Sunday, April 14, 2013

Second Excerpt for A Journey for Justice

A Journey for Justice
(The Detective Series)

Joseph wiggled the pencil quickly between his fingers reading carefully through the paperwork Paul had left him. Crank could not be trusted and Joseph needed to find an informant that could verify Fisher was taking over Jackson’s lucrative drug territory. The cellphone lying on the desk vibrated, breaking his concentration. He picked it up after recognizing the number. “Hey, Stephanie, what’s up?”

“You and why I haven’t heard from you in days; you can’t be that busy, Joseph.”

“Actually I am very busy; you know I wouldn’t blow you off without a good reason. Are you off today or in town on a layover?”

A long pause came over the phone before she spoke. “I can’t believe you don’t remember.”

“Remember what?” He asked flipping over several pages of the small desk calendar over. The last time he’d flipped it was three weeks ago. Circled in red pen, was the date of Stephanie’s birthday.

“Forget it, Joseph. This friendship is not going anywhere for either one of us, and to be honest, you are becoming more distant now that you’re at the hospital babysitting your comatose friend.”

He rubbed his forehead with his thumb. “Come on, Stephanie, be fair. Rachael and Terrell were good friends of mine. I’m going to get whoever did this to them and that means me putting in a lot of hours. If you were in their shoes, you’d want the police working your case non-stop.”

“Yes I remember she is a FRIEND but her sister is a much closer friend. How much time have you been spending with her?”

“Don’t go there, Steph. I am working a murder case that involves people I know and care about.”

“I’m not going to argue about something that is very evident. Joseph, you’ve been at the hospital every night sitting by her side and holding her hand. If that is your way of working on her case, then I don’t know how there is going to be enough of you to spread around to all your other victims waiting for you to solve their cases.”

“You’re taking this way overboard. I know it is your birthday and you’re upset I didn’t remember right off. Let me make it up to you by taking you to dinner tonight.”

“I should be flattered the great Detective Joseph Fernando is willing to spare me a few hours on my birthday.”

He spoke low and in his sexy voice. A voice Stephanie found hard to resist no matter how many times he reneged or forgot a date with her. “We can have dinner, a few drinks and who knows what might happen after that.”

“Joseph Fernando, I swear, if you stand me up tonight, we are through! Do you understand the definition of the word ‘through’?”

He smiled into the phone. “Yeah, I do understand and I will be on time and wearing my special underwear.”

“Don’t tease me. I haven’t had my dose of hot chocolate in forever and I might have to jump your bones before we have dinner with your sexy self.”

“Dessert before the main course always works for me. Look, Stephanie, I gotta go if I want to get out of here tonight.”

“Oh, alright, I’ll let you go, if it’s that important. Joseph, I expect you at my door at 7:00 tonight and not a minute later.”

“I will be there,” he said blowing kisses into the mouthpiece before hanging up.

He and Stephanie Barnes were not exclusive. The two would get together to attend parties or hang out whenever Stephanie was in town. Her job as a flight attendant, kept her away often. He was not in the dark that Stephanie was with other men when they weren’t together; in fact she would mention the exotic men she’d meet as a way to make him jealous but it always failed to get a rile from him.

Stephanie was a beautiful woman with long brunette hair, striking hazel-green eyes, and a body built to rock the skimpiest beach gear. Joseph’s family gave him the third-degree when he started going out with Stephanie. He found it hard to believe in this day and age where almost everything was accepted, his family was giving him grief because Stephanie was white.

He assured them the relationship wasn’t going any further than ‘friendship status.’ Stephanie understood he was married to his job and not looking for a serious relationship. He had to break it down to them that he and Stephanie were nothing more than friends with occasional benefits.

Joseph returned his attention to his work. Stephanie’s phone call had managed to ignite a little flame and had him looking forward to their date. He needed to get out and unwind; to release the stress that had built inside of him over the past weeks. Without a steady girlfriend, bed-hopping or having multiple partners was not his thing.

He didn’t downgrade Stephanie for possessing a partying side, but they always made sure protection was used whenever they were together. She talked a lot of game, but he doubted seriously she’d slept with the number of men she’d proclaimed to have met through her travels. She probably partied with them, but he didn’t believe she would sleep around so casually with her germaphobic nature or giving up her carefree lifestyle to be a mother.

Joseph Fernando was 34 years old and been working as a Cleveland Homicide Detective for five years after transferring from the vice squad. He was single, had no children, and lived a quiet existence with his dog Shadow, a black Labrador in a quaint home on Cleveland’s westside, in an area known as Westpark.

At 6 foot 2 inches tall, he kept his athletic build by working out with Donovan or jogging around the Westpark neighborhood with Shadow. Joseph’s caramel complexion and dark brown eyes set off his handsome features. He wore his hair short and most of the time his face was clean-shaven.

His home was his refuge away from everything when the stress reached epic proportions. Other than family and close friends, no one could just drop by unannounced. The two-bedroom colonial style home was surrounded by shrubs and beds of colorful flowers when the season called for such. The front yard was average-sized, which made it easy to keep manicured and the back yard was big enough to fence off an area for Shadow to romp around but still have room for a small vegetable garden near the garage. He was an avid gardener and digging in the soil was his stress relief.

When he purchased the house, his quiet lifestyle left many neighbors wondering why a man of his caliber didn’t have an endless trail of women leading to and from his door. Some of the neighbors had labeled him nerdy while other resorted to calling him reclusive and watched his movements for any trouble.

All rumors came to a sudden end when word filtered through the grapevine he actually hunted the worse elements of the city for a living. There were times he was saluted as the hero when police did a good job, but, then he would feel the heat when police failed to get a job done. But, for the most part, he got along with his neighbors and his presence in the neighborhood made them feel a little safer knowing they could call on him at the sign of trouble.

Joseph’s desk phone rang. “Homicide, Detective Fernando speaking.” He dropped the pencil, giving the caller his full attention. “I’m on my way.”

Grabbing his suit jacket from the back of his chair, he ran into Donovan. “Dump the coffee and let’s roll,” he said hurriedly.

“What’s going on?”

“Rachael might be coming around. I got a call from the hospital asking me to come over ASAP.” “I’m right behind you,” Donovan said setting the coffee mug on the desk.


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