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BEYOND THE LIMITS — NEW BASED-ON-TRUE-CRIME SERIES BOOK RELEASE

Book #7 in my Based-On-True-Crime Series is out. Beyond The Limits is now available in e-format on Amazon, Kobo, and Nook. (February 06, 2021) Here’s the product description (blurb / jacket copy) and the first two chapters.

What really happened to Kita Southern? A vibrant entrepreneur with high ambitions suddenly disappears from a small Vancouver Island city. She seems to have it all. Beauty. Charm. And a passion for channeling the metaphysical. But Kita has a lifestyle most don’t know of, and you never know what goes on in people’s minds. The truth in Kita Southern’s case is beyond the limits of imagination—an incomprehensible tragedy.

Beyond The Limits is Book 7 in the 12-part Based-On-True-Crime series by retired homicide detective and coroner Garry Rodgers. This story comes with a warning: Explicit descriptions of the crime scenes, factual dialogue, real forensic procedures, and actual police investigation, interview and interrogation techniques are portrayed. If you crave graphic realism in crime writing, Beyond The Limits is your book.

Chapter One — Monday, December 21st – 9:00 a.m.

“Kita. Kita Southern.” Kari Lyons dammed back her tears as she said her sister’s name. Gwen Southern, their mother, didn’t. Gwen’s silently flowed. She sat with Kari on the couch in our police interview room adjacent to the Serious Crimes Section office.

“This… is… completely out of character for Kita.” Kari choked. “So, so out of character.”

Now Kari broke down. She pushed her face into her mom’s shoulder and began to bawl. Both ladies were emotional messes.

I gave them composure time. There were tissue boxes in what we called the “soft” interview space we used for victim, witness, and complainant statements. Gwen and Kari took Kleenexes and soaked them.

Kari raised her head. She spoke in hesitant spurts. “She… Kita… she would never be away… this long… without telling someone. Never.”

Gwen, too, said a nearly inaudible, “Never.”

——

Kari Lyons and Gwen Southern came into the Nanaimo police office to report Kita as a missing person. The desk officer took brief details at the front counter but, hearing the alarming circumstances, referred them to a detective. I was the only one in the Serious Crimes Section with a current spare moment, and I was the one who inherited the Kita Southern file.

Nanaimo is a small coastal city of a hundred thousand on the southeastern shore of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It’s straight across the Salish Sea from the City of Vancouver which is one of the most exotic, erotic, and expensive places on the planet. Although much smaller and somewhat cutoff, Nanaimo has a disproportionately large share of hardcore crime intertwined with the black market drug trade.

Drugs. It was always drugs. Drugs were the main source of sorrow.

——

“I need to get some details.” I had my pen out and my notebook open. I also had a video camera and audio recorder running, although Gwen and Kari couldn’t see it. “Can you give me Kita’s full name?”

Kari responded. “It’s Kita Rose Southern. Kita is spelled K-i-t-a. The other two are just as they sound.”

“And how old is Kita?”

“She’s thirty-four.” Kari sniffed. She dabbed her eyes and nose. “Just turned thirty-four on October seventeenth.”

“What’s Kita’s description?”

“She looks exactly like me.”

“Kita and Kari. Are you twins?”

“No. But everyone thinks we are. Kita is a year and a bit younger.” Kari opened her phone and flicked. “Here is a recent photo of Kita… taken on her birthday.”

I looked at a happy image—lusty skin, charcoal mane, turquoise eyes, and crimson lips circling a Hollywood mouth. Kari scrolled again. I saw more pics of Kita. I looked at Kari, then back at Kita. Could be twins. Very attractive women. Curvaceous. Full-figured. Vibrant. If old Hef were alive, they’d have a shot at Playboy’s center. “What’s Kita’s address and contact information?”

Gwen stayed silent but attentive. Kari replied, “She lives at five-twenty-three Park Avenue. The old section of Harewood off Fifth. It’s a gorgeous character home. Her cell number is… here, I’ll write it down for you.”

Kari printed 250 668-8972. She also gave me Kita’s email, kita1@gmail.com, as well as Kita’s social media accounts. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. And a website titled TheTarotLady.net.

“Now, when was Kita last seen? Last heard?”

Kari went teary again. Gwen still was. Kari set her phone on the coffee table between us. She clasped her mother’s hand.

“She… the… from what I can determine… Kita was active until about noon on Saturday. This past Saturday the nineteenth. She went to pick up something from a friend. A close friend who has a store downtown on Commercial Street.”

“Her friend’s name is?”

