Soft Case (Book 1 of the John Keegan Mystery Series)

SOFT CASE

  A JOHN KEEGAN MYSTERY

  A Novel By

  JOHN MISAK

  Copyright © 2001, 2015 by John Misak

  PUBLISHED by Empire strikes press

  ISBN: 9780974992648

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information and storage retrieval system, without the express written consent of the publisher.

  This novel is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, dialogue, and plot are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental.

  Printed and bound in the United States of America

  DEDICATION

  This novel, my first, is dedicated to Carolyn and John Misak. Thanks Mom and Dad for offering your support in all my endeavors, for understanding me even when I didn’t understand myself, and for giving me a solid upbringing that I have carried throughout my life.

  .

  Other books by John Misak:

  John Keegan Mysteries:

  All in A Row

  Death Knell

  The Down Side (December 2015)

  One

  I think it was the night that I considered starting a heroin habit that things started to change. It wasn’t out of depression, or over a lost love that I considered such a dark thing. It was boredom. Boredom caused from the monotony of my life, of everybody’s life perhaps. I wanted something new, something that I could make my own, something that could transport me to a more exciting place. A place where I could feel contentment. A place where no one could touch me, or bother me with the same problems they bothered me with almost every day. I knew it was foolish. I knew I wouldn’t ever do it. At least, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t. But it was the excitement of thinking about it that stimulated my creativity again, breathing life into my dead mind. I needed that, more than ever I suppose.

  It was a Tuesday, a day which usually brought more boredom than usual. It was my day off, a day I should do my chores, pay my bills, go to the store, and stock my ever-bare cabinets. I never did much on Tuesdays, except think about the fact that I had nothing interesting to do. I hated Tuesdays. I preferred to work, to have something occupy my mind. Then, thoughts of doing drugs wouldn’t enter my idle mind. At work my mind had more pressing concerns that prevented this enveloping boredom. I had a good job. At least, I thought I did. I was a cop. And yes, I knew full well the implications of starting such a habit, considering my profession, but that hadn’t stopped hundreds of men who came before me in my line of work. They set the precedent. I only wished to follow it. I think that was the reason I didn’t do it. Someone else already had. Someone had taken that route. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to be considered a pioneer I guess, a man who broke some sort of new ground. Heroin, though a good avenue to take if you need a change of pace, was not my new ground.

  Instead of having to look for a way to break new ground, the way came to me. I guess that’s how things work. A case—one that would change the face of law enforcement itself, or at least it seemed so, would be the vehicle. I didn’t know it right then, but I think I sensed it. I always got an upset stomach before a big case came in. Working Homicide meant that my stomach was almost always upset, especially in New York City. But this wasn’t going to be a normal homicide case, at least not from the outset. But, as always, I am getting ahead of myself. There’s more background information that needs to be gone over before I can get into that. I’m not one to expound on details, mainly because I think chatty people are annoying at best. So forgive me if I take on this quality for a little while. Unfortunately, it’s the only way.

  So many things have been said about the NYPD that I am quite certain no civilian has any idea what really goes on here. I’ve watched the television shows that try to be a realistic portrayal of life on the New York job. They suck. I’m not being critical, it’s just impossible to convey real-life police images on a television screen. Actors living in Hollywood can’t really comprehend what really goes on, and the writers don’t know either, unless they are real police officers. Even then, it doesn’t always come out right. For instance, COPS comes close, but the real cops become the actors, and the camera can change anyone. The minute they become an actor for the camera, they stop being cops, and some truth is lost. Basically, the job is boring most of the time. You deal with a lot of stiffs that no one cares about. There is no Law and Order type stuff going on too often, unless you work on the Upper West Side and, even then, most cases are so cut and dried, they solve themselves. So, as much as I hate to admit it, there really isn’t much in the way of drama or theatrics on my job. Most of my caseload includes junkies killed by other junkies. To be honest, most of the time we don’t even bother prosecuting because the victims have no family, and the accused are in bad enough shape as it is, and will be dead in a few weeks by a similar incident. All the talk about cleaning up the streets of New York is just that— talk. All they’ve done is move the filth underneath the carpet, so to speak. Trust me, no one wants to see what’s under that carpet.

  So, I considered myself more of a garbage inspector, sort of a sanitational investigator, if you will. We collect the dead garbage, so that the live stuff has more room to live. Occasionally, we get a ripe case, something like a hooker apparently killed by a big shot corporate exec, but these cases usually end up in countless appeals and legal tangles that does nothing but occupy a cop’s time. More often than not, it’s our shoddy investigative work that creates the mess, or at least that’s what the lawyers have determined. It’s gotten to the point where most of the department doesn’t even want a case thrown on their desk. Any one of them could lead to a demotion, or, more likely, a lawsuit. I won’t even get started on criminal charges, which seem to happen more frequently than do indictments of real killers. Since I started on the job, which had to be about nine years ago, I’ve gotten twenty-seven convictions, two hung juries, and about fifty dead-end cases. I’ve also seen three cops in my precinct get indicted on charges they weren’t guilty of. They were just scapegoats, victims of the criminal justice system, which was on the verge of collapse. Luckily, the people in the ivory tower haven’t gotten a hold of me yet, mainly because I have the good fortune of never getting a high profile case. Luck can only run for so long.

  Okay, enough about how insignificant my work is. That information, though possibly interesting and valid as background, is, um, insignificant.

  It was a Tuesday, like I said before, and I really thought of doing something to break the boredom. Why heroin? Well, a friend of mine, a guy who will go only by the name Jack, planted the seed in my mind almost fifteen years ago. I was a snot-nosed teenager, whining about how life was boring and how much I wanted to do something that was cool. Like I knew what cool was in the first place. I just wanted to do something that made me different. Jack, ever the helpful guy, told me about heroin.

  “It’s better than sex man,” he said in that slow, almost drooling drawl that addicts take on after a few hits of the stuff. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before.”

  Considering that I hadn’t truly experienced what sex was like, unless the numerous excursions to the bathroom with a jar of hand cream counted, jumping ahead to something even better right out of the chute seemed compelling. I hadn’t ever experimented with drugs, so they held a certain allure—a dark aura. Kids are attracted to dark auras. Compelled by them, if you will. What didn’t seem compelling was my father’s reaction if he ever
found out. Not compelling at all.

  “What? Come on. How could it be better than sex?”

  “It just is,” Jack said. He had a grin a mile wide.

  “How?” I asked.

  “The only way for you to know is to do it yourself.” He produced a small wax-paper bag with brown powder in it. “Skip gym, and we’ll do this behind Shop-Rite.”

  I looked at the bag for a moment, considering the power it contained. It would take me to another dimension, I thought, and I tingled at the idea of it. That’s all I did. I didn’t cut class when I was in high school. My mother, much to my misfortune, was friendly with the attendance lady, and she always made sure to contact good old Mom whenever I didn’t show up. Bitch.

  “Nah, man, not today. Maybe some other time.”

  Jack held the bag up and shook it. “Better than sex, man,” he said as he walked away toward the supermarket.

  We didn’t talk much after that year. Jack got his “improved sex” too often and was hauled off to jail during junior year. I tried to look him up a few times after I got on the job, but I couldn’t find a trace of him. Probably dead. But the image of him holding that bag and saying, “Better than sex, man” has stayed with me ever since, clear as day. I never