"Diamond in the Rough, Part 3" - a Winters/Casey case file.

I've not done as well as I would have liked, keeping with my 'one new blog post every week' New Years resolution. But even though it's been a month coming, here's the final installment in "Diamond in the Rough"!

If you haven't checked them out, Diamond in the Rough parts One and Two are necessary reading for this installment. Be sure to check them out!

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"Michael Powers and Bahir Al-Alakari," Casey repeated as she frantically filled out the report of what Horatio Younger had told us.

I would have volunteered to help her write the report, but I still had no idea how to use most of the new electronic gadgetry that ruled life in 2076. I was barely able to operate my cell phone. Which, lucky me, had been enough. Minutes after we'd left the interrogation room with Younger I'd placed a call to Homeland Security and told them the situation with Scour.

If what Younger told us was true, Scour had the potential to do far greater things than removing nude selfies from the internet. With the ability to permanently delete nearly anything from the internet, Scour was nearly priceless. But something told me that at least one of the developers had already placed a price on it, and for all we knew it could be headed for the hands of the highest bidder at that moment.

Any government could become an oppressive regime, when those in power had the ability to silence the common people. An already oppressive regime could become a totalitarian state virtually overnight.

So part of this case was now officially above our pay grade. But the nearest Homeland Security office was halfway across town, and the afternoon traffic rush would slow them down getting to the precinct. Until they coordinated their efforts and sent an agent over to work with us, NYPD had jurisdiction.

Homeland Security was already in the process of putting some of their top people from the cyber crimes division on locating the remaining Scour app, as well as locating the hardware that had been used to create it. As far as we knew, Scour only had the power to delete any form of media. There was no guarantee that the app itself wasn't leaving some kind of data trail, and that was apparently the angle they were going to work.

As for me and Casey, we had two suspects to find.

Once we had their names, it didn't take long for me and Casey to find workplaces, finger prints, DMV records, and even birth certificates of our two suspects. Or, at least, it didn't take long for us to find the information on Bahir Al-Akari.

As far as out databases were concerned, Michael Powers didn't exist.

"Diamond in the Rough, Part 2" - a Winters/Casey case file

I'm a few weeks behind the cuff on this one, but part two is finally complete! If you haven't read 'Diamond in the Rough, Part 1' yet, be sure to check it out before reading this one.

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The bell on the door of Diamond Brothers Coffee nearly flew off its chain as Casey and I whipped it open and charged inside. The two men we were after were pushing their way into the back of the store. One of them grabbed the edge of a wooden table and threw it behind them, blocking their path and sending coffee cups cascading across the floor. Patrons screamed.

"Around the back. Head them off," Casey commanded, hooking her thumb out the door. She sprinted after them, narrowly dodging a puddle of mocha latte.

Most people in New York simply want to be left alone; they want no business of yours, and want you to keep out of theirs. So most people will get out of your way if you're running down the street with a total hard-ass look on your face. That goes double if you have a badge.

No one stepped in my path as I darted back out the door and into the chilly March air. My coat whipped at my ankles as I ran past confused people on the sidewalk. At the end of the block I turned left down the nearest alley, where the service and delivery door to the coffee shop would be. Sure enough, as I started down the dingy corridor, a grey metal door a few dozen yards down the alley flew open and two men stumbled out, frantically trying to get away from a crazed lady copy hot on their heals.

I turned my running gate into a cautious sidle. My gun whipped up on instinct, but I didn't remove the safety. "Don't do it," I called, my voice steady. "You're under arrest for vandalism and disturbing the peace. Resisting arrest won't make it any better."

At that moment, Casey emerged from the back of the restaurant. She had her hand on her gun, too, but it hadn't yet left its holster. "You didn't even give us a chance to talk, guys. Don't you know that running is pretty much the most guilty-looking thing you can do?"

"We didn't do anything," Horatio Younger, the second victim in a series of break-ins Casey and I were investigating, stammered. He raised his pale, fish belly-colored hands. He was shaking so hard that it made his double chin tremble.

