Hidden Justice Read online

  Hidden Justice

  A mystery and suspense stand alone crime thriller

  JK Ellem

  First published in the USA in 2018 by

  28th Street Multimedia Group

  Copyright © by JK Ellem 2018

  Hidden Justice is a work of fiction. All incidents, dialogue and all characters are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the written permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Copyrighted Material

  www.jkellem.com

  JK Ellem on Facebook

  All rights reserved.

  For Arnold, Sam, and Ollie. You’re all part of the

  family even if you can’t speak and have four legs.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  If You Enjoyed This Book

  Authors Note

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The live-stream transmission was sent the same time each evening, just before midnight, a burst of high resolution video footage. Professionally shot and edited, it was usually five minutes in duration. Five minutes of totally harrowing, but compulsive viewing - that is, if watching it was your thing.

  She had lasted longer than expected. For five days he had imprisoned her. The cage was purchased, unassembled, from an online veterinarian supply company in Maine that shipped overnight. The frame was sixty inches long, thirty inches wide, and thirty-two inches high, made from 20-gauge steel reinforced with half-inch diameter steel tubing. It had removable castors and a floor grate with tray to make hosing out the cage simple and easy afterwards.

  The veterinarian supply website proclaimed that the cage would “stand up to the toughest abuse from the largest of dogs.” He agreed, even for the unintended use he had purchased the cage for: to restrict the movement of an adult human to only crouching or kneeling. But leaving a positive, five-star review on the website would have been inappropriate.

  Her movement was limited, and standing was impossible.

  He wanted her to feel like an animal, caged, restricted, no chance of escape, because all her type were animals, dogs in fact.

  He had provided no food, just a little water. Mind you, the thought of placing some dog treats in a bowl and sliding it into the cage had crossed his mind on more than one occasion.

  A mild sedative numbed her ability to resist or fight back. But she was no good to him completely comatose, otherwise in the video footage, she would look like a rag-doll rather than a lucid human being.

  Even fully conscious, he doubted she could fend him off. He would crush her in an instant.

  Yesterday, he had let the sedative wear off a little more than usual just before the live-stream. Then he let her out of the cage for a short while. After she came to her senses, figured out where she was and what he was doing to her, she had fought back.

  The number of hits on the live-stream immediately spiked, had flown off the charts. The audience approved, and their approval was important to him. Critical, even. People wanted to see a good fight, that the woman had spirit. It made for more entertaining viewing, more shares, more likes. It was validation. What he was doing was right, correct, in demand. They understood, the audience. They were like-minded, and there were plenty of like-minded people out there, if you knew where to look. Millions of them all around the world, hiding, watching, enjoying, approving, and eagerly waiting for the next transmission. It was addictive, for them, The Bold and the Beautiful for The Demented and The Deranged.

  If God didn’t want women to suffer on this earth, he wouldn’t have created Man.

  And now that it was over, he dutifully hosed out and cleaned the cage, taking extra care to scrub the stains on the concrete floor with a strong dose of commercial driveway cleaner. That was important - cleanliness. What he did took discipline, care, attention to detail. Amateurs were plenty. Professionals -like him - who were passionate about their craft, were rare.

  He unrolled a sheet of heavy duty plastic then placed her body in the center. Her limbs and head flopped, a dead thing, the empty vessel of something that once held life, now drained of all semblance of living. He rolled the plastic tight, securing it around the neck, shoulders and feet with thick rope. The preparation was for transportation only. Once she had reached her final destination, he would unravel her and she would slip silently below the surface, and drift deeply to her final resting place.

  Ben Shaw sat in the Apollo Diner on the corner of Smith and Livingston, Brooklyn. Waitresses dressed in pale gray shirts with matching ball caps fussed around as Peter Cetera played on the radio in the background, some mournful song from the eighties about missing someone and saying sorry. The song was followed by an advertisement for a discounted mattress sale during the impending Labor Day long weekend.

  A MTA subway map was spread out next to a heavy white coffee cup, and a small dish of spent coffee creamer singles. Always Half-and-Half.

  Indecision was a series of colored lines. Blue meant uptown, crowds, tourists and sweaty joggers thumping the paths through Central Park. Orange, his favorite color, meant south, Coney Island, Brighton Beach and the appeal of getting out of the city before the madness set in.

  Shaw studied the map. The Jay Street subway was just a block away. No plans. No timelines. Just endless directions.

