CAREless – Chapter 1
Intro
Start reading CAREless, a dystopian detective novel set in a world where the apocalypse may already be unfolding unnoticed.
Chapter text
Terminal velocity.
My definition? The speed at which the sudden stop kills.
Thirty stories.
It’s a long way to fall. Thirty stories, each an interesting tale, but only one I want to know. The last one.
Herbie French, the forensics lead, estimated that Kalen Fitz reached seventy miles per hour on the way down.
The sudden stop for Kalen Fitz came just under five seconds into his fall. Maybe the longest seconds of his life. Maybe the shortest. He didn’t scream and didn’t live to tell the tale. He reached terminal velocity.
In a strange twist of fate, Fitz landed on my car—the aging Arizona beige metallic Crown Victoria police interceptor with the stiff suspension. Herbie reported that the impact busted the suspension, deformed the roof, and shattered the windows. All these things cushioned Fitz’s fall but didn’t change the outcome. My police standard hardtop was transformed into a convertible low-rider in a split second. It waits in front of Fitz’s high-dive platform, a burned-out office tower, for the wrecker to take it to the impound yard.
Wind whistles along the corridor of riot-damaged skyscrapers, scouring the car, my most valued possession—a hand-me-down from my father, Oscar, also a policeman. Broken glass glitters in the light of the setting sun, each a memory connected with my father. I salvaged Oscar’s logbook from the Crown Vic but found no clues on Kalen Fitz.
Fitz’s stolen sheriff’s uniform contained the accoutrements associated with a deputy, but nothing to reveal the motives of a committed serial killer. He described himself as a professional who took pride in his work. If only he’d studied accounting instead of surgery, I’d be arresting him for a white-collar crime. Or maybe he would have chosen police work or lawyering. It all comes down to choices. I want the answer to the biggest choice of all.
Why did he jump? The question haunts me. He had a story to tell but kept it to himself. Dancing on the fractured roof where Charlene Tilton-Jones hid, Fitz confessed to something terrible and then hinted at something worse:
“When the brave, fat man climbed into the van, I tapped on the closed cargo door. He transformed into the scared little girl again. I hid in the gap between the bulkhead and the first rack. The cargo light came on and he cracked the door. Seeing nothing, he flung open the door and charged down the aisle, screaming. I followed. When he turned around, I stabbed him. Game over.”
Body camera footage from the uniforms attempting Fitz’s arrest showed a man in control on a roof ledge, broken arm and head wound notwithstanding. Voices compete for clarity on the playback as demands for surrender merge with his confession. Kalen Fitz had a lot to answer for—kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, murder, and murder of a peace officer. The California penal code numbers tally in my head—207, 241c, 187, 190.2, 664 and on they go. They define what he did, but don’t explain why.
The scene plays out for me; the memory tainted by the stabbing pains from the wounds Fitz inflicted on me.
“You’re surrounded, Fitz. Get on the ground and let the nice men in the uniforms do their job.”
“Not so, Zalerian. I have a higher purpose. There’s always another way.”
“No way for you.”
Fitz, who hadn’t wasted his time with military intelligence, wanted recognition for his work and confessed to planning and executing the murder of Roman Putransky, the heavyset van driver with dreams of creating a bookmaking empire on the backs of the indigent residing at the county’s recreation camps. The clever trap Fitz set doomed Putransky. If it had ended with that—Fitz owning the crime and confessing, I could understand his leap into the great beyond. But surrounded and facing certain defeat, Fitz wanted me to know I hadn’t won. Fitz had killed Putransky. Someone else had ordered the hit. I hear Fitz laughing even now.
Enjoying this? Get the full novel here →
“He made enemies and died because he wanted to play a joke. He died because someone wanted what he had.”
“Enemies? What enemies? What did he have?”
Fitz laughed, hysterical. “What he doesn’t have.”
“What did you do with his heart?”
“You think it’s over. It’s only beginning.”
Beginning. The beginning of what? I can close the case on the assumption these were the ravings of a madman who took the hearts of his victims. But the facts don’t stack that way. Whatever Fitz’s mental state, he made rational choices to achieve his goals. The blow to his head opened his mouth. Maybe too much. Maybe he realized in his last moments his pride demanded recognition from someone who could appreciate what he’d done. He took the one step he could to stop himself from talking.
