The Limbo Chronicles: N/A

By James L. Whitmer

Contained herein is an account of mans struggle between good and evil, and how, on a daily basis, strange and inexplicable events oftentimes blend together resulting in unforeseen outcomes. This compilation of short stories from the confines of Limbo will lead the reader on the path to determine outcomes that seldom seem logical, but, nonetheless, manifest themselves in unique and singular ways. On ones journey through Limbo there are many twists and turns, and now, dear reader, begin your journey and see if you can predict the final accounting of the dilemmas presented.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491750384

James L. Whitmer

MR. WHITMER is a retired special agent of the FBI and practicing criminal defense attorney. He bases his stories on personal experiences from the many criminal investigations he has conducted and clients he has defended, as well as from his understanding of the police subculture and the psychology of evil and criminal behavior.

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The Limbo Chronicles

Copyright © 2014 James L. Whitmer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-5037-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5038-4 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 10/16/2014

Table of Contents

1.) Princess of the Mist: Denouement

2.) The Conundrum of a Dead Body

3.) The Influential Gardner

4.) The Flautist and the Czarina

5.) Corpsman Johnson

6.) Conversation with an Acrobat

7.) Wind at His Back and White Feather

8.) The Dark Blue Box

9.) Secrets of the Confessional

10.) The Death of the Leopard

11.) The Case of the Curious Search Warrant

12.) The Funny Thing About Secrets

13.) A Good Bad Guy

14.) Hanging Around with No Place to Go

15.) The Proper Dose of Empathy

16.) The Apostle of Mrs. Grundy

17.) Butterflies Without Wings

18.) Igor and Wilbur

19.) The Imperfect Contralto

20.) Sleeping with Angels – Dancing with the Devil

21.) The Atheist and the Angels

22.) The Watcher

23.) A Matter of Semantics

24.) Cause of Death

25.) The Strange Case of the Spring Sabbatical

26.) The Fog-Filled Room

27.) The Man Who Wrote Letters

28.) Secrets of Death

29.) The Finder

30.) Wei-Plei’s Obsession

31.) The Egyptian Woman

32.) Mahomet’s Paradise

Introduction

Whether one believes in Purgatory or Limbo, or some other holding cell on the Edge of the Abyss between Heaven and Hell, we humans, by our very nature, spend our waking hours on Earth. Some believe that Earth, itself, is that mysterious holding cell termed the Wasteland, that we have been condemned to before our final entry into the resting place that we have earned for all eternity. The stories that follow are simple chronicles that have been recorded and tabulated in the sordid history of the Wasteland. They are simply known as the Limbo Chronicles. Perhaps after reading them, you, dear reader, will find your story contained therein.

Princess of the Mist: The Beginning

By James Whitmer

Multitudinous laughter of the waves of ocean. Prometheus.

It wasn’t exactly waves as I recall. It was a caressing mist, a mist that enveloped without molesting, a vaporous involvement of all of the senses accompanied by laughter, sweet and gentle, and yet … enticing. A whirlwind of delightful relaxation, with muscles taut with anxiety loosening to her spell, and what a spell it was, as I now recall. Now … now that things have changed. Changed for the better, that is. But back to her and those first days, when bliss was my companion, and the mere thought of her dwelt within me like a soft pastel of Cerulean blue dancing with dabs of yellow ochre on a seascape of rolling foam.

Ah, yes, those first days. The tautness in my muscles was overwhelming. My head throbbed with the pain of a thousand martyrs. Police work can do that to an individual. Homicide work especially. So I sought solace, not from friends or family, as I had none. A loner I’ve been all my life, and so solace, if there was to be any, would come from within, and from soothing vapors of steam and heat. And so I sought them out, my friends, in the sauna and steam room of my local club.

I usually arrived late, almost near closing time. But they knew me well there, and let me linger an hour or so after the others had left, when no one but the night custodians were beginning their shifts. Maybe they just liked to have a detective around. But anyway, I generally had the place to myself. And that is when I first encountered her. In the dwindling hours of evening, as the slivered moon tended toward its nightly duties, she made her presence known.

