* Editing notes: Chapter 3 -> reduce belt colour for Ninja Kit

** Personae dramatis

– Carleton “Cal” Clarke, lead investigator;
– Marilyn (maternity) and Phil (appendix), investigators on leave;
– Five legal beagles;
– Harrison Matthew James III, founder and senior partner in
– Lila Matthews, James’ assistant
– Haggerty (1950s), McCleod (1960s), other partners
– Maxwell Jennings, father, divorced
– Maria Jennings, mother, divorced
– William Clarke, Cal’s deceased father
– Melanie Jennings, daughter, deceased (car crash) and goddaughter to James
– Michael Jennings, son, missing
– Detective Daniel Moorcroft, detective, Bayport PD
– Jim Peterson, drunk boyfriend in car crash
– Chris “Kit” Markle, patrolwoman, Bayport PD

START CHAPTER 4:

Before I left the parking lot, I phoned a friend who works as an insurance investigator at Garrison Fidelity. His office is in New Jersey, but he travels around quite a bit. Today he was up in Boston. He’s a bit unconventional, and when I explained all I wanted was to get copies of unredacted police files, he said it didn’t even count as a favour. He took down the particulars and told me to check my email or he’d call me if there were any problems.

I was just about to head back to the office when I got a email alert from one of the senior associates at the firm. Douglas Thrush handles contract and real estate law, and while he often has our research team busy before a big deal, he rarely calls upon our investigatory services. But he was asking if one of our investigators could meet him at 2:30 at the end of the Boulevard. Since I was the whole team at the moment, I checked my watch and messaged him back that I could be there. He sent me the address and a draft contract. I had seen the draft earlier, but at the time, the clients had only said “company 1” and “company 2”. Their names hadn’t been entered yet.

I quickly scrolled past to check the terms, and then went back. LLC Holdings was buying a motel? Oh this was going to be interesting.

LLC Holdings is the name for a holding company of Leroy Lucas Castle. His mother calls him Lucas; his friends call him Luke; his acquaintances call him Sir. Most of the criminals in the city know him as Nuke, but saying it to his face would find you floating in the river by morning. He’s not at the top of the food chain yet, but he’s getting close, at least according to the newspapers. He handles protection money, money laundering, and rumour has it he has moved into arms dealing. But he won’t deal hard drugs nor anything to do with human trafficking. He has a small ring of high-end escorts that mostly travel as companions for the rich and powerful, but all of them are volunteer recruits in university. The men make contributions to their education, while Nuke takes a small administrative fee for booking. He is what some consider a gentleman thug. He is also a close friend.

We went to elementary school together but we met when I was eleven after my father arrested his father for domestic assault. Word went around the next day that Nuke was looking for me, and even then he was bigger than most kids. He caught up with me after school and I thought I was going to be in for my first real fight. Instead, he said my father had done everyone a favour, particularly Nuke’s mom, and he was grateful. Seems strange at 11 years old to have a future thug tell me he had my back for life, whatever I needed, but there it was. 

Sometimes the relationship seems a bit weird on the surface, but my office doesn’t handle criminal cases usually, so our paths almost never cross professionally. He’s been arrested a few times, but nothing has stuck. Ever. On paper, he’s as clean as a whistle. But you don’t get to be vetted in the largest crime family for being an altar boy. Although he had in fact been one.

Rumour was that Nuke was bringing the family into the 21st century, but to me, he was just Luke from elementary school that I climbed trees with on weekends, had epic snow fights in the park down the street from my house, and played on the same team for baseball in high school. After high school, I went to college and Luke doubled down on his criminal enterprises. Allegedly. I had never seen any sign of any of it, nor would I. Luke would never put me in that position. He was so proud when I got into law school, I thought he would explode. And when my dad passed, he was the first one to call to see if I needed anything. Now we get together every Tuesday night for wings and a pub trivia game. He is phenomenal at anything to do with pop culture, history and music from the 40s and 50s.

He is also 6’4″ tall, 240 pounds of solid muscle, and looks like he could benchpress a Buick. Which he probably can. He did some MMA fighting for a year, just enough to get good, and he has the scar tissue from a broken nose. He has a half-inch scar above his right eye, hidden almost by his eyebrows, and he won’t say how or where he got it. The fantasy stories that people have come up with are legendary, ranging from being a mercenary overseas to a bar fight in Scotland where he got a Glasgow kiss from the forehead of one of the locals. Any of them could be true, but I’m the only one who knows what really happened, because I’m the one who gave it to him. 

We were horsing around after our last high-school baseball game, and he made some joke about my lab partner in Physics class. He kept prodding me to ask her out, and I had chickened out every time. I chucked my shoe toward him, and he was laughing so hard, he didn’t see it coming. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion. He was leaning forward, and I realized the shoe was going to go farther than I intended. It ripped open a gash above his eye, and blood started gushing. I thought it hit him in the eye, to be honest. He reached over, grabbed a towel out of his bag, pressed it to his forehead, and said, “Nice shot, Deadeye.” He knew it was an accident and he didn’t even get mad about it. We stopped by his aunt’s place, as she was an OR nurse. She stitched him up, gave me the evil eye, and sent us on our way. I was freaked, for him it was Thursday.

In my two years of practicing after law school, three years of working with my brother, and five years of heading investigations, our work lives have never intersected. Yet now I was being called to investigate something to do with him buying a motel. This wasn’t a promising sign for my day.

I headed back over to the Boulevard and headed East. Close to the lake, there are a few basic strip malls, Walmarts, car dealerships, restaurants. Then as you go farther inland, you pass fast-food central, including the restaurant and drive-through that Michael Jennings had worked at, a few blocks past his father’s repair shop. I drove past a recreation complex, a couple of lumber yards, and then passed under the major highway that crosses the south end of Bayport. Most locals just call it the Way. 

Once you pass the highway, it’s like someone throws a switch. The high-end commercial places start to give way to pawn shops, quick cash and loans, and some industrial buildings. There is a group of low-rent apartment buildings called the Livery Buildings, and the entire area has become known as Livery Heights. After that, it is mostly empty fields. Some are commercially zoned with nothing happening, others are classed as residential. None have any activity on them. But after that is a small zone of five businesses. They are literally steps from the city limits, just outside city control. There is a bar called the Loose Goose, caters to a slightly rougher blue-collar crowd, a large gas station with a mini-mart attached, a diner with room for diesel truck parking in the back, and a small motel.