SLIPPING (A Maxine Jonas Crime Thriller Book 1) Read online

  SLIPPING

  Maxine Jonas Book One

  by

  J E A N I N E S P O O N E R

  Copyright © 2015

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part One

  “I went down to the river,

  I set down on the bank.

  I tried to think but couldn’t,

  So I jumped in and sank.”

  - Langston Hughes

  Chapter One

  Death mocks us all, but few people feel its weight like I do. I know it’s there watching me, keeping its eye on me, on all of us. We go about our very busy, very important lives, revel in our dramas, wrestle our demons as though all of this matters. And it does. But it will be taken away. It will end. We won’t have a choice in the matter. No one gets to choose when and how they die. Only death decides. It watches our every move, knowing all the while the moment it will claim us.

  I feel this fact most strongly in the moments before I fall asleep. It comes rushing through my mind, stripping away the clutter, the drama, the demons that plague me, announcing itself with such an impact that it’s impossible to ignore, like a revelation. Here I am again, I think. Another day lost, another day taken, behind me like fog swallowing the sea. And in that moment when the inescapable burden of understanding I’m one day closer to death hits me, I become strangely steady, riveted in a way, but also calm, terror and relief mix like oil in water.

  Or at least I used to feel these things. I have tricks for masking the overwhelming sensations. Tricks so complex, so covert that even I don’t know about them. Survival, for me, has taken on a life of its own.

  On the morning of February 12th I had no idea just how intricate life had become. I woke to the sharp ticks of sleet hitting my bedroom window like fingernails clawing at glass, a chilling reminder that death has its eye on me. My head was splitting and my mouth was so dry that my tongue felt like sandpaper, my gums like cotton, scratchy and thick.

  When I finally worked my eyes open, lids scraping with every blink, my first thought was that I have to stop doing this to myself. Long nights of drinking solved nothing. My second thought was an effort to recall how many bottles I had left in the cabinet. A fifth of vodka? An ounce of gin? My drunken self was usually considerate enough to leave a bit for the next morning, but I might have been desperate last night. I might have had no choice but to finish it all.

  My room was a dim haze of dread for the day to come. The air looked gray. The dresser drawers were ajar, clothes disheveled and spilling out. The closest door was off its hinges, set at a precarious angle against the chipped wall, unable to do its job and ashamed because of it. Like me, it had come undone.

  Getting to the kitchen was a merciless effort, but at least I was already dressed—boots on feet, gun in holster. It was one of the few advantages of passing out drunk. There was no need to fuss over what to wear, though showering would’ve been a nice touch. I didn’t have time to do much except put a pot of coffee on and hope the freezing rain would let up. It had been two brutal months of this, snow and sleet in assaultive alternation, as though the weather itself was trying to break me. Its chill seeped through the cracks in the windowpanes, dampened my bones, caused my muscles to ache, or maybe that was merely an echo to what the alcohol had done. I didn’t trouble myself to differentiate, as I poured a black cup of coffee. It occurred to me to splash a bit of vodka in it so I did, hair of the dog in all its glory, then I stood at the window, coffee steam wafting up and thawing my nose, competing with the cold that was rolling off the glass.

  Detroit was a miserable city.

  People didn’t move here. It wasn’t a town you chose, but the kind of place you got stuck. There was crime here. A lot of crime. That’s what drew me here and made me stay. Murder is all I care about.

  Across the street from my house a little boy waddled through the slush, galoshes splashing and his mother screaming after him. The kid, who didn’t look older than three, was a bundle of immobility, snowsuit dense and constricting, the Michelin Man taking one clumsy step after another. He wasn’t smiling, only studying the grim puddles with empty interest. I wondered if this was his moment of freedom wandering away from his mother who always seemed to be delirious with fury, irate over one thing or another. Whether it was or wasn’t, he was captured in an instant, mother yanking him backwards, her dingy rope flapping in the wind, pajama pants tucked without care into her rain boots, breasts flying loose under a moth-eaten tee, her eyes a piercing threat. Her life brought no satisfaction, and no one knew that better than the boy. These sorts of loud and unwarranted reprimands were a daily occurrence. I told myself if the father storms out, I’d call the cops. Part of me was waiting for the boy to turn up dead. That’s the kind of family they were.

  My judgments were interrupted by the landline’s first ring, which tore through my aching skull and caused me to wince, then shudder at who might be calling so early on a Thursday. I had a feeling I already knew, and quite frankly, I was in no rush to pick up.

  As the phone rang and rang, shrill and demanding, I generously topped off my coffee with liquid courage, preparing to face the conversation that would surely take place.

  “This is Max,” I said dryly, eyes glazing over, will to fight shutting down, all the while surprised at how gruff my voice sounded. I must have sucked down more than a few cigarettes on my bender last night as if the booze wasn’t damaging enough.

  “Maxine Jonas?” The woman on the other end said, politely urgent to have caught me.