I was startled at first, as the steam seeped into my pores, dispelling toxins of despair and fear. Oh, yes, fear is a part of police work. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. The bucolic sense of fatigue was setting in as she first spoke to me. Spoke, that’s an odd way of phrasing it. It wasn’t exactly words I encountered. It was a feeling, an understanding, as if I were smelling a yellow rose or tasting the sweet skin of a raspberry. The pinkish hue of the petals of water lilies swam about me, losing themselves in her floating presence, a presence that could be seen as a sheer outline of femininity, touching me, all-embracing, yet fleeting as mists can be. Her voice, again if a voice it could be, was melodious and full; exuberant, yet reserved; confident, yet childlike. On occasion her outline resembled a harp, her head just above the shoulder in a slight tilt; her shoulder supple and curvaceous; her strings stretching from pedestal to crown, and vibrating in unison with her floating form. I could almost see the notes hanging in midair, as the melody melded with my thoughts; my thoughts of her and only her, enveloped in her fog-like specter, in her very being. Gently she would change form, now a violoncello, Vivaldi’s Concerto in B Flat Major emanating from her very essence. Cascading along the walls, hovering at the ceiling, lingering along the spaces between the planking of the floorboards. Descending down upon me, like a lost lover in search of forbidden pleasures. And so it went on until it was time for me to leave. Her form receding into the very walls of the steam room that enclosed us, and reverberating in her monologue of lyrical passion and celestial delights. Her entreaty not to leave, but if leave I must, to return with renewed intensity.

At work they noticed the difference in me. Less tedious and troublesome, they said, more of a listener, less of a complainer. And so I noticed it too, and it was a good feeling. And so I lived for the shift to end, to get back to her in her enclave of hidden pleasures. To her and her rapturous massaging thoughts of contentment that engulfed my entire being. Each successive day was more eventful. More fulfilling. I left with an ever-increasing sense of self-worth and wonderment at what the next encounter with her would bring. And then, abruptly, everything changed.

I believe it was to be our tenth encounter. I wasn’t counting but ten seems about right. And when I arrived on my nightly sojourn to meet her, I was stopped short at the entrance to the club by red police-tape stretched across the doorway. Displaying my badge and shield, I was allowed to enter, and deftly made my way to the crime scene, where I learned to my dread what had happened. There, in front of the steam room, lay a dead body. It was the body of a man of whom I had had the acquaintance to know for a very short time. He was lying prostrate on the floor, naked, as if he had stumbled out of the steam room to his unfortunate demise. Both wrists were hideously cut raw, with blood still attempting to seep from the ragged edges of feathered skin. Two razor blades were displayed to me by the evidence technician in attendance, claiming he had recovered the instruments of suicide. A copper-colored trail of blood, in the form of a drunken serpent, led from the steam room to the decedent’s final resting place. Suicide, they told me; marital problems, a messy divorce, and this, the consequence that followed. The picture was crystal clear to me, but my thoughts drifted elsewhere.

The steam was shut off, the door to the steam room ajar, and the evidence people were working the scene. My heart felt like an anvil, as I searched my thoughts frantically for any semblance of her whereabouts. Dissipated into nothingness, as vapors were wont to do. Disappeared into thin air. Vanished like a ghost in the night. Gone. Gone forever.

Princess of the Mist: Interlude

Like a pale martyr in his shirt of fire: A Life of Drama (Alexander Smith)

It was days before I could eat. I took sick leave from my assignments to assuage the swollen anguish that welled up inside of me. My joints ached, as if I had walked a thousand miles, and sleeping was impossible. Day upon day was spent thinking of her. Dwelling on the past pleasures of her embrace, her lost countenance, the fragrance of soft flowers. Where had she gone? Did she really ever exist? Was I going mad? Had I imagined it all in an effort to deal with the hollowness of my lonely existence? No, I convinced myself. No, she was real! And I must find her!

It was exactly one week later when I returned to my club. The steam room was boarded closed with a sign hanging near the door that read, under renovation. So she wasn’t there. Disconsolate, I moped about for hours in the waiting area in front of the steam room and sauna, naked, with only a towel loosely covering me, hoping she would somehow appear and requite me of my misery. But was she only an invisible visitant that dwelled in my dreams? A fleeting Princess of the Mist who controlled my thoughts, my desires? But then an eerie feeling came over me. A kind of pulling, as if my body was being drawn by a magnet towards the sauna. The door opened, and an elderly man exited, waved slightly, and proceeded towards the showers. I felt the waft of gentle, dry heat as he passed me. My eyes fixated on the sauna, as if commanded to do so by some invisible force. I felt that I was inextricably being drawn towards the heat, and the door that was slightly ajar. I found myself inside, seated on the wooden bench. My towel hung like an old lampshade across my knees. The floorboards were hot, and I leaned over, searching the spaces between them for answers. My sweat dripped in oblong droplets from my bent forehead onto the wooden planking, a small spot at first, then larger, until the sweat pooled into a circular-shaped form. The taste was salty, as the sweat accosted my face and creased my half-open mouth. The air was tight and listless, yet … a murmuring … somewhere.