“Jasmine Koch. They’re extremely close. Since elementary school, and I’d say Jasmine is probably Kita’s closest friend. Jasmine is freaking out. So is everyone else, and a lot of people in this town know Kita. But no one knows anything at all about what’s happened to her. This is so, so out of character.”

“Fill me in about what happened when Kita was last heard from.”

“I haven’t spoken to Jasmine in person. Just on the phone. But Jasmine says Kita came to the store at noon or just after. The group had a Christmas party planned for the evening, and Kita picked up something for it from Jasmine’s store. Then Kita left… she was alone… and that’s the last anyone can say they know…”

Gwen leaned forward and took Kari’s other hand. I thought she was going to crush it.

“Did Jasmine say where Kita was headed next?”

“No. Not specifically. But from what I’ve put together from phoning around… driving around… Kita had a few appointments, and I can’t say for sure if she made them. I didn’t know anything was wrong until yesterday afternoon. Then I tried calling, texting, emailing, messaging her website, but Kita didn’t answer. This is absolutely not like her. Kita has never done this before. She would never just take off and not leave a reason to not be available. She has so many contact forms, and she’s a very busy person. She needs to constantly keep in touch with people. Friends. Clients. Business associates. She would never, ever, up and disappear. It’s just beyond the limits of my imagination.”

“Sure sounds like something’s seriously wrong.” I spoke my thoughts, and it wasn’t good. Kari and Gwen went nearly hysterical.

Kari hugged her mother who was full-on vibrating. I gave them a few minutes. Then I asked a question that had to be asked. “Do you have any suspicions?”

Chapter Two — Monday, December 21st – 9:15 a.m.

Did Gwen Southern and Kari Lyons have any suspicions? Yes, they did. And to their admission, those suspicions made no sense. Looking back, they made no sense to me either. However, I’d learn as I investigated the Kita Southern file that a lot of things didn’t make a lot of sense. Especially things that went on in other people’s minds.

I’d been a detective for a long time. Probably too long, and I was nearing retirement. I’d seen a lot of things, and something I learned was never to assume things are as they first appear. I let Kari and Gwen tell me what they suspected.

——

“I don’t know how to say this.” Kari looked towards a taupe wall with non-descript artwork in the softly-lit room. “It’s Dan. He is acting… strange. Not himself. At all.”

“And who is Dan?”

Kari turned back to me. “Dan is Kita’s other. Kita’s life partner. They’re not officially married, but they’ve been together for nearly ten years. I… I can’t imagine Dan doing anything to harm Kita… but… there’s something wrong with the way he’s acting. Really wrong.”

“Dan’s last name is?”

“Porter. Dan… Daniel Porter.”

“So how is Dan acting that raises suspicions?”

Kari paused. She glanced at Gwen who nodded a go-ahead sign. “He… he seems worried on one hand. Like almost sick with worry. On the other, he says there’s no problem. He says Kita has just taken some soul time for herself, and everything is just fine. Well, it’s not fine…” Kari started to cry again which set Gwen off.

I let them vent. They were nearly cried out, and that could be a good thing. Venting helps a person focus once they’re all vented out.

Kari continued. “When I first couldn’t contact Kita, I phoned Dan. He didn’t answer, so I left a voice message then a few texts. I also phoned a few of Kita’s friends, and that set the alarm off. People called other people. It was obvious something was seriously wrong. Kita didn’t keep appointments. She didn’t respond to anyone else. She… she… vanished.”

“So did Dan contact you?”

“He did. After maybe two hours and then others were calling him, too.”

“And what did Dan say?”

“Dan said Kita was fine. Not to worry. That was yesterday afternoon. Maybe four or so. He said Kita needed time to herself and she was fine. I didn’t believe it.”

“Did Dan say where Kita was?”

“No. I asked him specifically. He said Kita didn’t want anyone contacting her for a while. I asked him how long. He was… evasive. He said he could pass messages on to her, but she didn’t want to talk to anyone or see anyone at the moment.”

“Did Dan say why she wanted… what did you call it? Soul time?”

“No. I tried to get him to explain, but he walled-up and told me not to worry. ‘Everything was fine,’ he said. I can’t believe that.”

“Has this happened before?”

Kari shook her head. “Never. This is absolutely not like her. Kita would never do anything like go away without telling anyone. She would know people… family… friends… clients… everyone would be really concerned without a good explanation. It makes no sense at all. Excuse my language, but it’s bullshit. Dan knows something. He’s not telling the truth.”

Gwen Southern spoke for the first time. She had an unusual voice. She reminded me of my mother, who was highly educated and articulate but with a peculiar way of pronouncing certain words like sawmon for salmon and toe-matt-toe for tomato.

