Kiss of the Lazaretto: The Trilogy Comes to an End

After many years of work, and a great deal of sweat, blood, and thrills, I'm finally closing the door on the Lazaretto Trilogy with book three, Kiss of the Lazaretto.  A reader once asked me why Gregor Lepov seemed so defeated, adding " He hasn't given up, but his dreams have certainly shrunk."  She was sure there was someone to blame for his troubles.  Would it surprise anyone to learn that there's a woman lurking in his past?  That might explain why he's a little rough on the women he meets.

Lepov's past catches up to him when his ex-wife Gloria arrives in the Lazaretto.  Even worse, against his better judgement, he agrees to allow her to hire him.  He knows it's a bad idea but he also knows it just might be the best way to keep an eye on her as well as a way to help get her out of the Lazaretto as soon as possible. 

In the following excerpt, Lepov arrives at his apartment to find Gloria waiting for him.  He's been expecting her to try something like this, and wondering how he would respond.  After all, old habits die hard.  Even the bad ones.  Especially the bad ones.

"Here's to foolish people doing foolish things."

(excerpt from Kiss of the Lazaretto)

  She was there, sitting on the top step, huddled against the wall, difficult to see in the stairwell’s poor lighting.  A shadow hid her face, but he could see her eyes, big and scared and he knew it was an act before she said the first word.

  He climbed the last steps, brushing past her without saying a word.  He pushed through the door and let it swing shut without waiting for her.

  Gripping the handle of his apartment door, he heard the door lock disengage.  She hadn’t followed him yet.  He stepped into his front room and left the door open.

  Maybe she really hadn’t been there.  Maybe she was just the product of an unbalanced nervous system.  Maybe it really was just a lack of vitamins as Lilly had insisted.  How nice to think that Gloria would go away if he diligently took his supplements.

  He heard the door beside the elevator finally swing open, its rusty hinges seemingly louder than usual.  Her heels tapped lightly on the wooden floor; her pace too measured to suggest she was upset.  She was, as she always had been, firmly in control.

  He pulled off his coat and stood a few steps inside the door, waiting for her.  When she finally appeared, she stopped at the door, partially hiding herself behind the frame.  She leaned against it, her head tilted so that half of her face was illuminated from the lamp in his front room.

  “If you’re waiting for an invitation you’ll have to stand there a very long time.  I never invite clients into my home.  It’s not professional.”

  “Grey…” her voice was almost too soft to be heard.

  “You’ll have to speak up,” he said, tossing his coat on a hook behind the door.  He turned his back on her and walked away.  “I don’t hear as well as I use to.”

  “Grey, wait!”

  “I’m not gonna wait!”  He spun around and fought the urge to strike out at her.  “I waited plenty when you left.  Gave you time to make as big a mistake as any husband was willing to put up with.  I was willing to wait then.  I waited too long.  You didn’t know that, did you?  You moved on and never looked back.  I’ll bet it never dawned on you that your husband was standing still, letting life flow by him as he waited for you to return.  You can ask me to work for you and what’s-his-name, but you don’t get to ask me to wait anymore!”

  He retreated deeper into the apartment, hoping she would leave.  He jerked open his refrigerator, its single bulb shining bright in the dark kitchen.  There was nothing there he wanted.  He’d opened it just so his hands would have something to do.  Just so his hands wouldn’t ball into fists.

  The glow of the light bulb shone on the counter and he saw his half empty bottle of bourbon.  He slammed the door and grabbed the bottle.

  “Grey.”  She’d followed him.  She was just inside the kitchen now.  “You’re angry at me.”

  “Angry at you?”  He reached next to the sink and switched on a light.  It’s harsh blue-white glare caught her by surprise and she winced.  He grabbed two empty glasses and tossed them on the counter.  One of them fell over.  Righting it, he poured out drinks for both of them.  “Why would I be angry with you?  You left me because I bored you.  Now you show up here with husband number…three, isn’t it?  Or was there another one crammed in there between this guy and the one I carried the furniture for?

  “Well, anyway, it doesn’t matter.  This present husband of yours walks into my office with you in tail and you announce that you’re not only involved in a criminal undertaking but you’re also going to emotionally blackmail me into helping you.  You’ve got me tracking down your new lover and now you show up because you want to remind me that your husband is a danger to you and me and your missing lover.

  “I’m not angry with you, Gloria.  I actually think I’m more amused than angry.  You really ought to see what this looks like from my side of the rubber room.”

  He gave her one of the glasses and lifted his with a nod of his head.

  “Here’s to foolish people doing foolish things.”

  “You aren’t foolish,” she said, grabbing his hand to prevent him from taking the drink.  “Maybe I am, but you’re anything but foolish.  It’s why I came to you.  Why I convinced Kry that we should hire you.  I knew that once you were involved, you’d know the best way to deal with this.”

  He pulled away from her and finally took that drink.  She took a sip of hers before speaking again.

  “At least you aren’t angry, Grey.  That’s important to me.”

  “I never said I wasn’t angry, Gloria.  You’re missing the point.  I said I wasn’t angry at you.  But that doesn’t mean I’m not angry at me.  And I can assure you that I’m plenty angry with me.  I hate watching a man stick his head into a noose for no logical reason.”

