Lollipop Murders

By Jim Malloy

Revenge is mine, sayeth the Lord. Marvin thought that was bullshit. Marvin was intelligent, quick-minded, courteous, considerate, and a smart dresser. The young lady he showed an interest in said, “Get away from me you ugly twerp.” It really pissed Marvin off. Sergeant Jack Delaney, a cop for sixteen years, headed a special task force tagged the Doom squad. Except for his cop ability, his life was typical. All screwed up. Marvin really pissed him off.
Sgt. Delaney, nicknamed Micky, and his team are assigned an unusual murder series committed by a wimp named Marvin. Marvin, scorned, thinks all women are suckers because they fall for the jocks, guys that don’t appreciate them. He decides that since women are suckers, he would make them all Lollipops, every flavor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669812197

Jim Malloy

Jim Malloy lived and sailed for fifteen years on the H.M.S. Dolphin, a 76- foot square rigged barquentine. She flew eleven sails on three masts and bore four deck cannons, two stern swivel guns and a bow chaser. She is a scaled replica of the original Dolphin under the command of Captain Wallice who discovered Tahiti before Captain Cook. He owned a private island in the Bahamas and a private museum dedicated to the history of privateers. Jim sailed throughout the Bahamas, Indies, and Jamaica. It was during this time, his novel, Raptor’s Revenge, was imagined.

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Copyright © 2022 by Jim Malloy.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/09/2022

Xlibris

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Epilogue

To humans—Your cruelty and torture inflicted on your fellow man continually amazes me.

TO LAW ENFORCEMENT —Thanks.

To those that are offended by this book—Tough shit!

Although the actions of law enforcement in this book are fictional, at some level those not in law enforcement, at some level, I'm sure, believe that’s the way it is and those in law enforcement, at some level, I’m sure, wish that it was.

A special thanks to my aunt and uncle, Paul and Martha Strifler. Their technical and content editing surely saved me from looking like a dummy.

Books by Jim Malloy

Historical adventure:

Raptor’s Revenge

Hard-boiled detective:

Lollipop Murders

Death Whispers

Die, Mother Goose, Die

The Twister

Snake Bite

jimmalloy-author.com

The%20twister%20clip%20art.jpg

CHAPTER 1

D EEP IN HIS gut, Micky knew he’d have to kill him.

He watched the kid step from the black night, lightning flashing against a growling sky. The kid stood hunched under the awning, sopping wet, face hidden in the hooded sweatshirt, hands in pockets, looking back and forth, nervous.

This was it. Micky felt it in his bones as he did a thousand times before. The kid, taking a fast peek in the window, waited, jerking his head from side to side, looking, looking, casing.

The pouring rain was steady as Micky, standing in the shadows, pressed against the bricks of the warehouse. The lone street light, long ago smashed by a punk’s rock, made it hard to see as he squinted at the fluorescent interior of the package store.

Shards of light streamed and glinted off the rain as water dribbled from his nose. A sudden shiver shook his body. He forced himself to calm down by rocking, shifting his weight from left to right.

What’s he waitin’ for?

His eyes stung, unblinking, his mind flashing back to when he was a boy waiting for his dad outside a beer bar. He’d stand for hours, shuffling, angry, tears welling, ashamed of his father.

His thoughts pleading, Come on, dad,…mom’s waiting.

Fuck. He mumbled, shaking his mind back.

More rain dripped as he remembered leaving his slicker at the precinct. A good cop never gets wet. He grunted at the fallacy of the old cop proverb.

That asshole Shamy said it wasn’t gonna rain. Well, at least he was getting soaked too.

Squinting again, He strained against the night, seeing Shamy’s form on the other side of the lot barely visible through the gray veil of rain. The June shower felt fresh at first but now he was chilled.

Probably why you ain’t a lieutenant, ya dumb shit, he muttered as rain sounds drowned his voice.

