The timbered cabin stood at the edge of a clearing. Splodges from wet footprints marked the porch. The front door was ajar. Five-year-old Belle dropped the tree. Inside the cabin her father was stretched across a mat, partially blocking the doorway. In the bathroom her mother’s body was twisted sideways in the empty bath. Her dog, still on its chain, lay dead in the backyard.
Someone had killed her family and taken their car. Plus they’d ruined Christmas. Someone was going to pay.
Meanwhile, someone was tapping on the car window.
Belle snapped out of the dream. That dream. Always the same, always true.
Her neck was stiff, her shoulders contorted. Stakeouts were more fun in the movies and cops never had trouble finding parking in New York’s streets. But then she wasn’t a cop.
She squinted at the knocker’s face. Hard to tell his age. Either he was in his 40s and the years hadn’t been kind or he was mid-50s and needed a better moisturiser. On the bright side, his large, sad eyes had a touch of the bloodhound and she needed a good tracker.
With the window up, his mouth seemed to silently form the words “Back again?” or perhaps “Back pain?” Both would’ve been correct. She’d driven into the Lower East Side before breakfast, cased the block and his office building, returned later when a kerbside space opened up and now she’d been literally caught napping after sunset. Just how much she’d been hoping to learn about Kent and his clients by sitting in an easily identifiable, dusty out-of-town Jeep with a notepad on her knee was doubtful.
Those mournful, bloodshot eyes roamed over her uniform. Grey shirt, green pants, a cloth badge marking her as a National Park Service Ranger and, on the rear seat, a broad brimmed, flat hat that matched Smokey Bear’s.
As the window slid down, he leant forward and guessed she was about 30. He was right.
“I’m Belle,” she said. “I’m told you find bad people.”
He gave a reasonable impersonation of a smile. “Sometimes … and you’ve found your way here from Hicksville.”
“Vermont.”
He shrugged. “As I said …”. Turning, he walked towards a tenement-style building. She knew that he knew she was traipsing silently behind him, up a narrow flight of stairs to his office. He held the door open, nodding towards two chairs which looked more tired than he did. “Take your pick.”
Kent manoeuvred around a leather topped partner’s desk and flopped into a battered, high-backed chair. He looked at his watch. Belle took the hint.
Wisely she started by explaining she’d saved enough money to pay him. She had his attention. Then came the backstory from 25 years earlier: dead parents and dead dog followed by a restless childhood in foster homes. She’d eventually joined the Rangers because the State Police thought handing her handcuffs, a gold badge and a gun might not be a wise given her family history. And, she sighed, they call this “The Land of the Free”?
“Oh, and by the way, my folks were drug dealers,” she added. “Old school – cocaine. Not currently on trend dope such as fentanyl or ketamine. Gentler times. Except for the murders and the fact my parents’ stash was stolen.”
On that subject, she had a name.
Two weeks previously she’d been bouncing down a dirt track in her Jeep to see what damage recent lightning strikes had caused in Groton State Forest. One strike had felled a Northern Red Oak which, in turn, had knocked over an interwoven matting of cut branches camouflaging her parent’s abandoned car. Wedged under the front seat on the car floor was a dropped driver's license.
“That’s what we private investigators call a clue,” interrupted Kent. “Did you show it to the police?”
“No. But I’m showing it to you.” She slid the license across the leather top.
Kent tilted it towards the desk lamp. A quarter of a century of State Forest climate changes had faded the lettering. All that was left was a surname, Blasio, and a partial address – a NYC zip code ending in 02. Kent’s home territory. The washed-out photograph revealed little more than two cold piggy eyes set between two large ears.
“My favourite form of pay. Come back tomorrow. Same time. Pro tip: don’t sleep in your car. It’s unbecoming for a Vermonter.”
A cheap local hotel had proved harder to find than parking. Eventually she’d found both in nearby Alphabet City. She’d slept, showered, sought out a clothing store with the largest SALE sign outside and, in civies, was now back in what she considered “her” chair, facing him.
For an industry-standard bribe, Kent had his contact in NYPD’s 7th Precinct run a trace on Mr Blasio – purported drug and car thief and, yes, THAT little detail: killer.
“It could be a front,” said Belle.
“You’re wasted as a ranger. Let’s see if you’re right.”
The restaurant was hopping. As they entered, a rattled hostess stepped in front of them. “Reservation?”
“Plenty of them,” replied Kent. “But we still want to eat here. First, we’d like to see Mr Blasio.”
“Signore Blasio is busy.”
Belle took a pace forward. “Tell him I said Vermont is beautiful at Christmas.”
Blasio had, frankly, let himself go. With endless pasta and pinot nero within easy reach of his chubby hands, something had to give: in this case, his belt buckle.
He looked up from his office desk, kept picking under his fingernails with a silver letter opener and greeted the visitors: “Welcome to Little Italy.”
A tall, smirking man in a sharp leather jacket leant against the wall behind Blasio.
Belle and Kent refused an offer to sit.
“Fanciful,” said Blasio when she’d finished.
Belle flipped a folded sheet of paper towards him. He spread open the paper, saw a photocopy of his driver’s license and sneered: “I knew I should’ve waited and killed you too, you little bitch.”
The tall man pushed himself off the wall and then bounced back when Kent kicked that nice jacket – hard.
Thirty years of watching bobcats leap in forests gave Belle an unfair advantage over a porky man wedged in a chair. From a standing start, she sprung across the desk and landed on him.
They both let out an “oomph”.
Kent spotted the glinting blade of the letter opener swing up. It came down. Up and down. Up and down.
Belle left it in Blasio’s neck.
“I saw that,” said the tall man. Two seconds later he witnessed the window pane coming at him or vice versa.
Kent leant through the large gap in the broken glass and watched the body bounce off a car roof two storeys below.
“What next?” Belle asked.
# # #
Copyright 2025 GREG FLYNN