  “You can quit if that’s what you want.  I would walk away and I wouldn’t come back.  If it’s what you really want.”

  “Oh, don’t be a hero.”  He poured a second drink—he was well aware how bad an idea that was—and carried it into the front room.  He set it on a side table and began unrolling his sleeves.  The room was becoming unexpectedly hot.  “You really don’t get it, do you?  If I thought I could just quit this job whenever I decided you and Dannen had lied to me one too many times, I wouldn’t be angry with myself.  But I knew full well the moment I said I’d listen to your story I was in this thing all the way.  I knew you’d get hold of me and I wouldn’t be able to get free.  And don’t stand there with those big eyes and your innocent look of surprise!  You knew it too.  You probably even knew it before the first day you rode the elevator to my office.  You counted on it.”

  “Grey—”

  “And cut out that Grey nonsense, Mrs. Dannen.  Cut out all of it and tell me why you’re here—the truth—or so help me God I’m gonna throw you down those stairs.”  He tossed down the second drink and wanted badly to throw the glass at her.  Instead, he dropped it on the table and dropped himself into the corner of his sofa.

  Lepov’s head was spinning.  The drinks weren’t to blame, but they weren’t helping either.  He knew he was overreacting to her but he couldn’t find a way to turn it off.  Her scared eyes and shaky voice had not only failed to elicit his compassion, they had awakened a dormant anger he had not realized still existed.  He took several deep breaths and stared at her, willing her to either explain herself or exit the apartment.  He didn’t care which one she chose.

  “I told you I can help you find him.  But you have to promise me—you have be sure you don’t tell Kry when you’ve found him.  Tell me.  Only me.  Kry would kill him.”

  She had slowly been moving toward him.  Now, she stood beside him.  The light was behind her and he could only see her silhouette.

  “And you too, I suppose?”  His tone had softened.  He recognized that it had and though he didn’t want it to, he couldn’t hold on to his earlier fury.

  “I don’t know.”  Her words a mere whisper.

  “So tell me where he is.”

  “Promise first.”  She put a hand on his.

  “Not to tell your husband where your lover’s hiding?”

  She pulled her hand back.  “I told you he’s not my lover.  You’re being just as jealous as Kry.”

  “It’s an inherent fault with all past and present husbands.  We don’t like our wives running around with future husbands.”

  “He’s not a future husband.  And the only man Kry really needs to worry about is—” she slowly sank onto the edge of the sofa.  Before he could stop her, she’d leaned against him and her lips brushed his.  He turned away at the last moment.  Her kiss wet his cheek.

  “You just called me your wife.”  Her breath was hot.  The drinks were souring his stomach.  He pushed her away but she resisted.

  “So now you’re gonna tell me where to find Jardyn, and I tell you where he is, and you two slip off into the night and Dannen gets drunk and waits for you long enough to realize you’re never coming back.  Is that the picture you were hoping to draw?”

  “It isn’t my first choice.  There are other possible outcomes.”

  “Yeah, I guess there are.”  He turned to look in her eyes.  He had to know just how far gone he was.  He needed to know if he had any chance of surviving her game.  He shifted so that he could put an arm around her, pulled her tight, and kissed her.  She was no longer resisting him.

  Despite the years, despite the bitterness, in that moment they were young lovers again, saturated with the familiarity that overtakes two people who have managed to become one: the taste of her mouth, the feel of her tongue on his, the knowledge that her hands would slide up between his shoulders even as his slid down the curve of her legs.  The feel, the smell, her transformation from scared girl to a hungry woman, it was a moment that Lepov had feared and desired and known he would have to conquer.

  He pulled back and looked into her eyes again.  She waited, her ragged breathing yet one more distraction.  He waited too.  Long enough to allow the fog to lift.

  “You’re gonna have to remember something, my dear.”

  “Okay, I will.”  She put her head against his shoulder.

  “I’m an investigator.  I may not be a damned good one, but I’m competent enough.  Enough that I’ve already found a witness who saw Louis Jardyn leave Alpha quadrant shortly after his pal Frobe was killed.  A witness who has a very good memory.  Good enough that his description of Jardyn’s traveling companion was very detailed.”

  She sat up, wide eyes sparkling in the lamplight.

  “You see, I would have known he was describing you even if I hadn’t known you were in the Lazaretto.”

She drew back and he was sure she was going to hit him.  Instead, she simply pushed away from him and stood to her feet.  "You’re trying too hard, Gloria.  And for no reason.  I told you I was going to find Jardyn.  I already agreed to the job.  Stop treating me like I’m made of glass.  I’m not gonna fall to pieces.  I’ll do what you want.  Because I want you out of here more than you want to get out of here.”

  “He called me the night Frobe was killed.  He was scared—”

  “I don’t want to hear your story.  I really don’t care.  I told you to tell me the truth.  You didn’t do it.  That was stupid.”  He could taste her lipstick on his lips and he wiped it away with two fingers.  “Now tell me the truth this time.  Do you know where he is?”

  “The Malibu Hotel.”

  “I already know about the Malibu.  He wasn’t there.  Something—someone spooked him.  Where was he supposed to go if that happened?”

  “He said he would leave a message.”

  “Where?”

  “With a bartender, at a little place called The Maple Leaf.”

