In life, devils exist in the forms of men. For Detective Frank Palmer, the prominent radio host murdered in his own home is more than just another unsolved case. With evidence implicating two of the most powerful crime families in the city, Palmer delves further into the murder investigation, finding himself at the forefront of a mob war for control of the void left by the recently departed kingpin. As he draws closer to the killer's identity, Palmer uncovers a plot far more sinister than simple murder, and unlikely assistance comes in the form of a mysterious urban legend that Palmer has encountered once before.
In life, devils exist in the forms of men. For Detective Frank Palmer, the prominent radio host murdered in his own home is more than just another unsolved case. With evidence implicating two of the most powerful crime families in the city, Palmer delves further into the murder investigation, finding himself at the forefront of a mob war for control of the void left by the recently departed kingpin. As he draws closer to the killer's identity, Palmer uncovers a plot far more sinister than simple murder, and unlikely assistance comes in the form of a mysterious urban legend that Palmer has encountered once before.
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Overview
In life, devils exist in the forms of men. For Detective Frank Palmer, the prominent radio host murdered in his own home is more than just another unsolved case. With evidence implicating two of the most powerful crime families in the city, Palmer delves further into the murder investigation, finding himself at the forefront of a mob war for control of the void left by the recently departed kingpin. As he draws closer to the killer's identity, Palmer uncovers a plot far more sinister than simple murder, and unlikely assistance comes in the form of a mysterious urban legend that Palmer has encountered once before.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780692924549 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Digital Pulps |
| Publication date: | 07/20/2017 |
| Series: | Vacant Exordium , #1 |
| Edition description: | 2nd ed. |
| Pages: | 282 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.64(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Saturday, April 10, 1937.
THE POUNDING ON THE DOOR sounded like the police. He likely could have slept through the unrelenting intent of a hammering fist, but it was the dull hum of reverberating windows that roused him from a dream of fortunate encounters with remarkable women and even greater fortune at the card table.
Even with a face he thought he saw somewhere before, but just couldn't remember, a dream-inspired lady friend was still preferable to waking up and seeing that over-exuberant rookie wearing the constant wide-eyed naiveté of youth untested.
That must be why they call them dream girls.
The knocking continued, and Frank Palmer tore the blankets from his large frame and cast his legs over the side of the bed. Rubbing the slumber from his eyes, he stepped into his slippers and willed them toward the front door. Taking a detour along the way, he placed coffee on the stove to boil and lit a cigarette before continuing his sleepy sojourn.
As Palmer was reaching for the doorknob, the annoyance persisted, inciting what would have typically manifested as a voice of consternation that he was just not awake enough to summon. Clutching the handle, Palmer used his momentum of turning away from it to open the door without even bothering to see who it was.
"Thank God. We've been trying to reach you for the last hour. The operator says your phone is —"
Charlie Callaghan was drenched from head to toe. Practically everything he was wearing stuck to his lean, athletic frame, and even the starch was gone from his hat, which now faced overbearing integrity issues around the edges. Underneath the dripping brim, his brown hair was matted to his forehead, and he looked up both questioningly and expectantly to the larger man walking away.
Palmer waved a hand in the general direction of the telephone. "It's out of order."
The phone line hung lifelessly in a loose coil on the floor, completely detached from the wall. Callaghan redirected his attention when the voice called from the other room, "Coffee?"
"Sure." Callaghan shifted from one foot to the other, uninterested in standing in the doorway any longer in his current state of affairs.
Shedding his coat, he hung it on the rack just inside the door, frowning and half shaking his head in response to the rippling puddle that began to form around the base of the stand. Clear rivulets cascading from the brim of his fedora reminded him to temporarily part ways with it as well.
"Black's all I got."
"Black is fine."
Callaghan had never been to Palmer's house before. There was one instance where he waited on the front porch, but it was the first time he had actually stepped foot inside.
The house was orderly and organized, but the thing that was immediately noticeable was the lack of decoration, which made it conspicuous by absence. There were no paintings, no vases to hold flowers — not even so much as a photo on an end table. Callaghan thought the place would look a lot better with a woman's touch.
Palmer retrieved the kettle from the stove and poured the steaming contents into two mugs. One was nondescript white porcelain that he nodded his head toward as Callaghan reached out for it. The other was black and looked as if it had been pieced together from fragments, cracks running through nearly every aspect of its form, with white areas indicative of chips that had never been found.
"You don't have an umbrella?"
"Busted my hump to get here after they woke me up. Then ran to the car, and it wasn't raining that hard at the time," Callaghan said, wrapping his hands around the mug to warm them.
"And I swear," Callaghan shook his head, "The quieter I try to be, the more noise I make. Knocked the clock over and woke up the wife again."
It was a fanciful wedding near the final days of fall. Palmer couldn't remember her name at the moment, though he didn't make an exorbitant effort to rack his brain. Gail. Geraldine. Something like that.
Her family was kind of well-to-do and went to extravagant means to make sure their daughter had the type of wedding befitting a Capulet bereft of tragedy. At first, they expressed concerns over their daughter marrying a cop, but once Callaghan had made detective, right before Christmas, their agitation subsided, knowing there was less of a chance their daughter would wake up and find herself a widow. At least, that was what Palmer had deduced from the situation.