"Shut up," Frederick Watson, the other man, said. "They haven't even read us our rights yet."

"Come on, Fred, don't be like that," I said. "You and I shared a beer at last summer's community party. No sense on being uncivil."

My downstair's neighbor pressed his mouth into a thin line. "I'm not saying anything without a lawyer," he replied.

Casey and I gave each other a look. Then she whipped out her cuffs and shackled the two men together as I read them their rights.

"Diamond in the Rough, Part 1" - a Winters/Casey case file

My brother, Aaron is a great writer and a creative sonofagun. I've linked to many of his creative endeavors in earlier posts, so you know what I mean if you've check them out. If not, be sure to visit his Tumblr page  and also check out his creative blog, because he posts great stories and cartoons. They're worth sharing.

Anyhow, this story actually starts Toby Winters and Sandra Casey, two detectives he created. I got an idea for a short story, and he was nice enough to loan me his characters for this post.


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My cell phone alarm woke me, but not at first. I managed to tune out what I'm pretty certain was three or four minutes of ringing before my brain couldn't stand it any longer. I slapped blindly on the nightstand for my phone, searching for the 'snooze' button. Ten seconds after squinting at the screen, I realized that my phone was actually ringing. It was fifteen minutes before my alarm was scheduled to go off.

The screen said, "Sandra Casey," and was accompanied by a picture of a woman with curly brown hair, caught in a rare smile that graced her normally no-nonsense countenance. 

I swiped the phone with my finger and tapped the phone to speaker mode. "You know, my alarm isn't supposed to go off for another fifteen minutes." 

"Your lazy ass is still in bed, Toby?" Casey snarked in reply. A siren wailed in the distant background of the call. 

"Didn't get to sleep until after one o'clock," I grumbled in reply. "The people in the room next to mine wouldn't shut up." 

"Knockin' boots all night, huh?" Casey laughed. She sipped what sounded like a cup of coffee. Not that a cup of coffee sounded a certain way; it's just that I knew Casey always had a cup of coffee in her hand at this time of morning. 

"I wish," I grumbled. "Then they might have at least given it a rest after forty-five minutes. These idiots just had their TV up too loud and wouldn't shut the hell up about the show's storyline. Spoiler alert, if you're a fan of Seattle Mercy Hospital: Jonathan Mercy is in a coma." 

"Oh my god, spoilers!" Casey yelled, her tone dead serious. "I am going to kill you when I see you! And that had better be soon, by the way. There's been another break in, and the chief wants us to check it out. I'm already here." 

I pulled myself into a sitting position. Dim morning light snuck into the room beneath the hotel room's thick curtain, changing the furniture into indistinct gray blurs. "How did you get there so early? Did the chief call you first without calling me?" 

"He knows you've been having a rough time, since you had to move into Chez Shady," Casey went on. "Chief told me to call you a little later, to make sure you were one-hundred percent before coming in." 

I kicked free of the hotel's thick comforter and placed my feet on the floor. "Thanks to Seattle Mercy Hospital, I'm only around eighty-five or ninety. But if you can have another cup of coffee there waiting on me, I'll give you one-hundred and ten." 

"Done," Casey replied, another rare smile in her words. "I'l send the GPS to your phone. See you in thirty?" 

"Thirty," I replied, and she ended the call.

Tossing my phone on the bed, I yawned, stretched, and raked my fingers through my blonde hair. I said, "Room, on," and the lights warmed to life, slowly growing until they filled the room. Thirty seconds later the television came on, automatically tuned to the channel I selected when I booked the room. 

"That's still weird," I mumbled as I headed for the shower, which was already running. 

There were a lot of things I wasn't used to about 2076. Mostly because I missed the last sixty years, cryogenically frozen. It'd been the better part of two years since I'd woken up. In that time, I'd managed to land a steady job as a detective, a fairly nice apartment in a fairly nice part of town, and was hopefully on deck for a promotion pretty soon. There were a lot of things from my previous life, though, that I hadn't been able to recreate. 

