Balls of Ice

By Olin Thompson

Start to finish, this book goes through drugs and money and jewels and fast paced all the way; it includes a dash of international intrigue for those who like ocean spanning crime. Murder of a whole family: mother, father, and two children is the kick off to a very bad day for a police detective who is certain it isn’t drugs. His lieutenant is certain it’s drugs and wants to dump this on the Narcotic division. It says a lot about how staff builds an ivory tower and then the damn thing falls on them in the end. Make yourself comfortable as you will not likely set this book down until you are done reading it. Fun stuff for the reader who likes to get the bad guy quickly, surely, and sends him off for his just rewards. And that does happen! Just think Curva Peligroso. The San Diego Police Department has great cops. None of them are actually involved in anything like this, nor were they ever, but if they had been, a team led by people such as Greg Nojima, Chief of Dectives Homicide, would surely find them. These guys are good!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sam Warren
• Release date: Jun 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9780945949435

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Balls of Ice

By Olin Thompson

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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Copyright © 2007 by Olin Thompson

This eBook was produced in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

eBook Edition ISBN: 978-0-945949-42-8

Printed Edition ISBN: 978-945949-43-5

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Post Office Box 620685, San Diego, CA 62162-0685

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Dedication

Dedicated to Officer Dan Toneck, one of the finest officers in the San Diego Police Department and what he sacrificed for the City and the community he served. Cops as a family take care of their own problems. They don't wash their laundry in the press or in court. Ed does the right thing. But, when it goes outside the family, cops feel they are damaged and have a reaction they have been betrayed, somehow.

It doesn't matter that all of the men in the story hated the bad guy's deeds or felt he was wrong. It is to stay inside the family. Let someone else get him, but not a cop. The cop that gets him is Jonah. The cops try hard to do their job and protect us, a thin line of them, against murderers and robbers and rapists.

This is one of those stories.

Chapter 1

The postman, coughed, spit something into the bushes beside the door, stopped, and rang the bell at the apartment. He heard the ding dong. He rang again. The same sound echoed from inside. No one answered, so he put the too large package, slightly large for the mail slot, beside the door. It was an unwrapped heavily taped brown box with a destination label and only a typed post box return address from Prize Committee and a post office box in New Martin-something, New York.

Someone was inside, he knew, but he didn't push it. There was noise and there was the sound of padded feet walking. A radio played softly.

Maybe they had been making love, he thought. He smiled as he thought of the guy distracted by the door bell and suddenly going flaccid. The mailman made an audible, but soft, chuckle. He was about to leave the cardboard container on the stoop.

He knew he should have taken the tape sealed container to the office. But it looked like it was from one of those prize giving outfits and, he thought, another too cheap tawdry little thing people.

He walked on, hunching up his load of other purchases, mail, and throw away junk, to the rest of his route. He never looked back.

***

Rick, get out of bed.

Yeah, he replied, rolled over, and hugged the pillow once more.

Richard Henry Blackmon the Third.

Okay, I'm gettin', he mumbled and pushed his feet out of the covers and reached over and patted her on the behind.

She rolled over and reached out a hand to touch him.

He smiled and thought how hard it would be on her as a cop's wife; there were the bad hours and even rougher when he didn't come home on time. Then there were the friends he wouldn't have associated with three years ago when he first got assigned to San Diego Police Department's Homicide Division.

Good thing she wasn't his wife. She would likely have threatened a divorce by now.

See you, he whispered.

Yeah, she said and he saw her smile in the dim light. Whatcha gonna do today? he whispered once more.

Screw the mailman, the milkman, and the meat market manager.

Oh, good. Maybe Ed McMahon will come now, and we can get some fresh milk, and the steaks will finally be tender, he said and kissed her on the ear. It was funnier because they had a post office box, got the milk from the Ralph's Market on Balboa Avenue, their next door neighbor was the meat manager at a grocery store in Bay Ho; since she ate mostly vegetarian, he had to eat meat out. With the guys. When they ate other than burgers.

I hate 'burgers, Blackmon the Cop thought.

The phone dingled in the other room and he just barely heard it. His beeper went off at the same time.

Gotta go, he stood, felt his erection fall, and went to answer the phone before he went to the bathroom. Yeah?

Rick, this is Bill.

What? Rick answered smarter than he meant it to sound. Gotta bad one over in Golden Hills, Bill said.

Oh shit, Rick said with a sigh knowing the section of San Diego was a conglomeration of well respected, politically correct under-employed, and, more politically correct, socially-challenged (read mixed diss'ed) minorities. The streets were clean, the shopping strips were filled with small businesses: washer-mats, notions stores, Korean or Chinese or Japanese food markets, copy centers, and in one strip of businesses there were Tae Kwon Do as well as a Jujitsu training dojo. Not upscale, but not depressed either. A park and swimming pool in one part of the community and a park in another. Three schools dotted the residential area.