Another memory of those last minutes on the roof replays for me.
“Come on, Fitz. Take my heart. It’s what you do.”
“It’s not your heart I want, cop.”
“Whose, then?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know? You’re just in the way.”
My heart beats just like any other, but mine wasn’t good enough for him. Moments later, he drove a knife into my chest, intent on murder, not removing my heart. Maybe he didn’t have time. Police had surrounded the building. My partner Archie had foiled Fitz’s initial attempt to kill me at the cost of his own life. Fitz didn’t wait to make sure of Archie or me. He ran after Charlene once he stalled our advance by knifing Archie. So Fitz’s attention was focused elsewhere.
Fitz must have felt the time pressure. He wanted enough time with Charlene to get her heart. Otherwise, he could have killed her at any time. Fitz told me I was just an annoyance, an obstacle to his goal.
If I remove the time factor and the timely intervention by Lenny Smalls when Fitz made his second attempt on my life, I might have turned up like Herman Mullins—another of Fitz’s alleged victims—just a piece of flotsam on the way to the dump.
Fitz had plenty of time to play doctor with Herman Mullins. Once he removed the cadaver from the recreation camp, he couldn’t bring the corpse to the mortuary, so he dumped the body. Those facts make Fitz an opportunist, not a planner. If I factor in Herman’s brother Caleb’s assertion that Fitz killed Herman, Fitz becomes a planner again. Even if I don’t have the connection, I see the logic.
Fitz planned and committed the murder of Roman Putransky. He may have killed Herman Mullins. Without more information, I can’t pin Herman’s death on Fitz. But something tells me Fitz caused Herman’s fall into the crevasse. Caleb Mullins, religious visions and all, knew Herman well enough to know if his heart condition made him prone to falling. It hadn’t. That means, witness or not, someone pushed Herman. And the logic of it forces me to answer the question: Did Fitz kill Herman Mullins?
The captain’s under pressure to deliver results and solve crimes. The press has made a big deal about this case to get headlines and make people afraid. Fitz is the easy answer to a big problem. I can solve five open murder cases by pinning them on Fitz, six if I include my former partner. Fitz killed two for sure—Putransky in his van and Jane Doe when chasing Charlene from her apartment. Two out of the five victims who had their hearts removed. In homicide, batting four hundred makes you a failure. Three other heartless victims rest in the morgue without a clear connection to Fitz. I can’t pin them all on Fitz with what I know. The captain’s not going to like it.
Homicide investigations end when I find the murderer. That’s how it’s supposed to be. I have a confession from the killer on video and the corpse of the guy who took the fall. But I feel like I’ve just begun.
Fitz’s decision to jump off the roof stops me cold. Five people who never met in life, somehow connected in death. Fitz knew the answer. I don’t. Roman drove a van with a plan that involved the recreation camps. Herman lived in a camp. Charlene spent less than a day at a camp. Only one person remains of these three—the woman about whom I know nothing but have taken into my home.
Understanding the choices allows understanding of the killer. He kidnapped Charlene from Camp Alpha. He knew how to find her, knew she had protection, and knew something else about her I don’t. Him knowing has to be more than someone taking advantage of the disasters that have plagued the nation and devastated Los Angeles. Someone with access gave him that information.
Jane Doe’s murder was opportunistic. What does the prim waif Charlene Tilton-Jones share with the other victims with missing hearts—the larcenous, self-indulgent butterball Roman Putransky, the long-suffering consumptive Herman Mullins, and the two other known but unidentified victims?
Charlene’s image pushes the rest away. Fitz said she was different, special. Maybe it’s the obvious thing. She’s pretty. I know how she makes me feel. But I don’t know why Fitz wanted her alive long enough to take her heart. Out of money, out of luck, and almost out of time, she ran afoul of Kalen Fitz by accident. His well-planned termination of Roman Putransky went awry because Charlene stood at her kitchen window drinking coffee. She saw Fitz, but didn’t recognize him. He was just a surfer to her. A few seconds either way and Roman’s murder winds up in the stack of cold case files. Instead, Charlene called 911 and linked Fitz to the crime.
The questions bounce around my head. I have to follow the leads. Charlene lives. She didn’t recognize Fitz. But she lives with me now. And Fitz said the crimes were only beginning.