Turtle Island: 20th Anniversary Edition (Georgina O'Neil Book 1) Read online

  Caffeine Nights Publishing

  Turtle Island

  Darren E Laws

  The first novel in the

  Georgina O’Neil trilogy

  Fiction aimed at the heart and the head...

  Caffeine Nights Publishing

  Published by Caffeine Nights Publishing 2020

  Revised and reedited edition 2008

  First published in 2003

  Copyright © Darren E Laws 2008

  Darren E Laws has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 to be identified as the author of this work

  CONDITIONS OF SALE

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher

  This book has been sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental

  Published in Great Britain by Caffeine Nights Publishing

  caffeinenights.com

  caffeinenightsbooks.com

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-913200-15-2

  Everything else by

  Default, Luck and Accident

  To Natalie

  For persuading me that I can actually do it

  Prologue

  Smile, you're Dead

  Max Dalton did not struggle nor fight; his body hit the water with a stinging embrace, though he did not feel any pain. He was past caring; technically still alive, but more than ready to welcome death.

  The water was warm, inviting. Max had no real comprehension of where he was, and even less now of who he was. Slowly, he submerged. The warm fluid filled his mouth, the cavern enlarged by the removal of his tongue, lips and teeth. He breathed the water in through his nose; at first panic at the realisation that there was no way of expelling it, then only the comfort of allowing it to fill his lungs.

  Part One

  Hell waits

  One

  The alarm was ringing in his ears with a ‘fuck you’ attitude that was sure to get Leroy LaPortiere out of bed, but on the wrong side. The heat was closing in already and his clock cheerfully told him that it was just after five thirty in the morning. His girlfriend, Lia, was lying on top of the sheets, her body glistening with perspiration like morning dew. Her arm outstretched touching his naked back.

  ‘Go to sleep, hon.’ Leroy wanted to roll on top of her and slip deep inside her.

  ‘Be careful, baby.’

  ‘Sure hon, nothing ever happens around here.’

  And he was right. He was on the money one hundred per cent of the time, but a winning streak like that has to end some day.

  After a cold shower, Leroy was ready to face another day. Breakfast would consist of an artery hardening and unsatisfying stop at Wendell’s Diner for an early morning mixed grill, hash browns and a gallon of extra strong coffee. The longevity of officers of the law on Turtle Island was not dictated by the rising tide of crime but by the accelerating spread of saturated fats through increasingly narrowing arteries.

  ‘You gonna die.’ A familiar voice came from behind.

  ‘That is the most sense you’ve talked in a long time my man. We all gonna die.’ Leroy didn’t need to lift his head from his grease sodden breakfast to know his partner was standing behind him. The smell of Giorgio Armani aftershave followed Rick Montoya around like a dust cloud announcing his arrival. Montoya dragged a chair over the stone tiled floor and sat next to LaPortiere. He waited patiently for a passing waitress before ordering his morning meal.

  This is Groundhog Day, TV, Football, Sex and living. The game plan was that they would meet every day for the next twenty years, doing the same thing until they cashed their pensions, sold their homes and sailed around the world. Of course they were going to sail around the world; why wouldn’t they?

  Montoya, like his partner Leroy LaPortiere, worked for Missouri Police Department. LaPortiere for the past twelve years, Montoya, only one year in Missouri, twelve in Chicago before that.

  Rick dropped a small brown envelope onto the table next to Leroy.

  ‘What’s this?’

  LaPortiere opened the manila envelope, noticing that it was addressed to Captain Norman Frusco, his chief. He withdrew a small bundle of Polaroid photographs, knowing that it wasn’t going to be Rick’s holiday snaps.

  ‘You know, I really thought that this sort of thing was confined to the big cities.’ Leroy shuffled through the photos. ‘This is the John Doe?’ He studied the victim, or what was left of him. He stared into the white bloated face, the lifeless eyes; it was something a movie could never capture, no matter how good the actor. The mask of death was something that could never be faked even with the best special effects and yet here he was looking at a cheap Polaroid and the look was unmistakable.

  LaPortiere shivered. ‘Like I told you, we all gotta die someday.’

  Narla Fleisher brushed her teeth vigorously while staring at her face in the bathroom mirror. She swirled water around her gums, dislodging toothpaste and various debris from last night’s dinner. She smiled, thoughts of the previous evening still fresh in her mind.

  ‘Honey, don't forget its parent evening tonight.’ She called through the adjoining door.

  An audible moan came from the en-suite bedroom.

  ‘Harley's expecting us both, so try not to get tied up with work, okay?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Charles Fleisher rolled over in the bed onto his back and sat up.

  The sunlight streamed through the window, which Narla had already opened to fend off the beginning of the day's intense heat. Charles massaged away the early morning fatigue from his face, sweeping back his dishevelled mousy brown hair. Narla walked into the bedroom, naked from her shower.

