David Dean (7)

David Dean is the author of The Thirteenth Child. His short stories have appeared regularly in ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY MAGAZINE, as well as a number of anthologies, since 1990. His stories have been nominated for the Shamus, Barry, and Derringer Awards and "Ibrahim's Eyes" won the EQMM Readers Award in 2007. His story, "Tomorrow's Dead" was a finalist for the Edgar for best short story of 2011. He is a retired Chief of Police in New Jersey, and once served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Untitled</title> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"/> <style> /* ePub CSS */ h1 {padding-top: 15%;} .indent {text-indent: 5%;} .center {text-align: center;} .right {text-align: right;} .margin {margin: 0 5%;} .margin-indent {margin: 0 5%; text-indent: 5%;} .bigmargin {margin: 0 5% 0 10%;} .bigmargin-indent {margin: 0 5% 0 10%; text-indent: 5%;} .hugemargin {margin: 0 5% 0 15%;} .hugemargin-indent {margin: 0 5% 0 15%; text-indent: 5%;} img {max-width: 94%;} body {margin: 0 3%; text-align: justify;} .spacer {padding-bottom: 1em;} </style> </head> <body> <h1 class="center" id="c2">CHAPTER ONE</h1> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div>Specialist 4 Dwayne Morton woke with a snort and looked around him. The small office he sat in was no different than when he had drifted off. His clipboard still lay at his elbow, the security log attached to it awaiting his next entry. His last simply noted the departure of the civilian cleaning crew at 4:00 AM, or 0400 hours military time. He was relieved that the duty sergeant had not discovered him during his inadvertent nap. Glancing up at the large clock hung on the wall, Dwayne saw that it was now 0517 hours. There remained almost three hours in his shift, a fact that did little to lift his spirits.</div> <div class="indent">“Army sucks,” he whispered with feeling. This was not supposed to have been his assignment—he had just completed a week’s tour of midnight to eight shifts, and by rights, should have been rotated to the much coveted day duty. But, as usual, the army, or more accurately, his first sergeant, had screwed everything up for him when Danny Boyle came down with appendicitis.</div> <div class="indent"><i>It wasn’t his fault that Danny’s appendix burst</i>, he thought, and there were plenty of other MPs to choose from in their company. It was just that Dwayne was having a little trouble with the company runs lately, was falling behind during PT sessions. Top was a fitness fanatic—the old fart had to be forty, and he still ran five miles a day—who does that?</div> <div class="indent">Glancing down at his waistline, Dwayne had to acknowledge that he had readjusted his duty belt twice since arriving in-country six months before—the damn beer and pastry diet here in Deutschland was kicking his ass and he had been no lightweight to begin with.</div> <div class="indent">Standing, he stretched and yawned widely, then snatched up his flashlight. Standard Operating Procedure on site security stated that foot patrols of the parking lot and office complex should occur hourly, though not at regular intervals, in order to avoid establishing a predictable pattern. Sleeping on duty was punishable by Article 15 regulations and could result in loss of pay or demotion.</div> <div class="indent">Slapping on the iconic white helmet liner with MP printed in black on the front, Dwayne threw open the door and staggered out into the parking lot. His last check had been almost an hour and a half before. He expected the duty sergeant to be rounding the corner any moment, as he always checked the sentries at least twice a night and Dwayne had not seen him since shortly after coming on duty.</div> <div class="indent">Noticing that one of the sodium lamps that lit the parking lot had burned out, Dwayne made a mental note to log the observation and complete a work order to have the bulb replaced. Satisfied with the lot, Dwayne turned to his left and began to walk toward the three story office building that overlooked it. Then he saw the car, a Volkswagen Jetta, parked in front of the entrance, and his steps faltered in surprise. The lot had been empty earlier, he was sure of it.</div> <div class="indent">Was it possible that one of the German cleaning crew had forgotten something in the building and come back for it? Had they driven past him as he slept? <i>But it could have happened while he was making his last rounds</i>, he thought, <i>desperate for a preferable alternative</i>.</div> <div class="indent">This was one of the faults in the procedure—he couldn’t be in two places at once. Each time he was inside checking the offices he was away from the lot. Of course, he was supposed to check the lot each time he returned, but he had exited the building from the rear after his last inspection and come back to his office from the other side and hadn’t bothered. For Christ’s sake he wasn’t supposed to be on nights anyway!</div> <div class="indent">Switching on the flashlight, he shined it at the windows, the beam revealing an interior empty of occupants. That was a relief, at least. He gave each of the vehicle’s four doors a tug, finding each locked in its turn, preventing him from getting inside and finding the registration. If he could only discover the owner and give them a call, maybe he could get the damned car out of there before it was discovered by his supervisor. He kicked a tire with his spit-shined jump boots. “Goddamnit,” he muttered.