Fiction
It Never Starts With A Body Part 2
A Sunny Alexander-Johnson And Henry James Series By P.G. & Sharon Barnett
My name is Sunny Alexander-Johnson, and I’m Henry James, and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth magazine.
It took the better part of an hour to get Dante and Alicia roused, dressed, loaded in their car seats, and start the drive downtown. When told what we were doing, they both resisted.
It seemed neither of them wanted to be anywhere near the boogie man their deceased grandfather had told them about. The fact we were driving downtown at four in the morning on a Saturday to see if this boogie man of theirs actually existed was strange enough.
Who told them about it was even stranger.
We neared the building and found a parking lot on the west side of the building. Only a few lights atop the poles of the lot were working, casting feeble glimmering shafts out in the darkness, giving the whole place a grim, eerie look and feel.
Parked side by side, we rolled our windows down to communicate our next steps.
“Henry, you and Robert go check it out.”
“Why don’t you go, princess? After all, you and Robert’s kids started this thing.”
“Old man, don’t make me come over there and kick your ass.”
“Henry, go.”
“Really, Cynthia? It’s cold as hell out there.”
“Henry?”
“Fine. Robert, you got any flashlights?”
“Yeah, in the trunk.”
When we returned to the cars, we both piled into Robert’s vehicle, one of us sliding behind the wheel, the other squeezing between the children’s car seats alongside Cynthia.
It took a few minutes of chasing away the chills, but somehow it seemed it wasn’t just the cold making us shiver.
“Anything?”
“Nope, just a cleared out, abandoned building from what we could see. I think we just have us a case of overactive imaginations, guys.”
“I do not believe that, Henry. Robert and I are damned sure about this.”
“Momma?”
“Yes, baby.”
“Why are we here? Daddy Ray showed us the other side.”
The silence in the car was quick and immediate, a massive sense of dread instantly enveloping the adults sitting in the car. What seemed at first to be the inane imaginations of a couple of six-year-olds, now was rushing to a possibility none of us wanted.
“Alicia, we’re not on the right side of the building?”
“Uh, unh mamaw. The man on the floor is over there.”
“Yeah, over there.”
Both children were pointing to a darkened area to our left, toward the back of the building. To an area where the coal-black of the night had completely consumed, pushing back any attempts of the light from the lamp posts to gain entry.
“Ah, shit.”
“Henry, not in front of the children.”
“Sorry, hon. Robert? Let’s do this.”
A half an hour later, we returned to the car, but this time we didn’t get back in. We’d found a way into the building, and we’d found the main character in the children’s drawing.
Although better sense told us this was something the kids shouldn’t see we somehow doubted it would bother them as much as it would us. They’d already seen it. Their deceased grandfather had already shown this body to them.
With Dante in Robert’s arms and Alica in Sunny’s, we picked our way through the darkness until we found the same back door and entered the building.
The smell of mildew and aged dust and mold was acrid, floating around us as we made our way across the cracked cement and iron support beams.
Laying on the floor, a revolver near his body, darkened rusty stains on the concrete billowing out from beneath his head, the man was staring up at the ceiling, his eyes clouded, but opened, his face twisted into a frightful expression of final terror.
“Oh, dear God.”
“Cynthia? Baby? Are you okay?”
“I know this man, Henry. I don’t believe this. How is this possible? Why now?”
“Wait, what? You know this guy?”
“Yes. His name is Richard Carlson. I haven’t seen him in over thirty years. Alicia, are you and Dante sure your grandfather, uh, Daddy Ray, wanted us to see this man’s body?”
Both children nodded, and Dante said, “That’s him mammaw. That’s the man Daddy Ray showed us. He said you’d know what to do.”
“Whoa, slow down here. Are you positive you know this man Cynthia?”
“Yes, and I know this building as well, Henry. I thought something looked familiar as we were driving in. It should have dawned on me earlier. This building was the very place Ray started Alexander Pharmaceuticals over thirty years ago.”
“Mother, from what I can see, it looks as if he took his own life here. I’m guessing him killing himself here was some kind of symbolic attempt to tell you something. What is he trying to tell you?”
“I have no idea Shaundrika, but I’ve had enough. This is too much. After everything this family has gone through, I’m not going to stand here and deal with this. Children? Come with mammaw, we’re going back to the car.”
“Hang on a minute baby, we need to figure this out.”
“No, Henry. I’m not going to hang on another goddamned minute. The children and I are going back to the car. You and Shaundrika and Robert can stand here in the freezing cold and stare at this man’s body all you want, but not me. Children?”
Cynthia waited only long enough to snatch one of the flashlights out of an unsuspecting pair of hands and turned and walked away. We watched her stalk across the building with the children in tow, soon lost in the darkness. The beam from the flashlight bobbing with each step she and the children took.
“Okay, now what, old man?”
“I’ve got an idea.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“Robert? You better get hold of Manny and have him meet you here at say around eight. Then one of you needs to make a call to the police.”
“What?”
“You heard me, brother. Look, imagine what the police would think if we called them right now and waited for them to show. What’s going to be their first thought?”
“Uh, what the hell is the entire family doing in an empty warehouse at four in the morning standing over a dead guy?”
“Exactly.”
“So Manny and I call them around eight this morning and tell them we found a body? Still doesn’t answer the question of why we’re down here snooping around Henry.”
“Sure, it does. What if Alexander Pharmaceuticals was planning on renovating their old stomping grounds? You know, expanding? According to Cynthia, this is where they started. So you two were checking the building out as a favor to your wife and…”
“Discovered this stiff.”
“Exactly.”
“Damn, not bad for a crusty old man. How many brain cells did you just burn out coming up with that?”
“Bite my ass, princess. Here’s the deal. Once homicide gets involved, they’re eventually going to tie this Carlson dude to the family. We need somebody willing to let Sunny, and I do what we do best without a ton of bureaucratic bullshit. You think you and Manny can manage that?”
“Unless you’ve forgotten Henry, Manny got his start as a hostage negotiator for the FBI right here in Austin. He’s still got plenty of connections.”
“Good. Make damn sure he uses them. Until then, let’s get the hell out of here and try to salvage the rest of the weekend.”
“If mother will even let that happen.”
“Yeah, I have a feeling she’s going to be pissed off during this whole damned story. Just hope you can handle her princess.”
“What’s this you shit, old man? She’s your wife, or have you already forgotten that?”
“Right, then I guess neither of us is going to be in a good mood until this story is over.”
“Great, somebody just shoot me.”
“Let’s hope this story doesn’t come to that.”
Read On — It Never Starts With A Body Part 3
Let’s keep in touch: P.G. & Sharon Barnett
© P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