“I have to say I can’t believe Daniel would ever do anything to harm Kita.” Gwen sat up. She leaned forward and into my space. “Something has happened between the two that I cannot remotely fathom. There has never been any conflict or discontent in their relationship. Daniel is a son to me.”

“Have you spoken to Daniel, Gwen?” I set down my pen and put my hand forward.

Gwen instinctively took it. “I have. Daniel gave me a story that Kita took a hideaway to finish a book. Kita is a writer, among the many things she does. Daniel told me… and he’s never spoken mistruth to me… that Kita had a deadline change and a manuscript rush to complete and be published before year’s end. There is truth to that. But there is no truth to Kita’s intentional lack of contact. Kita would not cut off communication with her family and friends.”

“Did Daniel tell you where Kita was?”

Gwen released her grasp. She reached for another Kleenex. “No. I asked him. He was… evasive. He told me not to worry. That Kita was under pressure. That Kita was fine. That she’d be home in a few days. Well before Christmas which is our main family event. This is the first time I’ve had reason to disbelieve Daniel. However, I have to say Daniel seems very worried himself.”

Kari offered something else. “Dan told Anita Jancovic a different story. He said Kita went on a vision quest. Dan told Anita that Kita had a card reading telling her to take an immediate break from life stress. Kita said… Dan said Kita said she needed to do a vision quest and excommunicate herself.”

“Anita Jancovic? Who’s she?”

“Another of Kita’s close friends. Anita was holding the Christmas party.”

I was getting confused. Soul time? Vision quest? Card reading? Writing deadline? Excommunicate herself? I paused to write the phrases in my notebook.

“So it seems there are two conflicting accounts coming from Dan—” I was going to paraphrase, but Kari cut me off.

“Three. Dan told me Kita wanted soul time. He told Anita that Kita had a troubling card read and went on a vision quest. He told Mom that Kita suddenly dropped everything to go and finish a book. I don’t buy any of it.”

“Okay.” I numbered my phrases with one, two, three, and four.”

“On the other hand… while this is completely out of normal for Kita… it’s also completely abnormal for Dan to act like this. Like I said, what’s happened is beyond the limits of my imagination.”

I leaned forward. “I’d like you folks to tell me more about Kita and Dan. What is going on in their lives and in their minds?”

What I was about to find out was beyond the limits of my imagination too.

——

Download Beyond The Limits — Book 7 in the Based-On-True-Crime Series by Garry Rodgers.

 

 

BETWEEN THE BIKERS — NEW BASED-ON-TRUE-CRIME BOOK RELEASE

Between The Bikers is the new release in my based-on-true-crime series. It’s Book #6 in a 12-part project that takes real cases and brings you, the reader, right inside actual criminal investigations with real cops and real crooks. I start each story with a warning about graphic content including gory scenes, sensitive techniques, and profane language. But that’s the real world of true crime. Here’s the online book description followed by the first two chapters of Between The Bikers.

Who had the most to gain by murdering a bad-ass biker—especially the powerful president of a Hells Angels Motorcycle Club chapter? The answer lies in Between The Bikers—Book 6 in the Based-On-True-Crime-Series by retired homicide detective and coroner, Garry Rodgers.

Mark Mitchell, aka Zeke, disappears on a Saturday afternoon just before a full-patch ceremony held between the bikers at a Hells Angels clubhouse on Vancouver Island in British Columbia at Canada’s west coast. The bikers are furious and the police are frantic to control an escalating mess that could lead to an all-out war within the Angels’ criminal organization. All fear a deadly underworld rift is about to explode.

While the bikers witch-hunt within their ranks and outside the law to ferret Zeke’s killers, the police urgently use every tactic and technique to solve the crime and contain the volatile gangsters. Wiretaps, surreptitious surveillance, clandestine operations, and highly-placed secret informants work through an unheard-of alliance between the bikers and their sworn enemies—the cops.

What happened to Zeke, and why, shocks both sides. The truth behind Mark Mitchell’s murder is something unmatched between the bikers who show the feared death head logo on their backs below the red-on-white words “Hells Angels”. It’s a truth known only by those with the most to gain—a truth that lies between the bikers.

——

Between The Bikers comes with a warning: This book is based on a true crime story. Explicit descriptions of crime scenes, factual dialogue, real forensic procedures, highly-sensitive sources and actual police investigation, interview, and interrogation techniques are portrayed. Some names, times, and locations have been changed for privacy concerns and commercial purposes.