Yeah. Two little kids, probably their mother, and a guy who has not been identified, Bill said softly.

Maybe it was two little kids, a daddy, and his unlucky night? Rick answered and immediately regretted the flippant remark.

Don't think so. She was in bed with the little girl. The male Been trying to, but I just got a chance now," Bill said with a hurt tone in his voice.

Rick said, I gotta pee. Gimmee the address. I'll meet you there in twenty, no thirty minutes.

Bill did and Rick hung up, knowing full well it would be at least half an hour.

Maybe more. Tough, he thought. The dead people didn't care. Only the cops on the scene did, and they could wait a little longer.

Twenty minutes later, dressed, coffee made and gulped, he went back to the room and kissed her ear.

See you sweetheart, he said.

Yeah, yeah. Now that I'm awake I suppose you want me to get up and go to work too?

Might help make the house payment this month, he said and tickled her ear with his nose.

Quit that, she mumbled, but didn't resist him with any heat. She reached out and hugged him to her warm sleepy body and he nuzzled at her one last moment.

Oh, I got the grave-yard shift. I'll be late, she said. He walked out of the room and didn't look back.

***

Crime Scene Tape was stretched across the front yard and likely, if Bill was his usually efficient self, across the back yard. Rick turned to the officer with the log and gave name, rank, and division which the officer wrote down.

Bill, Rick said with a nod when he walked up to the apartment door.

Rick, his partner replied somewhat absentmindedly.

Whatcha got? Rick asked. He wrote down the time he arrived and made notes on the appearance of the scene. He did it without thinking any longer. He recalled when he was first on the job he would take out his cheat-sheet and make notations according to the routine established by the book. Now he did it from memory.

Two little kids in two different rooms. Shot. Had to be silencer since no one woke. The female got it with the little girl beside her in bed. The man was likely sitting at the table in the kitchen. See? Bill leaned into the room where a forensics cameraman pointed and clicked; flash after flash from an exotic, also elderly, SLR camera; the flashes blurred Rick's vision for moments after each shot.

But he saw. He saw the body was lying crumpled and crushed up against the right side of the newish double door refrigerator, a small hole in the right forehead, just a hair above the eyebrow. Blood from the wound spread a sickeningly smelly sticky pool beside the man’s head and a trail ran under the fridge.

No powder burns Rick could see; and, he noted it on his spiral note pad. But, he thought, I’ll be sure Forensics checks.

No one had rushed in to make a mess forensics would have trouble with; or so it seemed. Bill obviously had done his job securing the evidence and taking charge after the call. He directed the other investigators to take the case from the site of the homicides and work outward. Bill likely knew they already were doing just that, but then Bill had to feel it would insure his certainty of the evidence being collected properly. That was the kind of detective Bill Massamino was. Careful. Correct.

Rick continued to take notes in the spiral pad, a new one he'd just taken from his briefcase.

What are their names? He held his pen poised to write on the cover of the book.

Donno? Bill shrugged.

No mail? No nothing? Driver's license? Anything? Rick

wrote DOE, Jane/John 2 children Does, Mary/Johnny. He got a bit choked up when he did that the first time early in his career. Now recording there were children involved only sickened him.

Nope. Only this one package to occupant. Looks like whoever dood this took it all with 'em or the folks didn't have any to begin with. I vote for whoever did this for takin' the stuff, Bill said with a nonchalant raise of his eyebrows.

Rick peeked in once again and saw there was nothing he could muss and only a few impressions on the carpet marred the place. Evidence, he thought, evidence. He wanted everything as it was. Evidence.

Since there was nothing standing out like a shotgun and a note or a pistol in the hand of the, the, decedent. Uck, he thought, but then anything was evidence. And, or, a clue.

Instant, Bill said unnecessarily.

Rick just looked around. Another policeman was taking digital shots with the newest camera the department had gotten from up close and personal to distant, from the living room toward the bodies. All this while the crime scene photographer was changing rolls of film in the ancient camera the lab still used. The cop took pictures from every angle. The other photographer was once again taking pictures with the 35 mm camera with the flash attachment. Rick knew it would be the color film. The digital could be both the colorized versions as well as the black and whites he needed.

How's Angie? Bill asked.

Fine, Rick said in a sort of mumble. It was his turn to be absentminded as he studied the scene. He didn't miss the unfinished cup of coffee on the table, turned cold now he stuck his finger in it to test. The sugar bowl had been turned over. The cream was still unused. Spoons. Two.

How's Sharon then?

Fine too, Rick mumbled again.

