Exodus

An elderly woman's death leaves Detective Vance Baylor questioning himself.

Detective Vance Baylor stared into the murky depths of yesterday’s coffee and contemplated the meaning of life. More like the meaning of his life.

The victim’s name was Edna Mason and five days ago she had celebrated her 81^st birthday. Last night she had died at the hands of a crazed gunman after stopping at a convenience store to buy a gallon of peach ice cream. It was her husband’s favorite.

Vance lifted the chipped blue coffee mug to his lips, took a sip, and nearly spit it out. What did he expect? The stuff had been fermenting on his desk since 7 a.m. yesterday. He poured the rest of it into the small potted cactus on his desk.

Hopefully the cactus needed a caffeine boost.

“Come on, Vance,” his partner Shelly said, clapping him on the back. “Let’s blow this lemonade stand. We’re heading down to the tavern for a celebratory drink.”

“What are we celebrating?” Vance asked, lacking enthusiasm.

“Reggie’s wife just called him with the good news.” Reggie was another detective in their precinct. “She’s pregnant. Isn’t that great?”

“Fantastic,” Vacne said dismally. Yet another innocent life forced to cohabitate in a cesspool full of killers and psychos, he thought.

Vance scraped a hand over his face. He needed a shower and a shave, not that it mattered. “I’m not really in the mood to celebrate tonight.” Though taking his misery for a swim in a bottle of cheap bourbon did sound promising.

“What happened to Edna Mason wasn’t your fault,” Shelly said, squeezing his shoulder. “You followed proper procedure.”

“Proper…procedure.” He swiveled in his chair to face her. “Kind of like you followed proper procedure when you beat the crap out of that guy who mugged your sister, huh?”

Shelly dropped her hand from his shoulder and paled. “He came at me with a knife,” she whispered angrily. “I had to defend myself.”

Vance rolled his eyes at her sorry explanation. “The kid weighed 130 pounds and you’ve got a black belt. You could’ve pinned him to the wall with your left pinky and we both know it.” Gosh, his head hurt. He needed coffee, preferably with a lump of arsenic mixed in.

“I won’t apologize for doing my job,” Shelly said. “At least I had the guts to take that guy down, but you? You froze last night, didn’t you?” She leaned towards him. “Almost 20 years on the force, a woman’s life on the line, and you froze.” She smirked. “What were you hoping to do? Blast him with your heat vision? Guess you were a little slow in the draw.”

Was her pathetic attempt at a joke supposed to be funny? A woman was dead! God, help him. But he couldn’t turn that off and on like her. Not anymore.

Vance tamped down the urge to strangle Shelly with her blonde ponytail and rose from his chair.

“I’m…uh…sorry, Vance,” Shelly stammered, unable to meet his heated gaze. “You know I didn’t mean that. It’s…it’s been a long week, I guess.”

Vance shoved past her, ignoring the curious stares of his coworkers.

“Vance, I said I was sorry! Where are you going?”

“To get some coffee,” he replied and kept walking.

Shelly glanced at his paper-strewn desk. “You forgot your mug!”

He passed through the double-doors and didn’t look back.

To be continued…

Author's Note

The first part of an ongoing series.

Reviews

[Corwin T.]

I absolutely loved this. you started well, and was able to create likable characters. I am rooting for vance. As a foreshadow, it appears that he is going to get caught up into something such as a "fight" as he exits the building. It seems that you are building upon themes of forgiveness and bitterness, and even regret. And the importance of moving past those feelings that haunt and taunt us. It looks like you will be moving on through the rest of the story with these themes, although I am not sure, and I am merely just guessing. But with a story like this, it is a pleasure to guess. It certainly does seem that those themes fit.

Your description was well used, the dialogue seemed very realistic, and you used just enough description for objects in the office and building to vividly paint a picture of the story.

The growth in Vance and Shelly will be a pleasure to read through part 2. I am looking forward to it. Thanks for sharing. Im excited to see if I was able to guess correctly.

Corwin T.

[Corwin T.]

P.S. I am working on my next piece, which will be a short story! Wo hoo!

[Rebecca Buller]

Thank you for the wonderful review, Corwin:) To be honest, I have no idea as to what direction this is going to take. You seem to know more about my story than I do, lol! Anyway we'll see where it leads. I'm also looking forward to reading your next piece:)

[Neville]

Keep writing, I enjoyed this one too. N

[Rebecca Buller]

Thank you so much, N:-)

[Girl Friday (Sarah W.)]

First, let me say...well done! The characters in this piece were well defined from beginning to end, and you gave us just enough of the story to really crave an ending. The writing was strong and easy to go through; no stumbling points that I could find. Great cliffhanger!

[Rebecca Buller]

Thank you for the review, GF. I'm glad you enjoyed it:-)

[Jocelyn_wonders]

You have the beginning of a good story here. I think I need to read more to be able to evaluate your characters. I certainly like the male detective right now. I also enjoy the serious sentiments mixed within the routine (cliche?) aspects of the detective story. They all entertain me. The only thing I would suggest is to go easy on the sentence fragments. I can hardly wait for the next chapter.
Jocelyn wonders

[Rebecca Buller]

Thank you for the review, Jocelyn. I really appreciate the feedback:-)

[numbers17]

It's not that I don't think this is well written. To be honest this is actually very well written. I think my major issue is that from the get go this has a mixture of cliches. Shelly already seems like a very bland character from the get go. Some of the lines are a little heavy handed for this kind of genre.

That being said if you can take a look through it again I think it'll be noticeable which is always the process of writing I suppose. To write and rewrite. You have the makings of something great, but by all means I think Shelly needs to be a less bland character and everything else a little less heavy handed and bleak.

[Rebecca Buller]

I agree with you, and I'm actually debating on what to do with Shelly. But I enjoy revising my work, so I'm looking forward to making this story even better. I really appreciate the feedback:)