  There were any number of reasons to kick her out and quit the case.  But the fact remained he wanted to do whatever it took to get her out of the Lazaretto.  The only real good news had been his victory over their past.  At least for that one moment he had proven that he could keep his head no matter how much she worked at confusing him.

  Now he just had to figure out a way to take all of her lies and reshape them into the truth.  If he could do that, he’d be a miracle worker.

Officially, the book's release is listed as April of this year but due to the oddities of modern-day publishing, the book is already available.  If you want, you can grab an early copy at the link below.  Signed copies are also available at Rocket Fire Books.

And be sure to get books one and two if you don't have them yet:

The Lazaretto on Sale

In anticipation of the release of the third book in the Lazaretto Trilogy, Rocket Fire Books is making book one, The Lazaretto available as a Kindle Countdown Deal.  This week, until Thursday, you can buy the Kindle version of this dark, thriller for just 99 cents.  After that, it will be $2.99 until the end of the week when it will go back to its full price.  So be sure to grab a copy if you don't have one already.

The Lady in the Lazaretto

This week marks the release of my second novel in the Lazaretto Trilogy: Lady in the Lazaretto.  If you missed out on the first book of the trilogy, you can read about it in my post A Preview of the Lazaretto.  The Lazaretto is a dark and disturbing world where travelers must endure a forty day quarantine before traveling from one planet to the next.  It is a passive quarantine.  Those travelers found to be carrying an infectious pathogen are not allowed to leave the Lazaretto.  The exile is a life sentence.

As he carves a new life on the quarantine moon first revealed in The Lazaretto, Gregor Lepov is hired to solve the perplexing disappearances of its citizens into a mysterious basement apartment. Detective Ed MacNally of Lazaretto Homicide is busy training his new partner, Menya Russell, with whom he is investigating the murder of a man whose body was recently uncovered after thirty years.

  Thieves, corpses, ladies and liars lure Lepov and MacNally into the Lazaretto’s disturbing past.  Has the killer that was active thirty years ago begun killing again?  And after Lepov is nearly killed by a woman who looks too much like Lilly Stewart, he must decide who he can really trust in a city that shuns faith and embraces fear.

The book is available in print and ebook editions.

Below is an excerpt from an opening scene of the book.

   Darkness had not yet settled over the Lazaretto as Lieutenant Ed MacNally and his young partner, Menya Russell, walked across the uneven surface of a West End landfill.  Shards of glass and broken sewer pipes mixed with decomposing soil to create an alien landscape that made walking both difficult and dangerous.  The sun, as much as could be seen through the overcast sky, was still out.  It would sink out of sight soon and already crews were assembling a large tripod topped with fiber optic lamps.  They were ancient, compared to the newer models MacNally’s partner had seen at the academy, but they would do the job.

   “Over here, detective.”  A haggard man in an ill-fitting suit waved MacNally toward a small ditch between two mounds of debris; the man’s skin as pockmarked and scarred as the ditch.

   MacNally found a semi-solid path that had been formed by a tracked vehicle and followed it into the ditch.  The soil there was dry and crumbly.  With all the recent rain, MacNally hadn’t thought that was possible.  Halfway down, MacNally realized it wasn’t dry soil.  It was plaster dust.  Each step he took crushed it into a trillion little dust particles that floated a few inches from the ground and never seemed to settle back down.

   Despite the freshly disturbed plaster dust, a body was visible in the deepest level of the ditch.  The fiber optic lamps cast a shimmer of light now, enough so the two detectives could see what all the fuss was about.  Midst the disjointed shapes of the broken soil and debris lay part of a body; the lower half of a human adult.  There was little left save for the bones and most of the synthetic clothes with which the body had been covered.  The legs were badly twisted; the feet buried in the soil.

   “It that all?”  MacNally asked the man with the scarred face.

   “We thought it was.  My operator stopped digging when he saw it.  We did some soft digging with hand shovels after he backed the rig out.  We almost gave up until we hit this.”

   MacNally’s eyes followed the man’s pointed finger.  A bundle of rags lay at the far end of the ditch, fifteen meters away.  MacNally made sure not to step on the lower half of the body and motioned for Russell to do the same as he traversed the ditch and stopped near the bundle of rags.

   “Looks like a match,” Russell said, no humor in his tone.

   The little dust cloud clung to the ground as if it were afraid to float away.  MacNally squatted down and fanned the plaster dust with big meaty hands to get a clearer view of the upper half of the body.  It was face down, its shoulders hunched forward, hands and arms strung out in front.  The rib cage, visible through the heavily torn shirt, was full of fresh soil.

   “I don’t guess it’s gonna help to take Visuals, huh?”  Russell held back a few steps and showed little interest in the skeleton.

   “Doesn’t matter,” MacNally shook his head.  “We run every Aspect.  Doesn’t matter that there isn’t much left.  There’s information here.  We just can’t see it yet.”

   “I didn’t mean that,” Russell mumbled.

   “What?”  MacNally turned with exasperation.  It didn’t take much for the young Arcobian to get on his nerves.  “If you’re gonna say something say it loud enough so I can hear ya.  I ain’t twenty years old anymore.”

   “I said I didn’t mean the Visuals wouldn’t pick up any data.  I meant we don’t have a reason to investigate.”  Russell did not raise his voice.