The married couple didn't immediately go on their honeymoon. As busy as things had been in his career at the time, they instead had waited until after the first of the new year, at which point Callaghan was officially paired up with Palmer.
Callaghan wouldn't have been his first choice as a new partner. That position would have gone to Walter Graham — an experienced detective around Palmer's age whose partner had also recently retired. But it wasn't within Palmer's realm of authority to have the final decision on those types of matters.
And Callaghan was his third partner in as many years.
Palmer sat his empty mug in the sink with sentiment as if nestling a baby into a crib, "What time is it?"
"About three-thirty or so."
"I'm going to get dressed. Just put your mug in the sink when you're finished."
Callaghan was assigned as Palmer's partner four weeks ago, but he'd already learned the hard way, in that small amount of time, that his new partner wasn't much of a talker in the early morning — or what he'd called the last gasps of nightfall if you asked him. In fact, Callaghan had learned that Palmer wasn't one to be particularly verbose at all. Complex questions had thus far been met with simple answers, in most circumstances.
As Palmer entered the bedroom, Callaghan finally called out from the kitchen, "It's Morgan Maxwell."
"Morgan Maxwell? The radio guy?" Palmer splashed his face with cold water and looked up and into tired, deep blue eyes that had gradually become familiar. The fire had remained untended for the past few years and the only flicker that was left threatened to burn out at any given time. Wetting his hands again, he combed his dark hair back so that it looked even and halfway presentable. He figured he could forgo a shave this morning.
"Yeah, him. Showtime Theatre."
Palmer pulled his suspenders over his shoulders, "That's why you're beating the hell out of my door at three o'clock in the morning? He's dead?"
"From what they told me, shot in his study. After what looks like one heck of a struggle."
Callaghan finished his coffee and followed the instructions as to what to do with the mug, twisting the faucet to rinse it before leaving it alongside its fractured partner. "What I don't get," Callaghan called out, "A famous guy like that? It's going to be in the papers for weeks. There's no way the shooter could have gotten away and kept this quiet without drawing all kinds of heat and unwanted attention on himself."
Finally, Palmer settled Maurice into the holster snugly secured beneath one of his broad shoulders. Maurice was a .38 caliber Colt Detective Special, bathed in sleek black with a round butt grip frame that made it more comfortable for a warm palm with a cool trigger finger to be molded around the grip. The short barrel made the pistol easier to conceal and had gathered speed in becoming standard issue over the course of the past couple years.
Emerging from the bedroom, Palmer gave the kitchen a once-over, making sure he didn't leave anything burning and that all affairs were in order. "That's the thing, Callaghan. Lots of reasons people kill."
He led Callaghan to the coat rack, stretching his own black coat over his broad form and retrieving his hat from the top, "In our business, a lot of the time, you'll find out it's over money. Others, it's because of something unimportant or stupid, like jealousy or a perceived display of disrespect. Usually, these stiffs probably didn't merit a plot in God's Acre, but a lot of people do a lot of bad things. And sometimes when they do ... Well, I guess they get what's coming to them."
Callaghan hadn't expected his external attire would have had time to dry within the few minutes he had been there, so he put his soggy fedora back atop his head devoid of preferable expectations, "I guess we're going to find out which of those Maxwell was."
*
"I can't believe you have a radio in your car. That's aces," Callaghan mused, half snickering with enthusiasm as they pulled out of Palmer's driveway.
For the past couple years, Palmer had noticed a sharp diminishment in his vision when it came to driving in the dark, so it made more sense to have Callaghan drive, even though they were in Palmer's car. If anything, it probably ensured a much safer journey.
"I kept a pretty well-off attorney from being on the business end of a disgruntled client's wrath."
Palmer inspected the interior of the car, even looking in the back seat, as if it were somehow unfamiliar to him, "So he gave me the car. Just wouldn't take no for an answer. The Motorola was already in it when he gave it to me."
He worked the dial, sifting through static and the hum of negative signals before finally settling when a voice that was mostly crisp presented itself to the two-man audience.
"— early this morning, when Salvadore Barone passed away in his sleep. Mr. Barone was seventy-two years of age and is survived by two daughters, Sylvia and Martine, who were both reported to be present at the moment of his passing. Mr. Barone had long denied allegations pertaining to his involvement in organized crime, and no evidence had ever been produced that could factually implicate Mr. Barone. Although he was better known for that perhaps exaggerated legacy, Mr. Barone, more importantly, owned several factories within the city, where he provided gainful employment in these tough times and was respected in the community for his many charity contributions. We will try to get a statement later today from —"
Palmer cut his eyes toward Callaghan.
"What?" Callaghan turned to look at Palmer for a moment before affixing his eyes back on the road. "Mob boss — excuse me, alleged mob boss — dies in his sleep. After all, the man was ancient. They say he outlived two different wives. Doesn't sound like there's any sign of foul play involved to me."
Salvadore Barone might as well have been king.