  “Unfortunately,” I told her then waited for the inevitable to rain down on me worse than the sleet outside. I thought I heard her laugh nervously, or maybe that was a sighing exhale. My ears were buzzing so I couldn’t be sure.

  “I’m calling from the Karmanos Center—”

  “Yeah, I meant to send a check,” I interjected before she could tell me another bill was being added to the pile.

  “When did you send it?” She asked, indulging my dishonesty.

  I stammered uncomfortably for a moment, my voice like wind through reeds, as I considered how detailed I wanted this lie to get.

  “It’s been a real blur at the station this week,” I offered, hoping that would supply enough of an explanation.

  Then the call took a left turn into confrontation.

  “You’re three months behind,” she stated, tone dropping low like a warning. “Insurance only covers a portion, and your mother’s care has become...complicated.”

  “Complicated how?” I asked, hoping to veer away from the financials.

  She paused and I sensed she’d prefer not to elaborate. People who worked in billing were bad at delivering unsavory news.

  “I can’t say she’ll be with us much longer.”

  “I’ll swing by,” I told her.

  “When?” She asked over me and I could tell she was readying herself to anchor the conversation back into the murky waters of accounts receivable.
>
  “Today,” I said to get off the phone. “Give me a few hours.”

  “Mrs. Jonas, please remember your checkbook this time.”

  “Ms.” I corrected her.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m not married,” I clarified, having no idea why that was important. Maybe I needed her to feel wrong about something, so I wouldn’t be the only one.

  “My apologies,” she said, bewildered. “We’ll see you soon.”

  I hung up then downed my coffee, which was lukewarm, and wondered if I’d actually go to the hospital.

  My stomach flared with the burn of vodka, though it hadn’t reached my bloodstream, hadn’t yet soothed my limbs and calmed my mind in the way I craved, but I told myself relaxation was on the horizon, as I snugged a woolen skullcap over my head and threaded my arms through my bulky winter coat.

  If I had an umbrella, I would’ve grabbed it, but barring that one detail I left my house and made my heavy way up the sidewalk in search of my rusted Volvo, pressing my thumb on the car lock in hopes that its bleat would remind me where the hell I’d parked.

  I drove to the station with virtually no awareness I was doing so, entirely lost to yesterday’s milestone. I had turned forty. My pants came to mind, or really my thighs. Clothes fit a lot tighter than they used to, though I maintained I still looked good. The chocolate brown waves that framed my face complimented my features how they always had. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what women my age are left with, the assurance that nice hair will pull it all together. In my case, I knew it was true. Tits and nice hair. I could still get a man, though the darker the bar the better. These days I was sure to leave before the light of day could strike either of us, more for my benefit than the man’s. The last thing I needed was for reality to shatter my thrill. The man in the morning was never the hunk I thought I’d bedded. I’d learned that the hard way, hung over hands grasping sloppily for my breasts, murmurs about how I looked damn fine, me startled by the sobering reality that my date, on the other hand, did not, and me struggling to find my clothes without insulting him. I would stagger home, cloaked in the psychopathy of a killer I couldn’t catch.

  Before I could let myself walk into the 12th Precinct, I angled the rearview mirror down and assessed my appearance. The dark circles under my eyes weren’t worse than usual, but the smeared mascara was, so I made a decent effort to smudge the black lines back into shape, ran berry lipstick over my mouth to draw a more flattering shape than I’d been born with, and then popped a stick of mint gum into my mouth.

  At long last the vodka was doing its job, not that I wanted my lieutenant to know that. His suspicions were enough.

  “Jonas,” he barked the second I got to my desk. I hadn’t even draped my winter coat over the back of my chair yet. “My office.”

  When I’d first met Wendall Carter twelve years ago after being transferred to homicide and subsequently rescued from the horrors of undercover work busting Johns for solicitation in the red-light district, I actually thought he was a perp. Blood was gushing from my nose despite a doctor’s best effort to revert the attack of a coked-up pimp. The tight red dress I wore was strangely stained with redder droplets, the marks of my slow recovery. I felt the need to sit on a bench just inside the station house to collect myself before I reported the incident to my sergeant, but a mountainous black man, whose steely gaze seemed to both judge me and drink in the sight was already occupying the bench. He sensed my hesitation to share a bench with him then snorted a disapproving laugh. I told him to go fuck himself, though the words came quiet, under my breath, and it was then that I realized he was wearing a suit, resume in hand, holster bulge at his ribs, badge on his hip.

  He was hired that day, and let’s just say my climb to the middle of the ladder would’ve been a lot faster had we not had that mildly racist, mildly sexist exchange that left both us of bizarrely in the wrong.

  Lieutenant Carter shut his office door, quarantined my tipsy ass inside with him then rounded his desk and took a seat. I didn’t feel the need to sit, so I stood anxious to hear what I’d done this time.

  “You’re suspended,” he said, no pretense, effortless candor, thick lips curling at the corners as though he was pleased to tell me.