I went to the water pail and threw some water onto the coals. Steam arose in a conical form and then settled into the shape of a figurine resembling a delicate ballerina. The form hovered in midair, exuding thoughts of melancholy remembrances. She had returned. But her existence was short-lived. She soon dissipated to nothingness due to the heat. She was gone before I could adjust my senses. I frantically returned to the bucket. The bucket was empty. I was lost in a wilderness of dread. I racked my brain for ways of finding her, retrieving her essence, but I felt only numbness and despair. I finally came upon a plan of action. I would return early in the morning before they turned the heat on. She would have condensed onto the floorboards overnight. I would mop her up with a towel and rescue her. I would build a steam room in my house and we would live there together forever.

Princess of the Mist: Denouement

Come not when I am dead, to drop thy foolish tears upon my grave. Alfred Lord Tennyson

He was a good cop, know what I mean?

Yeah, Sarge. But he got a little goofy towards the end.

Yeah, quitting the force. Spending all that time building this steam room in his basement, said the evidence technician, pointing towards the steam room, side-stepping the copper-colored rivulets on the floor.

Worked night and day. Got it done in a week.

Yeah, and then this, said the technician, holding up a small evidence bag containing two bloody razor blades.

Yeah, damn shame. He was a good cop, said the Sergeant, as the paramedics pushed the gurney with the dead body strapped to it out of the house.

The Conundrum of a Dead Body

By James Whitmer

Chapter 1

Now that she was dead it became a problem of disposing of the body. He’d racked his brain incessantly for the proper solution. But it always came back to the same salient point, there’s no such thing as the perfect murder. Well, he was going to dispel that myth. And that’s why he was having his students write an essay entitled, The Perfect Murder – How to Get Away With It. But he couldn’t wait too long. After all, a dead body in a basement closet begins to smell in a day or two.

Mr. Jonathan Bundy was a member of the English Department at Hargrove College located in upstate New York. Specifically, his assignment for the fall semester presently underway included teaching one session of Rhetoric 101. He was in his 2nd year in the tenure track program, and so he was dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s, as he often told his colleagues.

But now he was badly in need of some help. And that help was going to come from the assortment of dumb asses who had the audacity to call themselves his students. Yes, these mental miscreants were going to alleviate the conundrum of a dead body that he had been struggling with since …. well, since that unfortunate incident with Mrs. Bundy yesterday.

And so the assignment was made, and the students were told to diligently work on it, as it was due the following day. That would make two days that Mrs. Bundy would be sequestered in that small basement closet. Only two days, and yet the smell was starting to permeate the basement. He had tried spilling bleach on the floor to force away the smell, but that didn’t help much. He even bought two small kittens and placed a litter box near the closet door, which hid Mrs. Bundy. Just to create an odor. But all that did was cause the kittens to incessantly scratch the door, somehow being attracted to the smell inside. Now he’d have to buy a new door and get rid of those damn kittens. No, that just wouldn’t do. Not on his meager salary at the college. He needed advice. A solution. And so he waited desperately for the assignments to be turned in, hoping that one of the twenty or so odd dumb asses would come up with something he could use. After all, their brains were probably used to more nefarious ways of thinking than his was.

Chapter 2

It was day three and he had the students’ assignments safely ensconced in his tattered briefcase as he left the college. As soon as he caught the bus at the corner near the guard-shack, he’d begin reading. And by the time he got home, he reasoned that he should have a pretty good idea as to how to deal with the soon-to-be-rigid Mrs. Bundy and that damn smell.

Flashing his bus pass to the driver, he deftly made his way to the first unoccupied seat and was opening his briefcase as he plopped down. Pulling out paper number one, he settled himself in, leaned back and began reading. The author was Art Jenson, a pimply-faced dumb ass, who sat in the first row in his Section #1 class. It took Bundy a whole three minutes to realize that if he followed Mr. Jenson’s advice, he not only would be drawn-and-quartered, he’d be re-sewn and re-drawn-and-quartered. No, Mr. Jenson’s advice was of no use. He put a big fat F on the top of the paper.

Next was a paper written by a female student, Alice Nickerson. That was good. Women can be real sneaky at times. Like Mrs. Bundy. That’s what got her killed. Well, no time to dwell on that. Back to Ms. Nickerson’s solution. As Mr. Bundy read on he began to grind his teeth so loudly that a rather large woman seated behind him poked her umbrella into his shoulder, and hissed something in his ear. After politely excusing himself, Mr. Bundy placed another big fat F right in the middle of Ms. Nickerson’s paper. No, hiding the body in a basement closet wasn’t going to work. That’s where Mrs. Bundy was right now!

