson jumped in front of him, backpedaling to maintain contact. “Come on, Detective, we saw the guy. You can’t hide something like that.”

Myers stopped, shaking his head. “You guys are like ghouls, you know that?”

“Just doing our job. I could get enough of the details from one of the beat cops to piece together a story, but I’d rather base it on the facts.”

The detective snorted. “That’d be a first.”

“Ah, come on, Lieutenant. Just tell us what you know and we’ll get out of your hair.”

The detective sighed and pulled a roll of Tums out of his pocket, swallowing three without chewing before answering. “In a nutshell, it looks like the man raped and killed the woman, then was attacked and killed himself.”

“Attacked? By who?” Sharla asked.

“More like what. Our preliminary investigation indicates it was some kind of animal, possibly a dog.”

Now it was Watson’s turn to snort. “A dog? Come on, what kind of dog would bite off a man’s dick?”

“A female one?” Sharla blurted before she could stop herself. Myers ignored the comment.

“We won’t know till we get the lab reports back. In the meantime, you’ll just have to wait like the rest of us. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

“Mind if we get another look at the body?”

“Knock yourself out. Just stay out of the way.”

The detective had already turned his attention back to the business at hand. Sharla followed Watson back toward the end of the alley, where the forensics people had wrapped up their initial investigation and were preparing the body for transport. The man was heavy, and as they struggled to get the corpse into the body bag, the neck flopped over, the head turning, the man’s agonizing last seconds of life frozen in time, his vacant eyes staring right at Sharla. She gasped, jumping back.

“Oh my god, Watson, I saw him.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Last night, on my way home. This guy jumped out of the alley and tried to grab my purse.” She could tell by his eyes he didn’t believe her. Probably thought she’d been having another drunken hallucination.

“And?” he asked finally.

“And I ran.”

He rolled his eyes, glancing from her to the dead man. “You outran him?”

“I didn’t say I outran him. I don’t know what happened to him. I got about a block away and tripped. I think I hit my head.”

She felt for the spot on her head, finding a knot the size of a small egg just above her temple. “See?” she proclaimed, showing off the evidence.

Myers had overheard and moved closer now. “You say you saw this man last night?”

Thinking about it had caused Sharla’s headache to return in all its throbbing glory, aided by the rising temperatures and an empty stomach. She sank down on one of the scattered trash barrels in the alley, wiping the sweat from her face, and squinted up at the detective, nodding.

“Are you sure it was him?”

“It was him,” she insisted, glancing at Watson, who shrugged. “How could I forget?”

The detective scanned the alley. “One streetlight a block away. It must be pretty dark around here at night.”

“It was further down the street that way,” she pointed. “He jumped right out in front of me. Scared the living shit out of me. You think I’d forget that?”

“Why didn't you tell me this before?” Watson enjoined.

“What are you now, my mother?”

“I tried to warn you about this neighborhood. I even offered to give you a ride last night.”

“Could you two work out your domestic problems later?” Myers snapped. “About what time was this?”

“Let’s see…I left the bar around two-thirty.” She told him how she’d been walking home‒she’d had a little too much to drink. She remembered thinking she heard a noise as she neared the entrance to the alley‒this area always gave her the creeps. Lots of homeless people hanging out here. She was concentrating on making it home before she passed out, and then this guy jumped out in front of her.

“He had a knife; told me to give him my purse. I panicked and took off running.”

“And?” Myers prompted.

As she concentrated it all started coming back. The man had jumped in front of her with a knife and grabbed for her purse. She ran without thinking about it, making it to an alley a block away before she tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and went sprawling into a clump of weeds, banging her head against the brick wall of the building. She must’ve temporarily blacked out because the next thing she remembered was a smell she knew all too well.

There had been times, as a child, when she could tell that her mother was frightened by the difference in her scent. It was as if she could actually smell her fear. As the years passed and her mother’s fits grew more frequent, the scent became almost familiar to her, until she hardly noticed it at all, but the implications of that first episode had never really faded. She had never dared say anything about it to her father. Extraordinary behavior of any kind was to be suppressed around him. It was bad enough she had to submit to all those humiliating tests as a child when her mother’s illness first became apparent. They just wanted to be sure it wasn’t something hereditary, her father had told her. She used to lay awake nights wondering what he’d do if it was.

Sharla realized she hadn’t thought about that smell for years until last night. The alley had seemed saturated with it, compounding the nausea she had felt. She had heard the scream, muffled but unmistakably female. She had nearly choked on her own bile. Not now; please, not now, she had begged. The night had been blurring out again as blood and alcohol converged in her brain. She had shaken her head, trying to clear the fog, but she knew the cycle had already begun. She had tried to get up then her body shuddered, heaved, and the world faded to black.

She shrugged. “I remember tripping over the curb and hitting my head, then I heard a scream and blacked out. The next thing I knew someone was trying to bang down my front door this morning.” She glared at Watson.

“How did you get home?” he asked.

“I told you, I don’t remember.” She grabbed her head as another wave of misery struck.

“Are you all right?” the detective asked.

She shrugged, forcing a grin. “Fine.”

“Just the same, you ought to get that checked out. You could have a concussion.”

Watson reached out a hand and pulled her to her feet. "Come on, partner, I’ll run you over to the hospital."

“I said I’m fine,” she snapped, shrugging off his concern. The last thing she wanted to do on her day off was hang around an emergency room. She turned and started walking toward the mouth of the alley, announcing, “I’m going home.”

“Wait a minute,” he called, running after her. “I don=t think you should be alone.”

“Why? You afraid I’ll somehow injure myself?”

“You heard the detective. You could have a concussion.”

Sharla coughed up a bitter laugh. “Can you get amnesia from that?”

Watson glanced at her like he was trying to figure out if she was serious. “I don’t think so.”

“Too bad.”

They reached the end of the alley and headed west on Fifth. Watson pulled his keys out of his pocket. “If you won’t let me take you to the hospital, at least go with me to work. We have to get this story typed up and I’ll need your pictures.”

She pulled the camera strap from around her neck. “Here, take it. I’m going home.”

“No you’re not. This is our story and you were practically an eyewitness.”

“I told you everything I know.”

“You might remember something else. Besides, what else are you going to do today?”

She should have invented something just to wipe that smug grin off his face, but the truth was, she couldn’t come up with a single thing to refute him. Sleep was out of the question now, and as much as she would have liked to deny it, the closest thing to friends she had were her coworkers, and they were all at work. She shook her head, sighing.

“God, I need a life.”

Watson grinned and draped an arm around her shoulder. “Face it, Jennings, this is your life.”

 

♦ ♦ ♦

 

Sharla knew from bitter experience a busy newspaper office was no place to nurse a hangover. She could have easily crawled into her cubicle and slipped into a self-induced coma, but since she was here, she might as well get some work done. What little concentration she could muster was fractured between deciphering her notes from yesterday’s interview with three of the current mayoral candidates and trying to piece together the few coherent moments from the previous evening. Having little luck with either, she gave up on both and decided to get a cup of coffee.

She passed Lee Reynolds sitting alone in his cubicle, looking every minute of his age. In the cold fluorescent office light, the over seventy years of hard living and even harder drinking were evident in every crease of his face. She wondered if she would look like that in forty years. She felt like that now.

Reynolds glanced up at her, a thin lock of gray hair falling across bloodshot eyes. “Something on your mind, Jennings?”

Now that you mention it, she realized, though she wasn’t one for asking; not for advice, and especially not help. But Lee grinned at her like he understood and nodded toward the empty chair next to his desk. “Take a load off.”

Sharla suddenly felt uncomfortable, like a kid on her first interview. What did she want to say? He saved her the trouble.

“I hear you and Watson stumbled across a double homicide this morning.”

Stumble was hardly the word she would have used. Watson slept with the damned police scanner next to his bed, probably knew what was happening before the victims did. That kind of dedication didn’t leave room for dumb luck. Not that it would matter to an old war horse like Reynolds.

“Haley will probably give the follow-up to someone else,” she said instead.

Reynolds shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Can’t fault the kid for trying. He’s got ambition.”

As opposed to me, she didn’t say. She remembered his comment from the bar. “What did you mean last night, that I was in over my head?”

Reynolds laced his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. “You know, I like you, kid. Otherwise, I wouldn’t give you the time of day, and I damn sure wouldn’t give you free advice. Since I’m old, I don’t have to be nice to anyone. So I’m going to ask you the sixty-four thousand dollar question. What do you really want to do?”

The question caught her off guard. “What do you mean?”

He met her eyes. “Just what I said‒what do you really want to do?”

Outside the cubicle, the daily clatter of keyboards and telephones was in full swing, adding to the misery in her still pounding head. She could hear Haley’s bark above the surface noise, yelling at the copy boys, the maintenance people, and Matthews, the paper’s perennial screw-up. What did she really want to do? Right now she wanted to go home and pull the covers over her head, but something told her that wasn’t the answer Reynolds was looking for. “I don't know,” she sighed. “I guess I’d like to write about something besides bridge openings and city council meetings.”

“Good luck with that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you want to be a real journalist, you have to pay your dues.”

“By covering fluff pieces?”

“We all have to start somewhere. But you…” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “You don’t have it,” he pointed to his belly. “The fire. It should be burning inside you. The truth, the story, the scoop‒it should be like an addiction.”

“What, like Watson?” she scoffed.

“Misguided as he may sometimes be, he does have passion.” He leaned back again, regarding her like a subject to be studied. “You’re a good writer, but being a good reporter is more than writing a story. It’s a hunger for the truth, and I don’t think you’ve got it. It’s like you’re just marking time here, waiting for something better to come along.”

“Yeah, because this is what every good writer should aspire to.”

“Like I said, you got to start somewhere.”

At least I’m going in the right direction, she didn’t say. Reynolds had worked for Time back in the day and now here he was alongside her at a rapidly declining paper.

