Brush Creek Charlie by D. B. Reynolds (which ebook reader .txt) 📖

hate to be him.”
“So many weirdos come into The Black Diamond, until you start losing count.”
“Kim’s killer is still out there,” Carey stressed. “We believe her murder is connected with the murder of another woman whose mutilated body was also found in Brush Creek.”
Chocolate mashed out her cigarette. She shot Carey a disappointingly boisterous stare. “Detective, can I ask you a serious question?”
“Go right ahead.”
“Are the police department investigating the Gillham Park murders?”
“Yes we are?”
“A twenty-one year old black woman was found strangled to death with a bunch of mud and tree barks shoved down her throat. She’s the eighth black woman they’ve found dead somewhere in Gillham Park.”
“Yes, everybody’s aware of that.”
“Answer this for me, detective. Why haven’t the police department found the fucker who’ve been killing these black women?”
“Let me answer by saying this. We’ve had little to no success getting people to talk. We’ve questioned prostitutes and drug users we’ve apprehended on the streets or in drug raids. We’re not getting much help and have beat the street morning, noon, and night.”
“Truthfully, detective, do black people even count? Do our lives mean anything to you white people?”
Chocolate’s true emotional side surfaced. She cared deeply about her people and her voice was tainted with worry.
“To the law enforcement community, everybody’s life counts. Mam, we’re swamped with one murder case after another. Homicides pour into the department like water falling over Niagara Falls. I’ve been assigned to the Kimberly Deanna Barr homicide case, and I’m only doing what I’ve been told to do. As far as the Gillham Park killings, the department’s doing all they can to solve those murders.”
“More black women are turning up dead on these Kansas City streets. Personally, I think it’s an attack on the dignity of black women.”
Carey wanted to talk about the murder of Kimberly Barr.
Chocolate vented her emotions otherwise. Leaving the strip club during the early morning hours, she felt she’d become a homicide victim herself.
“Just like Kim, the lifestyles of these women put them in the line of danger. If we can locate witnesses who are willing to talk, then we can start making progress.”
“Let’s just hope you all don’t find another woman naked and beaten to death.”
Carey listened closely to an angry stripper who narrowed her views down to certain demographics. He exited the strip club since he had more people to interview out on Independence Avenue.