Like my name. Or who I was. Or where I grew up. Or who my family was. Hell, if I even had a family. 

I'd been christened Toby, or October, by the people who found me frozen in some secret government project. They'd given me the last name 'Winters', because it had been an unusually cold October that year. So, like it or not, Toby Winters I became. 

It was only by a series of lucky coincidences that I was able to land the job as detective. If I screwed it up, I'd be lucky to find a position washing dishes somewhere, what with no official education or credentials, since none of those things seemed to survive the freezing process with me. 

So when I told Casey I'd met her in thirty, it had to be thirty. 

When I climbed out of the shower I looked for the hotel's phone, to call the front desk and tell them I'd be stepping out early so they could send the maid. Then I remembered my 2076 hotel room didn't have a phone. So, as I pulled on my pants and buttoned my shirt, I opened the hotel chain's app, logged in with my thumb print, and punched the screen a few times to let them know. 

Four days ago there was a fire in the apartment beneath mine. It damaged a dozen apartments in the building, mine included, so the super had put us up in hotel rooms until the damage could be repaired.  For all the advancements the world had made since I had been frozen, no one had though to make hotel beds any more comfortable. 

I couldn't wait to get back to my apartment. 

Twenty-eight-minutes and change later, I stepped out of an automated taxi which had read the GPS coordinates from my phone the moment I'd stepped inside it (weird) and approached a wall of yellow police tape. The uniformed guy working the tape was Parker, a young guy I recognized from the precinct. I nodded to him and he waved me through. 

Casey's GPS has led me to a neighborhood not unlike my own. It wasn't in the best part of town, but not a bad neighborhood by comparison to a lot of New York City's boroughs. I stepped past the threshold of a house that was one of the larger on the street, but not extravagant. The inside of the place looked like a bomb had gone off. Drawers were emptied. Furniture, smashed. Couch cushions, shredded. They'd even emptied everything from the fridge onto the kitchen floor. It was a masterpiece of mayhem. 

I found Casey in the living room, speaking to two very shaken-looking homeowners. She tapped rapidly on a screen so thin it defied imagination, taking notes. She looked up long enough to notice me, and then gestured behind her with her eyes. I followed her gaze and found a coffee cup and paper bag sitting on the mantle. They were the only objects in sight; everything else, it seemed, had been flung from the mantle onto the floor. 

I attacked the coffee cup with what I hoped was some moniker of dignity, in front of the homeowners. Inside the bag I found a jalapeño-and-cheese bagel, and I almost made a fool of myself by crying while on duty. 

A few minutes later, Casey stepped away from the homeowners and toward me. Half of the coffee was gone, and I had nearly finished the bagel. 

"You're too good to me, you know that?" I said with a full mouth. 

"I know," she replied. "You can listen and eat at the same time, right?" 

With one hand I mimed a 'probably' motion. She jabbed me in the shoulder with the stylus for her screen. "Alfonzo and Millie Montgomery, ages 42 and 37. Regional manager of four Diamond Brothers Coffee franchises, and professor at Empire University, respectively. They've lived in the neighborhood for twelve years and never experienced anything like this before. Two kids, both staying with grandparents while the whole this is sorted out."

I chewed by bite of bagel a little slower as I surveyed the scene. After a few speculative seconds I swallowed and said, "This makes, what? The sixth?" 

"The sixth," Casey confirmed. "All different neighborhoods. People from different walks of life. Of different ages, races, and nationalities. Nothing apparently stolen: jewelry, electronics, cards, cash, all untouched. The only thing that ties these break-ins together is the MO." 

"Smash and shred everything in sight," I confirmed. "Do I need to say it again? I already said it on the first five." 

"I'm already thinking it. Looks like they were looking for something. Exactly the same as the last five. But whatever they were looking for, they didn't find it." 

I turned to Casey. She met my gaze. "Unless they did, this time." 

Casey scrolled down her screen. "I've asked the homeowners if anything is missing. They said they're not sure, because they haven't sifted through the chaos. But it doesn't look like it." 