This is the sixth story in the Based-On-True-Crime Series by Garry Rodgers. Other titles include In The Attic, Under The Ground, From The Shadows, Beside The Road, and On The Floor. Reviewers describe Rodgers’ story-telling style as a 21st century Joseph Wambaugh using Elmore Leonard dialogue with plot, pacing, and characterization in the flare of Fiona Barton and Paula Hawkins.

*   *   *

BETWEEN THE BIKERS

Chapter One — Monday, April 27th – 8:20 a.m.

“Zeke’s missing.” Harry clomped into our Serious Crimes Section. She plopped herself down in her desk chair. “Word is he’s been done in.”
“Well, if he’s been whacked…” I rolled back from my cubicle and smiled at my detective partner, Harry. “It’ll be between the bikers.”
“Yup.” Harry took a slurp from her stainless Starbucks mug. “I took a spin by the Hells Angels clubhouse. They’re swarming like ants on a fucking hill.”
“Your word… how good is it?” Harry had my full attention.
“Like, my word?” She smiled back. “Impeccable. Obviously, you know that.”
“No, shithead. Not your word. I meant, who’d you hear this from?”
Harry took another pull from her cup. She subconsciously looked from side to side. “Don Ransom at Drug Squad. His wiretaps and cameras are lit up like Times Square.”
“Okay.” I nodded and leaned in. “Something’s going on. Someone’s stuck a honey-coated stick in the ant pile.”
“I stopped by Drugs this morning about something else.” Harry lowered her voice. “The guys are working flat-out, interpreting audio intercepts and video surveillance. Looks like the HAs are preparing for all-out war with whoever hit Zeke. Don’s pretty sure Zeke’s dead and you know what that means.”
“Yeah.” I moved back. “We’re going to inherit Zeke’s fuckin’ mess.”
By “we”, I meant the detectives at Nanaimo Serious Crimes Section. And by “Zeke”, I meant Mark Mitchell, who was the president of the Nanaimo Hells Angels Motorcycle Club chapter. Zeke was Mark Mitchell’s nickname, and he was well known—very well known—to our police department.

Nanaimo is a small seaside city of a hundred thousand, set on the southeast side of Vancouver Island. It’s right across from the City of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada which is one of the most exotic, erotic, and expensive places in the world.
Although Nanaimo is cut off by water from the B.C. mainland, it takes on the same crime characteristics as a large metropolis. Nanaimo has its share of serious stuff like murders, rapes, robberies, extortions, arsons, loansharking, and money laundering. There are homeless and junkies begging on the street, and well-paid prostitutes doing their thing with high-profile clients behind closed doors.
Nanaimo has graft in the civic circles and grief at the street scene. Most grief is caused by addicts and mental cases that have no hope for treatment, never mind a chance at recovery. There are losers on welfare and gambling fanatics, thieves and tag-artists, as well as pot-growers and meth-cookers. And there’s a subculture that profits from bottom-feeders and contributes to nothing but trouble and tragedy—the bikers.

The Nanaimo Hells Angels chapter, or charter as the outlaw motorcycle club is sometimes called, had a regular complement of about thirteen guys. That was give or take a few that may have quit, got fired, been jailed, or suddenly disappeared, like what had happened to Zeke. And what happened to Zeke was unlike anything anyone in our Serious Crimes Section ever experienced.
Serious Crimes in Nanaimo was part of the police department’s support services that assisted the rank-and-file General Duty or Patrol division. Harry and I were a team of two assigned to investigate complicated and time-consuming files that patrol officers couldn’t stick with. There were other two-person teams as well as an overall detective boss, Staff Sergeant Leaky Lewis. Leaky also supervised Drug Squad, Forensics, Property Crimes, Street Crew, Sex Crimes, Commercial Crimes, and one poor prick plagued with mitigating frauds and bad plastic.
Harry, by the way, was not my partner’s real name. She was Sheryl Henderson, a large lady with large hair and an even larger personality. We called Sheryl “Harry” after the bigfoot or sasquatch in the movie Harry and The Hendersons.

