Happy New Year

As has been the case lately, I'm running behind on my next chapter.  However, I'm about halfway through.  So if the New Year's Faeries see fit to extend me good tidings, I'll have another chapter out in the next few days. 

Chapter 20 - A New Friend

Tannehill felt a dull thud in the back of his head and an acute awareness of his sinuses.  He stumbled forward momentarily but caught his balance before needing to grab his desk for support.

Rather than return home immediately, he'd decided to deposit Snell's items at his office but was beginning to think this was a bad idea.  The manila envelope was still secured in his hand as he turned around to see the instigator of his ambush.

A thin man, slightly shorter than himself with dark, wild hair and large, intense eyes stared at him rubbing his right hand.  Tannehill couldn't discern the look on his face - was it a leer?  A grin?  A feeble attempt at acting? A combination of all three?

"What gives, buddy?"  Tannehill responded as though someone on the bus had shoved him out of the way for a better position toward the door.

"I was trying to incapacitate you." The leer shifted further toward a grin.  His accent was thick and German.

"So I gathered.  While that didn't work out, you've certainly guaranteed that I'll have a nice lump on my head."

"Yes, well.  When I encountered your partner the other day, I may have been a bit, shall we say overzealous and I didn't want to make the same mistake twice?"

"Right.  Brass knuckles?"

The intruder's eyes widened even more, approaching the bounds of physical possibility.  Then they immediately narrowed.  "How did you know that?"

Tannehill pointed to the sign behind the intruder.  "I'm a detective.  I detect things."

The intruder considered this for a moment and then nodded, accepting this as a plausible explanation.  "Now, Mr. Tannehill, if you would be so kind as to sit on the chair behind you."  He stopped rubbing his knuckles and pulled a four-inch blade from his coat pocket and held it a foot in front of him.

Tannehill glanced down at the blade and back up at his intruder.  He raised his hands, manilla envelope still firmly affixed in the right one.  "Certainly.  But if you're going to pull a knife on me and call me by name, at least give me the courtesy of knowing yours."

The man didn't move.  "I am Otto."

"Yes, of course it would be something obvious," Tannehill muttered.  Though he didn't know if he being humored with a false name, Tannehill suspected this was, in fact, the intruder's name.  Normally, this would be disconcerting, as an armed attacker providing real identification usually meant nefarious consequences for the other party in the room.  However, the complete lack of intelligence in Otto's face kept Tannehill at ease.

"Are you armed?"  Otto gestured toward the envelope with his knife.

Tannehill turned the envelope in profile, showing no indication of anything deadly contained within.

Otto gestured curtly with the knife toward the chair.  Tannehill nodded in compliance and, while keeping his eyes fixed on his assailant, hooked a chair leg with his foot and swung it around so it faced the office door rather than the desk.  He sat down dramatically and gripped opposite sides of the seat of the chair with each hand.  He stared back at Otto.

Otto straightened slightly and began walking toward Tannehill, knife still grasped firmly but now at his side.  "Very good.  So I'd like to ask you a few questions..."

When Otto was in range, Tannehill lifted his right foot with as much force as he could muster and planted it between his attacker's legs, carrying Otto about two inches off the floor.  Otto landed on his feet with a slightly quizzical look before dropping the knife and falling to the floor in a fetal position with both hands holding his crotch.  His face collapsed into a grimace and he began to howl.

Tannehill quickly stood up, stomped on the knife and slid it behind his desk as reached into his bottom drawer, removing his revolver.  He pointed it at Otto.

"You told me you weren't armed!" Otto yelped, face still curled in pain.

"I wasn't." Tannehill shrugged.  "I am now."  He re-centered the revolver on his target.  "I'm not going to make you sit in the chair to answer my questions, but I'll ask that you not make any sudden movements during our little chat."

Otto remained in a fetal position, moaning.  Tannehill took that as an acknowledgment of the terms.

"How did you know I was going to be here?"

"I don't understand why you kicked me!  That was very unsportsmanlike!"

