The Boy In The Box

By George W. Parker

Six murders, child porn, horse racing, drug smuggling, beautiful women, crooked police, crooked lawyers; it's all in a day's work for Marvin Davis.

When a young boy is gruesomely murdered in an apparent gang killing Marvin Davis is hired by the boy's family to clear his name. That is the starting point for Marv's march into the world of porn, horse race fixing, police corruption and murder, all to the tune of his own drummer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: George W. Parker
• Release date: Mar 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301017911

George W. Parker

George W. Parker has published an intertextual cycle of American genre novels: Death; Juxtaposed, The Letters, The Krew, Conversations at Night, and Vanishing Trick. Additionally he has authored The Boy in the Box and The Law the second and third novels in the Marvin Davis PI series along with Choice Cut, a zombie/noir novel. He lives in Austin and is currently working on Chop Shop, a zombie/noir follow up novel to Choice Cut. You can purchase paperback editions at Amazon.

Book preview

Chapter 1

It was late. The night sky was cloudless; the air clear, the moon bright. Across the Trinity River downtown Dallas was lit up for the night.

At the front of the empty parking lot yellow light from the street lamps spilled across towards the back. The day’s captured heat radiated from the asphalt. In the far back corner of the parking lot, in the moon shadows of some large pecan trees, were two people.

The boy was on his knees. His hands were held tightly together behind him. A semi-automatic pistol was pressed against the back of his head.

The trigger was pulled. The pistol fired, the slide recoiled and the empty casing was kicked out. The brass made a tinkling, bell like sound as it bounced on the asphalt.

The boy's hands were released. His body fell to the parking lot.

Chapter 1.1

They say that 60 is the new forty. I’m not sure who they are but if they are right then I am the perfect age, 38. I'm restarting an old life. I'm a private detective again.

Back in the late eighties I had gotten in some big trouble with the police and the courts over how I had handled, maybe mishandled, a murder case. I managed to stay out of jail but I lost my detective license and had to go look for a real job.

I have never been good at real jobs, so I wound up day trading during the dot com bubble. I did well. And more importantly I got out before the bubble popped.

With money in the bank I decided I could do whatever I wanted to do. I got married, bought a house, had 2 kids, got divorced, lived the all American dream.

Eventually enough time passed that the officials were willing to give me a second go as a detective. That’s why I was seated in a Catholic church in North Oak Cliff in late September.

It was all about a kid. He was dead. The blue steel casket resting on top of the collapsible dolly was closed and a single red bud rose rested on top of it.

A tall woman stood alone over the box. She looked to be in her late fifty's. Everything was black for her: her dress, her shoes, hose, gloves, hat and life. Under the large brimmed hat her long black hair was pulled back tightly against her head and tied back with a black ribbon. She cried softly, My Baby, my Baby.

The grieving woman just wanted to see her baby one more time. The family didn't want her to look.

Ricky Cardenas had been shot in the back of the head with a large expansion type bullet, something like a .45 caliber Hydra-Shok or Extreme Shock Fang Face. Cute names, but they aren't. The police couldn't be sure had been fired. They hadn't found the projectile or the brass. The entrance wound was big and the exit wound bigger. The bullet took all of Ricky's face off.

The police had labeled it a gang killing and filed the case. The family said the police were wrong. They wanted to prove Ricky had nothing to do with gangs. They wanted to prove Ricky was a good kid.

Off hand, it looked like a gang hit to me too. But when it is your job you're more willing to look at things differently. That's why I was at the back of the church. They had asked me to come and look at things differently.

The front third of the small church was filled with quiet mourners watching the scene in front of them. A younger woman seated in the front pew stood up. Like Ricky's mother she was tall, slender, black haired, dressed in black, but no hat. She was attractive even in morning She crossed over to Mrs. Cardenas and wrapped a loving arm around her and whispered something into her ear.

Mrs. Cardenas nodded and allowed herself to be led away from the casket to a seat in the front pew. When the two women were seated the service started.

Latin is not one of my stronger suits; neither is Spanish for that matter. And I have been told I do English any favors either. I try to get by.