“So what else did you find out at Drug Squad?” I’d stopped smiling. It quickly sunk in that, although Zeke’s loss would be the community’s gain, there would be hell to pay in fallout. Intrinsically, I knew—or thought I knew—that whatever happened to Mark Mitchell, aka Zeke, would be an issue between the bikers, and I knew that the biker mentality would not take this lying down.
Harry took another sip from her Starbucks cup, which was as tarnished and dented as a few parts of her career. “So, what Don Ransom tells me is that Zeke was last seen on Saturday afternoon. He’d been over to Vancouver to pick up some rings for a patch-over ceremony that was supposed to happen on Saturday night. He fell off the radar and hasn’t flown since.”
“Rings?”
“Yeah.” Harry examined her cup and picked at something caked on it. “Biker rings. You know those gold death head things that full-patches wear?”
“Oh, yeah. Biker rings.”
“They’re clunky and gaudy if you want my opinion.” Harry kept picking. “Anyway, they’re an initiation gift for someone who is accepted full-time into the club. So Zeke got the rings but hasn’t been heard from since.”
“Hey. Wait a minute.” I smiled again. “You mean he was last seen in Vancouver? He disappeared in Vancouver? Then it’s not our problem.”
Harry did the time-out sign. “No. Not so lucky there, Louie. Zeke made it back from Vancouver. His truck was found abandoned here. Beside the Harewood Arms pub. Locked. Keys gone. Zeke gone.”
“Fuuuck—”
Harry waved her finger. “You know the last-seen rule. He was last seen here in Nanaimo so that does make it our fucking problem. Wish it weren’t so, but it is so. We’re stuck with finding out what’s happened to Zeke.”
I wished it weren’t so, too. The last thing I needed as an old cop ready to retire was refereeing a ferocious fight between the bikers.

Chapter Two — Monday, April 27th – 8:50 a.m.

Leaky Lewis called Harry and me into his office. He closed the door and nudged us towards two wooden chairs in front of his solid oak desk. His blinds were shut tight, but his lights were on bright, giving the room sort of an unnerving feel.
That was far from the case when dealing with Leaky. As a boss, it was hard to find anyone fairer and, as a person, you couldn’t find anyone more approachable. I’d known Leaky since he was a new-hire in the Nanaimo police department. He’d quickly climbed the ladder and was now officially ranked as a Detective Staff Sergeant, making him my direct supervisor.
Almost all cops get nicknames. They’re usually earned from a play-on-words, or some career-haunting mishap. Leaky was Jim Lewis. He got the moniker because he suffered a chronic case of post-urinary drip.

“So something’s happened to Zeke, I hear.” Leaky looked at Harry and me with a neutral expression. “Where are we going to go with this?”
Harry and I hesitated to answer.
“This isn’t a trick question.” Leaky grinned. “Seriously. I want some input on how we’re going to handle this, ah, situation.”
“I’d like to say we do fuck-all.” I grinned back. “But… we all know that if someone’s offed Zeke, then someone’s going to pay for it and someone else is going to pay for that and we’re going to be into a full-on biker war. And I don’t want no part of that at this stage of my game.”
Leaky nodded and looked at Harry. “Your take?”
One thing about Harry, she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind.
“We got to get on this right away. I have no doubt he’s right.” Harry thumbed at me. “This could be a fucking blood bath if we don’t go right out and get in their faces.”
“Don Ransom told me he’s never heard the Angels talk so openly on their phones.” Leaky shuffled in his chair. “Don’s had them wired up for a long time… off and on… and he knows their pattern. He says they sound rattled. Confused. Trying to make sense of what’s going on. Don thinks the Nanaimo chapter really doesn’t know what’s happened. They’re scrambling for clues.”
Harry continued. “From what Don told me an hour ago, and what I saw when I drove past the clubhouse, I think the HA full-patches are going to start grabbing people here, there, and all over and muscle them for information. This thing will escalate real fast unless we show a lot of force, and right away. They have to know we’re not going to let them run the fucking show around here.”
Leaky nodded again. “Show of force? How do you see doing that?”
Harry already had a plan in her mind. “A big drive-by back and forth at the clubhouse. Setting up the command center mobile at the edge of their property. Leaving the cameras on twenty-four seven. Even hovering Air One on top of their fucking room. Let them know we’re not going to let a biker war start or we’ll bug-squash them.”
Leaky didn’t nod. “I’m not so sure… It might just agitate them even more. I think we should watch all right. But, I think we should rely on intel with sources already in place. Some intel is just starting to come in. Don called me just before you guys sat down and says he’s going to come here and talk in person. Let’s wait for what he has. What about the basics… like opening a file and deciding who’s going to coordinate this. After all, we don’t even have an official complaint.”
Harry shrugged. “The paperwork can wait. I say we get right out there and fly the flag before they decide to run away with biker law.”
Leaky stood up. It wasn’t like he was mad or upset, but more like he was starting to feel uncomfortable. “I’m also thinking of opening a communication channel. Like going right to the leader and simply asking him what’s going on.”
“Their leader is missing.” Harry made a good point. “Zeke is, was, whatever, the president. He has, or had, been for a long time.”
Leaky nodded again. “Fred Wallacott is the past-president. He’s been with the club since they were the 101 Knights and the Satan’s Angels. I’ve known Fred since college. Not that we were ever friends or buddies or anything. But I think I can talk to him.”
I spoke up. “I have a reasonable rapport with Fred Wallacott. Big Wally as they call him. It might be best if I talk to him in private… away from the club scene.”
Harry gave me a quizzical eye. “I didn’t know that. What’s your connection to Fred Wallacott?”
“I don’t go around advertising it, but we’ve gotten to know each other semi-socially over the years.”
Harry laughed. “You? Partying with the fucking Hells Angels?”
“No. Not partying. Our kids traveled in the same circles. Fred’s daughter and my daughter went to Highland dance classes and gymnastic classes together. Fred’s son and my son went to kickboxing lessons together. So I’d regularly run into Fred—two dads dropping off and picking up kids—and then I’d see him at events like graduations, competitions, and demonstrations.”
Harry stopped laughing. “You think you can actually talk to a fucking biker like one-on-one?”
“I know I can.”
“You’re serious about this?”
“Yeah. I know he’s big and intimidating and has this tough-guy biker persona. Deep down, Fred’s a reasonable guy. Actually—very well-read and informed. Tell you a funny story about Fred. He has a bunch of rental properties around town. Once, he had to serve an eviction notice and didn’t want to get into a violent situation where the guy could press charges against him. So, Fred came into the police station and asked for a plainclothes officer to stand by to keep the peace while he hangs paper on the tenant. We go over to Fred’s block. He knocks on the door. Guy opens it and refuses to take the notice so Fred takes out his Buck knife and jams it into the door, face-pinning the paper, and says, ‘Here. You’re fucking served’. Then we just left.”
Leaky and Harry laughed.
Leaky brought us back to the business at hand. “I know you’re rammy, Harry, and you want to show them our colors. And, you might be right about that. We can use that as plan B, but first I want to get as much info on this as possible. Looking at this objectively, we don’t even know if Zeke is dead. He might be abducted and held for some biker reason. For that matter, he might have even fucked off and faked his own disappearance.”
I agreed with Leaky. “Let’s take this a step at a time. Like, we don’t even have an official missing person complaint to start sticking our noses into. Let’s get our source intel and then do a back-channel move. After that, we can show all the muscle we want.”