Tannehill's voice remained measured.  "Granted, but you're the one who ambushed me by punching me in the back of the head, so I'm not sure I have a firm grasp of the rules.  I'd like to ask again - how did you know I was going to be here?"

"I didn't," Otto continued wincing, "I knew you'd come here eventually, so I just waited."

It sounded too mundane to be a lie and Tannehill was rapidly deducing that Otto wasn't likely to think out a clear strategy for his movements.  "Why me?"

"What?"

"Why are you coming after me?"

"May I sit up?" Otto asked quietly.

"Yes, but no sudden moves."  Otto sat on the floor, legs splayed in front of him towards Tannehill and hands extended behind him on the floor for support.  Tannehill repeated his question.  "Why are you coming after me?"

"You're Snell's partner, yes?"

"According to the lettering on the door, I would assume so."

"Well, then you must have the information we seek that he didn't provide."  Tannehill was amazed by such a naive leap in logic that two business partners would share so much information - specifically suspected illicit information - so prodigiously.  However, he didn't betray this amazement to Otto.

"By 'we' you mean...?"

"Ms. Brunner.  She is my associate, yes.  I believe you've deduced that much already."

"Who else?  Beederman?"

"Who?  Oh, the large man.  Yes.  Mr. Beedlebaum."

"Ok," Tannehill exhaled, weighing his options briefly.  "You're right.  Snell and I did chat a bit before he died about that 'information' you're curious to get a hold of, but I don't know all of the details directly.  He wrote them down and put them in a secure location.  I'll need a day to access them."

Otto objected, "it's very easy really.  I don't understand why it requires so much time for one simple question."

"As I said, I don't actually know the information you're seeking, only how to access it.  I'll let you know when I'm in possession."

"How do we get in contact with you?"

"Stand up." Otto lurched forward and Tannehill backed a step away taking aim at Otto.  "Slowly!  I want you to stand up slowly and write a number where I can contact you on this manila envelope.  I'll call you in 24 hours with further instructions."

Otto grabbed a pen from the desk blotter and scribbled a number on the envelope.  "This is Miss Brunner's flat.  We'll be waiting for you to call."  He dropped his arms to his sides and stared at Tannehill unaware of what to do next.

Tannehill motioned toward the door with the revolver, "ok, then, Otto.  Have a pleasant evening.  We'll be chatting again soon."

Otto slowly made his way to the door and exited.  Tannehill sunk into the chair behind his desk and sighed exaggeratedly.  He had no idea what information Snell possessed or even how to start looking for that information.  But, for the first time in the case, he had some temporary leverage.

He looked down at the unloaded revolver in his hand and opened the bottom drawer again to grab some ammunition.  Stupid or not, Otto wasn't someone he wanted to encounter again without being fully prepared.

[Author's Note: Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays)!.  Today's edition is 1282 words for a running total of 21207 words.  I've been waiting to write this chapter for a while.  As has been happening with the rest of the story, it turned out to be longer than expected, so some of the exposition I planned here will occur in a future chapter. I hope to have another chapter ready for consumption in the next couple of days since I'm unencumbered by such things as work this week.]

Chapter 19 ...`Til It's Over Over There

Tannehill alighted from the transport ship in Liverpool and immediately made his way to the barracks after a week wallowing in his own - and everyone else's - filth.  After a hot shower and a few hours' leave to sample the local variant of fish and chips the isolation that had encapsulated him below deck began to melt away.

He'd heard murmurs of the brutality of trench warfare on the trip over and actual stories from some of the British soldiers who viewed the fruits of its labor first hand.  The lucky wounded missed various extremities or retained most of their discarded limbs.  The unlucky ones suffered from massive burns or had been strategically cut in half by a well-placed mortar shell.  The damned showed no signs of outward injury but spoke in far off voices about incoherent topics.  When asked about their experiences at the front, they'd turn to the speaker, vacant-eyed, smile weakly and then laugh maniacally.  With luck, a friend would usher them away in a calm voice and stroke their hair gently as they left.