I followed the lead of the people at the front of the church. I bowed my head when they did, raised my eyes after checking with the mourners that it was all right. In between I looked the crowd over.

Insulating Mrs. Cardenas in the front two pews were a group of men and women, mostly women, dressed nicely but not extravagantly, relatives and friends.

Behind them came a couple of pews holding mothers, and a few fathers, with kids that looked to be around Ricky's age, friends and neighbors.

At the rear of the church were the stragglers, people like me that didn't really fit into the scene. There was a wino in the far back right corner keeping out of the Sunday afternoon sun. He nodded in and out of sleep.

A man and a woman seated off to the left were in a heated conversation. They weren't dressed for the funeral. I have no idea why they chose the church for their meeting. I guess it was conveniently close to their separate homes. Extra marital affairs can be that way; you meet wherever, whenever you can.

They could have done better. The church idea was a bad one but there they were. She talked and he listened. It looked like his life depended on how close he listened. There was no telling what he had done or hadn't done, but he was certainly paying a price for it.

Off to the far side sat a man in a navy blue suit, close cropped reddish hair. His name was Gene Wilson. I first met Gene years ago when he was a rookie patrolman and I was riding shotgun in a patrol car.

Gene was Lieutenant Gene Wilson now and a member of the Gang Unit. He saw me looking and nodded his head slightly. I nodded back.

There are people on the police force I've met and worked with through the years that I call friends. I don't call them that because they come over to the house for drinks on Friday nights, but because we share a mutual respect for each other. Wilson isn't one of those people. I turned my attention back to the funeral.

I sat quietly through the remainder of the service with my hands clasped in my lap. I watched my hands behaving themselves. They behaved very well though they seemed to be waiting for something to happen. Sometimes I scare myself with that ability to wait. One of my personal worries is I won't be able to tell when that patience has turned into apathy.

The service ended after three-quarters of an hour and the mortuary's quiet men moved in beside the casket. Ethnicity has no impact on most professions. A profession in and of itself imparts its own particular brand of behaviors. From lawyers to plumbers the profession imparts its character.

These men moved with the same respectful movements of all the quiet men I have ever seen before. They unlocked the wheels on the dolly and rolled the casket solemnly down the center of the aisle to the front door for a last walk-by. After the coffin passed, everyone began to stand. I stepped out into the slow stream of people exiting past the casket.

A 5’ X 7’ school photograph framed in black was set up at the head of the casket. The boy's mother almost didn't make it out the door. Her right hand felt the coldness of the casket as she stared into the dark eyes of her dead son. And she mourned. Only the strength of the younger woman walked her past her son.

When it was my turn I stood in front of the casket with my head bowed. The handsome, smiling, dark eyed boy in the photo looked like he was maybe twelve years old. I stared at the happy face in the photograph and thought what everyone else probably thought, He was too young to die. Isn't everyone? I went outside.

The church was near West Jefferson Street in Oak Cliff, across the Trinity River south of downtown Dallas. The neighborhood was quiet. The traffic noise from I-35 didn't have much of a chance to make it through all the trees in that section of town.

Outside the church the steps were baking in the afternoon sun, a few people lingered there. Some of the people had moved into the shade of the surrounding pecan trees and talked quietly together. Everyone else, the serious mourners, were getting into their cars for the ride to the cemetery.

Shattered pecan hulls littered the ground. Everywhere you stepped you crunched the stuff under your foot. Most of the downed pecans had been green when they fell. The shells were broken only enough to allow a small taste of the unripened meat. Squirrels had created the mess. Squirrels are stupid. I don't like them and they don't like me. We have some history.

The tall, younger woman helped Mrs. Cardenas into the back seat of a black limousine. She settled the grieving mother into the seat, kissed her lightly on the cheek and closed the car door. Then she turned and looked everyone over. She was a very attractive woman. Her gaze stopped on me.

It looked like she wanted to talk. I didn't have a problem with that. You have to talk to a pretty woman sooner or later. The hard part is deciding which it will be. And maybe a funeral isn't the right place to meet women. Who's to say?