The tinkle of a bell jerked him back. A customer left the store, stopped, snapped open an umbrella, and scooted down the street.

The kid gave a final look around and bopped inside. Micky tensed, losing the kid behind stacked aisles. His eyes zeroed on the night clerk at the counter.

Seconds turned like hours.

Come on, asshole.

He switched to his left foot, checking his hip holster. His toes squished the water inside his new leather shoes. Tomorrow, he knew, they’d be curled up like Sinbad’s.

And there he was.

The kid plopped something on the counter and pulled his gun. The clerk looked like he might piss his pants. Micky swore he could see the whites of his eyes. Maybe we shoulda tipped him… Nah, he’d just fuck it up.

Micky’s heart shifted into overdrive.

Blinking against the rain, his every muscle was levered like a cable. His fingers swept his face like a squeegee. His body warmed like hot toast as his heart thumped against his rib cage.

This was it. Two months of this night shit. This was it.

Hope Shamy’s not dozin’, he muttered. Okay, asshole, okay, let’s go, come to papa.

The kid busted through the front door at a run. Micky cocked his steel as a distant brain cell heard the tinkle of the doorbell drifting on the wind.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

The kid was shooting at Shamy.

Jezus!

Micky, taking a dive in a puddle the size of Lake Erie, rolled, stopping prone, arms whipping out like a snake, Colt locked in both fists.

Freeze, asshole!

As the kid twisted toward the voice, a crack of lightning lit him up like a searchlight.

Micky saw his slow snicker and the round black hole of his gun barrel. Time crawled in Micky’s mind.

Squeeze, don’t pull. Squeeze, don’t pull, his mind repeated by rote.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

He heard the cracking thud as the first round slammed into the kid’s mouth splitting his teeth, ripping his tongue, exiting his jaw below the ear. His head snapped back as a glob of blood spat from his mouth. The second round slammed into his breastbone glancing off into his lung, stopping like a worming beetle.

His body curled forward like he was gut punched, his lung flooding with blood like a water balloon.

He raised his head, surprised, as the third hunk of lead pierced his throat clean in a sucking gasp, ripping a chunk of meat from the back of his neck.

The fourth bullet missed, disappearing somewhere in the night.

The kid swayed, arms spread, head limp, with hollow eyes as another jagged bolt tore across the sky, making him glow like a hanging Jesus. When the flash dimmed, the kid crumpled as Micky listened to his dying gurgle over the tapping rain.

Shamy trotted over as Micky stood over the kid, his dead eyes glaring back. As Micky and Shamy stared at the body, the store lights silhouetted their dripping forms like ravens eyeing road kill.

Chris, Micky, ya got ’em clean.

Sirens wailed in the distance as Micky looked at his leg.

Shit, I tore my pants.

They’d been tracking the kid for a couple of months. His twelfth heist, two clerks dead. A doper with a death wish.

Micky was happy to grant it.

Jack Delaney was Irish, Catholic, and a cop. A walking cliché. And to cap it off they called him, Micky, real original. They tagged him with the handle after walking a beat in the old Irish neighborhood and it stuck.

St. Louis was a shit town, especially the north side where it hugged the muddy Mississippi. It was nineteen fifty-eight, and they were still selling three-two beer on Sundays. During the week, stores closed at five with Blue laws forcing everything closed on Sundays except church and taverns.

They wanted to make sure you prayed and drank beer. It was a German town, straight and square.

They did allow some Irish and Italians in. They tried to stop the blacks, but couldn’t, so they gave them the shit jobs which was great because the Irish didn’t want them. The Irish worked around the edges, getting by. You joined the force, were a priest, or you shook down the Jews. The Italians stuck to themselves, did their own thing.

It was home for Anheuser Busch and Stan the Man. Life was simple, clear cut, clear rules.

Elvis wasn’t welcome.