As a member of the infantry, he knew a similar fate could befall him and he prepared for a life vastly different in the future from the one he just left if he returned home at all.  The new "tanks" and a surge of American optimism (and troops) were helping reshape the war in favor of the Entente Powers but there was still a lot to accomplish and any day at war means another day of lost life.

After a few days docked in Liverpool staring west toward the Irish coast, Tannehill and his unit were moved to France and installed on the front in the Argonne Forest.  The weather had turned noticeably cooler and Tannehill tapped into his Chicago childhood survival instincts to keep warm against the elements.

The stories of his legendary sea-sickness on the transport ship over had followed him and left him as a pariah among not only his unit but everyone, American or not, who came in close proximity to him due to some irrational fear that he'd erupt in spontaneous vomit even on dry land.  Rather than frustrate him, he relished the solitude.  He didn't want to form attachments with men who, with regular certainty, could be here one day and not the next.  He used the extra time that other soldiers spent communing learning French and sketching the war-scarred countryside.

The days crept into late October 1918 and his unit saw little action due to their inexperience.  Though the pop of distant gunfire was ever-present, it never approached near enough to the unit's position to cause anything more than a low-level existential threat to each soldier.

Eventually, due to boredom or curiosity or a mixture of the two, soldiers began approaching Tannehill to ask about his experiences on the boat ride over to Europe.  Most would delicately approach the issue by starting with their stories of the trip over before not-so-subtly asking about Tannehill's unique perspective.  However, one day, a tall, slender blond-haired boy whom Tannehill who appeared surprisingly young - even among the vast mass of other teenage soldiers - approached Tannehill and simply broached the subject without pretense.

"So, why'd you throw up so much on the boat?"

"I'm not from a seafaring area, so my stomach never needed to adjust to the motion of water."

"I understand.  If only we could get rid of the moon, no one would ever suffer motion sickness again.  That, and we'd rid ourselves of those pesky werewolves."

Tannehill stared at the boy in mild admiration.  Rather than receive the expected retort of "who even uses a word like 'seafaring' anyway?" the boy had retorted with a solid understanding of Newtonian physics and lycanthropy while demonstrating a sympathy Tannehill hadn't expected to at all in Europe.

The boy grinned and extended a hand, "Sams."

Tannehill extended his own, "Tannehill."

Sams and Tannehill recognized an immediate camaraderie in the other and took the opportunity to launch immediately into topics of mutual interest.  They'd use each other to practice French poorly and laugh about their misuses or discuss books they'd loved as children.  Where Tannehill was intent on honing an underdeveloped drawing skill while in France, Sams refined his rudimentary skills at poetry.

A week into their budding friendship, Tannehill realized that neither knew the other by anything except a sole moniker.

"By the way," Tannehill spoke up, eager to fill in this gap in their relationship, "what's your full name?"

A slight whistle hovered on the wind in the distance.  Sams smiled at Tannehill with the same broad grin he'd given during their introduction.  "It's..."

The whistle grew louder before a loud bang and white flash clouded Tannehill's senses.

When he regained his bearings Tannehill could no longer find Sams. Instead, there was a smoking crater directly in front of him surrounded by a large mound of earth.

He was vaguely aware of someone screaming "Fuck!" over and over again as the ringing in his ears subsided.  Tannehill realized it was him.  As for Sams, half of him had been blown backward from his original position.  Tannehill was wearing the other half.

Another shell burst in the tree line above him and Tannehill instinctively dove into the crater, slicing open his arm on fresh shrapnel as he did so.  He covered his ears with his hands and continued screaming until the barrage ended a minute (or a month - he couldn't be sure) later.

A few minutes later, two other infantrymen found Tannehill supine on the crater embarkment wide-eyed, silent, and caked in drying gore.  They pulled him out, stood him up, and quietly marched him to the nearest field hospital.

