The Arrest in
MANNEQUIN ROW

by Kit Daven

FIRST EDITION

Copyright © 2020 by Kit Daven, Eager Eye Books

All right reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher. For permission, contact words@kitdaven.com.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

Cover & Interior Design by Kit Daven.

Photograph: Lawrson Pinson courtesy of Unsplash.com

ISBN: 978-1-9993873-7-2

ISBN: 978-1-9993873-6-5 (ebook)

Contents

The Arrest in Mannequin Row - Sample

Dedication & Acknowledgments

About the Author

Chapter 1

Another wave swelled from beneath the restless water. It rushed along, failing to come to a frothy peak like the others that had started farther out on the lake. It didn’t even make a splash before it died down and disappeared below the old hull of the anchored lobster boat. Jule saw in the wave her own defeat—intention not yet fulfilled. She huffed in a long drawn out way, finally fed up with waiting.

Waiting for the rocking of The Jiminy to calm her, the way it usually did. Instead, she grew more irritated as time went on. She’d been out on The Torrence for over two hours already, leaning against the helm of the bulkhead, stripped down to her bikini and ready to slide into her diving gear at the first glimpse of Lacey’s Sea-Doo.

Waiting for that sliver of silver-black to cut through the choppy waters. Waiting for Lacey to climb aboard, her windswept, sun-bleached blond hair blowing about her panicked baby blues, her voice breathless as she acknowledged being late: “I couldn’t help it, girl. Don’t be mad.”

They’d met as teenagers, and for the past decade, Lacey got nowhere on time. Jule often waited, sometimes as long as half an hour or more, and she’d learned to accept it. This time, two hours had gone by, and she wished, just this one time, Lacey could have been here when she said she would.

Jule gazed at the fleet of triangles that dotted the far end of the lake, but they didn’t hold her interest the way the wide, open, untouchable sky did. Sweeping wisps of clouds and birds promised her mind a reprieve from the inner chatter—Where are you, Lace? What are you up to? C’mon girl! This is important!

Today, only one thing mattered. It hadn’t come to pass yet. She was on the verge of getting started on it, her muscles tense with anticipation, but now impatience started rubbing her raw, putting her on edge. She caught herself holding her breath as every sound grated on her nerves. The steady whoosh of the wind. The strangled-sounding cries from the gulls above. The slap of waves against the boat, followed by galurps and sucking noises as they peeled away.

Then there was The Jiminy. It was as cute as a bug but cranky as an old goat, and it creaked and groaned. Although there were better boats to dive from, this one was the first Jule had ever bought, allowing her to explore farther out from the shore in the middle of the lake. Any other day, as far as she was concerned, the boat could groan all it wanted. But today?

“Damn it!”

Jule gave the helm a slap with her right hand. Her wrist briefly throbbed, reminding her it had been broken once. She knocked the radio by accident, one of those old kinds with dials and an antenna that picked up a few of the bigger stations still broadcasting analog signals.

It blared alive, snap-crackling into the middle of a Western pop song. The signal cut in and out, clipping words here and there, giving the song a haunting techno feel. Jule half-smiled and mumbled, “That’s sounds so… disco.” As the last few bars played, the twang of the music made her teeth ache and drilled away the last of her amusement.

A glance at the clock on the helm indicated a morning news segment would soon follow. For the briefest of moments, hope lifted her mood. And she waited. This time, to hear Edgeport’s foremost journalist, Annie Morrowitz. The Angel of the Airwaves, as Jule liked to call her.

Annie was divine. She could report on the intensity of the morning sun, on the significance of its reflection in the The Jiminy’s cracked teal enamel paint, all the while making you believe that both the sun and the boat had dreams and aspirations, failings and misgivings, and perhaps, quite possibly, souls.

Jule kept the radio on. Waiting for Annie’s firm, no-nonsense voice to be the salve to soothe her nerves.

“Welcome to the Morning Report—snap—I’m Annie Morrowitz updating you on the latest events in our fair City of Edgeport—crackle—First in the news—hiss—several members of Lower East End’s drug gang the Midnight Boyz have been arrested—pop—trafficking cocaine at the clubs and dance halls—”

“The Midnight Boyz? No way!”

Jule smacked the front of the radio again. Her wrist didn’t hurt this time as the reception cleared up. Annie sounded closer, as though she stood in the boat, leaning against the side of the standing shelter, chirping in her ear, keeping Jule company like she’d done so many times over the years.

“Thanks to the continued presence of the ECP patrolling the Lower East End, the investigative efforts made by Detectives Cody McDuff and Arthur Warren have truly sent the drug trafficking underworld into turmoil. The Detectives are closer than ever to finding the whereabouts of other gang members, including their leader, the ever-evasive Adrian Lynch, who may be connected to the Irish mafia.”