   “I still don’t hear him,” MacNally mumbled, though in fact he had.  He just hadn’t heard his partner make an attempt to speak louder.  “I say we investigate him and that’s good enough reason for you.  Okay?”

   Russell looked down at the rags with the same pinched expression he always wore when arguing with the Lieutenant, wrinkling his brow in a way that always made MacNally think the boy had swallowed a bug.

   “Okay,” he said.  “I’ll make sure the VTechs get a good set of shots.  And a full set of tests on the soil.  Do you want anything else?”

   “Maybe,” MacNally stood still for a few seconds, mesmerized by the remains of the man at his feet.  He felt around in his coat pockets until he found a pack of cigarettes and put one between his lips.  He put a silver lighter to it and his shadowed face was briefly lit.

   “You think he was buried here for a long time?”

   “I doubt it,” MacNally pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and used it to point.  “This soil looks fresh, it’s only been in it for a short time.  See how loose all this is?”

   “Well, that ain’t exactly soil,” the scarred man in the bad suit spoke up.  “This is debris from a building that was just torn down.  I figure the guy was inside the building—basement maybe.  When the rigs dug it up he was pulled out.  Something like that.”

   “Maybe he was just some guy who died before the building was erected,” Russell said, shrugging his shoulders.  “Maybe he died of natural causes and was buried and no one remembered he was there.”

   “Russell,” MacNally was almost patient in his reply, “I realize you had little warning before your transfer, but you could have bothered to learn something about this place.  The IHS is very particular about people here.  They keep a zero sum count of everyone here.  If you arrive, you either depart, you’re still here, or you die.  Besides, no one gets buried in the soil here.  There’s too much risk of contamination.  That’s why the burials are up on the high slope’s bedrock.”

   “Maybe your IHS isn’t as all-knowing as you imagine.”

   “Speaking of IHS, they ought to be here pretty soon.  Go back to the car and wait for them.  Tell them we got to get Visuals.”  MacNally watched Russell climb the unstable embankment.

   “He could be right,” the scarred man offered without invitation.

   MacNally glared at him until the man grew uncomfortable and retreated to the other end of the ditch.

   Once alone, MacNally knelt beside the skeletal remains, examining the outstretched hands.  With a flashlight no bigger than a pencil, he illuminated the bones of the right hand.

   “You stupid sonofabitch,” MacNally stuck his cigarette between his lips.  “I should have known you never made it out of here alive.”

   He brushed away enough of the dust to free the middle finger of the right hand and completely reveal a silver ring with a Cross of Lorraine on its crest.  MacNally gingerly removed the ring and dropped it in his coat pocket.

   A new cloud of dust appeared at his feet as he kicked at the debris surrounding the boney fingers, erasing the signs of what he’d done.

   This was the worst kind of end to a day.  A new investigation was about to begin, and while Ed MacNally knew the body’s identity, he wasn’t about to reveal it to anyone.  He was, in fact, going to have to keep anyone from quickly identifying those bones.
   MacNally watched Russell stumble back through the landfill with two VTechs in tow.  It was about to be one helluva week.

Below you can find the new versions (yellow is the print, grey is the ebook version) as well as a link to the first book.  If you are interested in a signed print copy, watch for it at rocketfirebooks.com.  It will be up on the website by the end of this week.

  

Sneak Preview of "The Lady in the Lazaretto"

"The Lady in the Lazaretto" is the second book in the Lazaretto Trilogy.  Watch for more information on it during the month of August.  The book will be released at the end of the month.

A Quick View of The Lazaretto (An Excerpt from Book One of The Lazaretto Trilogy)

The Lazaretto is a sci-fi noir novel set on a quarantine moon.  The novel consists of multiple story lines:

Gregor Lepov is a private investigator who arrives in the Lazaretto to search for a woman’s missing son and quickly meets the enigmatic Lilly Stewart, an antiquities dealer, a remarkable woman who may be friend or foe.

Lieutenant Ed MacNally, a homicide detective, along with his partner Arturo Fenelli, begin investigating a string of brutal murders that are similar in their violence but otherwise seem unrelated.

Maria Duvalls, a volunteer nurse in a world where the sick are left untreated, cares for a dying crime boss with a mysterious illness, even as a disturbing young man follows her throughout the city.

The Collector—an unseen yet prominent figure in the city obsessed with contagions and power—wields a dangerous influence through his ruthless Agent.

Helen Segal, a secretary at the Interplanetary Health Service, become embroiled in an internal affairs investigation in which she and her best friend try to decide if the cold, calculating German Doctor Haupt is merely conducting a simple audit or something deeper that will ultimately threaten more than just their jobs.

  In the following excerpt, Helen Segal has been reassigned to work for the newly arrived auditor from Earth.

  Helen Segal hesitated in front of a plain office door.  If she hadn’t been so unsettled at the coming encounter she would have laughed at herself.  Of what was she afraid?  If anything, she told herself, she ought to look forward to this.  It was a chance to break away from the boredom of her daily routine.

  A chill ran through her.  If only the German had not been so cold. 

  She knocked.

  “Come.”  The command carried easily through the door.

  Helen obeyed.  She stepped into the office and closed the door with a precision she rarely used.  She even felt she was standing more erect than usual.  The German’s disciplined demeanor was contagious.

  The small room had only a desk and chair. 