Afterward, Tannehill returned to Capital City.  The department, eager to cash in on the patriotic fervor surrounding the war's successful conclusion, decided to publicize their war hero's accomplishments in the Argonne Forest.  What to Tannehill was a string of desperate and terrifying moments alone in the wilderness became a stoic survival of enemy fire as the sole survivor of his defensive position in the eyes of the city elders.

He walked in the city's victory parade surrounded by streamers, bunting and an adoring family shipped in from Chicago.  As the shouts of the enthusiastic crowd swelled, he looked around vacantly and smiled weakly, laughing enthusiastically at any joke or comment a passer-by tossed his way.

[Author's Note - Today's edition is 1064 words for a total of 19925 words.  I should be back on track for my regular publishing schedule for the foreseeable future.]

A Quick Note on the Novel

As I was out of town last week and catching up on a few things this weekend, the next installment of the story will be delayed a few days.  I've written the majority of the chapter but need to finish it and edit.  I hope to have the next edition available in the middle of the week.

Chapter 18 - Thump!

Thump!

[Author's Note: This chapter weighs in at 1 word for a running total of 18861 words.  I was out of town earlier this week and therefore unable to publish it mid-week as I had hoped.]

Chapter 17 - The Lover's Quarrel

After his meeting at the precinct, Tannehill wandered over to the Happy Hour Diner.  Though he hadn't done much with his day other than sit in a cramped room and battle with two oversized municipal employees, he felt famished.  He slumped into the nearest booth and waited.

A matronly woman with a puffy face and even puffier hair-do approached him.  She wore an all-white outfit pining for better days and brighter moments.  She held a cigarette with a one-inch ash attached to it in her left hand and an order pad gripped precariously in her right.

"Where's Vera?"

"She works a split shift most of the time," she responded while adding to the length of the ash.  "Six to ten in the morning and six to ten again at night.  But I'm here to do your bidding during the midday, m'lord, so what'll it be?"  The last phrase ran together so fluidly it sounded like one word - "sowhuddelibee".

"Come again?"

"What would you like to order?"

"Ham and eggs."  Tannehill thought for a minute and realized that his diet of late had lacked proper nutrition, "...and a side of creamed spinach."

"Okee-doke."  Puffier hair turned back toward the counter.  Her ash remained in stasis for a brief second before dropping to the floor behind her.

Tannehill finished his meal - leaving half the creamed spinach on his plate - and paid his bill.  As he left the restaurant, he couldn't be sure, but he thought he caught the waitress curtsying in his direction as he walked through the door.  Two nights with no sleep imbued the world with a surreal tinge that made him double-check his judgment.

His best option, he decided, was to catch up on a few hours of sleep before reviewing the details of the case with a fresh eye.  He knew he still needed to track down the doorman and find a way to chat with Emily Brunner in a manner that wouldn't put her on the defensive.  So far in this game, Tannehill was the individual holding the flimsiest hand.  The police weren't too far ahead, but they weren't as interested in winning as they were in taking the house's cut and simply closing out the case, facts be damned.

Tannehill walked through the door of his apartment, removed his coat and placed it carefully on the back of the chair next to his bed.  He placed his fedora on the seat and loosened his tie.  He glanced at the alarm clock which ticked steadily away from 12:47.  Without pulling the bedclothes back, he lay down on the bed, arms folded across his chest, and closed his eyes.

He suddenly became aware of a dull banging and opened his eyes.  Riiiiing.  Riiiing.  He looked at the alarm clock again which ticked steadily away from 4:02.  The lighting in his apartment refused to tell him if he'd been asleep for three hours or 15.  He reached clumsily across the table, knocking a notepad and pencil from their perch onto the floor and haltingly answered "Hello?" with an overwhelming thickness in his voice.

"Did I catch you during a siesta?" Murphy's voice buzzed thinly from the other end of the line.  Three hours Tannehill thought.  I was only asleep for three hours.

"You could say that.  Why...why are you calling again?  Do you need decorating advice for the office?"

