Free Collision Course (A Josh Williams Novel) by Joe Broadmeadow

young, white, male, perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two years-old. He was lying face down, the left arm curled underneath the body, the right arm extended with the hand clutching a four-inch locking blade knife. The body surrounded by a pool of blood in various stages of coagulation. The body appeared intact with the exception of an approximately baseball sized exit wound just below the shoulder blade. The wound was asymmetrical, with various tissues, rib fragments, and viscera evident.
    There was assorted tissue and blood spatter on the floor, display counters, and wall behind the victim. Pereira shot the last of the initial video and motioned for Mooney to start collecting the evidence.
    While the BCI detectives worked inside, Straphanger Jones sufficiently recovered, or run out of undigested food, to make himself useful. As he walked around the front of the store, he saw the blue dust mask lying next to the dumpster. His initial reaction was to ignore it, but then it occurred to him it seemed an odd place for such an item.
    Opening the cover of the dumpster, he peered inside. As he looked over the edge, Lt. Pereira came out of the store to get some additional equipment. Jones looked into the dumpster, saw a barrel of a shotgun pointed up in his general direction, and screamed. He dove to the ground, directly into the various piles of vomit he so fortuitously placed there.
    Pereira, intrigued by this, walked over to capture the still screaming Jones on video.
    "He's in there, he's in there." Jones was yelling. "He pointed the shotgun at me." Swimming vigorously toward Taunton Avenue.
    Pereira lifted the cover on the dumpster, saw a shotgun absent a critical component for being considered imminently dangerous, namely a person with a trigger finger. He continued to video Jones while trying to think of the most appropriate soundtrack to select for what was sure to be a sensation at the next cop party.
     

Chapter 19:      All the Right Things
     
    The next few hours were a blur to Josh.
    He kept playing it over in his mind.
    I saw the gun. I heard the misfire.
    The guy kept moving, wouldn't listen to me.
    How could this be?
    I thought it was a gun. The guy pointed it at me, didn't he?
    There was no gun. Josh knew that now. Knew it was a cell phone.
    Josh began to have doubts.
    Did he screw up? Did he kill an innocent person? What the fuck is going on?
    Chris Hamlin came in with Josh's wife, Keira. She embraced her husband and looked him over. "Josh" she said softly "it's alright, you're okay, and that’s all that matters."
    "What the hell does that mean," Josh exploded "that's all that matters, you think I fucked up? You think I shot one of your innocent victims of police brutality?"
    Chris was confused. What the hell was happening with these two?
    Keira Walsh Williams was thirty-four years old with a Boston College Law JD and successful practice as a Criminal Defense lawyer. She did volunteer work for the Innocence Project.
    You could not find two more diametrically opposed people then Josh and Keira, but they were together three years. They seemed happy. She avoided cases involving her husband's department and it seemed to work.
    Yet Josh was angry, borderline crazy, glaring, fists clenched.
    Chris walked between them. "Keira, give me a minute with him it's been a tough morning."
    Keira turned, looked back, "Fuck you,” and walked out.
    "That would be a fucking change wouldn't it, you fucking bitch."
    Chris reached out and slapped Josh. No idea where it came from except she knew she hated that word.
    Josh looked her, shocked "What the fuck, Cheeks...."
    "Don't you ever use that word again.”
    "What the fuck. Are you a nun now? Suddenly you have standards. You fuck anything that is breathing at the start of the process and now you're gonna lecture me about being fucking proper?"
    Chris slapped him again and kicked out his legs. Josh looked up.
    "I am going to say this one more time, I have no idea what's going on here,