Immigrating to the States in the late 1800s when he was in his teens, Barone had taken small jobs here and there, running errands and sending telegraph messages. Eventually, he worked his way into the inner circle of the Ariosto Family, where his determination to push any obstacles out of the way brought him to the top, lining his pockets — much of which he spent on gold rings, something he had a penchant for.
In 1901, a bloody war between the Ariosto Family and their primary rival, the Cacciatore Consortium, left anyone with any prestige or influence dead in a variety of inconvenient locales. As one of the survivors, Salvadore Barone had no better opportunity to make his move. Assembling the shambles of each of the families, Barone rid the organizations of any loose ends and loose lips and brought them together under the same banner. The group went through a few different names before the obvious was finally settled upon, and the Barone Family came to fruition in 1904.
Following those events, any up and coming would-be businessmen who wanted to initiate operations in the city had to pay homage to Barone. It wasn't something they were forced to do at gunpoint, but it would almost assuredly be the point of a gun they found themselves facing if they somehow had a lapse of better judgment and a greater error of wisdom in their decision making.
Palmer was silent for a moment, tipping his hat low in the front and peering out the window, gazing at nothing in particular as the buildings, parked cars and fire hydrants crawled by like cut-outs on a movie set.
Callaghan glanced over as he took a turn, entering the main highway, and repeated himself, "What?"
"It's going to be open season now. Crocetti, Casadonte — all the small fish too — they're going to tear this place apart fighting over what's left."
After his first wife had passed away, Salvadore Barone married the older sister of Nicodemus Crocetti. Crocetti had been steadily coming up within their convoluted world of shallow truths and obligatory respect, always one hand reaching out for a shake and a goodwill gesture while a knife slumbered uneasily in the other. This was perhaps his best way into the circle, and he spared no effort and expense in ushering his sister to proceed with the arrangement.
"How do you know so much about all this?" Callaghan asked.
Palmer shrugged, "Been doing this a long time. I almost had a case against Barone a couple years ago, but some of the evidence went for a walk and never came back. After that, everything fell through."
The outset of the early morning sky yawned, and several sprinkles peppered the windshield as Callaghan pulled off the freeway and into a residential area on the outskirts of the city. "Why did you become a cop?"
"I don't think we've been on enough dates to be getting all sweet and personal. You don't even call me by my first name yet. And I sure don't remember you buying me dinner."
Callaghan sighed. He could never quite tell when Palmer was speaking in jest. In either case, his new partner always wore the same sardonic expression, whether he just wanted to be left alone or was trying to goad a suspect into taking a swing at him. His understanding over recent weeks was that Palmer wasn't one for conversation to begin with — either that or he just didn't like him.
"To catch bad guys," Palmer finally answered.
It wasn't the insightful expression of worldly wisdom Callaghan was looking for, but he let it rest at that.
CHAPTER 2
THE ASHES DARKENED in the air before they were taken by the night, and Milford Burrows exhaled cigarette smoke into the wind.
The sound of droplets shaken every so often from spring's early morning leaves — residue from the night's rain — was his only fickle companionship as he stood the past two hours a lone sentinel on a dead man's front porch.
The house was even more impressive on the inside than it was without. A spacious two-story affair with at least five bedrooms, as best Burrows could tell from the limited minutes he was inside, though one of them possibly could have been converted into a study at some point.
Burrows cursed underneath his breath and invoked his religion as another set of headlights appeared in the driveway. It was sure to be them this time. The vultures had a habit of showing up before the body even got cold. Almost two months on the job and Burrows hadn't even caught a criminal yet. All he had done so far was stand in front of houses testing the limits of his anxiety as he made his best effort of parrying questions until someone could come out and provide some real answers.
As real as those answers got, anyway.
Two car doors slammed, and Burrows narrowed his eyes as a pair of figures in plain clothes approached the front porch.
"Relax, Mill, it's just us." The voice made Burrows finally distribute his weight evenly on both feet.
"Charlie? Thank God." Burrows reached out for a handshake as Callaghan and Palmer entered the luminosity cast by the front porch light and ascended the steps.
Palmer looked around, "Who else we expecting?"
"Reporters."
"Still too early for all that. You can bet they'll be riding in on the back of the sun, though," Palmer said.
"Wonderful. The captain's here," Burrows pointed out, nodding to the assortment of cars parked sporadically in the driveway.
"Yeah, we saw his car," Callaghan said. "Any particular reason he's here?"
"Mr. Radio Big Shot, Morgan Millions, I gather," Burrows shrugged, peering between the two detectives and into the distance, "Is that a thirty-four Buick? Jeez Charlie, was that a wedding present?"
"Actually, it's his," Charlie said.
"Detective must be a hell of a pay raise," Burrows remarked.
They always have something to say about the car.
There were probably rumors floating around that Palmer could have been on the take, but no one of any importance would have believed such a thing. He knew the car might draw that sort of questioning, which was why he had refused the gift several times before finally agreeing just for the sake of ending the conversation.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Haunted Streets"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Wyatt Hamby.
Excerpted by permission of Digital Pulps.
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