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CHAPTER 2

T HE SQUAD ROOM was copied from some old cop movie. It must’ve been some grand design to piss everybody off. Jammed windows with lazy ceiling fans hung like sick helicopters hovered over cramped desks and mountains of paperwork. A Lucky Strike haze hung like a thundercloud staining the ceiling urine yellow and fluorescent tubes, a few flickering, cast a deathly pall over it all.

The joint was nothing but a big square trash can with cops rummaging.

Mabel, their tried-and-true secretary, sat at a desk in an alcove outside the squad room. She was fifty-two, an ex-marine, twice widowed WWII supply officer. Salty as the rest, after one month in the same room with those cretins, even she couldn’t take it. So, she just pushed her desk out the door into the hallway and commandeered a long phone cord.

Nobody dared say a word or dared ask.

She thought they all deserved a good kick in the ass but she loved every one of the pea-pickers.

* * *

Last night’s news was old. It was ruled a clean shooting. Another dirtbag was fertilizer.

When Micky walked into the squad room, he smirked as the team gave him a thumbs up. Twisting through the mess, the edge of his eye caught the new guy sitting with Pop, pink cheeks with blond-white hair. Christ, he thought, probably got red eyes, fucking albino. But he did recollect they had good night vision.

Micky kept moving toward his office, a glass-enclosed affair overlooking his domain.

Passing by Shamy’s desk, he rapped the top.

Shamy, my man, how goes it?

He kept moving. Shamy looked up from his pile of paper.

Hi, Sarge, sleep good?

Like a suckling babe, like a suckling babe.

Micky left his door half open and plopped in his swivel chair. His stomach rumbled. After the shooting, he had gone home and chucked his gut and then tossed and turned the rest of the night.

The kid’s eyes staring back through the flashing lightning haunted him. But there was something else. Something deep was eating at him. Maybe he was getting a cold.

Shrugging it away, he twisted around, looking, surveying the room, watching his guys, taking stock.

Pop, a.k.a. George Spars, aged forty-one, was pit bull mean with fists like ten-pound hams. His six-inch jab slammed like a John Deere. His hair turned white after joining the squad. He claimed us assholes scared the shit out of him.

Today, he was babysitting pink cheeks.

Shamy, a.k.a. Danny Murphy, age thirty-seven, top street smarts, ex-pro footballer, tight end. Not to big but solid with lots of guts. He blew out a knee on the team but a grand to the police doc got him a badge. It didn’t slow him down, but he sucked a shit load of aspirin.

His voice rasped like he had a tube of B-B’s in his throat.

The phone rang.

They ID the kid, Timothy Sage, white male, seventeen, from an abusive home, black and blue marks, cigarette burns all over, addict since fourteen.

Micky suddenly felt sick again, empty, numb. He had to put it away. He turned his chair back to the squad room, continuing where he left off.

Kraut, a.k.a. Karl Shultz, aged thirty-five, was a thinker. Heavy chested with wrists thick as Micky’s fist, he sported a Steve Roper chin and wouldn’t you know it, he smoked a pipe.

He picked up the back end of a Buick once to free a squished child. The dumb shit asked to be assigned to the Doom squad.

Dago and Spook hadn’t checked in yet.

Micky’s eyes, fixing on the new man, first thought of a new baby, round faced with pink cheeks. Every man on the squad had a moniker, privy only to the team, nobody on the outside.

He dialed, Pop picked up the extension, listened, and smiled.

Pink Cheeks, now christened Cheeks, sat wide-eyed feeling privileged, lucky to be assigned to the Doom squad.

He’d heard all the stories. Sgt. Delaney, a legend, was his hero. He wanted to be just like him. Now he would get the chance to learn from the best.

Cheeks, a.k.a. Leif Swenson, aged twenty-nine, looked younger but was a good size, about six-two, bench pressed two-eighty, a mile in eight. He got a department medal for beating a bad guy to the draw, responsible for ten rapes.

But shit, he looked like a newborn, and they weren’t gonna let it pass.

