One constant in the Frank Nagler Mysteries are the women who keep Detective Frank Nagler in line, especially Lauren Fox, now the acting mayor of Ironton N.J., the city that is the setting for the stories.
They have been lovers since the first book, The Swamps of Jersey, and she has played a larger role in each book in running the city and providing information to solves crimes.
In book six, Nagler’s Secret, a work in progress, Lauren has been pushing Nagler toward the answer to the question he has been avoiding. In this scene, she pushes further.
A note Book 5 in the series DRAGONY RISING has been re-released with a new, cool cover by Elana Daigle, and a fresh new look. Same great story. Find it on Amazon, Ingram Spark, Barnes and Noble and other sites.
The rest of the series will follow.
Here’s the scene:
Nagler leaned on the sink in the dark kitchen, fingers tapping on the wooden counter top, his wrinkled face filled a window pane, pale and insubstantial against the darkness outside.
There was always a light on in that place, in the back at the top of the rickety staircase, he thought.
That’s where the girls were, second floor room, heavy, bolted door. When you knocked, some guy with a scraggly beard, arms like pistons, eyes as hollow as caves grunted out a greeting, took the money, slammed the door.
Me and Del knocked once, not to get in, but just to see. He would have let us in if we had five bucks. Instead he growled and nearly threw us off the top step. So watched, me and Del, not because it was fun, but because it was creepy. The ghetto wasn’t much, but it was home and this felt like an invasion.
The cops would come, drag out a drunk or two, but never the girls, and never the owners.
“Oh, Frank of the eternal darkness,” Lauren said entering the room and flipping on the overhead light. She sat and fingered some of the torn paper strips into an ordered row. There weren’t many, maybe twenty.
“Station”
“Lakeland.”
“Alley.”
The diary was open, but the pages were ripped.
“Didn’t find what you were looking for, right? The ghost of Naomi Baptiste wasn’t there.”
Nagler turned from the window and offered a half smile.
“How’d you know?”
“Because when you’re right you fill up a room, not with self-congratulation, but with determination, because you know the end is in sight.” She nodded to chair. “Sit. You need to tell me.”
He shuffled over and held her face in his hands and kissed her hair. He sat.
“Not sure when Naomi was there. Thing were shifting, moving. We pulled her out of Bastion Street in ’95 with that charade that’s got Dawson bugged all this time later. Sister Katherine housed her at the mission while we worked out a plan. She had all the information, records, names not just of customers but the officials and judges who covered it up. I thought it would be in the walls of that old house, but…”
“That’s not what you were looking for, Frank.”
“How do you know?”
“Your eyes. They have that same look you had in the theater when you were talking about you and her screwing in the balcony.” She brushed the hair out of his eyes. “That ever happen, Frank, or where you just showing off?”
He wiped his chin, stood, and crossed to the window. He placed both palms on the cold glass and watched the moisture outline his fingers.
“You’re never supposed to be a hero when you come out of the ghetto,” he said.
He pushed off the glass and turned back to Lauren.
“You’re supposed to be a bum, some washed up shift worker waiting for a handout. Yay me, I put Charlie Adams in jail, made the city safe again. But after the first rush of noise, no one cared. Martha was gone. I was lost.” He picked up the diary and flipped through the torn pages. “Then the Pollards showed up, and it was the slickest, most dangerous operation we had seen. You’ve seen the kids on the streets today, turning tricks just to pay for the next fix. The Pollards, nothing like that. They owned those kids, owned their souls. Shocked me back to life.”
“But, Naomi was supposed to be at that house at some point, wasn’t she?”
“That’s what we were told. She and I weren’t talking directly, but through supposed friends. It would have been too dangerous for us to be seen talking in person. Thinking back. I wonder if that was what they wanted me to believe, you know, disinformation, a set-up. Maybe there was no one to trust. We busted that place after Bastion, cleaned it out. The kids went to programs. Sister Katherine had a place for her.”
“They knew about you and her. Used it. What was she supposed to leave for you?”
He stared at the table and smiled. “You’re sure I can tell you this?”
She took his hands. “I wouldn’t have asked.”
He kissed her fingers.
“A letter, an address, a date. But I couldn’t go. I was broken. Couldn’t ask her to take on me, busted up old Frank Nagler. I mean, even after all that she had gone through with her family, she seemed whole, right,” he looked up, “Alive. And I was dead. I couldn’t ask her…”
“She would have said yes.”
“You can’t…”
“You asked me and I said yes.” She crossed to him and straddled his lap. “The answer, Frankie boy, is always, yes.” She kissed his eyes, then stood. “Come, I’ll show you.”
