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Matthew quietly shut the door behind him, like he’d done every morning since he was twelve years old and started training for the cross country team. He had never been a strong athlete, but after being badgered by his father to join some extracurricular activity, he settled on running. Not because it appealed to him; because it satisfied his fathers requirement while still making him angry, a skill Matthew had become quite adept. What he didn’t expect was how much he’d fall in love with the sport. Running became an escape and then a springboard into university, and finally, a tranquil moment when his family responsibilities became too much. I’m not going to be like him he thought as the deadbolt sprang back into the door frame.

This morning he came back a little later than normal and the patter of little feet were already echoing from the kitchen. Matthew snuck down to the basement to get cleaned up before anyone could realize he’d gotten home. He bagged his clothes and put them next to the workbench in the boiler room. Those would need to be dealt with later.

He took his time in the shower. Careful to remove every bit of blood. You never get used the coverage. No matter how much you try to keep yourself clean, the fingernails, behind the ears, the tips of your hair, always try to give you away. His routine was thorough and methodical but he didn’t have as much time as normal. There was no doubt a nosey toddler would eventually make their way into the basement and things needed to look kid-friendly.

As Matthew turned off the water he was greeted with a smiling, tiny face at the door. Tessa had made her way down, as expected. Close call he thought to himself as he pulled the towel down from the warmer and stepped out of the shower

“Daddy!” Tessa squealed with excitement as she ran and leaped into her Dad’s arms. Matthew lifted her high above his head and just like he’d always done brought her nose down to his and wiggled. She laughed and screamed out, “Again! Again!” as the process repeated itself a few more times.

“Okay sweetheart. Back upstairs and get ready for school.” She didn’t want to leave, but with an extra kiss on the forehead and a helpful turn of the shoulders, she was off. Matthew finished drying himself off, grabbed a new set of clothes from the dryer and headed upstairs. He walked into the kitchen, the family was preparing some breakfast.

“Hi honey.” he said as he leaned over his wife’s shoulder and gave a quick peck on the cheek.

“You’re home later than usual?”

“I know.” Matthew began. “I couldn’t get this work problem figured out so took a longer route.” Lying about where he was had become second nature. And Allison never questioned it. He was a good provider, an attentive husband, and a great father. She never had reason to believe he’d be lying to her.

“Well you made it back in time for breakfast, so grab a seat and get some while it’s hot.” Matthew knew better than to try skimp out before eating so he dutifully sat at the table even while his mind was thinking about his next move. It was a just another normal day.

As the sun broke through the fog, Matthew finished up his breakfast, kissed his family goodbye and headed out the door. He hadn’t slept, but this wasn’t anything new. With last nights task out of the way he felt as though the rest of the week was going to simple enough. He drove a little slower than normal, recognizing that his reactions were slightly slowed. Before getting to the office, his first stop was the mailbox.

In his hand was an envelope. He’d be making a few mailbox drops this morning but this was the first. He parked a couple blocks away and walked to the drop off. Matthew kept his head down, avoiding small talk and eye contact with anyone on the street. He didn’t mind being in the open, but he wasn’t looking to get recognized any time soon.

One down four to go.

He headed for the next mailbox across town. The second mailbox was close to the marina a perfect location for a quick view of what was going on. It wouldn’t take him long to get there although traffic was starting to grow.

Matthew expected the marina to be busy. No doubt word of what had happened would have started to spread. Rumours travelled quickly amongst the sea-faring crowd as they loved a good story, truthfulness be damned. But what he didn’t expect to see was the CSI van parked at the clubhouse. How did they get here so quick? he wondered. It had only been a few hours and Matthew had thought his handy work would keep the body from washing ashore this quickly. He stared a little bit longer before heading off to the next mailbox. No time for admiration of his work or to watch the confounded faces of SFPD’s best and brightest. His job was just beginning.

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The phone vibrated against the bed post it had snuggled up next to after falling unceremoniously from sleeping hands at the conclusion of a late night doom-scrolling session. Caleb silently pleaded to his subconscious for a few more minutes, concocting stories of why the noise was not a call to consciousness that would only make sense in a dreamland. It was no use.

Caleb clumsily fumbled around the bed sheets, unaware of the journey his phone had taken in the early morning hours. “Where the f…” he began to mutter as his eyes, freshly adjusted to the dark room were hit with the relentless bright screen. Without leaving the bed, he reached down and answered the phone and began to sit up, his body tense, sensing what was about to come.

This wasn’t the first time he’d been woken up by his phone and Caleb knew exactly what it meant; his day was about to begin.

“I’ll be right there.” Caleb said instinctually, barely processing anything said. He sat, feet on the floor, broad shoulders hunched over, head hung so far over his knees that a gentle breeze could have knocked him to the floor. Looking down he realized he was still wearing pants from the night before. He hadn’t been on a case for a couple days and the lack of routine meant his life slowly fell into disarray. Cases kept him on track. Cases kept him away from his thoughts.