  “You are a few minutes late,” Dr. Haupt stated.  “That is acceptable.  I only ask that it not become a habit.  Follow me.”

  Turning on his heel, he disappeared through a second doorway.  Helen followed.

  “Sit down.”

  She did.  This room was only slightly bigger.  He took a seat behind a desk, looked up at Helen, and spoke without preamble.

  “I have been sent here to conduct a review of IHS in the Lazaretto.  I requested that you be assigned to assist me in this review.  I will not allow this review to become entangled in politics.  Nor will I allow personal feelings to become a factor.  This investigation is about the ability of the IHS to fulfill its purpose here at the Lazaretto.  If it is efficiently doing so, then I will report as much and leave as quickly as possible.  If it is not, then I will report as much, give my recommendations to Earth, and await further instructions.  Do you understand?”

  Helen understood too well.  The German was not there to cut anyone slack.  And she was now caught in the middle.  How had this happened?

  “Yes,” she nodded.  She’d fought the urge to add yes sir.

 “Excellent.  We will begin immediately.  I have already listed the documentation that I require.  You will find the list here.”  He pulled a data tag from his breast pocket and handed it to her.  “Forward this to the appropriate departments.  See that I have the required system passes so that I can view all documentation at their original electronic storage sites, as well as any required passes necessary to print out hard copies.”

  Helen took the data tag and left the room.  Outside his office, she sat at what was now her desk.  Spartan as the room was, the desk contained everything she would need.  At least all the components were installed.  It was even more outdated than normal.

  The deskscreen actually had a keypad for data input.  She spoke a few simple commands and confirmed what she had suspected: the system had no vocal input.  Even the data tag was not picked up by a proximity reader.  She had to set it in a data port before the desk could read it.

  This office was no accident.  Dr. Fisher had assigned this office to the German to obstruct the review.  If they had given Dr. Haupt an obsolete office system to hinder him, what did that say about her role as his assistant?  It clarified her situation.  She had been baffled that she had been asked to help in the review.  She was, after all, only a secretary.  Now she understood.  She was also an outdated secretary that was expected to slow things down.

  “I’m not only going to be caught in the middle of a bureaucratic battle,” she murmured, “but I’m going to be used as a shield as well.  Tough luck, old girl.”

  Of course, she might be reading too much into her situation.  It was possible that Dr. Fisher had merely assigned this particular office because there were no others available.  And hadn’t Dr. Haupt requested her?  Didn’t that negate her theory that she had been assigned for nefarious reasons?

  “Stop fussing,” she ordered herself.

The list from the data tag displayed on her deskscreen and Helen scanned its contents for anything out of the ordinary.

  Archived Annual Reports and Audits were near the top of the list.  She had expected those.  The same went for his request of daily reports, fiscal reviews and many other documents that would present him with an overall view of the IHS facility.  All of those were administrative records that would require little authorization.

  As she had also expected, he requested lab data relating to the numbers of healthy travelers and contaminated travelers.  Such numbers were not as straightforward as they might seem.  Few records were kept on healthy travelers.  Assumptions were made on the number of travelers leaving the planet as opposed to those same travelers arriving.  This was an educated guess that suggested travelers who entered the Lazaretto and left it were predominantly healthy and in no way contaminated.  According to one study from many years ago, it was determined that ten to fifteen per cent of these travelers had in fact arrived with some sort of contaminant that had run its course during the forty-day quarantine.  She would have to explain that if he were not already aware of the fact.

  The list also contained requests for more specific lab data: types of contaminants, treatments, outbreaks and containments.  She also saw documentation requests from areas with which she was unfamiliar.  She would have to get someone to help on determining what authorizations she would need for those.

  Helen was surprised to realize she had personally seen many of these reports over the last year.  Working for Dr. Fisher, she received and annotated all types of reports and reviews she then passed on to Dr. Fisher as the IHS Administrator.  Was that why Dr. Haupt had requested her?  How could that be to his advantage?  Surely he wanted someone who had no personal involvement in the life cycle of these documents.  An opportunity to interfere—to protect herself and those she knew—would be too tempting, at least from Dr. Haupt’s point of view.  It was hard to imagine he would not realize this.  Why take the risk?

  She was fussing again.  She decided she didn’t want to know what the German was thinking.  She knew she had better tread carefully.

For more information on The Lazaretto, got to Rocket Fire Books, where you can order a signed print copy.  You may also purchase a print or eBook copy below:

And watch for book two of the Lazaretto Trilogy: Lady in the Lazaretto.

A Second View (and edition) of The Lazaretto

Today, the Kindle version of The Lazaretto hit the virtual bookshelves.  In our previous post about this novel, you met Gregor Lepov, a private investigator who arrives in the Lazaretto looking for a missing person.  In this post you will meet Detectives Ed MacNally and Arturo Fenelli.  Both men have spent many years together as partners in the homocide department of the Lazaretto Police.  The following scene is their debut scene, as they investigate a body that is found in the middle of Center City, early in the morning.

  For more of a preview, check out the preview feature at Amazon, where you can read the first six or seven chapters of the book.

(excerpt from The Lazaretto, by Jason Phillip Reeser)

  “You have to see this.”  Detective Arturo Fenelli stood behind the damaged TransitCar as if it were a shield.

  “Show me.”  Lieutenant Ed MacNally had just arrived.

