David Chacko excites and involves the reader as he draws them deeper into a magnificent tale of murder and suspense. He possesses a unique talent for creating believable characters and an enthralling story line to keep any readers of this book glued to its pages until the end.
I recommend this novel to all lovers of the crime genre for a breathtaking read of amazing flair and creativity.
Reviewed by Carrie White
Dawn on the IntraCoastal Waterway. This is what Adam Templeton would like to see every morning but too often comes at from the back end of the night.
Pine County has good things like this and one of the highest crime rates in the country. What Detective Sergeant Templeton does not expect is that the sandy soil will erupt in a sinkhole and a woman's body will appear in the rubble. An Act of God, his partner says.
In the end, after all the leads are followed and all the lies are discarded and all the dying is done, it will come to seem like that. Like the very back end of the night.
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The long chase culminates at an impregnable compound on the edge of the sea with the violent act of a messianic man.
A LONG WAY FROM EDEN
Copyright 2001 David J. Chacko.
From Chapter 1--After the body is found:
“You’re going to put her face on milk cartons, is that it?”
Templeton kept his eyes on the road, where traffic was fierce, dangerous, normal. He usually drove the Crown Vic because it was better than what his partner did in the name of expedience, and those other things, like the love of speed and domination of a slave machine, that found so many Good Ole Boys an early grave.
“We’ll get her image enhanced and hang it all over. Something’ll show.”
“Do the milk cartons,” said Joe. “It’s a better bet. This bottle-blonde in Berea, Kentucky, she sits her fat ass down at the breakfast nook, she pours, she spoons in the Honey-Oats so good for her cholesterol, she looks up and says, ‘Harriet Lee! Praise the Lord if that ain’t you on my two percent’!”
“Can I trust you to run the description through Missing Persons?”
“What description?”
“Female, twenties, brown hair, blue eyes.”
“That’ll narrow it down to a few thousand,” he said. “Now do you want to tell me why you don’t trust me at the keyboard?”
“The money,” said Templeton.
“Two bills?” he said. “You think I’d fuck you over for two bills?”
“I don’t know the pressure you’re under.”
Joe did not speak for a mile until they stopped at a light on Merriwether. This morning, he had entered the captain’s office for a meeting with two other detectives and a steno- grapher. Templeton had not known that much from his partner, who said nothing very well. The information came from the captain’s secretary, who told him that was all she knew. The stenographer said that was all she knew. Everyone was lying.
“Internal’s looking at me,” said Joe as they pulled out from the light.
“Do they like what they see?”
“What’s not to like? They know I had trouble with that paternity thing, so they come down on me when this whacked-out teen-queen tells them I did her, too.”
“What whacked-out teen-queen?”
“She lives in Port Martha. Allegedly, I met her whilst canvassing on that shotgun thing.”
“That’s why they didn’t call me for a statement.”
“Right. You were in Tallahassee. I was with BallBuster.”
“Sergeant Hogan.”
“BallBuster.”
“He corroborated the girl’s statement.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“You must have made an impression.”
“He thought so.”
“How about her?”
“Beverly Apfel says I spirited her away to my condo. After that, it was one long debauch. It seems I plied her with alcohol. Which she never had in her life.”
“Did you?”
“You should ask me if I have ever in my life seen anyone take a bottle of Wild Turkey by the neck and chugalug it. And wipe the back of her hand across her mouth like John Wayne.”
Templeton took his eyes from the road and looked at Joe, a foolhardy act in this traffic. “So you don’t remember.”
“What I did, Adam, was clean her up when she stopped puking. The discovery that she was traumatized didn’t come until the next day at home. Then there was a lot of non-stop melodrama for a girl who looks five years older than she seems to be.”
“What’s her birth certificate say?”
“There’s a lack of documentation. They say sixteen, but up in Cob Creek, West Virginia nobody keeps records of unnatural births.”
“A minor. A felony.”
“They’re going by her grade in school, Adam. They’re not counting the three or four she repeated.”
“That should be checked out.”
“Nobody’s got it on their agenda. They’re too busy being self-righteous. Hell, she isn’t even in school any more. She quit and went straight to hard-core porn. I just wish I wasn’t so broke. I’d hire a PI.”
“Have you been charged?”
“Would I be here if I was?”
No, but that could be the system. The investigation. The department would be careful not to violate his rights.
“What about the parents?”
“We’re not talking parents. She’s in foster care. There’s five girls running around that house. And I mean running. These people, it’s a business with them. They collect checks from the county, the state. The female head of household’s a lush that got thrown out of AA for telling lies. The male plays a hundred sets of numbers every week in the lottery, which is exactly what I am to him. This is a set-up, Adam. They saw me coming.”
“And you walked right into it.”
“I fell,” he said. “She called me at my desk. Said she had information she couldn’t give out over the phone. That--and some other things. What she did--or tried to do before she starts heaving--isn’t even sex. You don’t believe me, leaf through some old Congressional Records. Impeachment Proceedings. I’m telling you, it just doesn’t pay to be an alpha male these days.”
The leader of the pack. They had been partners three years. Joe was the best cop on the scent that Templeton, in six years up north and seven here, had known. The problem was that the scent could be confused by any woman under the age of thirty. Still, that was not a crime unless it was a crime. Templeton did not think Joe lied about the facts. Exaggerated, yes. That was his nature, if anything was.
“What’s your lawyer say?”
“What do you think? He’s confident. Shit, I think he’s happy. Wasn’t for me, he’d be dipping his hand into some old lady’s trust to make his nut.”
Lawyers were always confident until the pressure began to mount. Then their fancy turned to the art of the deal. Templeton couldn’t decide what he felt about that.
“Did I ever tell you what I think of your hobby?”
“Don’t,” said Joe. “This has nothing to do with the job.”
But it would. Templeton had to think that his partner could be pulled from the case any time. That meant a mess. What he could count on from someone like Hogan was effort. What he got from Joe was more than he would have from anyone else.
“The bet’s off.”
“What?”
“The two hundred,” said Templeton as he pulled into the back of headquarters building. “You can’t afford to lose.”