Likely the mess was made when the man was blown out of the chair and dragged his arm across the table knocking the bowl over, Rick concluded.

Small caliber, Rick said, his nose close to the victim's head as he sniffed for powder residue. None there, it appeared.

Yeah? Bill replied, asking without asking, and went down on his knees to crawl on the floor, clearly looking for any trace of anything: dirt from the bad guy’s shoes, a scuff mark, or print in debris on the floor.

Anything?

Nope, Bill said, got up and wiped his pant’s knees. Usually a drug deal gone south. Anything like that? Nope. Just a bunch of dead bodies without any reason just yet, Bill said with that shrug and question in his expression. When's the rest of Forensics coming?

Right. Ought to be here, Bill looked at his watch, in a few.

Then 'less we fuck this up let's tape the door and let them have at it.

Gotcha. Bill pulled a roll of yellow crime scene tape out of his briefcase and wrapped it around a post at the separation of the kitchen and the dining area. Then he pulled a chair over and tied off the other end. DO NOT ENTER POLICE LINE it read over and over.

Bill's latex natural color gloves were eerie, Rick thought; he liked using the blue gloves to keep the scene clean, but they were sort of like condoms. He didn't like the feel at first, but was used to them now. And he used condoms too. He didn't like the feel at first, but was used to them now. Anything on the guy?

Nope. No pictures of him with others. Haven't gotten to his clothes yet. Didn't find them, as a matter of fact, Bill said and shrugged.

Nothing in the bedroom?

Like he walked up to the door naked as that, Bill pointed to the bare butt of the man, and walked in. Nothing to connect him.

Must have worn something in. Couldn't have been moochin' around the neighborhood without any clothes. Struggle?

Nope. Seems odd to me too, Bill said and made an I'm-curious-too facial expression. He nodded toward the kitchen where it seemed the whole events unfolded and no evidence of a struggle.

Let's try the bedroom again, Rick said.

Bill followed, seemingly willing to learn if he'd missed something.

This the bedroom?

Yeah, Bill said. At least it looks like it. Messed the bed up. Looks like some pretty good sex goin' on. Bill pointed at a dried once-wet section in the middle of the queen size bed.

Kinky? Rick asked. Get a picture of this? he asked the officer with the digital camera. The officer said he'd already done so, and walked to another part of the house, apparently to finish his task.

Don't know and yeah, Bill said, agreeing with the officer with the camera.

Rick lifted things on the floor next to the bed, but didn't move them.

Nothing looks weird, Bill said. Just the normal stuff. No appliances or other things to indicate any bondage or pain or trash like that.

Men's clothing? Rick looked up at Bill. It was a question and at the same time an observance.

I figgered the shooter came in, iced everyone, and then off with the man's jeans. But the shooter took everything. There's not even any shoes or sox. And there are no visitors, it looks like, since there are only women's clothes in the closet.

Rick touched, but again, didn't move anything. He looked back at the bed and wondered what these folks were doing. He felt, suddenly, like a voyeur and wished he'd gotten some last night so he wasn't so horny at just that moment.

Like sniffin' at someone's private stuff, Bill said as he clearly sensed the same idea. Jesus, this job stinks.

Doesn't it? Rick asked and his nose wrinkled at the musky odor of sex and death. He wasn't real sure which was the more powerful. But he felt he was interested in death in a detached professional way, but more interested in the sex on a personal level.

Who's that? Rick asked and looked to the front door where a woman appeared. He could just see part of her from his position.

Bill shrugged and shook his head negatively, but left the room to check.

The intruder was obviously upset the police officer on the door wouldn't let her enter. She pushed and he pushed back. He argued with her and she argued with him; but Rick was unable to make out the words. She was, or at least looked at this distance to be, good looking in an outdoorsy sort of manner. Not at all like Sharon, who was, even though a Highway Patrol Officer, one damn fine lookin' babe.

He tried to make a connection between this woman and the dead man. He was not particularly handsome. Neither was he real tall, appeared to be about five eight maybe five nine, and also looked to have been in good shape. And the woman he hadn't seen yet, balled up in the sheet as she was. Maybe she had been a beautiful person too. The man was, Rick thought for a second, not bad. Maybe a little effete? He wondered. And then let it go. The woman and the man had been sexually involved, or so it seemed.

Bill talked with the pushy woman for a moment then nodded and the policeman on the door let her though. Rick wasn't at all happy about that, but Bill must have had a reason, Rick concluded.

The evidence, he thought again; if she fucks up the evidence and this case turns on something we missed..., he didn't finish the thought because he didn't really know what he would do. Cry?

He heard Bill tell her to sit on the couch and wait. Rick heard the words, Do not move.