</div> <div class="indent">Walking to the rear of the VW, he played the light across the registration plate. It was German alright. Wedging the flashlight between his elbow and his body, he pulled out pen and pad with his free hand to jot the number down.</div> <div class="indent">Headlamp beams swept across the small lot, accompanied by the familiar grind of a jeep’s engine. When they came to rest on Dwayne, the vehicle raced across the asphalt, skidding to a halt just feet from the MP, and transfixing him in their illumination.</div> <div class="indent">“Whose fucking vehicle is that, specialist?” Duty sergeant Calvin Auster demanded, leaping from the jeep. He was hardly older than Dwayne, no more than twenty-eight, but every inch the lifer, his uniform immaculate, his leather polished and gleaming. Having enlisted to escape the Brooklyn ghetto of Bedford-Stuyvesant, it was his firm intent to never return there. Black and lean, he glared at the chubby specialist as if he had placed the car there himself in order to thwart the sergeant.</div> <div class="indent">“I just found it, sarge,” Dwayne began, hastily coming up with a plausible chain of events. “It was here when I came out of the office building.”</div> <div class="indent">“And when was that?”</div> <div class="indent">“Just now—I finished making my rounds in there and found it here with no one around. I was writing down the registration number to call it in,” he lied, holding out his notepad as proof of his honorable intentions.</div> <div class="indent">Sergeant Auster looked unimpressed. Glancing at his watch, he snapped, “In less than an hour personnel will begin to arrive here, specialist, and in less than an hour I want this fuckin’ piece of civilian shit towed out of here and impounded. Is that clear?”</div> <div class="indent">Dwayne nodded, “Yes, sergeant.”</div> <div class="indent">“I will not have some goddamn colonel climbing up my ass today because you let some German loser ditch his car in our lot, do you hear me, Specialist Morton?”</div> <div class="indent">“Loud and clear, sarge,” Dwayne responded.</div> <div class="indent">The irate sergeant turned on his heels and began to climb back into his jeep. As he fired up the engine once more, he stared at the VW for a moment, then said, “Have dispatch run that vehicle thoroughly before you remove it, specialist. HQ’s been warning everybody to be extra cautious since that German officer got whacked in Hamburg a few weeks ago.”</div> <div class="indent">Dwayne nodded, though it was not entirely clear to him what he was expected to do—tow the car, or not?</div> <div class="indent">The sergeant began to reverse at the same high rate of speed he had arrived, then slammed on the brakes once more. He studied the VW in silence as if something was troubling him. “Get on the radio and request a bomb-sniffing K-9, Morton,” Auster said quietly. “Tell them I said so. You stay here and keep everybody out of the parking lot until it’s been swept.”</div> <div class="indent">“Not let anybody get to their offices, sarge?” Dwayne asked. He could already picture the ass-reaming every officer that showed up was going to give him. “Not even officers?”</div> <div class="indent">“You heard me correctly, specialist,” the sergeant snapped, then added in a softer tone, “I’ll be back as soon as I finish up doing spot checks—twenty minutes, or so. I’ll be back long before the brass arrives in any case, so don’t worry, I’ll handle the heat.”</div> <div class="indent">Dwayne was both relieved and grateful.</div> <div class="indent">The sergeant sped off in the direction of the Staff Duty NCO’s office.</div> <div class="indent">With a sigh, Dwayne removed his portable radio from its belt holder and called in the request to dispatch, placing heavy emphasis that the order came from Sergeant Auster. After only a very few minutes he was told that the K-9 officer and his dog would be enroute shortly, and that he was to hold the fort in the meantime.</div> <div class="indent">“Wilco,” he replied, fishing a package of cigarettes from his cargo pocket and firing up a smoke. He could see that his hands were shaking a little. Taking a deep draw to settle his nerves, he plopped his wide rump onto the trunk lid of the Jetta. He was not surprised to hear the springs groan a little at his formidable burden, but the loud click that followed was puzzling.</div> <div class="indent">Rising and turning, Dwayne was only in time to witness the fireball erupting from the car and engulfing him like a blowtorch, the explosion blowing out every window of the office building. Like a flaming comet, he traveled some fifty yards to land smoking and smoldering outside the same door he had stepped through only minutes before, his leather boots the only bit of clothing left intact, his body charred black, his face burned away. He had only two and a half hours left in his shift.</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="center">#</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="spacer"></div> </body> </html>

