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Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Martin Sisters Publishing
ISBN-10: 1625530595
Type: Fiction
Pages: 226
Copyright: 11-03-2013
ISBN-13: 9781625530592
Price: $5.99 (eBook)
– What would happen if a group of terrorists took a normal looking boat and used it to destroy an endearing symbol of America’s greatness?
My GRL is the story of John J. Cannon, successful San Francisco lawyer, who takes a well-deserved leave of absence from his firm. He travels to a small Texas fishing town and buys a boat, unaware that his new purchase, renamed My GRL, had already been targeted by a terrorist group. John’s first inkling of a problem is when he wakes up in the hospital. He learns he was found unconscious next to the dead body of the attractive young woman who sold him the boat in the first place. John now stands between the terrorists and the success of their mission.
Excerpt
Chapter One
Gerry and I finish our beers at the Sandbar and make a move to cross the crowds toward the front door. Before the karaoke noise starts, we agree to go to another place for some pizza. She directs something to me which I can’t understand, so I hold my hand to my ear and try hard to hear her. She looks a little upset. I signal we should wait until we get outside to talk.
She nods and I take the lead, reach back, grab her hand, and act like a bulldozer while I separate the crowd as we pass through. It becomes harder since everyone has begun to pay attention to the drunken girl singing what sounds a little like a slurred Avril Lavigne song to the karaoke machine on the stage up front.
We make it to the door and go out into the humid night. I drop Gerry’s hand and notice there are two guys walking toward us. I tell her to stay close and figure the guys will eventually make way and go into the bar. I am about to ask her what she was trying to get me to understand in the bar, when I feel a rush of air behind me and hear what sounds like someone thumping a watermelon. That was the last thing on my mind when the lights of the world go out.
*
“Where am I, and how did I get here?” I ask the nurse who’s standing next to the bed.
“You are in Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital, and you have had a severe blow to the head.” She casually yet crisply replies. “I am Nurse Quinlan.” She continues unprompted, “You will need to rest now. The doctor will be coming around shortly, and I don’t want you to be too tired to answer his questions.”
“He has questions? What kind of questions?” I am trying to disguise the tinges of panic I feel since I have no idea how I got here. Unfortunately, I’m not too successful.
“He wants to figure out what happened so that he can determine a course of treatment. You have been unconscious for a few hours, and I believe the doctor will want to assess whether or not you are going to require treatment other than rest.”
“I was unconscious for a few hours? My God! I have absolutely no idea what happened. What other kinds of treatments are there?”
The nurse smiles and gives me the old, “let’s see what the doctor says, shall we?” This is the verbal indication she will not be offering any more information regarding my case.
She turns to leave, “when the doctor will be in to see me?”
“I have no idea but I assume it will be sometime soon.” I sigh and decide to start to try and connect the events which caused me to end up here.
“Can you tell me what time I was admitted to the hospital?” I ask as she moves closer to the door.
“Oh yes, I believe it is in your chart. You came into the emergency room about quarter of six and were admitted to a regular room at eight forty five last night.” She pauses and looks up from the chart. “Do you need to know anything else? If so, your doctor can provide the details.” She snaps the chart shut and shoves it back into its slot.
“Can you tell me what time it is now?”
She glances at her watch. “It is after one in the morning.”
I had, indeed, been out of it for several hours. She dims the lights in the room and allows the automatic door to close very gently.
My thoughts go back to earlier in the day. I remember having toast for breakfast along with some Greek yogurt. I can’t remember the kind of yogurt or what I had on the toast. I wonder, is it important to be able to remember what you had on toast? I think it is more important and more critical to recall what went on the rest of the day. This is causing me to worry, as I am drawing a total blank on the entire day and how I got here.
As I am beginning to feel another panic attack rising, the door swings open and in walks a young man in a white coat with a stethoscope casually lying around his neck.
“Hello, I am Dr. Samuels and I treated you when you came in. I am checking on you before I go home.”