Cheeks checked out the sarge dodging the desks and was disappointed. He wondered if all the stories he heard were just bullshit.

The body didn’t fit the legend.

He was ordinary, normal looking with medium height, weight, light-brown hair, wiry, clothes rumpled, walked with a slight slump.

He looked very normal, can’t be him.

Cheeks turned to Pop.

Is that Sgt. Delaney?

Yep.

Your kidden’, he don’t look so tough.

He isn’t.

But his rep?

Pop smiled.

Because he’s mean, dirt mean... but in a good way… By the way, let me see your piece.

Cheeks just looked at him. How come?

Routine, gotta make sure its department issue.

Cheeks shrugged, pulled his Colt from his shoulder holster, unloaded it, and handed it to Pop.

Just then Kraut ambled over.

Jesus, all we need now is a Jap and a Jew. Hey, what are you, a Viking? Pink cheeks, blond and blue, Christ, please, not that.

Cheeks sat quiet, wide-eyed.

Kraut leaned close. Well, what?

My folks are from Norway.

Chris, I knew it, a fucking Viking. You’re an albino. You probably sizzle in the sun. When it snows, you’ll be invisible. Your name is probly Leif.

He huffed away.

Pop hung his head, stuffing a chuckle.

Cheeks got pissed but was dumbfounded. What kinda welcome was this? He started to regret his transfer already and it was only eight-thirty.

He stood to refill his coffee cup to calm down. Shamy moved to do the same.

Cheeks thought he’d try to be friendly, break the ice.

He smiled.

Hi, Shamy, lotsa paper?

Pop jumped, Oh shi . . .

Cheeks didn’t see the fist but he felt his nose bone bend and tasted the blood as he ended flat on his back, dizzy.

Pop stooped to help him up.

Jeez Danny, he didn’t know.

He does now.

Shamy stepped over him to the coffeepot.

Pop put Cheeks in a chair with a fist of tissues.

Put your head back… Here, stuff these up your nose.

Whu’d I do? Whu’d I do?

That’s Danny, only the sarge calls him Shamy.

Cheek’s head started to clear thinking these guys were nuts. He couldn’t stop his eyes from watering.

How’d come?

Pop lowered to a whisper.

When he was a kid, he was a bed-wetter. Kids teased him. ‘Shame, shame, here comes Shamy,’ till he got big enough to beat the shit out of ‘em.

How come the sarge can do it?

Because they each know the other’s shame.

What’s the sarge’s shame?

Only Danny knows, they grew up together.

What’s the matter with his voice?

Somebody socked him in the throat when he was a kid.

These nuts were nuts, Cheeks thought as the blood finally stopped. Shamy just gave him a quick tap, nothing heavy, just wanted to get his attention.

The rest kept working as if nothing happened.

Cheeks glanced at the clock. It was only eight forty-five.

You wanna go to the doc?

The room stopped dead quiet. You could’ve heard the proverbial pin drop.

No, it’s okay.

The room picked up the routine. Cheeks didn’t know it, but he just got an A-plus.

Just then, Dago slammed the door wide, dragging a scumbag by the collar, shoving him in a chair facing Cheeks a desk away. Then, leaning his butt against the top, he turned, and started talking to Kraut, ignoring the prisoner.

Scumbag caught Cheek’s eyes and smirked.

Suddenly, he lunged, snatching Dago’s two-inch from his hip and jumped up, ready to shoot.

In the same breath, Cheeks dove through the air, half-backing scumbag in the chest, crashing over desks and chairs.

When they hit the floor, Pop dragged Cheeks off.

Cheeks stood, confused, one part of his mind glanced at the clock, ten to nine. He was never gonna make the day.

The whole squad whooped their approval.

Cheek’s mind was blank but racing. It was a setup to test his smarts and guts, his initiation.

Scumbag got up and offered his hand with a shitty smile.