I drained the coffee cup. "We're missing something. Something that ties these people together. Something that someone thought each of them had." I took a bite of the bagel. "If you wanted something really badly, and you weren't sure where it was, where would you look first?" 

"Whoever I thought had the greatest likelihood to have it," Casey replied instantly. 

"But they don't have it. So where do you look next?" 

"Whoever is next in line. And then next after that, and next after that." 

"How do you feel by the time you're down to number six on your list?" 

Casey scratched her chin. "Pretty desperate. In fact, I'm pretty sure I would have stopped looking after like three or four. If I'm down to the sixth person on my list, the likelihood of them having it has got to be pretty low." 

"So why do you keep looking? Why don't you throw in the towel?" 

"Because it's something I've got to have," Casey went on. "Maybe something life-or-death. Which means I'm going to keep looking, even if it means searching seven houses. Or more." She lowered her eyes, coming out of deep though. "We need everything we can get on the Montgomerys. And we need more on the other break-in cases." 

I scratched my head. "But we grilled the last five homeowners. We probably have their shoe sizes." 

"Doesn't matter," Casey went on. "We've missed something. So we get it all. Family histories. Relatives, back to their great-grandmothers. Shoe size. Favorite pizza place. Everything, until we find something that links these cases." 

The bagel and coffee now long gone, I nodded. Since I still wasn't great with them, Casey unrolled her screen again, to take more notes, and the two of us returned to the homeowners. 

More than two hours later, Casey and I found ourselves back at the precinct, comparing notes from each of the cases. They were displayed on a screen that took up most of one wall of the Investigation Room #1. She and I poured over seemingly meaningless details of the homes, neighborhoods, and victims, hoping desperately for something we'd missed. 

After standing so close to a screen for so long that my eyes were beginning to throb, I stepped back, rubbed my fists into them and groaned. "Am I the only one who feels like we're looking for a red herring?" I asked. 

"A what?" Casey asked, fatigue apparent in her voice, too. 

"Never mind," I muttered. "I need a break. And another cup of coffee. Or maybe a beer. Care to talk a walk down the block?" 

"You can't have a beer. You're on duty," she said humorlessly, though she was already shouldering into her coat. "And besides, it's not even noon." 

"Coffee it is." 

The two of us strode out of the precinct and onto the street. The sky overhead was gray, as it was most of the time in March, and a chilly breeze whipped through the air. 

"Let's review the ideas we've produced," Casey offered as we strode briskly toward the coffee shop around the corner. 

"I don't know if I'd call them ideas, strictly speaking," I muttered. "They all shopped at a particular chain supermarket. Along with a quarter million other New Yorkers. All the women in the families have type A positive blood. Also, along with another quarter million New Yorkers. And a half-dozen other connections, each one equally as hair-brained."

"Don't forget the one about them all taking the subway to work. That one's a..." Casey's voice trailed off, her gazed fixed ahead of her. She placed her hand on my chest, and I stopped in my tracks. "Do you remember, off the top of your head, the name of the coffee shop at the corner?"

"The one we've been going to every day for the past two years?" I asked blearily. "I know we've been staring at that screen for hours and I didn't get much sleep last night, but I still remember..."

Had I really gotten so little sleep last night? Had I really been looking at the screen in IR #1 for so long that I hasn't noticed it?

I found myself staring at a yellow-and-red neon sign that proclaimed Diamond Brothers Coffee. The same coffee chain for which Alfonzo Montgomery, latest victim of an apparent break-in, was regional manager.

"Coincidence?" Casey asked.

"Could be," I replied. I rubbed my eyes and squinted into the window. "Or maybe it would be, if I didn't recognize the two guys sitting at that table." I pointed, and Casey followed my gesture. She would have only recognized one of the men: Horatio Younger, victim of break-in number two. His large, watery eyes seemed even more so behind his glasses, and he wrung his hands nervously in the same manner he'd done when describing the break-in to the police.

The other man at the table was Frederick Watson. The guy who lived one floor beneath mine, whose apartment had caught fire, and whose fault it was that I was sleeping in a hotel room instead of my own bed.