I give him a weak hello and proceed to bombard him with questions. He smiles and holds up his hand with a traffic-cop-like gesture. I stop asking and take a deep breath.
“How do you feel?” He pulls my chart from the wall.
“My head hurts.”
“I am not surprised that you have some pain you took a hell of a hit to the head, and I must say the hit was localized and although I’m not an expert in these things it looks like it was done by someone who knew what they were doing.”
“What do you mean localized?” I ask the question softly. “What do you mean knew what they were doing?”
He smiles and says, “I apologize. It might be helpful for me to let you know what happened to you last night. By the way, it is not unusual to have some temporary short-term memory loss after a blow to the head. So, relax and let me fill you in.”
After about five minutes discussion with the doctor, I now understand I had been hit on the head by a soft object specifically designed to knock someone out, but not cause serious contusions or brain damage. The term “black jack” was mentioned. Even though the doctor is still talking, I am hardly listening since I have a big question brewing. I want to ask why the hell someone would want to knock me out when my mind is flooded by a flash of memory. Shit, my inner self is talking. I was walking with Gerry when a couple of guys came up to us. I don’t really know what happened next. I’m sure we were approached by the two guys, but that’s all I remember. I need to ask the doctor a bigger question than whom or why would someone want to knock me out.
“Where’s Gerry?”
Dr. Samuels stops talking and looks at me as if I had just fallen through a hole in the roof on the end of a repelling line, dressed in a Ninja outfit.
I ignore his petrified look and continue, “I was with Gerry . . . Gerry Starnes last night, and I just remembered she was there when the two guys came up to us.” I know I am beginning to ramble. I need to know where she is. “She will be able to tell me what happened.”
Dr. Samuels looks down at the chart on his lap and I immediately know something is wrong.
“What’s the problem?” I ask softly.
Dr. Samuels looks up with a crinkled brow. His mouth opens a couple of times before he says anything. He finally allows the words to escape, “I am very sorry to tell you that Gerry was shot and did not make it. She was shot outside the Sandbar.”
I cannot process what the doctor just said and ask him to please repeat what he told me. He is very embarrassed and again tells me Gerry has been killed. I cannot believe my ears. I am trying to understand, but can’t put together why anyone would want to kill Gerry. She is . . . was a really sweet person, and we met a month ago while I was looking to buy a boat when I first arrived on the Island.
We would get together now and then and have a drink or dinner. There was nothing going on between us, yet we always had really nice conversations. I always looked forward to the times we spent together. Her sense of humor was pretty much the same as mine. Like me, she was not a native of Mustang Island, but a transplant. She was a loan officer in one of the big banks in San Francisco and pretty much quit that career for the same reasons I took a leave from the law firm and looking for the satisfaction of doing her own thing. She came to the Island on vacation like me and returned to get a job at Premier Yacht brokerage. Gerry was very good at selling boats and had a pretty loyal following among the kinds of folks who needed a boat. I am lost in thought about Gerry as Dr. Samuels gets up and begins to leave.
“Do they know who did it?”
“They are unsure; but the police told me very little. They did ask me when you would be ready to answer a few questions. I told them you would probably be ready to answer some questions in the morning. I think that is still true since you seem to be regaining your memory. Please try to get some sleep now. I have ordered something that will help. I’ll be back in the morning and will let the police officers know if you are ready to talk to them.”
“Thank you doctor.” He leaves and a nurse takes his place. She gives me a shot of something and almost immediately I am out.
“Good morning.” It is a cheerful greeting from a heavyset woman, as she places a food tray on one end of the table. “You enjoy,” she chirps. “There’s a menu selection under the tray that needs to be filled out for lunch and dinner. You don’t want the kitchen staff to make those decisions for you. It’s okay with breakfast since there are not a lot of ways to mess that up, but lunch and dinner are a different matter.” She bids me goodbye and leaves with the promise of coming back for my breakfast tray and selections.