Mr. Bundy began to think about the two kittens. Probably scratching the closet door to shreds as the bus limped along. Twenty minutes sure seemed like a long time when one was trying to solve the riddle of disposing of the body of an overweight and rather short, fifty-year old meddling female. He caught himself daydreaming again. No, he would wait until he was safely home, comfortable in his soft reading chair, and drinking a tall whiskey and soda before he would reach into the depths of his tattered briefcase for the solution to all of his problems.

Chapter 3

It wasn’t going well at all. Twenty-three papers read. Twenty F’s and three D’s. And even the D’s were gifts. There was one paper left and Mr. Bundy’s second tall whiskey and soda was almost empty. One more paper and one more whiskey and soda he decided on. But first he’d check on the kittens.

As he descended the steps to the basement, the smell hit him. It wasn’t the bleach, and it wasn’t the litter box. Somehow the kittens had scratched through the closet door and the most god-awful smell was emanating from within. He shooed them away, looked around and decided on tacking up a wet towel over the small opening, and then securing it with duct tape. Maybe the dampness would absorb some of the odor coming from Mrs. Bundy.

Happy with his handiwork, and having put out two saucers of milk for the kittens, he retraced his steps to his study where the last paper awaited him. Salvation or would he have to call the police and give himself up?

Chapter 4

Jonathan Rafferty, a real smart aleck, he’d forgotten about Rafferty. Maybe there was an idea here. He began to read. Damn, he hadn’t even taken the time to staple the paper. It was dog-eared, and done poorly at that.

The body was always a problem. Getting rid of it, that is. This time would be better. The water would help. The clothes were burned, of course. Burning, yes. He’d burn her clothes. But the thought of manipulating her swollen, smelly body nauseated him and he set down the whiskey and soda, catching his breath.

Not in his fireplace. That would leave traces. No, out there, in no-man’s land, he thought, as he gazed into the wilderness surrounding his mountain cabin. Get her to the mountains. Okay, there were some hilly areas north of the college, maybe an hour or so away by car. That shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

He cut her hair off first. Burned that too. He’d have to scatter the ashes of the campfire later. Out there. And then her jewelry. He couldn’t keep it. Better bury it deep. Out there. No souvenirs or anything that could come back to haunt him. Yes, better make it look like an abduction and robbery. He’d bury her jewelry real deep.

Now the only thing left was laying at his feet, wrapped in an old fishing tarp. He’d burn that too after he was done. No trace evidence. Trace evidence could be annoying. Yes, trace evidence could surely be annoying. Old Mr. Rafferty was getting an A so far. But he’d have to get a fishing tarp. That shouldn’t be too much of a problem either, not with all the ma-and-pa places selling bait and hooks and fishing gear around the lakes north of the college.

The pier extended outward from the shore about thirty feet into grayish nothingness, as the fog crept over the bay like slow cats. He dragged her to the end of the pier, pulling the tarp longshoreman fashion. He could do that. No problem. But he’d probably have to use a rope. He flexed his bicep muscle. No, definitely not longshoreman-like. Better get a couple of ropes, just in case.

He’d gutted her and mixed the entrails with cut-up fish heads and left them for the predators. Out there. That would be messy, but it sounded good, so far. But where to get the fish heads? A minor problem. Maybe he’d just use tuna from a can.

They couldn’t identify a body from the entrails, even if they found them. They’d have to use DNA tests and those aren’t always conclusive. And besides, they’d have to be matched against a known subject. It was the bones that concerned him. And the teeth. Dental records could be troublesome. Her teeth. Yes, use some pliers and just yank like hell.

But he’d removed the teeth and mixed them with the mortar he’d dumped in the post-holes for the fence he was building around the cabin. That’s it. He’d been meaning to fix that old fence in the backyard. He’d get the neighbor kid to dig the hole, and then plop. In go Mrs. Bundy’s teeth.

He then filled her emptiness with large rocks from the shoreline and secured them by rope lashings covered with duct tape, which were wound around her torso. Her legs and arms were duct taped together, as well. Yes, he was going to buy the rope anyway. And he had duct tape. He thought of the kittens again. Was that duct tape still holding that towel in place? He’d have to check before he went to bed. Didn’t want that god-awful smell creeping up the stairs.