Jule gently smiled at the mention of Arthur. For the first time that morning, she enjoyed a moment of respite. She desperately wanted to call Arthur late last night, ask him out for coffee so she could tell him what she had planned, to see his sad, broody eyes widen with surprise, to hear what he had to say about—what she sometimes fantasized about—her plan for revenge.

She imagined him saying something like, “Ah, Jule, what’s with these impulses of yours? You can’t keep letting these guys get to you.” Then he’d talk like he was quoting someone important and say something poignant, like, “Hatred is the death of the soul.”

Afterwards, Arthur would usually laugh at himself. Smile a crinkly smile. Though lately, once he’d said what he needed to, he’d stare into the depths of his coffee, his wide mouth downturned, making her think he was talking about himself.

He’d always been an upbeat guy, but this last year, something had changed. In fact, lately he seemed downright worn out. Hearing news of the arrests, she imagined Arthur had plenty to smile about now. And it explained why she hadn’t seen him since last week or shown up for lunch yesterday.

“Stood me up for some thugs, eh? Well… I can’t stay mad at you about that, can I? You’ve worked hard for it.”

She’d been hearing about the Midnight Boyz in the East End from Arthur during their lunches together for months now, usually not anything more than what the news reported. Occasionally, he’d let some little detail slip, one that she hadn’t heard or read about. That’s how she’d found out Adrian Lynch liked to be called hate-trian by his Boyz and that when the Boyz wanted to get rid of somebody, they made sure no one would ever find their bodies.

Arthur wouldn’t tell her how he knew any of this or who their undercover agents were; he’d only tell her to stay away from the night scene down by The Docks, especially Club Z, which wasn’t much more than an old warehouse with a security door for an entrance. Snowblowers liked to hang around outside. Not much allure there. At least, that’s what she’d told Arthur.

She mostly listened to his advice, more so now than when she was underage, but she had to check out Club Z at least twice, take in its rave-y neon interior tinged by a grungy film no amount of bleach could ever scrub off. Its high energy beats—trance, house techno and even neo-disco ran on repeat. The drinks were watered down, and the few good-looking guys were usually too strung out on who knows what to be any fun.

Yup, Club Z was a cesspool. The lowest of the low hung out there. And if what Annie said was true, it might finally get shut down once and for all. Maybe then Arthur could get a good night sleep and get back to his old self.

Annie had more to say: “Joining me right now is Detective Cody McDuff.”

Ugh, why him? Why don’t you ever interview Arthur?

“Detective, this city thanks you and your partner’s ever vigilant dedication to cleaning up our city’s Lower East End. I understand you are on the verge of a breakthrough in this case, yes? I know discussing certain details could set you back, so why don’t you tell our listeners where you find the drive and perseverance to keep fighting for the welfare of this city.”

“Well, Annie, I have to give credit to my ma, you know. She’s a shining star in my life, she is. I don’t think everyone can say that about their ma. Not everyone’s got, uh, family, you know. That’s a… that’s a real shame.”

Jule grunted at the sound of McDuff’s voice: Smarmy. Arrogant. Condescending. Her skin prickled, and she shivered as a memory about him bubbled up from nowhere like a sore. She knew if she let it come to a head, its infection would spoil her mood for the entire upcoming week.

She peeled herself from the bulkhead and ducked out from beneath the shelter. The sunlight warmed her flesh, burning away the poison of him trying to seep into her mind. She focused instead on the shore.

Farther down this side of the lake, she made out the familiar white dot of a building—The Siren Marina Club. It looked small from this distance, its docks like stubby fingers compared to the long spindly industrial docks a little farther down. The Siren was her home away from home, at least in the evenings.

Snap, crackle, fizz…

Only noise through the radio now. Static echoed in her mind. For a moment she heard them, the patrons of The Siren from the night before, jabbering on about a hundred different topics—the water on the lake, the weather, the latest on the news—all coming through the radio.

“Did you hear, Jule?” Lacey bent over her fourth vodka and tonic at the bar, not a care in the world. “Something’s going down at Club Z. Police cars lined down the street forever. Wonder what’s going on? Did Arthur say anything to you? Anything at all?”

“It’s a raid. I’d bet money on it.” Gale spoke this time. The bartender. Forty-something with chiselled cheeks and a dusting of white hair at his temples, who liked to lean against the bar into your personal space. He was handsome and charming, so most people didn’t mind that he stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong, not even the Yis, the middle-aged Korean couple down at the far end of the bar.

Jinny Yi started in on her husband, Sammie. “You don’t tell me when I have enough. I tell you.” She slammed the bar with her hand, nearly slipped off the stool. “Gale! Gale! Another rum n’ coke.”

Beside her, Sammie forced himself into a smile that came across like a beaten down, embarrassed-looking grimace, wrinkling his gently bearded face, making him appear older.