David Dean

The German Informant $14.95

It’s 1984 in West Germany when U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Agent Conrad Vogel gets a routine assignment—a background check on a low-level enlisted soldier. Expecting little to come of it, he soon uncovers the GI’s relationship with a German barmaid—a barmaid who knows much more than she should and people that she shouldn’t, and what appeared to be routine suddenly becomes anything but. With the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact nations still a potent threat to the Free World, and terrorist bombings and assassinations in full swing against military personnel, Conrad sets out to unravel a web of espionage, betrayal, and murder.

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David Dean

Shadow Lane $17.95

In Shadow Lane, prolific short story writer David Dean examines the lives of children who find themselves in unfortunate circumstances. Nominated for the Edgar, Derringer, and Barry awards, as well as twice winning Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine’s prestigious Readers Award, Dean shows his command of short fiction and his attention to the plight of children left to their own devices. Shadow Lane is a collection of eleven stories that will make you think twice about turning your back on a child. An orphaned teenage girl living with her grandmother discovers something terrifying in the older woman’s past, and gains a new and terrible understanding of her own circumstances; a young boy trying to fill the emotional gap his father’s absence has left takes up stealing, but finds that some things are better left where they are; and a nine-year-old boy’s search for his missing friend turns murderous when he gets too close to the truth. These and other stories of children, both endangered and dangerous, fill the pages of this suspenseful collection.

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David Dean

Her Terrible Beauty $15.50

In this chilling collection, prolific short story writer David Dean turns his talents to tales of suspense and the supernatural. Nominated for Edgar, Derringer, and Barry Awards, as well as twice winning Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine’s prestigious Readers Award, Dean proves here that he’s no stranger to an even darker world than that of crime fiction. Her Terrible Beauty and Other Tales of Terror and the Supernatural offers a variety of stories that will amply demonstrate his talent for the terrifying. A writer who decides to winter over at his family’s lake cottage discovers that an unsettling local legend contains much more than a kernel of truth, in war-torn Bosnia a company of Serbian soldiers happen upon a village like no other they have encountered… and wish they hadn’t, and a student of Edgar Allan Poe’s literature uncovers the real reason why three roses and a bottle of Cognac are left on his grave every January 19th. Her Terrible Beauty and Other Tales of Terror and the Supernatural is the third volume in the collected short fiction of David Dean.

