Quite the Life (and all in Times New Roman 10pt!)
William “Bill” Cranston grabbed the railing as he jogged up the stairs to Precinct House 17. He may have been a linebacker in college, but that was thirty-five years ago and now he needed to pull himself up inclines when he jogged them.
He snapped his hand back as if he touched a high-tension line.
The railing was shaking?
Sure, ’17 was one of the oldest precinct houses in Boston, still brick-and-mortar as they say, and with wide-paneled hardwood floors and high ceilings and big fans hanging down because putting AC in a building about to be decommissioned was a waste of tax dollars, but that decommissioning order had been on the books for twenty years Cranston knew of once. The city discovered it would cost more to put up a new precinct house rather than get rid of this old one, but somehow the money set aside for a new precinct house never made it into a working AC system.
Cranston made it a point to dig deep whenever he had to investigate a city or state official. He was going to write a book once he retired. Fuckers I have known, he was going to call it.
Old or not, ’17 was still solid. granite anchored the railings. They could shake? Like that?
He looked up and down the street. No fifty-three foot TT or heavy construction vehicles in sight, but dogs barked and pulled on their leashes. Pigeons, robins, and starlings took flight. The leaves on sidewalk maples, willows, and elms shivered as if chilled by a late October wind.
He touched the railing tentatively, one finger stretched forward, his body slightly turned and ready to pull away.
Nothing.
He shrugged and continued up the stairs. The desk sergeant looked up and nodded as he entered.
“You feel that?”
The desk sergeant shook her head. “Feel what?”
Cranston continued up the next flight to the offices. His phone vibrated in his pocket. A moment later he heard his daughter Leddy’s distinctive TXT ring and read the screen. “U OK?”
Previous entries in The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery):
We last encountered Erasmus about two months back (posting time).
We know Coyote been around. There signs are easy to recognize, step in, or slip on.
Still shy (and rightly so), we know there’s a pack near us. We can hear them at night.
Lately we’ve heard one and their call is so mournful we worry.
But until we learn more, there’s Erasmus.
And she’s such a dear.
Thorne let the Lady Eglesia‘s systems bring it into the harbor while she dozed on the deck, barely moving from where she slept through the night. She headed out to deep water after hallucinating being back home and visited by her people’s mythical water being, the Bunyip.
Those hallucinations were becoming more frequent.
Usually a quick trip home cured such things. She’d take AirCon’s corporate jet and be there and back in four day’s time. One day to get there, two days with her people, one day to get back.
But who to leave in charge?
Shaul. Not here next-in-command but capable never-the-less.
The Eglesia’s alarms sounded. A shoreside distress signal. Somebody breaking into AirCon HQ and caught in her team’s latest tech gadgets?
She sighed and her eyes fluttered open to the Boston skyline, the the morning sun at her back.
Something bobbed in front of her boat. It looked like a man in the water. It faced the same direction she did.
It turned towards the Eglesia as if suddenly realizing it was there. The sunlight shone off the water making it difficult to see.
Thorne shaded her eyes then opened them wide. “What the – ”
Her mobile alarmed.
The thing in the water dove and was gone.
Thorne read the message on her mobile. She shaded her eyes and looked towards AirCon HQ.
A cloud of gray smoke climbed the thirty story Innovation Square tower. Swirls of denser smoke pulled and pushed the cloud up the side of the building like some Wind Spirit King Kong waving its arms and legs.
We don’t see enough of Deer.
A sad fact, that.
We know there are deer out there.
There was one beautiful fawn who we saw regularly when walking our dog. She would see us before we saw her – duh! and we’d hear a gentle movement through the woods announcing her presence.
Ever cautious, she observed us long before she deigned to accept us as part of her pleasure.
Less while ago we were blessed with a herd led by a magnificent buck.
A glory, that.