  “It’s right on the other side of this wreck,” Fenelli said with a shake of his head.  “You look.  I’ve seen it already.”

   MacNally lowered his head and gave Fenelli a look that clearly meant you gotta be kidding.  He disappeared around the car.

   “You got a light?”

   "Oh, hell.”  Fenelli walked around to the other side of the wreck in resignation.  “Right here.”

   "Huh,” MacNally grunted after he shined the light on the body.  “Ain’t that disgusting?” MacNally’s tone made it clear he obviously did not find it disgusting.

   MacNally was a large man, with chiseled features that made his face look like granite.  He did not move gracefully; rather, he made short predetermined moves that always had a purpose.  He was overweight, but carried most of it above the belt.  This enabled him to move without appearing sluggish. 

   Fenelli was no Stanly Laurel to MacNally’s Oliver Hardy.  He carried ten to twenty pounds more than he should, but few people knew it.  His body spread his excess evenly making it difficult to detect.  But Fenelli knew it, and it slowed him down.  He was past forty now and he felt tired far more than he used to.

  “Health Services pulled in right behind you.  Davis is suiting up.  They told us not to get too close.”

  “You wanna get close to that?”  MacNally showed no intention of advancing, though he showed no desire to back off either.

  “I wanted to stay back over there.”  Fenelli jerked a thumb back towards the TransitCar.

  “What’s his PDT tell us?”

  “Says his name is Jack Ford.  A lazar from Phasis.”

   “That’s gotta be biological, this ain’t no murder.”

  “You don’t think he was beaten to death?”

  “Do you?” MacNally asked.

   Fenelli forced himself to look at the body again.  The body’s position made visual examination difficult.  From what he could see, the upper torso, including the upper arms and most of the head, were deeply bruised and grossly swollen.  The body—the man—had been wearing a business suit.  Where the flesh was swollen, it stretched the fabric, giving Fenelli the impression that the suit was a balloon filled with air.  From about the waist down, the suit pants were lying as they should be, suggesting that the damage did not extend below the beltline.

  "Could have been beaten to death,” Fenelli decided.  “But that would be one hell of a beating.”

  “Forget it,” MacNally shook his head.  “That’s gotta be bacteriological, viral, or what’s the other one I said already?”

  “Biological.”

  “Yeah, one of those.”

  “You a Doctor now, Mac?”  Davis, the IHS Technician, pushed past the detectives and stood over the body.  He was a little, bearded man with white, matted hair that looked as if it belonged on the back of a stray dog.

  “Wait a minute, Davis.  Fenelli, did they get all the visuals?”

  “Yeah, they finished up before you got here.”  Two camera technicians had captured moving and still shots from every angle possible.

  “It’s all yours, Davis.”  MacNally backed away from the body.

   Lazaretto protocol was unique at a crime scene.  All bodies had to be sampled and removed for testing.  The threat of disease—whether from virus, pathogen, or biological origin—had to be assessed and identified immediately.  The only exception being murder. 

   If a detective declared a death to be homicide, the on-site IHS representative sampled the body then released it into police custody.

   “All mine, huh?  This is disgusting.”  Davis knelt beside the corpse stuffed in its suit, pulled off a pair of glasses, and cleaned them on his jacket.  He spoke to the detectives as if they were children.  “This does not smell right.”

  “What’s it supposed to smell like?” Fenelli asked.

  “Not this, that’s for sure.  Well, time to lick ‘em and bag ‘em.”

  No matter how many times Fenelli heard Davis make crass comments like that he couldn’t help but wonder if there was something wrong with the man.

  Lick ‘em and bag ‘em was not a technical term, though it was accurate in its description.  Davis first laid an adhesive strip on the neck of the body.  He counted to fifteen before peeling it back off.  After carefully sealing the strip in a plastic envelope, he stuck a hypodermic needle into the same area of the flesh and extracted two vials of blood.  As he worked, two IHS techs rolled a gurney near the body.  A clear plastic body bag lay open on it.  Protected by full BIO suits, the two men carefully lifted the body into the bag.  The swollen flesh burst in several places as they handled it.  They did not react to the mess, clearly expecting it.

  “That’s enough for me,” Fenelli turned away before the body bag was sealed.  MacNally watched the procedure until the bag was both sealed and tagged.

  “You write the report, Fenelli.  I’m going back to bed.”

  That was just fine with Fenelli.  There was little chance he could have gone back to sleep any time soon.  He wouldn’t be eating breakfast either.

For more information on The Lazaretto, got to Rocket Fire Books, where you can order a signed print copy.  You may also purchase a print or eBook copy at the above link.

And watch for book two of the Lazaretto Trilogy: Lady in the Lazaretto.

A Pre-View of The Lazaretto

  My new novel, The Lazaretto, will soon be available in print.  In anticipation of this, I am posting an excerpt from the book.  The book is a science fiction story set on a quarantine planet in an Earth colony solar system, set in an undefined future.  This quarantine planet, a lazaretto, is the central hub of travel, where any person wishing to travel between planets must spend forty days in quarantine.  The real hitch is the fact that if you are found to be infected with a disease, you may not leave the lazaretto, ever.  It is a dark world where people shun physical contact and live in constant fear for their health.