There was a rap at the door. It opened. In came Don Ransom with breaking biker news.

Get the Between The Bikers eBook at:

 

BESIDE THE ROAD — NEW BASED-ON-TRUE-CRIME SERIES BOOK #4

Dead Men Do Tell Tales

New Book Release – June 2020 – by Garry Rodgers, DyingWords Digital & Print Media Canada

Warning! Beside The Road is based on a true crime story. It’s not embellished or abbreviated. Explicit descriptions of the crime scenes, factual dialogue, real forensic procedures, and actual police investigation, interview and interrogation techniques are portrayed. Some names, times and locations have been changed for privacy concerns and commercial purposes. 

Prologue

He lay beside the road. He lay beside the road as dawn’s first streaks smeared the eastern sky and the horizon’s weak rays cast frail shadows through early mist. Songbirds introduced the day—while an owl’s screech signed off the night—as he lay on his back in death’s putrid stench… discarded and dumped down a backwoods bank beside the road.

Light spread through the rural woods where a poorly-paved path cut a meandering trail high above him, shielding his corpse from passing view. The sun unhurriedly appeared. It evaporated the overnight dew that formed in early summer, and the temperature began to rise from a tolerable chill. Predictably, the sun climbed the cloudless sky towards another afternoon’s peak of uncomfortable heat.

By nine, the sun angle was right for direct beams to touch his torso through the picket-fence gaps in roadside trees vertically rising from the steeply-sloped bank. A stand of coastal Douglas fir, native to British Columbia’s central Vancouver Island, guarded his body while a canopy of Western red cedars sheltered his cadaver from the direct sear of mid-day heat. The forest floor was a pad of thorns and ferns and moss and sticks and leaves and sticky needles that slowly deteriorated along with him as part of the universal plan.

Hour by hour, as the world turned and time passed, intermittent sunlight radiated him into a zipper-like pattern. Low luminosity left a softening effect on his exposed skin while solar gain from higher scales scorched him with a dryness that turned his trunk zebra-striped in a way few deceased people present. He had a piano-key pattern and a rarity produced by alternating spectrums of electromagnetism.

Day by day, as the Earth evolved and entropy progressed, he became a unique specter—part putrefaction where light hit him low and part mummification where diffusing blows of afternoon rays parched his flesh.