  Charles admired his wife’s body as much as when he first saw her naked.

  Narla laughed and playfully threw the towel at her husband, all suburban happiness with no dark undercurrent. Charles leapt out of bed and grabbed his wife from behind. She enjoyed the sensation of his bare skin rubbing against her own.

  ‘Hey, I thought you had enough of that last night.’ She turned and immediately felt how excited Charles had become. ‘Obviously not.’

  She pushed his powerful frame away from her and he over-dramatically fell backwards onto the bed. His hands reached out and grabbing her arms, he pulled her on top of him.

  ‘I've just showered.’ Narla only slightly protested.

  Two

  Leroy studied the pictures for hours. He searched through files on missing persons. He was wearing the face of a man that had spent too much time delving through the minutiae of boring details of boring people’s lives.

  ‘I think our break is only going to come when we find the body. The savagery of the killing…the mutilation, the killer wants us to be aware of his existence.’ Rick broke the silence.

  ‘Power games?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Leroy looked at the photographs. ‘D'you have a theory?’

  ‘Curi
osity, that's all. This guy really is pulling our chain.’ Rick continued. ‘Sending us the photos.’

  ‘There might be clues here.’ Leroy grinned

  ‘He likes to play games.’

  ‘Yeah, one big power game. The more we look at this, the more we might learn about him.’

  ‘Ring Lia, it's going to be a long night.’ Rick settled back in his chair.

  ‘Shit man! Lia and I were goin’ out tonight. She’s gonna kill me and you're responsible. By morning you’re gonna be looking for another murderer.’ Leroy strolled away, tutting his disapproval. ‘I need a holiday from this dump.’

  ‘Harley really is an asset to this school, Mr Fleisher.’ The grinning form tutor smiled flirtatiously at Charles. She crossed her legs, allowing her skirt to fall open briefly, exposing long tanned legs. Charles could smell her. The bitch was in season. Miss Fuller made no apology nor looked even faintly embarrassed. She stared into his eyes and pulled the skirt back to modestly cover her legs.

  Narla coughed indignantly. ‘Do you think she's making progress?’

  Charles thought she was.

  ‘Oh, most definitely.’ Miss Fuller's southern drawl placed her somewhere between Missouri and Mississippi, what the 'Narla Fleisher's' of this world would have branded poor white trash, three or four decades ago, and even now only met at PTA meetings and on daytime soap operas. Mind enemas for the non-working classes.

  Narla was impressed by Miss Fuller’s simple beauty, her long, fine, sun bleached hair, her body, with only the merest hint of a tan, her smooth, moisture holding skin, wrinkle free and unblemished with a pair of green eyes to die for. Narla imagined a school full of pubescent boys with permanent hard-on’s.

  ‘Harley is top of her form in most subjects. She is a very bright young girl. Her maths still needs some work, but even here she has excelled against this time last year.’ Miss Fuller continued

  Charles looked across the hall at his daughter, Harley was sitting with a group of friends they were laughing and chatting the way ten-year-old girls do, with feverish excitement, possibly about the latest hunk boy pop group or an exchange of fashion tips which will come back to haunt them in future years.

  Harley broke from her conversation briefly to look up and wave affectionately to her father.

  Charles smiled back.

  Later in the evening, Narla cornered Charles in a quiet moment. ‘Miss Fuller wants to fuck you.’

  Charles laughed. ‘Do you blame her?'

  Narla snorted. ‘You smug bastard.’

  ‘I love it when you talk dirty.’ Charles continued to mock his wife, enjoying the frisson of the moment.

  ‘Did you think she was attractive; I know I did?’

  ‘Sure, if we ever have a son, I'll send him here.’ Charles pulled his wife closer. ‘Seems our daughter is the school genius, though that's not surprising with our genetic pool.’

  ‘Hey, Mr Modesty, be careful or we may have to widen the door frames.’ Narla leaned up and kissed Charles gently on the lips.

  Three

  ‘Please, please don't hurt me. I promise I won't tell anyone, if you just let me go.’

  Stephen England was lying face down on a mattress that smelled of car oil and stale urine. He was tethered by rope to his wrists and ankles. He was naked with his legs and arms spread-eagled, tied to the corners. He didn’t even know if anyone was in the room with him or how long he had been there. He had slipped in and out of consciousness for three days, losing track of time. The black canvas bag over his head allowed no daylight to pass through and if it did, it would only confirm that he was alone in the dark. He listened for a reply, waiting to hear some confirmation, any confirmation that he wasn’t alone. Silence greeted his plea, a silence that only heightened his fear. If he shouted would he come back and if he did, that would mean more pain, more humiliation, but what if he was gone, maybe somebody would hear him, come to his aid.

  Stephen began to cry, the frustration of his predicament overwhelmed him.

  The resonance of the heavy metal door opening suddenly focused his mind, the sound sharpened England’s senses in a way that he really wished wouldn’t.