  So he folded the map, paid the check, tucked a few bills under the coffee cup. But first a restroom stop in the basement.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  Shaw looked up from the basin, the faucet running. A face, warped and cracked looked back at him, almost willing him to say nothing, just move on. In the reverse reflection two men stood either side behind him, left and right. Close. A little too close for their own good.

  Shaw ignored the question and reached
for the towel dispenser.

  Feet shuffled forward on the tile, closer still. “I said, what’s in the bag?” The question now a growl.

  “This prick don’t listen too good.” The other man chimed in, the smaller of the two. Dogs hunt in packs and the bone they wanted was Shaw’s rucksack casually slung over one shoulder.

  Turning fully, Shaw looked at the two men. He saw a lack of education, a lifetime of resentment and blame and two children who grew into adult bullies who preyed on the weak and vulnerable. Bullies who then grew into criminals who preyed on anyone they thought they could easily defeat. Shaw was a tad over six feet, but his lean and hard body wasn’t so obvious underneath his clothing. Don’t judge a book by its cover and the two men had misjudged this book, thinking it was an easy, quick read. Maybe if he was a few inches taller, a few pounds heavier, a few brain cells lighter, they would have thought twice about approaching him. Moved on to someone else they could handle.

  Shaw slid the rucksack off and held it out in front of him. “Take it. It ain’t worth dying over.”

  Two eyes sets of looked at each other then back at Shaw. It was their lucky day.

  “A spare pair of jeans. A book on philosophy. A few bus and train tickets. Some basic toiletries and a wallet. Maybe fifty bucks and change.” Shaw held the rucksack a little higher. “Take it.”

  The smaller of the two men, the wingman, snickered and reached for the rucksack. Shaw dropped the rucksack then dropped the man, hit him first, hard, one shot, no coming back. Get the weaker one down and down fast. The man collapsed, his head slapping hard on the tiled floor, ten minutes of consciousness he’d never get back.

  A blade came out, had to at some point in the fight, otherwise it wouldn’t be a fair fight, not for Shaw—but for the larger of the two, the one who remained standing, the more cowardly of the two.

  The blade came at Shaw’s midsection, low and fast, six inches of blur. Shaw pivoted, took the forearm on the outside and smashed the tip of his elbow into the man’s jaw. The blade didn’t drop so Shaw reversed, gripped the wrist and bent it backwards. Still no give. He reversed his stance a hundred and eighty degrees, wrenching the man by the wrist and they tumbled backwards, Shaw pulling the man’s arm into the cubicle, but leaving his torso outside.

  The floor was sticky. The toilet seat busted. But the heavy stainless cubicle door worked just fine—especially on fingers, wrist or a human skull. Twice, three times, Shaw slammed the metal edge into the man’s wrist. The fourth attempt came with a sickening crack and the man screamed. The blade dropped, and Shaw swept it away with his foot. The blade skidded across the tiles and ended up in the last cubicle. A lucky find for another petty criminal.

  The man’s hand hung limp, deformed. Shaw pulled him forward, using the man’s head as a battering ram, the dent in the stainless door growing deeper and bigger with each thud. Three more times, stainless steel versus skull, and Shaw was done.

  Stepping over the second man, Shaw picked up his rucksack and looked at the two unconscious men. Maybe they saw him go into the restroom, had waited until he was alone. It didn’t matter. What was it with people these days? Shaw thought as he climbed the stairs back up into the restaurant.

  Outside, he went on foot, swapping the coolness of the diner for the heat and humidity with the possibility of storms later. He turned right onto Smith Street just as a woman jogger lumbered past, red-faced and sweaty, in her bubble world. Shaw pressed a few dollar bills into the palm of a man who was talking to the building facade for no apparent reason. He looked like he could use a decent meal.

  Shaw cut across Fulton Mall, passing under the constant scaffolding and trash cans overflowing with plastic bags. The air was filled with the sound of relentless jackhammering and impatient drivers. People flowed like schools of fish around him as he navigated a path of least resistance. His boots clanged over metal grating set into the sidewalk, warm dirty air rose from the bowels of the earth, together with the screeching of steel wheels on steel tracks from the tunnels below.

  With his mind made up, and just like Alice in Wonderland, Shaw disappeared down a hole in the ground that was hotter than the oppressive air outside.

  After all, orange was his favorite color.

  1

  It was a squabble of gulls that first alerted Mrs. Brinkmeyer.

  She was standing on her sun drenched porch, garden shears in hand, pruning her beloved potted gardenias, thinking about her late son Billy. She had lost Billy a few years back and never a day went by when her thoughts didn’t return to his memory, his smile, his easy-going nature.