He was clothed. Partly clothed, that is, with his feet in shoes and his privates in shorts. His singlet, or wife-beater muscle shirt, bunched about his upper chest. His head was bare and so were his arms. His hair was stringy strands of brownish sludge that trapped the decomposing flesh and fats flowing from his scalp. And, his left hand reached as if grasping for help while his right helplessly crooked behind his back.

His face was mostly exposed to the bone and his eyes were gone. His cranium sucked in the sunlight and left him with a bare-skull appearance where his teeth—a distinctly different dentition—gave a half-snarl and a half-sneer similar to a pirate’s ghastly flag.

He had a name. He once had a family, and he once kept some friends. He once had a childhood and he laughed and he played and he schooled and he fooled around like anyone passing through their youth and into their adulthood would. But, his life was extinguished and his consciousness had parted ways with his physical entity—his remains left on the slope beside the road to break down.

Now, he was a medical mess with nature’s creatures consuming his corpse. Insects cycled through their growth stages and carried on the continuous loop of evolution. Forest vermin feasted on their share of his disarticulating decay while circling birds apprehensively watched for their chance at a piece of the putrefied pie.

He had a past. He had a past not to be proud of that caused him to be in his present condition—a dead and discarded human body that lay in silent stink beside the road.

Chapter One — Tuesday, July 9th – 1:10 pm

Leaky Lewis sent me a text. body beside the road. prob foul play. can u attend?
I texted Leaky back. What road, ffs? There’s a thousand roads in this town.
Leaky replied. o sorry. nanaimo lakes rd. approx 6 mi west near gogos sawmill.
I typed. Helpful. Are you there now?
He responded. no. im in council meeting. thats why text and not call.
I returned. So who has the scene?
Leaky pecked. uniforms got it. forensics en route. i called coroner. she’ll meet u.

——

Leaky Lewis was my boss at our Serious Crimes Section. He was junior to me in service, but that was okay. I preferred investigating murders more than stretching budgets and scrambling resources like Leaky had to do. And, this case of the body beside the road stretched and scrambled our budget and resources to the max. We used almost every investigation tool and technique available before we finally solved the most baffling and bizarre homicide file of my long detective career.

Leaky’s name was Jim. Jim Lewis. He’s a great guy, but had a serious incontinence problem with post-urinary drip. That’s why the nickname. Leaky couldn’t venture far from the trough without Depends, but he made sure we had everything needed to do our job.

By “our” I mean the seven-person squad tasked with investigating violent persons offenses that happened around the Nanaimo area. We’re located on central Vancouver Island in British Columbia right across from the craziness and congestion of the City of Vancouver. Nanaimo has Canada’s mildest year-round weather. I’d been here on the southwest coast for years and had hit my best-before date. During that time, I’d seen a lot of serious crimes because Nanaimo had an extraordinarily high homicide rate.

Leaky looked after our entire plainclothes unit. Besides the Serious Crimes bunch, he supervised the Commercial Crime unit, Sex Offenses, Forensics, Drug Squad, and one poor prick plagued with frauds and bad plastic. Leaky also oversaw the secret squirrels in our intelligence branch and two notoriously bad-behaved boys on the Street Crew.

——

I pulled up to the crime scene on Nanaimo Lakes Road in my unmarked Explorer. Like Leaky texted, it was just over six miles west of the city limits near a small sawmill run by industrious Slavic immigrants called the Gogo family. There were two police cruisers parked on the right-hand shoulder, the north side, with their red and blues flashing. Two other vehicles sat along the shoulder. One was our forensic unit’s mobile shop. The other belonged to Global TV’s roaming cameraman.

A uniformed cop with a paddle-board stop sign directed traffic around the entourage. She pointed to the left lane and gave me a “get-going” motion. I didn’t recognize her. Likely a new recruit. I hit my grille lights and she startled. Then, she smiled and pointed to the steep bank beside the road.

I parked, got out, and walked toward the marked car at the front of the pack. Already I could smell it. It was that unforgettable stench—somewhere between reeking ammonia in ripe rotten eggs and the putrid aroma of deeply-decayed roadkill. It was the smell one never mistakes.

A senior officer guarded the scene. He’d been with the patrol division for a long time. The patrolman introduced me to the stop-sign gal. I was right, she was a brand-new hire.

“What’s happening?” I was matter-of-fact.

“Body down the bank.” The old harness bull thumbed to the thick stand of Douglas fir trees rooted to the slope and standing tall. Western red cedars loomed overhead. “Been there a while from the look and smell.”