I was hot standing on the steps in the sun. Late September, early October in North Texas has only two kinds of weather, hot or wet. So far we had only had the hot.

The weather made the decision for me. I ran my hand across my damp forehead then through my hair and I started across the yard to the limo.

Hey, Marvin, wait up, a loud voice called across the yard at me. I stopped under a tree and looked back at the church.

Wilson was standing on the top step waving a hand at me. Wait up, Marv. He hurried down the steps oblivious to the mourners.

He had a rolling walk, his shoulders were rounded and they dipped forward in coordination with each step he took. On a man six-four, weighing about two hundred seventy, it was a stupid looking walk. Gene's face was freckled and covered with perspiration. Large sweat stains under his arms showed dark through his suit.

Hello Marvin. You chasin' Hearses now? He stopped in front of me giving me his steely gray eyes look. He didn't offer to shake hands.

His eyes were set a little too close together for me to take them seriously. And mounted above his small mouth and with no chin below them they lost any chance they might have had. His bulk was his only intimidating feature. He always tried to make due with it.

No Gene. I was just out trying to get some fresh air. How about you? Aren't you missing Family Feud?

Wilson's face reddened. Before he could say anything I continued, I like Steve Harvey but I really miss Richard Dawson. I was sorry to hear that he died. Kind of ruins it for me now. Banter doesn't have to be funny. It doesn't even need to make sense. It's in the timing. You have to catch your opponent before he has a chance to think of something. With Gene there was no rush.

How's the wife? I tossed in while I waited for him, just to fire him up.

Gene’s wife had run off with a garbage man two years before. The joke I heard was that she liked men in uniform.

Gene tightly clinched his fists in anger. He began to suck air rapidly in and out of his open mouth as the attractive woman walked over.

Her heritage was Spanish. Her height, bone structure and skin color had no hint of American Indian in them. Sometimes her brown eyes were so dark they looked black. She was thin ankled with shapely legs, high breasts, and a full head of thick, pitch-black hair. Her hair was cut just above her shoulders, parted down the center, and pushed back from her face. There were a few bright gray hairs showing themselves. She didn't look old enough to have gray hairs. The blackness of her hair just made them pop out. She had an honest, open face and wore only a small amount of makeup.

Mr. Davis? she asked stopping before Wilson and me. She looked at me, then at Wilson, then back to me having made her choice.

Yes, ma'am'. I'm Marv Davis. I took a step closer to her and away from Wilson. She had to turn her back on him to face me. He chose to glare at me.

My name is Maria Cardenas, Ricky's sister. I was the one who called. Thank you for coming. The words flowed quickly, fluidly, with only a slight accent.

Maria held out her right hand. I took it in mine. Most Hispanics I've met, men I mean, don't shake hands well. They always have soft grips. That's stereotyping, but generally speaking, stereotypes work. That's a stereotype too. You can't get away from them. Shaking hands is an Anglo thing.

Her hand was soft and warm and comfortable. I hated to let go. But I did.

She looked me in the eye and said, Juanita Rodriguez said we could trust you.

I had helped the Rodriguez woman find a missing husband, ex-husband actually, and get some child support money from him a few months earlier. It had been a pretty easy job, a no brainer.

Looking into her eyes I nodded my assurance to her that she could trust me. Then I added my condolences, I'm sorry about your brother.

There was a small movement in her lips and a gracious look in her eyes expressing her acceptance.

Then I let business intrude and I asked, What can I do to help you?

Her lips compressed into a tight, thin line. You can find his murderer.

Ms. Cardenas, Wilson bulled his way around Maria and butted between us. I'm Lt. Gene Wilson, Dallas Police. I want to assure you we are doing everything possible to find your brother's killer. But in these gang killings even if we find the gang we may not be able to isolate the physical killer.

Maria listened to Wilson until the words gang killings left his mouth then she turned her attention back to me.

My brother was in no gang. He did no drugs. These fools, motioning to Wilson, are looking in the wrong place. That's why I asked you to come here Mr. Davis. I wanted you to see our family, to see Ricky's friends.

Ms. Cardenas, Gene waded back in, the police can handle this without any help.

If Gene had any brains he would have