  “Why?” I knew why. My current case had bottlenecked into a royal fuckup, and I’d done little to correct the mounting errors unless you count drinking as a solution.

  “You can read the review,” he offered, knowing full well I wouldn’t take the time, then he ordered me to sit down.

  I did, grateful to land squarely. I’d added a bit too much booze to my coffee and the outcome of following his order could’ve been a lot different.

  He leaned forward and glared into my eyes, studying how clear or cloudy they were, I imagined. I narrowed my gaze, determined not to let him ask me if I’d been drinking.

  “We’re going to call it a leave of absence,” he said, coaching me on how to frame the situation if and when my partner asked. “You can’t work this case, so don’t fight me on it.”

  “How long?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around how I might handle having nothing to do.

  “Two weeks,” he stated. “Then we’ll have a review. See where you’re at.”

  “Where should I be?” I asked. I meant for it to sound like a challenge, but in fact I was genuinely curious. Did he think two weeks was enough time to twist my head on straight?

  “Sober,” he stated, though I caught him wincing. It gave me some solace to know sending me home pained him.

  I was about to argue that in the world of alcoholism, two weeks wouldn’t garnish much of a transformation, but I wasn’t about to confirm the accusation.

  “Max, you haven’t taken so much as a day off in the past two years. You got shot last summer and never dealt with it. You got butchered on the stand last fall and it left you bitter. And you’ve been getting careless in your police work because of it. Johnston got jumped last week and you could’ve intervened, but you’d slipped off to do God knows what. You’re slipping and I’m not going to let you hit rock bottom, not here at least, not on the job where you’re putting yourself and others at risk.”

  I thought he’d go on, really drive the point home with an elaborate lecture, but Carter left it at that. I almost wished he hadn’t. When his words washed over me the task of listening was distraction enough, but now that he’d fallen silent, I had no choice but to swallow the truth of it all.

  My stomach churned like claws threatening to rip me open. All I could say was, “OK.”

  “Use the time, Maxine,” he said, tone softening as though he cared. Did he? No one around here seemed to acknowledge they were working with people. Everyone was a fact bucket, vessels to pull information out of. We didn’t talk to each other as though we had human affect. For the most part, that’s what I liked about being here.

  “Go to a meeting,” he went on. “For fuck’s sake, go visit your mother. The woman’s dying and you haven’t faced that either.”

  “We done here?” I asked, turning hard so he’d get the hint to back off my personal affairs.

  “Almost,” he said. “Give me your gun and your badge.”

  I’d be less stunned if he’d punched me in the face. I actually felt my mouth drift open, teeth separating that were usually clenched tight.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he told me, eyes dropping somewhere in the region of my lap. “I told you you’re suspended. This is protocol. Don’t act like I’m not doing you a favor.”

  “A favor?” I blurted out, astonished.

  “Calling this a leave of absence, keeping it quiet,” he reminded me.

  I stood, anger welling up inside me, mouth twisting into an uncontrollable grimace, and then removed my badge from my hip, set it on the desk, as he watched, saddened by the performance. I unzipped my coat, grasped my gun, and set it beside the badge, staring daggers at him with every deposit.

  When I reached the door he said, “You’re a good de
tective. Stop sabotaging yourself.”

  I would’ve turned to glare at him further, but he didn’t deserve it. He was right on both counts and I hated him for it. I hated myself more, though. I’d been an expert at functioning no matter how hard I hit the bottle, but for some reason this winter it'd finally caught up to me. The skills I’d developed managing the addiction over the past twenty-five years had crumbled and the demon was loose; demons and drama and death as harrowing now as they’d been in those moments I’d been delicately lured to sleep as a little girl. Terrified and relieved.

  It always boiled down to that.

  I didn’t bother zipping up my coat when I stepped back out into the horrendous weather. Sleet shredded through my sweater and stung my face, but I welcomed it. It was refreshing in a way, brought me back into my senses, though all that really accomplished was bringing to mind how badly I’d like a nip.

  Go to a meeting.

  The suggestion weighed on me. When had I ever gone to a meeting? I pictured Lieutenant Carter smiling proudly, me handing him a pile of chips, them spilling over his desk, clinking down, the rain of my sobriety, me telling stories about how hard it was, how grateful I am that he pushed me. As the scene played out in my head, I felt instantly bad for the guy. Cleaning myself up wouldn’t be so easy, and that fact wasn’t made better by the heavy reality that underneath it all I just plain didn’t want to.

  Fuck him.

  “Shit, Max, you’re sopping.”

  I’d nearly reached my Volvo when my partner, Trav Johnston, stopped me, pointing out how my clothes had absorbed the freezing rain like I gave a shit. I turned, however, allowing him to address me further. I had time, obviously.

  “Let me walk you in,” he offered, angling a large umbrella over my head with consideration to his own welfare.

  He stepped in close, invading my personal space so we’d both fit under the thing.

  “I’m not going in, thanks,” I said, glancing up at him and his big, lonely brown eyes.