CHAPTER—21

A canine and two human beings were added to the murderous archive of Charles Rastelli. The lives he’d taken during the Vietnam War were far too many to keep count. Foreign murders now transformed into domestic murders. Friday nights at The Rosenburg Apartments were relatively quiet, except for other tenants playing loud music and getting into heated arguments. Just down the hall on the second floor a soon-to-be married couple named Richard and Jan engaged into a shouting match.
Their voices carried throughout the second floor and into Charlie’s apartment. Whatever they argued about, Charlie stepped out of his apartment and into the hallway. The offensively racist word “nigger” resonated from the apartment of Richard and Jan. It carried up and down the hallway. Charlie served a tour of duty with plenty of black soldiers. He actually befriended many of them during trying times of combat. From inside his apartment, Richard shouted the word “nigger” one right after another.
Having authentic Italian ancestry, Charlie barely related since he’d learned about his ancestors being called “wops” and “dagos” and “spaghetti-slurping guineas”. Charlie placed his face up to his neighbor’s door. He tuned in tightly and allowed his mind to go inside their apartment.
Richard lashed out at Jan in the most barbaric manner. “Why can’t you just admit that you’re a nigger lover!”
“I’m not a nigger lover, Richard,” Jan sympathetically responded, her short and skinny body shaking from mild fright. “I just don’t like it when you use that word. It’s offensive to me and it was not allowed to be used in our house when I was growing up.”
“Do you know why I use the word ‘nigger’?”
“Why, Richard?”
“For this very reason, Jan. I’m sick and tired of these black guys asking me for money every fucking corner I turn! Why can’t they go out and get a fucking job? Why can’t they go out to one of these day labor places and make some money?”
“Just because I don’t like you using that word, it doesn’t mean that I’m a nigger lover.”
“Nigger! Nigger! Nigger!” Richard yelled three excruciating times, his face having turned beet red. “You’re a nigger lover and you’re in denial. You wanna know something else, Jan?”
“I’m listening, Richard,” Jan said in a tone of exhaustion.
“White guys can’t even get a job because they have to hire so many minorities. I pay taxes and can’t even go to apply for benefits. My ancestors were Irish and they built the fucking railroads in this country. These niggers are taking over America and it’s not right.”
“I disagree.”
“This is the white man’s country and niggers don’t have no right running this country.”
“America should be ran by whoever’s qualified.”
“These greedy capitalistic pigs have been running this country since the beginning.”
“And what race are they?” Jan asked with the straightest face.
“Do you want to hear me say it?”
“Say what?”
“As a white man myself, fuck the fucking white man!”
Charlie knew he had gay neighbors down on the first floor. Now, he learned he had racist neighbors right there on the second floor. Richard shouted the word “nigger” enough times to put the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan to shame. The furious debate between Richard and Jan ceased.
The voices of feminine men down on the first floor wavered up to the second floor. Charlie heard a large group of men laughing from what appeared to be coming from the apartment of Derrick and Mitchell. He followed the noise straight to their door. A few thunderous knocks got their attention. The door eased open as the volume to the music lowered. A small army of gay men stared at Charlie with eyes of disparage.
“Yes, Charlie, what can I do for you?” Derrick asked Charlie, his gayish, intoxicated voice rather slurred.
Charlie stared inside the smoke-filled apartment. “Could you guys please lower the noise a bit?”
His request would set off the timebomb inside of Derrick. “What! You’re telling us to lower the noise? Charlie, you don’t have room to talk, buddy. Not after all the bamming, the kicking, the slamming, the rumbling, and all the jumping that you do upstairs.”
“Didn’t know you’d go and get so hot under the collar.”
“How dare you come down here confronting us about the noise. Mitchell and I have tolerated your bullshit upstairs for far too long. Mechanics taking apart a semi truck have made less noise than you.”
Charlie should’ve known you didn’t go around confronting an intoxicated gay man. A stable of thirty other gay men took sides with Derrick.
“Did you know that we have racist neighbors here at The Rosenburg?” Charlie disclosed, quickly changing the topic about the loud noise.
“Racist neighbors?” Derrick wondered. “Who’re these people?”
“Up there on the second floor.”
“The white boy and the white girl down the hall from you?”
“Yes, the guy named Richard and the girl named Jan.”
“Let them be racist if they want to. The day they call me a ‘nigger’ to my face, that will be the day they lay down their own lives.”
“You should’ve heard that guy Richard going apeshit. He used the N-word a hundred times in less than ten minutes.”
Derrick pulled Mitchell closer to him. “Look Charlie, Mitchell is a white man, and he’s the love of my life. We don’t have no time for racist pigs who don’t like us because of our skin color. We’re in love and that’s the way it’s gonna be.”
Derrick and Mitchell turned to face one another. The gay lovers pressed lips and kissed to seal their love. Charlie found it absolutely disgusting watching two men kiss one another in the mouth.
“Now, Charlie, if you don’t mind. Mitchell and I have lots of guests to entertain in here.”
“Oh, go right ahead and get back to your guests.”
Derrick closed the door with gestures of being polite. No harm done as far as Charlie was concerned. Charlie could’ve cared less if the inside of their apartment turned into an all-male gay orgy. Racist and gay neighbors were the last caliber of people he wanted to deal with.


CHAPTER—22

Howling winds swept over Brush Creek during the late night hours. Creatures left and entered their domains before daylight made its debut. A mental sickness which haunted Charlie since childhood urged him to revisit another perverted episode. Charlie camouflaged himself to blend in with the darkness which was blanketed around Brush Creek. The rabbits, squirrels, ducks, birds, sewer rats, and even snakes, were being closely watched by his set of menacing eyes. He was on a demented mission.
During his childhood, he’d created ugly and grotesque sights. An unexpected flashback placed him right back to when he snuck up on dogs and sliced them straight into their abdomen. Later, he’d dismember the limbs from their bodies. Smiling down on the bloody, butchered-up animal, he quenched his desire to commit a murder. Slaughtering up cats were no exceptions. Charlie’d creep over and snatch up a neighbor’s cat. He’d stab the poor creature enough times to turn it into mence meat.
Charlie looked up at the nighttime skies to watch the dark gray clouds conceal the bright stars. He stared down into the creek waters, only to turn away from the unpleasing sight his reflection casted. Anger and discontent was attached to him and wouldn’t let go. A rabbit squirmed through the thick brush and leaves. The wooded strips of Brush Creek