And apparently Mom was right when she said it was rude to point, because both men looked out the window, at me, at exactly the same time. And then they both stood and ran for the back of the store.

"Still think it might be a coincidence?" Casey said, before dashing ahead of me and wrenching open the door of Diamond Brothers Coffee.

"No, I think it's a conspiracy," I breathed, diving after her and unclipping the snap that held my gun in place, on reflex. "Everyone wants Toby to feel like crap. Make him sleep in a hotel bed. Keep him up all night. And now stop him from getting coffee."

Casey and I charged after the men, amid the shouts and cries of startled customers.


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CHECK BACK NEXT WEEK FOR PART TWO, TRUE BELIEVERS! 

"The High-Rise"

I had been doing well with my New Year's resolution of writing one blog post a week until last week. It was a short-story week, and I was completely dry on inspiration. So, I've had a week to think about this piece, and two nights to write it down. It's setting is the "World of Tomorrow" from the 1950's and 60's: push-button homes, atomic everything, and, of course the ever-present threat of Communists.

I hope you enjoy "The High-Rise".

A Firestone ad, circa 1950s, and part of the inspiration for the setting of this story. 

As the bell rang to end the last class of the day, Bill gathered his books and shoved them into his backpack. The number of books, binders, and pencils fit geometrically perfectly inside, as they were designed to do. The leather clasp fastened perfectly, and he slung the bag's strap over his shoulder before rushing from the classroom.

In the hallway he blended in with the sea of others wearing school uniforms; black pants, white shirts, grey ties. Even the girls wore the outfit, although their pants were replaced with long black skirts and tall black socks. Bill looked desperately through the crowd for his older sister, but it was hopeless; even with her head of unnaturally red hair, she was impossible to make out among the hundreds of students headed for the atrium at the end of the school day.

Bill was roughly bumped from behind, and he staggered forward into someone else. An older boy, one that Bill had never seen before, turned and glared at him. "Watch it, weasel," the older boy sneered. He roughly planted the palm of his hand into Bill's chest. Bill cried out in alarm and staggered again, but this time he luckily didn't crash into anybody.

Lowering his head so as to not attract further attention to himself, Bill moved toward the atrium.

Every floor of the High-Rise had an atrium, and every atrium had thirty lifts, arranged along two long walls. Students were being ushered into lines for the lifts that were allocated to the floors where their families lived. Bill and his family lived on the 245th floor. He allowed the Usher, a man in a dark red velvet jacket covered in copper buttons, to point him to the correct lift. He didn't see his sister, Marjorie, in line yet, but she was probably just running late or something. It wouldn't be the first time.

There were roughly thirty people in line ahead of Bill, so he crossed his arms across his chest and waited. Twenty minutes later, another Usher prodded Bill into an already-stuffed lift. He was the last person on, so when the door closed it nearly caught the tip of his nose between the two chrome plates. The lift hummed up the shaft. After another fifteen minutes of stepping aside to let others out, Bill finally left the lift and stepped into 245's atrium. Architecturally, it was identical to every other atrium in the High-Rise, but Bill swore there was something comforting and familiar about his home floor. He stepped past the lines of ushered people waiting and toward the apartments.

Apartment 10H was the Jones household. Bill had already taken his huge, intricate steel key from his backpack and was ready to unlock the door, but when he rounded the corner in the hallway he found the door open and his father struggling with a large, brown box.

"Dad?" Bill asked, approaching. "What're you doing?"

Dad looked over the box and smiled at his son. Despite sweating from exertion from wrestling with the box, he managed to clutch his pipe between his teeth. "Good afternoon, champ. Say, give your old man a hand with this box, will you? The new aerial came today, and I'd like to get it hooked up before  the afternoon programs come on!"

 Bill's heart leapt. He had been looking forward to the new aerial for months, since his dad had first put in the order for it. Dropping his bag in the hallway, Bill shoved and pushed with his father until the box was finally inside their apartment.