Her eyes had been removed and were floating in the bucket of fish heads he’d use as bait when the work was done. Yes, he hadn’t been fishing in a while. That could be fun. He was meaning to develop a new hobby, anyway. He caught himself daydreaming about Mrs. Bundy’s eyes, maybe using them as bobbers instead of bait. Then he caught himself and took a big swig of the whiskey and soda. No, better follow the instructions, he thought, as he continued to read.

The trick now was lowering her into the water and securing her to the base of the pier, so that no one could see. It was deep enough, about ten feet, and the water was murky, the color of a catfish’s belly. He ran fishing line through the holes he had drilled in her femurs and tibias, and secured it tightly with old-fashioned granny knots. Lots of them. Yes, he could do that. Granny knots were no problem. Even though he only had earned second-class in boy scouts, granny knots would not be a problem. Clove hitches and chimney hitches, well, he had never mastered them.

The body sunk as he lowered it into the water. Disappearing in seconds, the murkiness took over. Soon she would be no more than fish-food. Yep, that’s what he’d do. Feed Mrs. Bundy to the fish. Wait, hold that thought. Better go feed the kittens again, lest they get real anxious and start scratching.

He placed a big fat A in the center of Mr. Rafferty’s paper, as he downed the dregs of his last whiskey and soda for the evening.

Chapter 5

The following day Mr. Bundy took sick leave. And the following morning, after a very, very, very long day, he called the authorities and reported his wife missing. When he returned to class on the next day, all of the students were unhappy with their grades, except Mr. Rafferty. And that was that. Or at least that’s what Mr. Bundy thought until the following morning when the police arrived at Mr. Bundy’s home.

You see, unfortunately for Mr. Bundy, Jonathan Rafferty’s father is the Police Chief of the town of Brownsville, where Mr. Bundy lives. And also unfortunately for Mr. Bundy was the fact that Police Chief Rafferty, when he showed up unannounced at Mr. Bundy’s home, was clutching his son’s assignment with the big fat A right in the middle of the paper, in his big fat hands. He proceeded to wave it under Mr. Bundy’s nose, while he used the gruffest and most obscene language Mr. Bundy had ever heard. You see, Police Chief Rafferty was the author of the paper with the big fat A right in the middle, not his son, who Police Chief Rafferty had learned very early on was a real dumb ass.

The Influential Gardner

By James Whitmer

Chapter 1

I must confess that I really didn’t know much about flowers when I first met him. Of course, I knew about roses and thorns, and dandelions with their yellow color carpeting our lawn every spring. Everyday flowers he called them. But the more exotic types with their various colors and shades, and medicinal values, well, they were a mystery to me. And so I learned from him. Not only about flowers but about … well, I think it best that we start at the beginning, and how I first met him.

I am a lawyer by profession. I specialize in child custody and divorce cases. Having never been married that may seem quite odd. And that is exactly what he said when we first met. I was staying at a friend’s estate in the lower Hudson River Valley, a stone’s throw from New York City where I maintained my law practice. My friend and his family were vacationing in Europe, so I had the entire place to myself for about two weeks in early summer. And I needed the time to relax and to just forget about the dregs and pain that emanated from the broken lives and the cases in which I was routinely involved.

When I initially drove up to the gate of 14 Lakebloom Terrace, he was standing there, tending to some flowers that were in full bloom, an ancient rake grasped in his gnarly hands. To me they were simply flowers then. But now I know them as Madia elegans, or Common Madia, from the Sunflower family. Summer had just begun, and their yellow, saucer-shaped outer petals contrasted starkly with their burnt-orange interior. He looked up at me inquisitively, as if he were regarding a new book he had just purchased. I introduced myself, and without saying a word, he simply nodded, pushed open the gate, and stepped back.

He was a rather short man with a heavy gait, and looked as though he had worked out-of-doors his entire life. He wore an old straw hat with a tired brim, and overalls the color of pea-green soup. I observed that his hands were large and deeply calloused, as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, removed his bent spectacles, and motioned towards the house. He was well into his 70’s, and walked with a slight limp in his left leg. As he followed me up the driveway, his rake was slung over his back like an old friend. And when I pulled into the turn-around in front of the main entrance, I could hear him softly whistling in the distance.

He told me his name was Edwin and that he had been the gardener and caretaker of the estate for over twenty years. He pointed to a small cottage located directly west of where we stood, and told me that he lived there alone, and if I ever needed him, that’s where he could be found. With that he tossed me a set of keys, pointed to the front door, and then casually limped away, whistling a tune I did not recognize.