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David Dean

The Wisdom of Serpents $15.50

Collected within these pages you will find twelve masterful tales of ill-conceived notions and faulty assumptions from prolific Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine contributor David Dean. A retired man with a mole-infested lawn decides a ferret is the obvious and nature-provided answer; an American prisoner in Mexico is offered a work-release program in which survival, not freedom, is the prize; and a travel agent discovers the consequences of blind love in Belize. These and other stories comprise the suspenseful tales that you will find within this collection. But remember—the wisdom of serpents is poison. The Wisdom of Serpents and Other Stories of Tragic Misunderstandings is the second volume in the collected short fiction of David Dean, following Tomorrow’s Dead and Other Stories of Crime and Suspense. Review of "The Mole" by Anne Van Doorn of the Netherlands: BEST SHORT STORY OF THE WEEKSince 2016, I read a short story a day. My favorite read this week is “The Mole” by David Dean, published in his short-story collection The Wisdom of Serpents and Other Stories of Tragic Misunderstandings. Moles are making a mess of Stivac's garden and that annoys the elderly man enormously. A few days ago, his foot sank into a mole run, causing him to fall. To end this predicament, Stivac buys a ferret. He hopes the little carnivore will hunt down the moles. But the ferret is not interested in moles. The next day, Stivac finds the ferret dead, and the neighbor's cat is resting contentedly near him. Three days later, the neighbor's cat is found dead—poisoned. Over the years, David Dean has written stories about tragic misunderstandings and what they can lead to. "The Mole" is a fine example of what a writer can do with this appealing premise. In fact, all the characters have their own misconceptions, leading to a dramatic, tragic finale. A well thought out plot, masterfully executed.

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David Dean

The Purple Robe $12.95

Rumors rising out of the Yucatan jungle report healings and miracles attributed to a holy relic. Father Pablo Diego Corellas discovers that even his own parishioners are making secret pilgrimages to the decrepit plantation where it is held. There, Doña Josefa, a mysterious woman who is either mystic or mad, possesses an artifact that she claims is a fragment of the robe worn by Christ at his trial. Guarded by armed Mayan farmers, she holds sway over an ever-growing number of pilgrims desperate for the healing power of the Purple Robe. Much against his own wishes, young Father Pablo is dispatched to the interior to investigate, while a police captain and a vacationing American couple make plans of their own for the robe. But when the relic is stolen, they soon discover that miracles have unforeseen consequences, and that no one is beyond their reach.

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David Dean

Tomorrow's Dead $15.50

In this new collection, David Dean—Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine’s longtime favorite author—brings you the Edgar Award nominated “Tomorrow’s Dead,” along with ten other short stories of crime and suspense. This master of short fiction has entertained readers for decades with his suspenseful stories, and for the first time ever you can read them back-to-back. Tomorrow’s Dead and Other Stories of Crime and Suspense takes the reader through mysterious misdeeds that will bring you to the edge of your seat… or have you hiding under your covers. In these arresting short stories, David Dean’s characters find themselves in sticky, often illegal, situations that shift at every turn. From the chief of police being blamed for a series of murders to long lost siblings on quests for revenge, these stories will leave you wanting more. Luckily, the next Collection is on its way soon!

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David Dean

The Thirteenth Child $15.95

Police Chief Nick Catesby has been haunted for seven years by the unsolved disappearance of a young boy from his peaceful New Jersey town. When Megan Guthrie goes missing from her school playground, followed quickly by two teenage boys, Nick’s nightmare begins anew. He has only one suspect, disgraced professor and town drunk Preston Howard, whose arrogance has left him with nothing more than his pride, a sea of whiskey, and his exasperated daughter, Fanny, with whom Nick is falling in love. Preston is not the culprit, he insists. Instead, Chief Catesby should seek out Gabriel, the strange and terrifying boy who appears only between dusk and dawn. Nick wants to ignore the old alcoholic’s rantings, but Preston’s story rings true when sightings of the boy lead to a trail of missing and murdered children going back three centuries. Now Nick and Preston must race to stop Gabriel before more children are sacrificed to his ravenous appetite.

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David Dean (7)