  Into this rather paranoid world comes Gregor Lepov, a private detective who has been hired to find a woman's missing son.  A simple missing person's case turns into something far more disturbing as the police begin tracking a violent killer in the city.   

  The print version will soon be available at Amazon, though right now, advance copies can be found at the link to the left.  The Kindle edition will be ready by the first of July.  This is the first book of a trilogy.  The second book (The Lady in the Lazaretto) will come out next year.  I hope you give it a try.  I've been working on this now for about three years, and I hope you enjoy it.  Until you have the full book, enjoy the following excerpt.

      The driver talked nonstop until Lepov paid him and stepped in front of Ethan Layne’s building.  There was nothing about it that made it stand out from any other building on that street.  Only the worn black numbers on the battered door told him he was at the right place.  He climbed the steps of the covered entrance testing his knee on each step.  He was pleasantly surprised to discover the pain had gone.

       The small foyer and first level hallway were dimly lit.  There was enough light for him to see this place looked worse than his dormitory.  One look at the elevator was enough to make him seek out the stairwell.  Even if the old lift did work, he wasn’t about to trust it with his life.  It looked rotten, as if a river had run down that elevator shaft over the years and soaked all the wood until it was warped and soft to the touch.

       Lepov grabbed hold of the stairwell’s handrail and pulled himself up the first step.  He did not hurry.  He rested two separate times before he reached the eighth floor where Layne’s door stood opposite the stairwell.

       Lepov knocked in case someone was actually there.  He expected no one and grabbed the door knob.  To his surprise, someone inside pulled the door open a few inches.

       “What do you want?”  A young woman stared at him with steely eyes from within a shadow.

       “I’m looking for Ethan Layne.  Do I have the wrong door?”

       “It’s the right door.  Ethan is not here.  What do you want?”

       “I’m here on behalf of—a friend of Ethan’s.  May I come in?”  Lepov caught the smell of cigarette smoke and although there were days he couldn’t stand to smell it anymore, this day it smelled good.

       “Just a moment,” the woman said, and quickly closed the door.

      The hallway had only one working light in it, and that was thirty feet down to his right.  Pale light from a window at one end of the hall was the only other illumination.  Lepov began to wonder if he’d been a fool to allow the door to close on him.  No one should have been at Ethan’s apartment.  His mother had said nothing about a roommate.

      More than likely, he thought, the mother was unaware that her son was shacked up with a woman.  That might explain everything.  He was hoping that would be the case.  He wanted to get out of the Lazaretto as soon as possible.

       “Alright,” the woman said as the door opened, “you may come in.  I was just leaving.”

       She was maybe twenty years old with brown hair cut like a little boy’s.  She was terribly thin.  Her dark brown eyes were hidden behind a worried brow.  Her small mouth looked even smaller as she chewed on her bottom lip.  She carried two packs, one slung over each shoulder.  She tried not to make eye contact as she attempted to get past Lepov.

      “Hold on a minute, Miss.”  He stood his ground and blocked her exit.  He had a good idea she was doing more than leaving.  It looked very much like she was fleeing.

      “I have to go!  I haven’t time to talk.”

      “You’d better do some talking,” Lepov put a hand on one of the packs and firmly guided her back into Layne’s apartment.  He decided not to waste time with this girl.  “In fact, you better do a lot of talking.”

       “Who are you?” she asked, jerking away from his touch.  “Who are you to touch me?  Huh?”

        Lepov stepped back as she angrily dropped onto a couch with hard black cushions.  The packs slid down her arms and she pulled one of them onto her lap.  Still angry, she rammed a hand into its main compartment and fished around in it.  Lepov didn’t wait to see why.  He swiped a big hand down and snatched the pack away from her.  She called out as if she’d been stung by a wasp.  It took Lepov a moment to realize the hand she yanked from the pack was holding a small caliber gun.  She aimed it at him.

       “Don’t.”  His tone was enough to make her hesitate.  In one easy move he tossed the pack back towards the still open door and snatched the gun from her hand.  At the same time he moved forward and pinned her to the couch with the other hand.

       “Damn you!”  She squirmed with nowhere to go.

       “Now just hold on.  I’m not the one pulling guns on strangers.”

       The woman kicked him.  It was a lucky shot.  She hit his knee.  Pain washed over him in distinct waves.  He staggered back two steps, biting back a mouthful of curses.  The woman recognized what had happened and smiled, quite pleased with herself.

       “We better start over,” Lepov tensed as another wave of pain rolled through his leg.  “I’m simply looking for Ethan Layne.”

       “Does he owe you money?  Or was he screwing your wife?”  An impish smile came out even as he could still see anger in her eyes.

       “No and no.  I take it you wouldn’t approve of that last item, huh?”

       “I didn’t care about the other women.”  The set of her jaw said otherwise.  “He owed me money.  And he’s been gone a long time now.”

       “So you thought you’d liquidate a few of his things?”  Lepov looked around the apartment.  It was a small two-room affair.  There was a bedroom in the back.  The main room was kitchen, living and storage all wrapped up in one.  As far as he could tell, most of Layne’s things were gone.  The woman had been there before.

       “I’m taking what I can.  Do you care?  I paid for most of it over the last two years.  I can’t prove it, but what do you care?”

       Lepov admitted he didn’t care in the least.  He just wanted Layne.