After finding a shirt on the ground, Caleb quickly brushed his teeth before heading down from his walk-up apartment on the third floor. The building had once been home to some soon-to-be famous writer’s and actors but like a fading Hollywood career, the attempts to rejuvenate the building after years of neglect, left the building feeling fake and hollow. At least it was close to the station.

The rain must have come and gone in the witching hours because the city was left with a thin coating that caused the lights to shimmer as they provided their beacons to those who thrived at night. Caleb’s street was always bustling with the type of people he’d often come across on the wrong side of an investigation. But the city provided a never ending stream of future work. Luckily for everyone he passed, tonight was not their night.

As he stepped foot in the station, he was flagged down by the voice on the other end of his morning wake-up call. Sergeant Maurice Stoller was an intimidating figure any day of the week, but nothing made him more aggressive than a recent homicide. It was though he took each and every one personally. As if they were an affront to his well-being and the only cure was ensuring the perpetrators were put behind bars. But when Caleb entered the Sergeants office there was no sense of righteous indignation.

“What’s going on Stoller? And don’t fuck with me.”

“It’s a case, as I’m sure you figured out, but…” Stoller trailed off as his hands grazed the manilla envelope holding the case file. “but this one’s not something I’ve seen before.”

“Oh come on,” Caleb snapped. What could that even mean? “We work for the San Francisco Police Department, we’ve seen it all.”

“I know, I know. But this is…” he trailed off again, “just take a look”. He pushed the envelope across the desk. Caleb started opening it. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Stoller added while looking out the window behind his desk. Caleb paused. Unsure what was happening, he shook it off and opened the case file. “Holy shit.” Caleb muttered. Almost inaudibly, but the Sergeant quickly swivelled back around and slammed his hands on the desk. “We’ve got to figure this out quickly, before word starts getting around.”

Caleb was transfixed on the images in front of him. What had happened to this Captain was not just a murder, it was a message. The question wasn’t who did this, but who was the message for? Because no one would do that to a body who didn’t want to ensure the person receiving this message got it loud and clear.

There wasn’t another word spoken as Caleb left the room, still staring at the file. The Sergeant was still talking, but the words weren’t penetrating Caleb’s focus on his new case. He caught the address of the marina where the Captain kept his ship, and decided he’d head there first to see what he could figure out. The CSI team would already be there taking samples and gathering whatever they could. He did not envy the team on duty for this job. The marina was about thirty minutes away so Caleb could get there just as the day was breaking. He grabbed a cup of stale coffee from the machine, and hit the road.

I’ll cut to the chase, I decided very late to do NaNoWriMo this year. I don’t really have a solid idea of what I want to write or how it’s going to pan out, but it will hopefully be fun. So to keep the regular newsletter space clean in case I ever go back to writing on any sort of regular basis, I started this section to house NaNoWriMo and any future fiction stories that may come tumbling out of my head.

Please feel free to criticize these words as you read them. The goal is to get them down on a page so it will likely be quite free flowing. Leave comments about how you’d like see the story play out. And most of all enjoy!

Beyond the horizon, past where the lighthouse beacon could no longer overpower the thick coastal fog, sat a dilapidated vessel, bobbing in the unusually warm fall air. The ship was barely twenty feet long, barely noticeable in the vast ocean on a sunny day, but in the fog with it’s lights turned off it was all but invisible. The gentle creak of shifting boards as the captain of the vessel paced from bow to stern were drowned out by the lapping of the waves against the side of the boat.

He’d been there for far too long now. Staring at the hour hand on his watch push past 2:00am he continued to pace the ship. He knew he should have been docked before the fog had gotten so thick, but he was also aware that he couldn’t leave. The captain double checked his coordinates to make sure he hadn’t drifted too far as the hours had grown long.

“They should be here by now,” he said to the wind. As the fog grew thicker so did his impatience. He fumbled with the boat keys in his pocket, letting the key slip between his fingers as he contemplated the repercussions of starting the engine and getting the hell out of there. His hand began to pull the key out when a faint light and the murmur of an engine filled his oceanic void. The approaching boat was drenched in shadow as the tiny bow light flickered with every bump of the water as though at any moment a big enough wave would knock the bulb from it’s socket and leave both vessels engulfed in darkness.

Finally, as the boat turned into position to board the captain’s vessel, the light pushed beyond the ship and the shadowed figures began to take shape. Without a word the boat threw rope to the captain which he dutifully tied, connecting the two ships together while they carried out their business.

As the captain pulled the final knot, the hairs on his neck stood up. Something was different. He looked at the boat he’d just anchored to his own, and while expecting two other men to be staring back, only one pair of eyes gazed down the barrel of the 9mm now pointed in his direction.