  Leroy crawled into bed at four thirty am; his mind was too unsettled for sleep, disturbing images from the Polaroid's infiltrating any resting moment.

  ‘I hope she was worth it.’ Leroy’s girlfriend, Lia, said in the best sarcastic voice she could muster at such an unearthly hour.

  ‘Nah, she don’t do that thing you do with your tongue.’ Leroy joked. He lay on top of the sheets, the sticky heat wrapping his body like a honey laced shroud. Unable to sleep, he watched daylight transcend from night. The few hours until Lia rose seemed like a lifetime. Leroy sat watching the ceiling change hue as the light filtered through brightening the paintwork. All the time he was thinking. The morning solace concentrated his mind perfectly, until the trill of the alarm broke his train of thought.

  Devoid of light and disorientated in time, Stephen England found himself wishing for death. The last time he was here was the worst. The most painful, the most degrading. England tried not to think of the humiliation of being raped, urinated on, sodomised with everything from a beer bottle to a wire brush. The pain of the latter bringing blissful unconsciousness.

  The door clanged open again and fear paralysed Stephen. Hands roughly turned back the black canvas hood on his head, exposing Stephen’s mouth and nostrils. The rank smelling fetid air smelled fresh when free from the confines of the coarse hood. Fortunately, he could not see the hammer that smashed his teeth, shattering them and turning his gums to a bloodied pulp. He felt the second blow but was unconscious by the third.

  The sensation of his head being roughly jerked back woke Stephen. He immediately gagged on the blood in his mouth and coughed, spitting out blood and teeth into a mass gooey puddle on the mattress in front of him. His tongue tried to access the damage; pieces of pulped gum flapped loosely inside his mouth.

  He screamed. ‘Kill me now…please.’ But it was unintelligible. Just a bloody gargled sound as his tongue pushed against air and gums.

  There was a blinding flash, followed by another, then another. A voice whispered. ‘Smile…you’re dead.’

  Four

  Some things you never get used to. Paedophiles, child victims of murder, rape and sodomy; Britney Spears singing, the phone ringing in the middle of the night. All of these things disturbed Georgina O’Neil, but tonight it was the phone that disturbed her most. Her hand automatically scrabbled for the phone receiver in the dark. The shrill of the ringing was obscenely loud in the quiet of the night. She wanted to quieten the noise before the dead awoke; sometimes it’s just too late.

  ‘This better be good.’ She lifted the phone to her ear. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Agent O’Neil?’

  It was a little after one o’clock in the morning, within two hours she would be on a plane flying south from Maryland, throwing up for the best part of the journey. Turtle Island…She had never even heard of it.

  Jo-Lynn Montoya peered from under the bed sheet. ‘Tell me it's Saturday.’ Her voice has a raspy croakiness to it, brought about by the heat of the night.

  ‘It's Thursday, hon.’ Rick answered.

  Jo-Lynn's sleepy face emerged into daylight. She squinted, allowing a gentle introduction to her eyes. Eyes that were as deep brown as her skin, her hair was dyed from its normal black to a lighter brown and had been straightened with the help of a perm. The style softened her natural African-Caribbean look to a more Western-European look. A concession to fashion, and reluctantly; acceptability in a predominantly white Anglo-Saxon area.

  Rick bent down and kissed his wife good morning. ‘Hi, hon.’

  ‘Don't you Hi, hon me. You missed Ray's match last night. He's as mad as hell and I ain't far behind him. We moved here to spend more time with Ray. He needs his father now more than ever.’

  The recollection of his son’s semi-final basketball play-off caused Rick to groan aloud.


  ‘You know I wouldn’t have missed it, if it wasn't for something really important.’

  ‘I know, but you try explaining that to an eight-year-old boy.’

  ‘I'm in the shit.’

  ‘You got it.’

  Rick took a deep breath. ‘Did he win?’

  ‘They lost by four points and he missed three baskets, two were penalties. You can wake him up.’ Jo-Lynn sat up, her cream coloured floral print silk nightdress clinging to her body with a mixture of static and perspiration. She looked hot in more ways than one, though her body language warned him that for the moment, her body was going to be one playground that was out of bounds as a punishment; at least for today.

  Rick stood up, dressed only in his white Calvin Kline shorts; Jo-Lynn secretly admired his toned, well-kept body, as he put on a pair of jogging bottoms.

  ‘Be gentle with him. He cried himself asleep last night.’ Jo-Lynn added.

  ‘Make me feel great.’

  Rick left the room and headed for his son’s bedroom. He opened the door quietly and peered through the gloom. Ray was submerged beneath a light summer quilt. Posters of Michael Jordan adorned the wall. Attached behind the door was a mini basketball hoop, the sponge ball he used to slam dunk was tossed on the top bunk once inhabited by his older sister, Jordan.

  Rick sat on the bed. His son started to stir.

  ‘Hey champ, how's thing's?’