A Novel Murder - Episode 1

Who killed a promising young writer?

My name is Alan Waverly. I’m a detective. You know those buddy cop movies where one partner is young, tough and good-looking and the other is old, fat, and tired? I’m the old one. The twist is, my partner, Bobby Broome, is equally old. We might have once been heartbreakers, Bob with his broad shoulders, strong Irish jaw and soft Italian eyes, and me tall and olive-skinned with jet black hair - features that had people constantly guessing my origins. Now our shoulders are stooped, whatever hair that’s left is thinning and streaked with gray, and skin everywhere bunching up and sagging like figures in a Tijuana wax museum. No longer the crime show hearthrobs we once could have played, we’re just two men in our 60’s working for our pensions. The days of footchases and playing good cop/bad cop are gone. Now we let the kids do the running for us while we play ourselves: tired cop/cranky cop.

This morning we got a report of dead body in an apartment. Nothing new about that, as far as our days go. Bobby had an appointment with his orthopedic surgeon about a knee surgery, but he said he’d come with me to the scene first.

I let out an involuntary old man groan as I ducked under the crime scene tape into the interior of what was once a nice apartment. Bookshelves lined the wall and the furniture was decent, but everything was covered in dust, and heavy blackout curtains covered the windows. The place was cluttered with takeout containers and plates of rotting food. I also noticed lots of books stacked and stuffed in shelves.

A body lay on the floor - a white male, 20-30 years old. His scalp had a large gash in it and the carpet beneath his head was soaked in congealed blood. It looked like he bled for a while while he was on his knees, then fell forward into his spilled blood. A small, heavy statuette lay on the floor next to the victim. The body was next to a cluttered desk.

Bobby looked around. “Quite a library in here.”

Stacks of typewritten paper sat on the desk. “And writer too, by the looks of it. The techs are on the way. You wanna check out the body?”

“Bum hip, remember?” Bob said it with a smile.

I glared at my partner - his damn hip was an excuse to have me bring him his coffee and krispy kreme, and now I have to examine corpses because he can’t bend at the waist. But I also knew the pain he was living with came from years of police work, first walking a beat then as a detective, tussling with some very bad people. I once saw him tumble down a flight of stairs trying to apprehend a professional football player who’d beaten his girlfriend into a coma. The linebacker wasn’t exactly compliant: he took the opportunity to gnaw Bobby’s thumb to the bone before we could restain him. Bob was no slouch back in the day. He deserved a break or two.

I sighed. “Okay fine. But if I get blood on this suit you’re buying lunch.”