       “So where is he?” Lepov removed the bullets from her gun.  When he had finished, he dropped them into the front pocket of his pants.

       “Why do you want to know?”  She brushed her hair back in a nervous gesture.  As short as it was, it was still long enough to conceal a bruise high up on her forehead.

      “I doubt that’s Ethan’s doing, unless you’ve seen him in the past couple of days.”  Lepov leaned forward and pushed the hair back more to see the extent of the damage.  “This is maybe 24 or 48 hours old.”

      “You know so much about bruises, huh?  I’m not surprised.  You probably beat your woman.”

      “I don’t have a woman, but if I did, and she was anything like you, I’d sure as hell beat her.”

      The woman looked at him, shocked at his frankness before she understood he was putting her on.  She smiled wickedly.

      “I’m Greta Becker.  I’ve been living with Ethan for two years.”  She pulled out a cigarette and lit it, blowing a cloud of smoke around her face.  “Are you a cop?” 

      “No.  My name is Lepov.  Ethan’s mother was getting worried.”  That cigarette didn’t just smell good to him, it made him think about opening the pack in his coat pocket.  He fought off the impulse though he could not take his eyes off the cigarette.

      “A Private Detective?”  She pronounced each word with extra care then shrugged off the revelation with a laugh.

       “Who did that to you?”  Lepov pointed at her injury.

       “What do you care?  I live in a rough neighborhood.”

       “That why you carry the gun?”

       “Not that it helped.  The gun is useless against bastards like you.”

       “Sometimes.”  Lepov tossed her the gun.  “Unless you know what to do with it, it only causes more trouble.   Someone’s going to start asking uncomfortable questions about your gun.  Like why are you carrying one and emptying out a missing man’s apartment.  That looks bad.”

        If she understood the implication, she didn’t let on.

       “I’m trying to say that with the police asking questions about Ethan’s disappearance, they’re bound to think it’s a little strange—you stealing all this and having a gun in your possession.”

       “They haven’t.”  She challenged Lepov with a hard stare.

       “Haven’t what?”

       “Been asking questions.  They haven’t been asking questions.”

       “I’d been told Ethan had been missing for three weeks now.”  Lepov tried to work the timing out in his head.  “When did you last see him?”

        “I’ll tell you, but it does you no good.  I hadn’t seen him in nearly two months.  I’d left him.”

        “That other woman you didn’t mind so much?”  Lepov’s question was colder than his tone.

        “Yes,” she nodded.  Some of her hard exterior began to soften.  “I came back a week ago.  When I saw he wasn’t here, I figured he got out of the Laz.  Maybe he had jumped into a closing quadrant without time to pack.  As far as I knew, he was never coming back.”

       It wasn’t her conjectures about Ethan’s disappearance that grabbed his attention.  He was still focused on what she’d said about the police.

       “Greta, you said the police aren’t asking questions?”

        “No.  I know a few of the neighbors here, and they say no one has been around looking for him.  As far as I know, you’re the first.”

       “He did work for the Lazaretto Administrative Unit, didn’t he?”  She nodded firmly.  “Wouldn’t they wonder where he was?”

        “It’s why I thought he took off.”

        “No,” Lepov shook his head while trying to puzzle out what he was hearing.  “I checked all of that out before I flew out here.  According to official records, he’s still within the Lazaretto.”

        It took only a cursory glance around the room for Lepov to realize he had lost any chance of finding information in the apartment.  The woman had taken too much.  She had nearly stripped the place bare.

        “You sure did a job on this place,” Lepov shook his head.  “I don’t suppose you happened to notice anything unusual before you began to dismantle everything?”

        “I don’t think so.”  Her answer was both guarded and petulant.

        “Sorry if the question offends you, but I have to say you haven’t exactly done me a favor here.  You said it looked like he hadn’t packed, is that right?”

        “Maybe a little.  Some clothes but nothing else.”

        “Forgive the implication, but did it look as if someone else had been living with him?”

        The implication was apparently not going to be forgiven, or even acknowledged.  Greta Becker stood up and snatched up the pack on the couch.  Keeping one eye on Lepov, she moved to the door and retrieved the second pack, clutching both of them as if she were hugging a lost child who’d just been found.

       “You can’t keep me here.  And I don’t have to answer your questions.  For all I know you did something to Ethan.  I should call the cops.”

      “Right,” Lepov allowed a mocking smile on his lips.  There wasn’t a chance in hell she’d call the cops.  She didn’t realize he was now practically forced to contact them.  Once someone official did begin to look for Layne, they would quickly discover the looting of his rooms.  And once they discovered that, anyone associated with Layne would come under suspicion.  And he was sure it would eventually become known he was there for the sole purpose of tracking down Layne.  The longer he kept in the shadows the more suspicious he would look to the authorities.

        “I think it’s only fair to warn you that I’ll be calling them.”  Lepov stood at the top of the stairs and watched her descend.  “I won’t call them until tomorrow.  That gives you a day to decide what you’re gonna do, and how you’re gonna answer their questions.”

       Her sharp curse echoed up the cavernous stairwell.

For more information on The Lazaretto, got to Rocket Fire Books, where you can order a signed print copy.  You may also purchase a print or eBook copy below:

And watch for book two of the Lazaretto Trilogy: Lady in the Lazaretto.