Before having any breakfast I need to find the toilet. There would be no room for coffee or anything else until I took care of the uneasy pressure from within. I look around and see a door off to my right. Unfortunately, the tray and table are in the way so I exit the bed to the left. When I place my feet on the cold floor and put the weight of my upper body on them, I realize my legs are like rubber. I manage to hold onto the bed, the tray, and a chair while I do a hand-over-hand balance and foot shuffle to the bathroom. I am reminded of the old wing walker rule of “don’t let go of what you got until you got hold of something else.”
I finally make it to the bathroom, close the door, and look in the mirror which seems to be too low to accommodate my five foot eleven inch height. I stoop down to position my face so I can see it. Gazing at the reflection, I actually look better than I thought. All in all I vainly conclude I look no worse than if I had too much to drink the night before. I hold myself steady on a handy bar built for this use and take care of business. I splash water on my face, and then wipe it with a paper towel.
While I’m wiping my face, the memory of what happened to Gerry rushes back into my consciousness. I feel saddened all over again. I finish and make a vow to find out what happened, and another vow to help put the person who did this horrible thing away for life. Of course, all vows tend to make us feel better at the time, but the effectiveness of the vow will be carrying it out.
When I step out of the bathroom, I am greeted by yet another nurse who looks upset. “You are not allowed to get out of bed until the doctor gives you permission.”
“I needed to use the bathroom.”
“You need to use this buzzer and call for a bed pan next time.”
“Okay I will do that. I promise,” I say. At the same time I am promising myself there is no way in hell I will do that. I think, “Besides I should be out of here before I have to use the bathroom next.” As I get into bed, Dr. Samuels enters the room. He looks refreshed and relaxed like he does not have a care in the world. It could be his youth, or just a good night’s sleep. Either way he looks great. “Good morning Mr. Cannon,” he says.
“Good morning Doctor and you can call me John.”
“Very well. Good morning John.” He starts to examine me. He takes my pulse, listens to my lungs and passes a light back and forth in front of my eyes. His expression does not change as he makes notes on my chart.
“So how does it look?” I say.
“I think all is well, given the circumstances, and you should not have any permanent damage. I believe it will be okay, health-wise, to talk to the police. Do you think you should talk to the police without a lawyer?”
“Why?”
“Gerry was shot in the back of the head, and while you were unconscious some officers took samples of your DNA.”
“Do you know what they found?” I ask while looking directly into his eyes.
“No,” he says. His eyes never leave mine.
“Well, then . . .” I pause to think my statement through. “I will represent myself until such time that I believe I have a fool for a client.”
We both chuckle, and he leaves saying goodbye over his shoulder.
I am sitting on the edge of the bed thinking about Gerry, when the door opens and two men walk in. They look like they have just walked out of a casting call for Gilligan’s Island, minus the sailor’s hat and captain’s cap.
The older man is tall and dressed in khaki Dockers shorts, boat shoes, no socks, and a patterned Hawaiian shirt with a giant hibiscus print which looks like it should cover a table in a Tiki lounge. The lump under the shirt cannot be missed, as it is clearly some kind of handgun. He has silver hair, cropped short, and a silver mustache which contrasts nicely with his tanned skin. His rounded chest causes the buttons on the shirt to appear to be under stress trying to keep everything in place. His muscular arms and generally fit condition gives the outward appearance of having been a professional fighter at some point in the past. His color of hair and the lack of weathering of his skin make figuring out how old he is very difficult. The range could be from forties to near sixty.
The shorter, younger man is dressed somewhat the same, but instead of a Hawaiian shirt he has a coral-colored polo shirt tucked into his walking shorts. He is wearing a pair of flip-flops, which might be difficult to run down and tackle a crook. I surmise there must not be that much running by the police on Mustang Island. The young officer has blond hair, trimmed short in the style of recently released military. He is wearing his handgun on the outside of his shirt, an automatic pistol which I guess to be a Glock 9mm.
