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Category: Suspense/Thriller
Description: Enormous profits from counterfeit prescription drugs secreted into the USA from Canada are funding a Neo-Nazi group dedicated to changing the ethnic face of North America. Windsor Ontario police inspector Andy Blake is recovering from a line of duty knifing that sends her home to beautiful St. Joseph Island, at the headwaters of Lake Huron. Instead of a peaceful recovery, Andy is thrust into the middle of a murder investigation that involves Grant Stacey, the boy she left behind twenty- five years ago. The investigation pits her against killers ruthless enough to do anything to keep their supply from Canada intact, as well as the Islanders who are supplying them
eBook Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc., 2011 2011
eBookwise Release Date: October 2011

Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [291 KB]
Words: 60863
Reading time: 173-243 min.
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

One

There was no response from inside the apartment. Andy Blake secured an errant wisp of dark brown hair behind her ear. She checked her weapon and nodded to, Joey Turner, holding the battering ram.

Windsor, Ontario has its share of crime. Its proximity to Detroit, and that city's own problems, assures it. The two large cities separated only by a strip of river that delineates an international border can result in its share of shenanigans, a brisk prostitution trade included.

After months of success, the largest vice ring in Southern Ontario's history was about to be dismantled by the capture of one Jerome "Pinky" Welner, now alleged to be hiding in his brother-in-law's basement apartment. Andrea Blake of the Windsor Police Investigative Services, Major Crime Section, wasn't entirely responsible for this success, but her boss thought so.

"Police!" Turner shouted, for the second time.

They'd secured a warrant this February morning to enter the apartment of an Arnold Finger, a small time punk who did what he was told. She was backed up by Turner and two uniformed Windsor police officers. In retrospect, she should have requested more.

The door yielded at the lock set, but remained shut. Andy pointed inches higher. "Inside bolt," she said.

The door opened on Turner's second try, exposing the shabby, sparsely furnished flat. High, street level windows admitted dull light, giving a film noir quality to the place. On a low table in front of a sofa lay an open pizza box, some uneaten crusts.

Andy motioned Joey to check the adjoining room on their right, while she went left into the kitchen, and what looked like another bedroom beyond.

"Pinky!" she called. "Make this easy." No response.

The kitchen was littered with empty bottles and takeout cartons. A plastic garbage bin was filled to the brim with more of the same. A rear door led up to the street where two uniformed police covered any attempt of an exit.

"Clear in here, Joey Turner called.

Andy carefully checked under the counters. "Kitchen's clear." She moved to the room off the kitchen. A single, unmade bed, a dresser. The overhead light was on.

Turner joined her. She motioned for him to check under the bed while she moved to the closet door. He rose from his knees, shaking his head, "no."

There was a musky smell that emanated from a large pile of dirty laundry, as Andy slowly pulled the closet door open. With her foot, she prodded the pile. Nothing.

"Christ, it stinks!" Turner said.

Andy prodded a little deeper, touching something hard. She pulled a pair of soiled trousers away to reveal a western style boot. It refused to move. "This boot seems to be attached to a leg, sergeant," she said for the boot owner's benefit. "Might as well come out, Pinky."

Obediently, the pile of laundry came to life. First, an arm, then the balding head and shoulders of Jerome Welner. Calmly, wordlessly, he stood, put his hands on the wall and allowed Joey Turner to pat him down while Andy watched.

"Clean," Turner said.

"Hands behind your back, if you please," Andy instructed. She reached behind her back for her handcuffs.

"I'll let the guys on the back door in," Turner said.

Andy had one cuff on Welner when he lifted his leg and extracted something from his boot. She didn't see the knife until it slipped neatly between her eleventh and twelfth ribs.

She was more angry at her laxity than at Welner, and displayed it by a very hard knee to his scrotum. The ensuing scream brought Turner back into the bedroom in time to secure Welner, but too late to do anything more but report "Officer down" on his radio.

The knifing resulted in a punctured lung. Andy arrived at Windsor Regional Hospital in time for the emergency staff to successfully re-inflate it. Two weeks later, a nurse wheeled Andy out to a waiting taxi. Looking back on the incident, she concluded it hadn't been her finest hour.

The Mentor looked down from the pulpit, smiling benevolently. His congregation of one hundred and sixty--about one half from here at the commune, and another of equal size from the surrounding area--packed the converted barn. No need for fire and brimstone. His tone was even, his message was pure. It was time to conclude.

"And so, when the hard working Europeans settled this great country, made a constitution and established a work ethic that made this country what it is--or, once was, can it be expected that we allow groups of lazy, mongrel races to shoulder their way in and change our way of life and values?

"This is our country and we must--we will--take it back. The mongrels are growing faster than you and I, the white founders of our homeland! That is why Lebenborn, and The Perfect Path, will save the white culture in America. I am so proud of you, my flock, you who have set the standard for two new Lebenborn communities this year, one in Nebraska, and, I have just learned, one in Arizona."

A murmur of approval in the congregation. The Mentor lowered his voice conspiratorially.

"Our struggle is finding traction. This fall, when I address the Aryan Front annual meeting in Iowa, I will shine your example as a beacon for the others to follow. Now let us pray to our heavenly Father for the courage to continue in this most noble of causes: the rightful dominance of the white race."

Over one hundred and fifty heads, a majority of them women's, lowered. An electric organ played a hymn, followed by recessional. The congregation emptied the barn, some to cottages and trailers on the premises, others to cars and pick-ups parked along the rural road. All filled with new energy and righteousness.

The last of the personal items from her desk was in the cardboard box, and Andrea Blake gingerly lifted her forty-three year old, five foot eight frame from the chair. The stiffness in her side was somewhat better, but still aggravating. She made her way past cubicles to Jack Carmichael's office, where a sign on the open glass door announced:

Superintendent

Investigative Services

Major Crime Section

John V. Carmichael

Andy checked her reflection in the mirrored door, ruefully aware of the five pounds put on in the hospital, and gave the jamb a rap.

"Jack?"

Carmichael looked up. "Already, Inspector?"

She smiled at the formality. "There wasn't much. Most of the important stuff I handled at the hospital."

"Take all the time you need to get healthy, Andy," Carmichael said.

A little disingenuous, Andy thought. He couldn't afford to lose an experienced investigator, especially one with the creds of Andy Blake. Ten years on the job in Toronto, an MS in Criminology, before accepting the Windsor Superintendant position she now held. She'd found she hated the admin side of the job, and had no stomach for departmental politics. Her request to take an inspector slot was granted. For Jack, she was the perfect employee: a top notch detective--and not after his job.

"What are your plans?" he asked.

Andy looked out of Carmichael's window across the river to where the Detroit skyline sparkled on a bright, late April day. It belied the blight that still existed behind the facade, despite that city's attempts at recovery. "I may go home for a month or two--up north."

He stood, walked around his desk, offering an awkward embrace. "Get well, Andy...and get back soon."