“What do you think?” I stood at the edge. It was loose gravel beside the road’s crumbling pavement. I did not want to slip and take a tumble.

“At first I thought it was a deer.” He scrunched his nose. I could see the young officer kept her distance. “That’s what the guy who reported it thought, too. He was riding his bike up the grade and caught a whiff. So, he stopped and looked over and saw his dead deer wore running shoes.”

“Witness guy still around?” I looked about. The only civilian seemed to be the TV man rolling film.

“No.” The patrolman shook his head. “I got my cadet to take his statement. Gotta start somewhere, right? Then we sent him on his way.”

“Great, thanks.” I paused to look around and take in the scene.

It was bright sunshine and getting uncomfortably warm. The early afternoon sun was south-southwest and high enough to shine over the bank and flood its light on the slope. The site was at the leading edge of a tight left-hand bend, and the road was sharply inclined toward the west. It led to a double-S curve with a cautionary slow advisory sign—not the sort of place to safely pull off.

The traffic was light. A loaded logging truck approached and followed the young officer’s direction. It chugged up the grade and disappeared through the curve. A smaller silver SUV arrived. Instead of bypassing as the officer indicated, the SUV came to a stop behind my Explorer. I saw the new cop frown as the driver put it in park and shut off the engine.

I knew who it was. The door opened and a silver-haired lady with a silver clipboard matching her mane got out. Honey Phelps, our coroner, walked toward me.

“Hi, Honey. Imagine meeting you here.” I smiled. Honey. I love the name. It perfectly suited her. She’d been with the Coroners Service for years, and I’d worked with her at countless death scenes. She was always the consummate professional but with a black humor tinge.

“Is that you?’ Honey whiffed the air like a bear. “Or is that my client?”

“Probably a bit of both.” I chuckled. “I haven’t had a look yet. Waited for you to get here.”

“Looks like Forensics beat me.” She nodded toward the big rig that looked somewhere between a SWAT team’s truck and an indie rock band’s Winnebago.

“Yeah. I think they’re inside suiting up.” I motioned toward the Forensic Identification Section vehicle. “Let’s go have a chat with them.”

Honey looked at my Explorer and then at me. “You alone? No Harry today?”

I grinned. “Nope. I’m batching it. She’s tied up in a court case.” I referred to my usual partner, Sheryl Henderson who we called ‘Harry’ after the Bigfoot in the movie Harry and the Hendersons. Sheryl was a large lady with large hair and an even larger personality.

Honey and I walked up to the Forensics vehicle just as Sergeant Cheryl Hunter stepped down. Her understudy, Matt Halfyard, stayed inside. We called him Eighteen Inches.

Cheryl was dressed in her bunny suit. It’s the white Tyvek coveralls that CSI people constantly wear. I’m sure she slept in that thing.

“What do you think?” I asked Cheryl much the same thing I’d asked the senior patrolman. It was usually a pretty good opener.

“Not sure yet.” Cheryl had her digital Canon ready. Matt was loading a video camera. The first thing Forensics always do is film the scene before they enter it. That step was non-negotiable, and the guarding officers made sure no one went near the body before Forensics began their painstaking thorough task of recording the overall scene. Examining the body beside the road would follow.

“I’m not sure what to think.” Cheryl was always careful with opinions and cautious with conclusions. She was like all forensic examiners. They work with facts. Not fables. It was the nature of the beast.

“I haven’t been down to the body yet.” Cheryl looked to her left and over the bank. “It’s about twenty-five feet downslope and looks like it’s hung up against tree trunks. I have no idea if he… it looks like a he from the size and style of running shoes… that’s all I can really make out from here… if he was hit by a vehicle and sent flying over the bank or if he was driven out here and dumped.”

I looked around. The TV camera guy looked back through his viewfinder. “Doesn’t look like a suicide type of scene.”

Cheryl and Honey agreed. We’d all seen a lot of suicide scenes and this one didn’t fit. My gut feeling said dumpsite.

“Let’s just take this step-by-step till we see what we’ve got.” Cheryl was the voice of reason. “One thing’s for sure. This isn’t a recent scene. From what I can see above the shoes is bare-bones with putrefied flesh partly attached.”

“Been here a while, then.” Honey observed.

“Yeah.” Cheryl looked up at the sun. “But it doesn’t take long in this weather.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Honey smiled. “Let’s have a better look at who’s down there beside the road.”

*   *   *

Beside The Road — Book 4 in the Based-On-True-Crime Series by Garry Rodgers is just released  — June 2020 — and now downloadable from these leading EBook retailers: