Trophies

Trophies

by

J. Gunnar Grey

Smashwords Edition

Dingbat Publishing

Humble, Texas

Trophies

Copyright 2011 by J. Gunnar Grey

Published by Dingbat Publishing

Humble, Texas

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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the author's work.

This one is for you, my readers. Without you, there's
no point in writing. Thanks for giving me purpose.

Oh, and I suppose I'd better mention my family while
I'm at it.

*waves*

(in no particular order)

Captain Charles "Robbie" Ellandun,
U.S. Army, on indefinite loan to the NATO Rapid Response
intelligence team, an honest thief trying to make his way with a
Mauser sniper's rifle and a bad case of PTSD

Dr. Caren Gallardo,
a psychiatrist and
Charles' occasional lady love, who prefers a frying pan to
sedatives

the Ellandun family, fighters to the bone

William Ellandun, Sr.,
Charles'
father, the well-known barrister who admits he's made the
occasional mistake

Charlene Ellandun,
his mother, who
wasn't pleased to pick Charles up at school

William Ellandun, Jr.,
his brother,
who wants to protect the family name

Linda Ellandun,
William Jr.'s wife, a
tawny lioness guarding her two cubs, namely

William "Trés" Ellandun III,
17, an
artist of many talents

Lindsay Ellandun,
15, the second
born

Preston Ellandun,
Charles' uncle, a
clergyman who doesn't back down from a fight

Viola Ellandun,
Preston's wife and the
family rose

(their four adult children)

Miriam and Ralph Ellandun,
the
glamorous twins

Patricia Ellandun,
the mouse with
curves

Jacob Ellandun,
who was left behind by
aliens or something

Edith Ellandun Hunter,
Charles' aunt,
who sponsored art shows, hosted afternoon teas, and unexpectedly
found herself murdered

Hubert Hunter,
her husband, of the
loving and adventuresome heart

the NATO Rapid Response intelligence team,
affectionately or otherwise known as the gang

General Hugo,
der
Graf
von Bisnon,
Luftwaffe, commander and genius

Colonel Robert "Sherlock" Holmes, Jr.,
U.S. Army, a field commander people just know they can depend
upon

Wing Commander Jonathan Cadal,
Royal
Air Force, who's likely still waiting for that email

Major Theresa Evans,
U.S. Army, a
neurotic who likes to make things go boom in the night

Captain James MacElsa,
U.S. Army, who
didn't get the assignment

Captain Kelly "Bonnie" Bonham,
U.S.
Army, who will make sure you live to regret it should you poke a
gun in her side

Captain Kenneth "Kenny" Rutland,
U.S.
Army, who radioed for the medics during the war

Lieutenant Shane Mason,
Royal Marine
Commandos

Sergeant Patrick Ballard,
Royal Air
Force

with the Boston P.D.

Detective Stover Wingate,
a/k/a
Brother Perfect, an elegant cop

at the Carr Gallery

Priscilla "Prissy" Carr,
the owner and
femme fatale, sort of

Danny Vasquez,
an artist with a
primary problem

Sharon Righetti,
alias Sidnë, an
artist with attitude and talent, but one's definitely bigger than
the other

current time

Three neat entry wounds drilled through the
silk of Aunt Edith's blouse, stiffened and blackened by crusted
blood. The underlying color was unrecognizable. I only knew it was
supposed to be green because she wore it during our unfriendly
dinner the previous evening and I remembered. Lying on the sidewalk
with her legs crumpled beneath her, she seemed even tinier than
normal, like a toy that had been roughly played with and then
pitched aside.

I dropped to my knees beside her. Her eyes
were wide, staring at the dawn breaking beyond the storefronts, and
her mouth gaped. She was such a private person, so contained,
elegant, brilliant as gold beside the base metals of the rest of
us. Death seemed an exposure, a stripping of her secrets. A
humiliation.

I reached out to stroke the drifting black
and silver tendrils of her hair into place. But a hand snatched my
wrist and twisted it aside. I jerked my head up—

—the picture window of the Carr Gallery, just
overhead, was splattered with something dark. More of it sprayed
the polished maple door, the brass railing and handle and mail
slot. A small hole in the door, at waist level, had been marked
with chalk—

—more dark stains, lit obliquely by the dawn
light, trickled down the red brick, dripped from one concrete step
to the next, painted the sidewalk. I suddenly realized I could
smell it—

—I ignored the background
crump
of
artillery fire and panned the rifle's scope along the enemy
emplacement, atop the ridge overlooking our sandbagged trench.
Beneath the camouflage netting and wilting tree branches I made out
one big field gun with its muzzle recoiling, another, a third—

—the enemy spotter stood contemptuously in
full view, binoculars to his eyes, gazing off to my left but
sweeping this way. The rangefinder showed the distance at eight
hundred meters. I set the elevation turret and aligned the sight's
upper chevron on his center of mass, drifting aside by one hash
mark to compensate for the gentle flow of air across my right
cheek. Binocular lenses flashed sunsparks. His lips moved as I took
up the initial pressure on the trigger—

—flashback with visual, auditory, tactile,
and olfactory hallucinations. Hadn't happened in months. It was
impossible to prevent it, stop it, tone it down, or predict its
arrival. But we were intimate enemies, my flashback and I, and I
knew its script. I clenched every muscle I possessed, including my
eyes, and froze in place, ignoring it all. It's how I'd taught
myself to respond when the city street morphed into a battlefield
without warning, and so far it had prevented anyone from locking me
up. I was even able to fool most acquaintances into thinking I was
still sane.

But nothing blocked the sights, sounds, or
other manifestations. Machine gun fire hammered into the
nonexistent sandbags, thuds echoing in my bones, and the dust and
acrid gunpowder caught at the back of my throat. Someone screamed,
a long shrill sound that climbed higher in pitch and volume,
scraping across my nerves. The enemy guns chattered again and a
fire of agony spurted across my back. Wavery, sick-feeling
blackness rushed in behind the pain. I refused to wobble. I ignored
the war zone and the adrenaline tearing me apart, and waited for
the screaming in my damaged memory to stop. For several more
seconds it dragged on, a horrible rising shriek, but finally it cut
out in its usual abrupt manner, as if someone hit a neurological
mute button.

The flashback lost. It couldn't control my
actions nor force me to betray my internal damage to the civilians.
I wanted to collapse with relief. I refused to do that, too.

Ambient city noises resumed. There were lots
of voices around, both live ones and the scratchy overlay of radio
transmissions, and in the distance someone called my name. Even
with my eyes squeezed tight, popping emergency lights strobed
across my retinas. I still smelled the blood.

I failed Aunt Edith. Everything inside me
wrenched. I failed her and now she's dead. That particular fear, of
failing someone important, always followed the flashback. Knowing
it was coming never prevented the reaction. I wouldn't show that,
either.

Only when I knew I was back in real time did
I open my eyes.

Dawn and Boston had returned. The battlefield
was gone, replaced by the street of upscale shops, converted from
historic red-brick row houses. Picture windows with discreet
painted logos and black wrought-iron bars alternated with concrete
steps rising to entries, each landing decorated with trees or
flowers in wooden barrels. Blood painted the steps and façade of
the Carr Gallery, Aunt Edith lay dead and hidden beside the
entryway stairs, and there on her other side was a doughy face like
something a baker played with before rolling it out. Its expression
was outraged and the hand attached to the equally doughy body still
gripped my wrist, our arms crossing above Aunt Edith's neck.

"Don't muck up my crime scene, man," he said
in pure Brooklynese.

Ice clogged my veins. My field of vision
constricted until all I could see was his face before me. I could
control my physical behavior during the flashback and even my
awareness, once I realized its game was on; I couldn't chain the
emotions, nor the adrenaline. The muscles I'd released tautened
again. Flight wasn't an option, but pounding something was. "She's
not a crime scene."

He glanced down, as if only then realizing
Aunt Edith was, or had been, human. "She is now."

I went for him. But strong arms hauled me
back and away.

One of the live voices sniggered in my ear.
"What a circus."

No sense fighting. It wasn't the policemen
restraining me nor the crime scene technician I wanted to pound. I
wanted the spotter, the one that got away during the war. If I
could find the murderer who'd dossed down my Aunt Edith, he'd do,
as well.

"
Charles!
"

That was my cousin Patricia's voice, piercing
the enshrouding mental fog. I ignored the hands gripping me and
peered over my shoulder. She stood alone, makeup smeared and
lipstick chewed off, in the midst of the curious bystanders behind
a strip of yellow tape. Flimsy as it looked, that tape represented
the boundaries of the permissible and therefore was sufficient to
stop her. Had they put that up behind me? I couldn't remember
seeing it, much less ducking beneath it.

Patty seemed safe, so I turned back to Aunt
Edith and eased from the policemen's holds. But a man stepped
between the crime scene technician and me — between Aunt Edith and
me. "Mr. Ellandun?"

I looked around him and didn't bother being
subtle about it. Aunt Edith stared back, the heavy emptiness of the
dead replacing her usual honest and level gaze, neither judgmental
nor compassionate, with something blank. One of her pumps had
fallen off and a chalk circle had been drawn around it. A bit of
trash; the most amazing woman I'd ever met, and she'd been tossed
aside like a bit of trash. It was beyond wrong. It was obscene.

"It's captain, actually," I said. "Captain
Charles Ellandun."

He kept speaking, but as usual, Aunt Edith
dominated the scene without trying. Only now it wasn't her elegant
vivacity accomplishing that feat, but its absence. She had been the
Rock of Gibraltar in my life since I'd been eleven and meeting her
had been the watershed moment of my watershed year. She'd always
been vital, compelling, more alive than the city itself. It was
impossible for her to be dead.

Her skirt was the same as last night, as
well, woven wool in the Hunter tartan plaid, the one she'd worn the
day I first met her. Likely she'd returned to the art gallery
directly after dinner, then. She still wore her wedding ring, as
usual her only jewelry. There was no sign of her purse.