Alfred Crow and the Shadow Killers

By C K Blair

Life just won’t give Alfred Crow a break until he moves to a small desert town in Arizona and the local police pick up on his special ability to speak with the dead. With his psychic affinity the P.D. is at last on the right track to closing an open case. But in this small desert town, is everything what it seems? Or is somebody trying to involve Alfred Crow too much into this case?

When a meeting with his social worker brings the spirit of her murdered grandmother into his life, he begins to see that being able to interact with spirits may not be so bad; he may have found his calling. After surviving several attempts to send him to the spirit-world he joins forces with a young police officer. Together, they solve the mystery behind her murder, and the disappearance of many children over the last decade, unraveling the town’s shadows and family secrets along the way.

‘Alfred Crow and the Shadow Killers’ highlights the debut of a new psychic investigator onto the mystery thriller scene, at around 40.300 words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C K Blair
• Release date: Oct 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310404740

C K Blair

C K Blair is a retired forestry worker with published poetry in anthologies and magazines such as Moving Mountain and The Midnight Edition.

Book preview

Chapter One

Another hot one in the Mohave; just noon and already one hundred fifteen degrees, the overhead fan in my trailer squeaked out its displeasure. The weatherman said it will be one twenty-two by four p.m., don't go out unless you have to. Good advice, but Gloria Martinez, my social worker, made life hell on a regular basis. I had an appointment in an hour.

Every few months, a letter would arrive telling me I had to come in to be re-evaluated for my disability. It was just a random occurrence, she would say, I wasn't being singled out. Sure, Gloria, I would believe that if I were not the only one on the list. She was a self-appointed judge, jury and executioner, determined to see I was ‘off the dole,’ as she put it.

You're on welfare, Mr. Crow, she told me. Funny, I remember paying into my social security, I would reply.

If she would have to live the way I lived, she might see things differently, but that was never going to happen. I doubted Gloria Martinez or most people would ever see what I saw.

At twelve forty-five, I stepped into the cool stench of the building on Hobson Avenue. The sweat of the other five people awaiting their inquisition rose up to my nostrils. Poor people have a particular smell - cologne and daily showers outweighed by cheap food and cigarettes. Five minutes before the bell, Miss Martinez stepped out and motioned me over to a small room with a steel door, one wooden chair facing a plate glass window and a dim bulb overhead. She entered her side and set a thick file on the counter top opposite of me.

What was your income last month, Mr. Crow? she asked.

I answered: the same as it was the month before, six hundred and sixty seven dollars. I knew the routine, next would be about where I lived, was anybody with me, did I feed anyone else; did I have a woman living with me. Bored, I asked her why she called me in almost every month. I wanted to pick back a little, I was hot and tired of the harassment. Every time she asked me something, I asked her something back. She was becoming as perturbed as I was.

Then I asked the bombshell question.

Do you know who murdered your grandmother, Miss Martinez?

She stopped, put down her pencil, and stared at me for a moment, before replying angrily that both of her grandmothers were dead.

Yes, I know, I shot back. But this one was murdered.

She shot-up out of her seat and banged on the glass, shouting that it was none of my business how her grandmother had died, and I had better stop it now.

Well, Gloria, she would like you to know who, I told her dryly.

She rushed out the door of the adjoining room and into mine, slamming the door against the wall. The security guard peeked in the window to see what the noise was about. She demanded to know how I would know that, I had only moved here six months ago.

Did you see that on the news, Mr. Crow?! she yelled. It’s not funny. It’s cruel!

I wasn't smiling. I said that her grandmother had told me just a minute ago, that she was standing next to her while she interviewed me. She slapped me; and then stood there, shaking uncontrollably.

It’s not going to work, Mr. Crow, I know what you are trying to do! she shouted. You have just made it personal, I will see you off of disability and in jail if you're involved!

She turned towards the door, and I said: Anna says that Little Alberto is with her.

That sent her over the edge; she flew into me, hitting me, and scratching at my face, screaming that she was going to kill me. The outer door flung open, and the security guard and her supervisor rushed in to pull her away from me. With a rough tug, they shoved me up against the wall to wait for the police.

My interview was over.

Two officers from Nelson’s small police department showed up within minutes expecting to arrest me for assault. After viewing the videotaped interview, they asked me if I wanted to press any charges against her instead. I just wanted to be left alone, I told them. Her supervisor stated that I had provoked Miss Martinez and demanded that I be taken into custody, but the officers informed him that I had the right to free speech, and I was allowed to leave, free of charges. I remarked to the supervisor to keep that tape in case I needed to prove her harassment, and headed out the door.

Chapter Two

Left alone, wouldn't that be nice, I thought, as I walked to my van. I was never alone. People were distant from me, sure, but they weren't the problem. It was the ones around them, the ones they couldn’t see or acknowledge as real that made my life miserable.