Detective Ramairez, my man. Welcome aboard.

The rest joined in.

He passed. He was now one of them, a fraternity, a brotherhood. He could feel it in his bones like he was just born. At that instant, he knew they would crawl through hell to save him.

They were his brothers. They were his family. You messed with one, you messed with all.

Pop leaned close.

Now you know why my hair turned white.

Micky smiled from his office; feet crossed, perched on the desk.

They were all assholes, but they had the scent. All naturals, they could smell a crook till he was treed. It was two years now, the grand experiment. They got the robberies, rapes, and murders with a twist. The Groaners. If it was not typical or too time consuming, they got it. They solved it. They were the elite, the Doom squad, and every cop wanted in.

Just then, Spook bopped in, sorry he missed the show.

Micky’s mind paired their talents.

Dago, a.k.a. Anthony (Tony—big surprise) Angelo, age thirty-seven, had an elephant mind. A typical wop, good-looking, slick talker with slick black hair and matching eyes. He was a smart dresser like his mob buddies.

He looked like Tyrone Power but not queer. Women called him Mr. One Nighter. A hairy bastard, if he was black, he’d be a knuckle dragger, a solid cop.

Spook, a.k.a. Thomas Jefferson, (no relation), age twenty-seven, was one fast skinny buck. He ran in the Olympics, hundred, two hundred, and four hundred meters. He brought home a couple of bronzes. That and a dime bought a cup of java.

With a snap-quick mind, he was one sharp cop, one of the best.

Grezer, a. k. a. Raul Ramairez, age thirty-seven, was Puerto Rican. His eyes missed nothing. An ex-boxer with a nose bent like a worm, he was tall for his type. Still married. He was a proud father of five and he had the pictures to prove it. Looked like a dirtbag—nervous, jumpy, eyes always scanning, checking, suspicious.

He worked undercover, squirrelly but cool, currently on loan from vice.

The phone rang.

A minute later, Micky slammed it down and was out the door thinking it was gonna be a shitty Monday.

Listen up. We got a cold one. Tenth and Beech, in the alley.

The room fell dead quiet, eyes on their leader. Their mouths watered, anticipating the hunt.

Blues got it frozen. I want everybody at the scene. Assignments will be made there… Hit it.

There was a mad scramble for the door.

The dogs were loose.

They all thought the same. Must really be weird. They never got a murder straight out of the barn. Must really be weird.

The team arrived at the same time, cop cars all over.

While Micky was being briefed by the field lieutenant, the team cooled their heels, waiting, anxious, impatient.

Micky turned, calling over Shamy, Grezer, and Spook.

The four walked slow and careful, eyes searching, toward the ash pit jammed in the brick alcove. The rest watched as the four looked over the cement lip like kids peeking at something forbidden. A long time passed, they didn’t move, quiet as stilled statues.

Then they turned, walking slowly back with a look the rest had never seen before.

Cheeks, Pop, Dago, Kraut, your turn. Meet us by the cars.

The four moved forward carefully, wondering, looked over the side, and froze. When they slowly returned, the crew formed a silent huddle around Micky.

This motherfucker is goin’ down hard, Micky snapped.

Pop, Cheeks, Shamy, you do the scene. Spook, Kraut, neighborhood check. Grezer, do your usual. I’ll take care of briefing the lab crew. Dago, you ride shotgun on the lab.

Cheeks was in shock. His watch said nine-thirty.

He wouldn’t make the day.

He walked forward, numb, one pace behind Pop.

Two hours later, Pop reported to Micky, clearing his throat, his voice weak.

Sarge, the victim’s a white female, blonde, wooden broom stick for…

Save it for the briefing, Pop.

Micky and Pop just looked at each other. Of all the shit and all the years, this was the capper.

Whata ya think, Pop?

He’s smart, a crazy bastard, and he’s gonna do it again.

The team was at the scene till two o’clock, going over and over and over every detail, taking turns