bjciii... my twisted stories

The only light penetrating the dark room was that of the television. Even that was too bright for Detective Johnathan Grawer. He had taken a vacation day to sit at home and drown his sorrows in a bottle of whiskey after witnessing three hundred and fifty-six innocent people blown up in an airliner.

"I could have stopped it," he slurred. "I was there damnit! I second guessed myself, and I killed three hundred and fifty-six people." He started to cry, just as he had done thirty minutes earlier, and two hours before that, and one hour before that.

The phone rang. It rang just as it had all night and all morning. Graw had been afraid to answer it because he knew that if he didn't answer it, the game wouldn't start again.

He picked up the receiver.

"Jesus Jonny!! Where the fuck have you been the past twenty six hours? We've all been worried," Ray said with concern. "Don't worry about me Ray," Graw said with difficulty, "I've been hanging out with my best pal Jack. You remember Jack? Yeah, well Mr. Daniels has helped me to calm myself down a lot. So I'm fine and dandy ...too bad there's no brandy. That was supposed to be a joke Ray."

Ray didn't respond for a full fifteen seconds, then said, "Jon. Your pal called this morning."

Those five words chilled him so deep it sobered him up immediately. Graw closed his eyes and spoke.

"Give me a half hour."

He reached his desk twenty minutes after he got off the phone with his partner and saw that the big red box was still on it. He walked over and opened it. Inside was a framed picture of a familiar looking young boy. It had three red dots on it; one was in the shoulder area and two were in the chest. Graw knew he saw this kid before but could not remember where. Ray walked in the front door of the station, went right up to him and put his hand on Graw's shoulder.

"Look, it's not your fault this psycho picked you to torment. We've been partners for nearly fifteen years and from that experience I know that you're blaming yourself. So I have a piece of advice... snap the fuck out of it!"

Graw looked into Ray's face and grinned. Through fifteen years on the force Ray had never minced words, and Graw admired that. "Detective Grawer? There's a fax coming in for you," Allison, the aide, said.

Graw reached for the fax. It read: "Did you dream about me last night? I would say I dreamt about you, but I don't sleep much. To keep you on your toes I have another riddle for you: Where can one not get arrested for stealing? Figure it out without any help and I'll quit the game. You can met on that. Love always, RR"

What an asshole, Graw thought. He even used the nickname I gave him, the repellant riddler.

"Graw, this guy can't even type right; he misspelled `bet.' Not only is he a basket case, but he has typos. At least Al Capone didn't misspell..."

"Shut up Ray," Graw interjected, "Ever think it wasn't a typo? `Where can one not get arrested for stealing?' A baseball game. Since the Mets and Yanks are playing homestands, he wanted to give us a fair chance so he put `met' in there. I'll gaurantee it.

"Allison, alert Shea Stadium security to a possible 10-57 on site. Ray? You and I are going to catch the Mets game."

"Will you buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks daddy..." Ray said in a little boy's voice.

"Shut the fuck up before I whip your ass... sonny."

On the way to the ballpark Graw said, "What if we're wrong again? He didn't set a time limit, so we'll never know if we're right until we find the bomb. So what if `met' was a typo and not a clue? I hate this fuck! He confuses the shit out of me!"

The police cruisers pulled in right before the game started and there was a concerted effort to find the bomb during the game. Police dressed as vendors checked the audience, security officers checked unauthorized entrances for players and personnel, and a few officers even went out as part of the grounds crew to sweep the infeild for explosives. Everything was clean. When the final out was made, Mets 3 - Phillies 2, nothing happened. No explosion, no screams, no stupid messages. Ray went back and checked in with the precinct to see if anything had exploded. The answer was negative. Graw went home to take the rest of his vacation day.

Upon entering his apartment, Graw took off his holster and laid it on the chair next to the door. He went to the liquor cabinet to visit his pal "Jack" and sat down to watch TV. As he sat he heard a metallic click. His blood ran cold. He looked down at the remote and there was a note taped to it. "PLAY ME" it said. Graw turned on the power and pressed play.

A shadowy figure emerged on the screen. Every part of him was visible except for his face. "Detective! Where can one not get arrested for stealing? In one's own house of course! Why steal what you already own? Now that I have you as a captive audience, you might want to listen to me."

Jon sat sweating on his La-z-boy, his eyes glued to the screen.

"Four score and seven years ago... " the man began, "OOPS! Wrong speech, my mistake. A decade and seven ago you murdered my baby brother in cold blood. I hope you remember. He was trying to escape from the juvinile hall my bitch of a mother sent him to. He jumped the fence and ran to the gas station across the street. There he planned to make a quick score and I would drive him and I far away. But as luck would have it a young, hotshot cop named Grawer was in the office making a phone call when he heard my little brother enter. He held up his gun, his UNLOADED gun, and demanded money. The shopkeeper began to hand over the money when this cop jumped out and yelled "Freeze!' Pretty original Detective. Anyway he whirled and pointed his UNLOADED gun at you and you fired three times hitting him once in the shoulder and twice in the chest. Am I boring you yet?"

He remembered the picture.

Graw sat there horrified. The boy had been so high his eyes were bloodshot and his speech was slurred. He had pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger. Graw didn't wait to hear a bullet, he fired three times and took down the perp. Now his big brother wanted revenge? This was too crazy.

"You killed him," the man continued, "my only friend, my only family and you took him away. " The note of whim went out of his voice only leaving bitter edged hate. "My innocent little brother was my only friend and you killed him. You get a premotion and I got to visit his headstone every day. I vowed revenge for him. I will avenge my brother and I'll make you suffer long and hard. I learned a lot about explosives detective, and when I'm through you'll know a lot about them too.

"You may get up," he continued," I put a dud under your seat to make you more receptive to this tape. I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane detective. Ta-Ta."

The screen turned to snow.