  God had taken Billy too early, just twenty-eight years old, his whole life still ahead of him. No parent should outlive their children.

  The stars and stripes hung from a small plastic pole attached to a post, it rippled in the gentle ocean breeze, the air both sweet and salty at the same time.

  The gulls wheeled and shrieked above the man as he walked along the ocean road in front of her small cottage. She had to shield her eyes from the sun glinting off the water as she watched him come closer.

  Then her heart leapt in her chest, and for the briefest of moments she thought it was Billy returning home from the Middle East. But she knew that wasn’t possible. Billy was at Arlington, forever gone but never forgotten, and always in her heart.

  But the man did bear a striking resemblance to Billy. It was the way he walked, confident but relaxed and with purpose, like he knew where he was going, never indecisive. Billy was never indecisive. He knew exactly what he wanted to do on that horrible day in September when the world tilted off its axis. The very next day he enlisted, wanting to do his duty for his country. His friends tried to talk him out of it, Mrs. Brinkmeyer recalled. They said it was not their war, and to stay out of it. But Billy didn’t care. He felt violated, the entire nation had been violated, Billy had said. He had to do something, no matter if he was just one person. He was so angry that day, she recalled, and it was the kind of anger that just grew and grew and didn’t subside.

  So while his friends sat comfortably in their parents’ homes or behind the cash registers or office desks in their safe jobs, he went off to war, to fight for what he believed in, amongst the dust and heat of a foreign land.

  It had made her so proud and even now as she watched the man walking past, her eyes welled up with tears.

  The man was lean, of average height, dark haired and wore dark jeans and a timeless weather-beaten leather jacket and had a rucksack over one shoulder. He had a roguish look, a young James Dean, not that James Dean was ever old, Mrs. Brinkmeyer thought as she continued watching him.

  The man passed her picket fence, looked up and saw her staring at him. He gave a slight nod and a smile. And for the second time this morning, Mrs. Brinkmeyer’s heart leapt. She smiled and waved back, automatic action and reaction, her face turning a bright shade of pink like one of her prized gardenias.

  It was a good thing Mr. Brinkmeyer wasn’t at home. He was fishing up near the headlands, out on Erin’s Bay. That’s all Sam Brinkmeyer wanted to do in retirement: go fishing and watch the Giants’ game on the weekends.

  Mrs. Brinkmeyer continued watching the man as he strolled by. He was heading towards the township of Erin’s Bay that was still a good two miles away, but it was a beautiful morning and it was the first day of summer after all.

  He was definitely a welcome addition, Mrs. Brinkmeyer thought as she returned to pruning her flowers.

  Little did she know that during the coming days, the tranquil beachside township of Erin’s Bay would never be the same again.

  No. He is definitely not from around here, Annie Haywood thought as she stood surrounded by murder, death, and mayhem.

  The crime fiction section of the Erin’s Bay Public Library took up the majority of the shelves, and Annie was looking absentmindedly out of the large bay window as the man walked past, a stack of books in her arms that she was placing back on the shelves in front of her.

  The l
ocal library was located three miles south of the township, on the ocean road and across from a local community church. It was quiet for a Friday in the library so she had wheeled the returns trolley down between the shelves near the front bay windows that looked out onto the road.

  The morning sun was pouring through and Annie welcomed the warmth and the distraction.

  She promptly dumped the hardbacks to one side and parted the blinds to get a better look.

  Yes, definitely a new face in town.

  For a start he was slightly older, late twenties perhaps, compared to the usual frat boys and testosterone-filled males that frequented Erin’s Bay during the summer. The spoiled sons of the wealthy townsfolk were definitely home for summer break. They had descended upon the town last night, fresh from their upstate Ivy League colleges and snobbish prep schools. A convoy of open-top Jeep Wranglers and high-end SUVs roared down Main Street, horns blaring, music thumping, a law unto themselves.

  Erin’s Bay was quiet and secluded for most of the year, that’s why Annie Haywood had moved here two years ago, to get away from the noise and stress of New York City. And what a more perfect place to do this than Erin’s Bay. Montauk on the northern tip of Long Island and East Hampton had become havens for tourists and was over run in the summer months. But Erin’s Bay on the ocean side still maintained its idyllic charm without the big city pretentiousness. Except, that is, for the rich and wealthy who owned the beachfront mansions along the coastal road. They pretty much kept to themselves, family wealth from New York and Boston. But it was the second and third generation, the offspring who returned home for summer break that transformed Erin’s Bay into a party town for three long months.