Cry Me a Murder (part eight): Mother Knows Beast
The corpse of Mr. Tejon -soon to be buried under his official name of Ted Jones, was all over the kitchen floor. Like agent Phelps before him, Ted Jones had been torn to shreds. Deep claw marks ran from his torn throat to his open abdomen that was now...
Cry Me a Murder (Part three) The Sun, the Sea and the Silent Scream
"I'm putting you into room 110," said Fernando. "It comes with a wonderful view over the rye fields." The manager was a tall, slender man in his late fifties. His hair was almost silvery gray but with no sign of baldness setting in. Thirty years...
Pages From a Dog's Diary
**Pages From a Dog's Diary #1** I have often wondered, what was behind the green gate. It looked as if it was never opened; old and dusty, on rusty hinges and with thick layers of green paint flaking off. But today, someone had left that gate...
Fallen Angels, Part three -Scratching the Itch
Chapter two Scratching the Itch I think Inspector Quinn and I were equally surprised when his crazy idea worked. We both knew that drinking is a strong trigger for my grip on reality to collapse. Time, space and dimensions buckle under their own...
Cry Me a Murder (part nine): The other side of Zero
_Terminated?_ I was one grade away from being targeted for termination by the MI-16. I had already killed three MI-16 agents, and if the MI-16 decided I was to blame for the death of Jack Tell, they would come screaming at me, like a battalion of...
Cry Me a Murder (Part four) : A Strange Crunching Underfoot
That night I played in the hotel bar. I played the guitar and a local musician by the name of Raymundo joined me on the keys. Going by the impromptu stage name of Sunny Dan and the Rayman, we played a bunch of jazz standards right out of _the Real...
Cry Me a Murder (part five): Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Demon
The circumstances leading to the death of Jack Tell was the subject of excited conversation and idle speculation around the breakfast buffet. I soon got the impression, he was not well-liked among the other hotel guests and staff. Slater described him...
Fallen Angels, Part six - Murder in Mind
Chapter Five Murder in Mind The tiny traveling _Circus Mascot_ was part circus and part freakshow, all mixed up. The performers traveled across the country to entertain towns large and small, with their acrobatic acts, freaks of nature and...
Fallen Angels, Part Nine - Sing me a Song, Dead Girl
CHAPTER EIGHT - SING ME A SONG, DEAD GIRL When Oscar Peterson played The Phantom Cat in 1986, a young Jesse Juliano captured a photo of him. He framed it and hung it on the wall, next to the upright piano. Peterson is all smiles, wiping sweat...
Cry Me a Murder (part seven): Only a Scream Away.
Hotel Kisanti was without electricity. The lights were out, the whooshing of the ceiling fans slowed and rattled like the exhale of a dying man. The industrial freezers thawed, endangering the shelf-lives of a thousand dollars' worth of ice cream. The...
Havana or Hell, part two
III Some times, when I lie awake, I feel like I'm a tiny pinprick, floating in an endless void. It's a physical sensation, but not linked to any of the usual five senses, and the feeling disappears as soon as I open my eyes. It's accompanied by a...
Fallen Angels, Part Four - Can you Pet a Phantom Cat?
Chapter Three Can You Pet a Phantom Cat? The bottle of Bourbon was missing from Dr. Gill's office. When I arrived at the hospital, Quinn was staring intensely at the blank spot on the desk, as if he tried to make the bottle reappear by will...