It started when I was a kid. My best friend Murphy Jones died from an infection when we were seven. Dad decided it was time for me to learn about death, so I was dressed-up in a borrowed suit and dragged to the funeral home. I cried throughout the service; Dad thought it was from losing my friend. It wasn't. Murphy stood next to his casket nearly the whole time staring at me, and then he came over to sit next to me in the pew. When the pastor finished his eulogy I ran out. All the way home Dad talked about dying, the friends he had lost when he was young.

These things happen sometimes, son, he said to me and to the specter Murphy, who sat between us.

Over the next week, I saw him at school, at the park and at the dinner table. When I went to bed at night, he stood at the foot of the bed staring over at me while I was tucked in. He wouldn’t go away, so I started talking to him.

He wouldn’t move his mouth but I heard or felt or saw the answer in my head, his voice the same as when he was alive. A month into this, as I was talking out loud to him in my room, Dad heard me, came in, and smacked me a good one.

It’s time to let him go! he bellowed. People are going to think you're nuts if they hear you, now stop it!

I wished it were that easy. For the next ten years, I saw more of Murphy and many other spirits I didn’t even know. Once, at the market, a checkout girl was ringing up Mom’s groceries and her army boyfriend killed in Vietnam stood beside her. In my head, I heard him say over and over: Tell her I love her. At mass one Easter, an old man lit a candle while his wife sat in the pew in front of me. Her voice told me to let him know he should go on with his life; that she was all right. My great-aunt Vida joined us at Christmas dinner, and then followed my mom around the house for the next three days. On and on it went, a parade of specters appearing to me, all wanting someone to know something, and I couldn’t say a word.

Dad began trying to beat it out of me, Mom just cried. They ended up divorcing with her getting custody of me. I'm not going to live in the same house with a nut, was his excuse. Good riddance, I thought. At seventeen, I left home to give Mom some peace - she deserved it. Lucky for her, everyone else followed me.

Over the next two decades, I earnestly tried to make a life. It wasn't to be. Two failed marriages, one produced a son. I could not be with him since his mom tried to have me committed to a state hospital for talking to people she didn't see. Fortunately, the judge did not agree with her point, so she filed for divorce soon after and then got full custody after I failed to pay child support.

It’s hard to keep a job when you constantly have to deal with dead people. By thirty-eight, I was so frazzled pretending that none of it was happening that I began to wonder if Dad was right, maybe I was nuts.

Hoping that I had enough counseling history to support my claim, I filed for disability; and after being examined by more doctors and psychiatrists, a hearing was held. It was determined that I had a personality disorder that prevented me from working, and the judge approved the findings. I thought that I might find some peace now, maybe move to the desert and escape the living. I would find comfort enough in the dead.

Chapter Three

If Gloria Martinez had left me alone, it might have worked, but here I was, having to deal again with the dead and the living. I would have left right then, but I couldn’t; I had the gut feeling that she wasn't going to let this sit alone. If I disappeared, it would look as if I did have something to do with her grandmother’s murder. I almost wished I hadn't been so frank about what I had seen. Just how does one convince a jury that some dead woman told you that she knew who had murdered her?

Four days later, two detectives from Nelson’s P.D. knocked on my door and asked to interview me.

The older one, Detective Sgt. Dick Smith, a seasoned veteran of the department, got straight to the point.

We're investigating a cold case, Mr. Crow, he stated, the murder of Anna Martinez.

While he questioned me, the younger officer, Steven Thomas, looked around the room as if he was trying to find some evidence: picking up my bills, sorting through the wastebasket; so when he began to open a desk drawer, I told him he needed a warrant if he was going to continue. Sgt. Smith looked over at Thomas and told him to come sit down with us in the kitchen.

You got something to hide, Mr. Crow? Thomas said.

No, Officer, I replied, I just watch a lot of CSI.

Smith smiled and continued his query. He pulled out two photographs from a pocket in his briefcase.

Have you ever seen either of these people?

I've seen the woman, but not alive.

What exactly does that mean?

Well, that's hard to explain, Detective. You might think I'm crazy.

Humor me then, Mr. Crow, he remarked.

I hesitated for a moment, studying the detective's face, then answered that I had seen the old woman in the photograph standing next to Gloria Martinez during my interview at the Social Office. Well, not actually her, but her spirit.

Officer Thomas rolled his eyes, and then blurted out that they had seen the videotape and that as far as he was concerned, it was a load of crap.

I know you're hiding something, Mr. Crow, he leaned forward, staring angrily into my eyes. Do you really think we are supposed to believe this ghost-seeing shit? Dead people don't talk.

I stared back at the officer then replied that if that were true, my life would be a whole lot easier.

If you don't start telling us what you really know, I would say it’s going to get a whole lot harder, he shot back, slamming his fist down onto the table.

Smith put his hand on the young officer’s shoulder to calm him, then asked me why I thought it was this woman.

She told me she was Miss Martinez’ grandmother, and that she knew her killer.

Oh. I see, Mr. Crow. So not only do you see dead people, but they also talk to you, is that right?

"Yes, as