"You boys are going to spend the whole night putting that thing together!" Bill heard his mother say as they entered. As usual, she was in the kitchen. Bill heard (and smelled) something cooking in their atomic-powered oven.

"Good afternoon, Mister Jones," said their Butlertron in its monotone, pre-programmed voice. It rolled forward from the rear of the apartment. "Can I take your coat and get you the afternoon paper?"

"I'd like that, Botsworth," Dad  replied, settling into his easy chair. "And afternoon scotch, while you're at it."

As the Butlertron's vice-like hands carefully removed Dad's coat, Bill turned his attention back to his mother. "We won't spend the whole night putting it together!" Bill exclaimed. "We're going to get it working by dinner. That way we call all watch Science Fiction Fantasy while we eat. And it's going to be in color!" 

Mom laughed, and finally emerged from the kitchen. She was stirring something with a completely silent chrome hand-mixed. "Color. On the television. What'll they think of next?"

"Seriously, June," Dad put it. "This newest model is supposed to show the pictures in full color!"

"I'll believe it when I see it," Mom replied. "But we're not going to watch it while we eat. We're still civilized, and we're going to eat dinner as a family like everyone else in the country."

"Speaking of family, I didn't see Marjorie at the lift," Bill replied. He'd retrieved his pack from the hall and had emptied his mandated homework on the coffee table.

"She said she would be going to the fitness level after school today," Mom replied. "She's trying out for the tennis team and wanted to get in some practice."

The fitness level was the 103rd floor. Bill's physical education class met there twice a week. It was a huge, high-ceilinged floor, full of tennis courts and running machines and saunas and other things Bill hadn't yet had a chance to try out.

"Could you do your old man a favor, sport, and take down the old aerial before you start on your homework?" Dad asked. Botsworth had just brought Dad a small glass of amber liquid with two ice cubes resting in it, and Dad has just traded his brown loafers for his slippers.

Brian nodded and set aside his homework. He crossed the living room to the balcony. Sliding the door open, he stepped out into the warm, humid air of late summer. The sun was still high in the bright blue afternoon sky, and a few pearly clouds drifted lazily across the horizon. Miles away, the other High-Rises looked so much smaller than their hundred upon hundreds of floors would suggest, but Bill knew it was simply a trick of his eyes and the buildings' massive scale. Far below, Bill could see the network of roads than connected the High-Rises and the Cultivated Lands than surrounded them. Far in the distance the road disappeared at the horizon, toward more Cultivated Lands and Untamed Wilds and, he had been told, even more High-Rises.

"I can't wait until I can drive on the ground," Bill said to himself, momentarily lost in the scenery.

Apparently Botsworth had heard his musings, because the Butlertron rolled onto the balcony beside him. "You must first complete a minimum of four years in the Army after your education is finished to be granted the terrifying privilege of leaving the High-Rise," he droned.

"I know, Botsworth," Bill replied.

"Answer acknowledged," Botsworth affirmed. "Additional information available: you must consent to at least two years active duty fighting the Red Menace to be eligible to drive on the ground."

Botsworth went through the diatribe every time Bill found himself thinking aloud. "I know, Botsworth. Now help me unscrew this old aerial."

"Very good, young master."

A screwdriver emerged from Bosworth's chest. Bill took it and began loosening the bolts that held the aerial to the railing. "Botsworth, tell me the stories about the Red Wars again. Please."

Botsworth continued to produce different tools as Bill needed them, all the while telling Bill the story of how the Reds had wanted to take everything that Bill and his family held dear. Parts of the story didn't make sense to Bill, but it didn't scare him like it used to. He pictured himself in the Army, fighting Reds like his father had done, and one day being a hero that everyone in his High-Rise - no, every High-Rise - looked up to. He pictured himself seeing the Cultivated Lands with his own eyes, and maybe even exploring the Untamed Wilds, finding a place the Reds hadn't yet polluted with their ideologies and wars.

But new aerial would come first. Science Fiction Fantasy was his favorite show, and merely the though of watching it in color was enough to give him goose bumps.