“Excuse us,” says junior. “The doctor said you were well enough to answer a few questions about what happened last night.”
Before I can answer, the older man adds in a kindly way, “It shouldn’t take too long Mr. Cannon and we will try not to tire you out.”
“I will be glad to tell you anything I know,” I say. I do caution them that my knowledge of the event is somewhat limited because I was knocked out by one of the two men who approached us. “Also you can call me John.”
The older man, who tells me his name is Ned, asks me, “How do you know it was two men?”
“Gerry and I left the Sandbar after a few drinks to go to the Cove for pizza. We had just left the bar and these two guys were outside the bar walking towards us. I figured they would just pass us when one hit me from behind.”
Ned continues, “Did you see the guy who hit you?”
“No. As I said, I was hit on the back of the head. Right here.” I say this with some degree of impatience while pointing to the back of my head.
“You said there were two men who approached you. Did you see the guy slip past you? The one who hit you I mean.”
“Come to think of it.” I pause to really think about it. “I did not see anyone slip past me. There was the shingled storefront on my right, and the guy would have had to pass me to the left. Had he done that, I would have known he was trying something and maybe would have had a clue that I was going to be hit. Believe me, I had no clue; it just happened.”
Ned nods. “I believe you John.” He paces back and forth, his brow furrowed in deep thought. Then he says, “I think there was another guy that you did not know was behind you.”
“I wish I knew for sure.” This is my summary of events.
Ned and the young officer ask a few more questions along the lines of how well Gerry and I knew each other and did she have any enemies. I tell them all I know, which is Gerry and I were only friends and I did not think anyone disliked her. The two of them seem satisfied with the answers.
“One final question and then we will let you get back to healing.” Ned looks through a file folder. “Have you ever seen this gun before?” He then thrusts a picture of what appears to be a revolver in front of my face. I take the picture from him so I can actually focus my eyes on it.
“No,” I then pause to think and assure myself the next statement is true. “I’ve never seen this weapon before.” I am curious and wonder what this weapon has to do with me. “Why do you ask?”
Ned bluntly responds, “You were lying on top of it at the scene of the crime.”
Holy shit. I think and almost say out loud. “Say again?” pops out of my mouth instead.
Ned goes on to explain when the EMTs placed me on a gurney; they found the gun underneath me. How it got there he did not speculate, but he did assure me I was not the one who fired the .22 caliber revolver. He explains when someone fires a pistol there is gunpowder residue left on the hands and clothes. He admits his investigative team already tested me and found none on me. He also tells me that they took a cheek swab.
He apologizes for not getting my permission. “You were out cold, and I really didn’t believe there would be any harm in collecting the DNA since I want to believe you’re innocent anyway.” He goes on to say he doubts when the DNA testing is done there will be anything of use anyway. “I would appreciate getting your permission, after the fact, though.”
I assure him it is no problem. Even the worst lawyer would advise to cooperate with the police, especially if you believe yourself innocent. I have no cause to think I had anything to do with Gerry’s death.
Ned and the young officer get up to leave. “Let me give you my card.” He pulls one out of a little leather case which serves this only purpose. “If you think of anything, please give me a call.” He smiles, what I am sure is his version of a warm smile. To me, it resembles the facial gesture of a fairly dangerous crocodile.
“Oh!” he adds as he hands me the card, “please let us know if you intend to leave the area. It’s just protocol. I am sure you understand.”
I guess I do understand I am still a suspect. Not wanting to let him know I am on to the subtlety of what he just said. I merely respond I will keep his office informed if I remember anything or intend to leave. He seems pleased I am the paragon of cooperation. I have read police consider a passive suspect the best kind. There are no real worries about having to explain to superiors how a suspect got out of control, was injured, or worse, disappeared. Ned nods goodbye and junior follows suit. As they leave, it occurs to me I don’t know junior’s name. I guess it is not all that important since, after looking at his card, I realize I now have Ned Tranes, the Chief of Police of Port Aransas on my case.
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