"No, I've already got plenty of suggestions there.  I need you to come back in.  There's been a break in the case."

"Hmm.  I'm not that break am I?"

"No," Murphy responded flatly, "when can you get here?"

"I need to freshen up a bit but can come straight over after that.  About 30 minutes?"

"Perfect."  Murphy hung up.

Tannehill swung his legs off the bed, sighed heavily, and rubbed his face with both hands.  He splashed cold water on his face, brushed his teeth free of any remaining egg and gathered his jacket before heading for the door.

---

"We're not going to have to do this again, are we Shorty?"

Shorty glared down at Tannehill with a mix of contempt and defeat.  "Go on back," he waved his hand impatiently toward the door, "but don't touch nothin'."

Tannehill opened the door to the precinct backroom.  "It's not a department store, Shorty.  It's not like I'm going to swipe a few pairs of handcuffs and make off downtown for an exotic evening." By the time Shorty had responded with a string of clipped, guttural phrases, the door was closed and Tannehill was striding toward Murphy's office.

When he reached the office, the door was shut, but he was able to see through the windows that surrounded the office on three sides.  Tannehill saw someone in the chair he previously occupied facing toward the wall with two patrolmen flanking him on either side.  The occupant looked beefy with short dark hair thinning aggressively at the crown.  The fern drooped cheerfully in greeting.

Murphy greeted him in front of the door.  "Care to make a wager on that lover angle?"

Tannehill shrugged.  "Why?"

Murphy held up a halting finger and walked into the office.  He walked out with the two patrolmen who settled nearby.  "Step over to this side of the window."

Tannehill did as he was asked and glanced at the occupant - now in profile and evidently handcuffed to the chair.  He couldn't suppress an audible gasp of surprise.  "That's the uncle!"

Murphy nodded, "uh-huh."  He straightened up and continued.  "He walked in about an hour and a half ago and confessed to Snell's murder.  Said he and Snell had been vying equally for Miss Brunner's affection and jealousy got the better of him.  Originally, he went to your office just to scare Snell away, but Snell wouldn't back down, so push - literally - came to shove and ended in the artwork you saw when you returned for the evening.  His name's Beederman.  Harry Beederman."

"You're serious?"

Murphy shrugged.

"Nothing about this story makes sense.  You said yourself the violence was methodical.  We both agreed that it took more than one person to subdue Snell.  And," Tannehill raised a finger of his own, "you shot my theory about Brunner's involvement down because we were in the same place far away from where Snell was getting offed."  Tannehill jabbed his raised finger at the suspect, who glanced at him sideways with something Tannehill couldn't place - fear, hope, satisfaction? - "He," Tannehill paused for emphasis, "was also there, so he has the same alibi.  I have photos, remember?"

"He had access to a car.  He'd be able to work over Snell and make it back downtown in the time it took you to ride the bus."

Tannehill gaped at Murphy with incredulity.

Murphy shrugged again.  "He confessed.  From my standpoint, that's as good as an early Christmas present as I'm going to get."

Tannehill inhaled sharply and considered his options.  He could start a lengthy tirade about how the entire case was too conveniently gift-wrapped and the department was too lazy to do its own investigative work when they could just up their clearance rate with someone who wasn't going to put up much of a challenge, even if he were innocent.  If he did so, Murphy would probably march him out the door with orders to Shorty to bar the doors of the precinct to him indefinitely.

He shrugged.  "Hope it sticks."

Murphy smiled broadly.  "Oh, before I forget," he walked back into the office and returned with a bulky manilla packet.  "Snell's personal items.  He doesn't have any known next of kin, so they're yours to do with as you see fit."

Tannehill opened the packet and slid out the contents - keys, wallet, and monogrammed cigarette case.  "That's odd."

"What?"

"Snell didn't smoke.  Why does he have a cigarette case?"

Murphy smiled again and shrugged in response.

[Author's Note: This week's edition is 1306 words.  The running total is 18860.  As a holiday bonus, I'll be releasing a second chapter in the middle of this week.]