“But you don’t have any ambition to take it further.”

“How do you know?”

“Your work speaks for itself. It’s like you’re half-assing it.”

“I am not. I’m making the best of the opportunities that I’ve had. It’s not my fault I get crappy assignments.”

“See, you said it yourself. You’re making the best of it.”

“And what would you suggest I be doing?”

“Grabbing the bull by the horns. The people who succeed at this game do so because they have to. It’s like a calling. An artist paints because he has to. A musician plays because he has to. A writer writes because he has to. It’s not a choice, not something you do. It’s something you are, and I’m not convinced it’s you. What’s worse, I’m not sure you are either."

Sharla stared at him, stung by his words. Part of her wanted to lash out, to refute his so-called insight, but another part of her‒a deeply-buried voice‒was listening. She resented that voice. It was the same voice that used to tell her that her mother really wasn’t crazy. That her father really did love her. That voice had never told her anything she wanted to hear.

“I wouldn’t get my hopes up about college, Sharla. You need to stay here where I can keep an eye on you. What if you turn out like your mother?”

Sharla could feel her cheeks growing hot. “You don't know anything about me.”

“Maybe not, but I do know about this.”

She didn’t want to be here anymore, and she certainly didn’t need to be taking advice from a fossil like Lee Reynolds. No matter what he had been, he was just another old lush now.

“Yeah, I know,” he mumbled as if reading her mind. “Who am I to give advice? I may be a drunk, but I know what it takes to survive in this game. You want to pull yourself out of your rut, to succeed in this business, but you can’t get there until you know where you’re going.”

“I know where I’m going.” She stood up, meaning to make good on that conviction.

“Do you? Better think about that one, Jennings. You might surprise yourself.”

Before she could come up with a suitable reply, Carlos poked his head around the corner, suitcase in tow. “Just wanted to say adios. I’m off to Puerto Rico.”

Carlos was always jetting off to some exotic hole in the wall. Reynolds had once called him a bona fide first round pick. Third year out of college and he was already being courted by half a dozen national news outlets. Why he still hung around here, she couldn’t fathom.

“I’ll swap with you,” she offered sourly. “I could use a vacation.”

“San Juan is hardly Club Med these days.”

“Beats the hell out of this place,” she said, glaring at Reynolds.

“Ah, come on, Jennings,” Carlos teased. “Someone has to hold the sharks at City Hall accountable.”

“Besides,” Reynolds added, “we can’t have the talent heaving on hurricane-ravaged orphans. It makes for bad copy.”

“Damn, Watson. I’ll kill him,” she swore under her breath. She should have known he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“I don’t need anyone to tell me anything,” Reynolds chuckled. “A journalist has an obligation to dig up dirty little secrets. You think I don’t know what you all say about me behind my back? I learned to take criticism a long time ago, and so should you. Hell, everyone in this place knows you have a weak stomach.”

Carlos looked away sheepishly, pretending to fiddle with something on his suitcase. Sharla didn’t know whether to cry or strangle them both.

“Don’t worry, Jennings,” Reynolds assured her. “I’ve known some very brave men who turned into babbling cowards at the sight of a little blood.”

The object of her anger picked that moment to show up. “So this is where you’re hiding. Trading hangover remedies?”

“Screw you, Watson.”

“We’ll consider the implications of that later. Right now Haley wants to see us in his office.”

She looked back at Reynolds. “You don’t have to look so relieved,” he said. “Go on, get out of here. Go chase some rainbows.”

She rose like an escaping captive. “Hey, Jennings?” Reynolds called. She turned back. “Feel free to drop by anytime.”

She nodded and followed her partner through the crowded newsroom. “What was that all about?” he asked.

“None of your business. What's going on?”

They had reached the door to Jim Haley’s office, where a group of reporters and editors were vying for his attention. Watson shoved his way past them.

“Watson! Get in here! Clara, I’ll be with you in a minute. And tell Andy I want those terminals moved today.” He looked past Watson to Sharla. “Good, you found her. Look, normally I’d give this to Cooper, but seeing as how he’s run off to the Bahamas and got himself married again, I have no choice but to let you two run with it.”

“Gee, thanks, boss,” Watson crooned.

“Don't push your luck, Watson. I haven't had coffee or breakfast yet; I don’t need some smart ass reporter crawling up my butt, you got it?” He looked at Sharla. “Don’t blow this, Jennings, or I’ll bury you so deep in City Hall they’ll have to vote you out. I want something good‒headline stuff.”

“Where are we going?” Sharla asked.

Haley glanced at Watson. “You haven’t told her?”

“I was just getting around to it.”

“Tell her on the way. Just get me something I can print.”

“Right, boss. Come on, partner.”

“You mind telling me what this is all about?” she called after him as he threaded his way towards the elevator.

“Haley gave us the story. He even pulled some strings and got us into the autopsy.”

Great, just what her stomach needed.

The True Soul is available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Read for free on Kindle Unlimited.