Gale straightened up. “Mrs. Yi, I think it’s time to call it a night.”

Jinny held up a pudgy hand, her round cheeks flushed. “Nooo, juss one moore. And call me Jinny.” She giggled. But Gale still refused to serve her. For the rest of the night, when Sammie wasn’t looking, she took a sip of his beer.

Crackle, hiss...

At the other end of the bar, two older men with rounding bellies and black thinning hair sidled up near the beer taps and ordered the most expensive whiskey in the place. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Not their actual names, but Jule preferred to call them that.

They whispered to one another in an agitated fever.

The hairs on Jule’s arms prickled. The two of them were usually a silent, undivided force with a reputation for making a lot of money on the finds from their dives. No one knew where they got their leads, but she knew when they talked in hushes that usually meant they were discussing one.

She turned her head away, closed her eyes, listened more intently, filtering out the clink of glasses, the hum of conversation at the dining tables, the clunk and clatter of billiard balls being set up in the game room.

“No, anywhere but there.” Tweedle Dum sounded insistent.

“Let’s do it tomorrow.”

“No! I don’t care what’s at James Cove!” More resistance from Dum.

“Keep it down! Someone might…”

Jule didn’t hear what Dee said next, but she understood what he meant. The Tweedles had found what divers at The Siren liked to call fresh trash. That meant they’d caught wind of something unusual that had been dumped or seen in the water, possibly the kind of find that brought in big money, no surprise there. What did surprise her was that they fought about it. That was a first.

Snap, pop...

“C’mon Lace, we can beat the Tweedles to a dive for once?”

“Mmm, I dunno…” Lacey rubbed her stomach. “But it’s at James Cove.”

“Shhh! That’s why I need you with me. Marina rules, right? No one’s supposed to dive there alone.”

“Because it’s dangerous, Jule. And it’s creepy. People used to live there.” Lacey’s stomach growled.

“What if I buy you dinner?”

Click.

Jule turned off the radio. Every second Lacey wasted put their plan in jeopardy. They’d agreed to leave the marina in separate boats; that way no one, especially the Tweedles, might suspect they were out doing a dive. And they made sure to hide their diving gear. Jule’s was packed away in a duffle bag at the far end of the boat.

The plan was a good one, yet Jule waited. For Lacey, who’d sobered up enough and said she’d do the dive; who’d agreed to be here bright and early to beat the Tweedles at their own game for once. For the Tweedles to show up and tell her to shove off. For the wind to blow more fiercely, urging her back to shore, forcing her to do the dive another day.

But morning was nearly over now, and Jule finally admitted to herself that Lacey wasn’t coming. Fear had gotten the best of her friend. As for Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, they should have come by now, too. They usually dove early in the morning, unless they thought because no one came out to James Cove, maybe this time they could do the dive anytime they wanted. Maybe Dum needed more convincing.

Jule let out a shaky breath. Rooted to The Jiminy, she dipped and swayed with the gentle rocking of the boat, trying to figure out what she should do next. She balled her hand and struck the side of the helm, this time far from the radio. A little too hard this time. Her wrist ached again.

“Damn it!”

Dedication

To my loving husband,

You’re my rock when the seas turn stormy.

Acknowledgments

The writing of The Arrest in Mannequin Row is a story in itself, from its earliest days as a short story to when it grew into a novelette, which I submitted to Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Magazine. After being rejected, the story sat for about a year and a half before I dusted it off and gave it a read, only to realize that it was a hot mess. Since then, the story underwent two more extensive revisions.

A lot of people have helped and watched the evolution of this story into what it is today, beginning with its early readers: Sean Chappell, Donna Stewart, and Jen Frankel.

If not for the professional experience of Sèphera Girón, my editor, I may not have gone back into the story and opened it up a bit more, letting it grow into the novella it should have been all along.

An additional thank you to Jen Frankel for discussing the finer points of writing and encouraging me to experiment with point of view and tone.

To my writing group for hashing out and discussing overdone tropes that might have gotten me a bit of flack from some readers.

And a deep appreciation to readers who graciously donated funds toward the cost of publishing the print edition: Donna & Ronald Jones, Russell & Cheryl Gehue, Bill Lewis, and Gary Russell. Thank you so much!

About the Author

Kit Daven is the author of the otherworldly demon-infused sci-fantasy series, A Xiinisi Trilogy, which includes The Forgotten Gemstone, The Other Castle, and The Starry Rise. She has also written supernatural thrillers / horror stories, Spider Spun and The Cannibal’s Handbook. Kit loves to dabble in art and is currently exploring graphic design. In her down time, she loves to read, watch movies, go for walks, and spend time with her husband and two cats. She currently resides in Cambridge, Ontario.

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