State of genesis, p.1
State of Genesis, page 1
part #7 of Virgil Jones Mystery Series
State of Genesis
A Virgil Jones Novel
Thomas Scott
Unlimited Mystery Thrillers
Copyright © 2019 by Thomas Scott. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without written permission from the copyright owner of this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, governmental institutions, and all incidents or events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, locales, or government organizations is entirely coincidental.
For information contact:
ThomasScottBooks.com
Linda Heaton - Editor
BluePenEdits.com
Contents
Virgil Jones Series in order
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by Thomas Scott
About the Author
Virgil Jones Series In Order
State of Anger (Virgil Jones Series - book 1)
State of Betrayal (Virgil Jones Series - book 2)
State of Control (Virgil Jones Series - book 3)
State of Deception (Virgil Jones Series - book 4)
State of Exile (Virgil Jones Series - book 5)
State of Freedom (Virgil Jones Series - book 6)
State of Genesis (Virgil Jones Series - book 7)
Updates on future Virgil Jones novels available at:
ThomasScottBooks.com
Chapter One
Then
In the quiet of the past, things like honor and morality were more than just words, they were a foundation of sorts, there to stave off the storm in a time of need, no matter the type of sanctuary required. Except wants are often many, and needs almost always few. So in a perfect world it might have all gone away after Mason died. But no matter the complexity of time or the formation of things yet to come, the rich intricacy of the world—both then and now—was slowly turning, ready to show its teeth yet again.
Because the wolf…always at the door.
Joe Avery wasn’t a bad man, just one of those guys who couldn’t manage to catch a break. Ever. Even as an adult, he often felt like a kid in a little league game who always managed to drop the fly ball. Uneducated past the eighth grade, he’d married young, and got a job in an Indianapolis foundry as a hoist operator. The hoist carried molten brass from the blast furnace over to the casting dies. The factory made parts—brass valves and fittings—for fire trucks and city hydrants.
When he arrived home from work one afternoon, he found his wife sitting on the sofa, her flowered house dress arranged just so, her hands twisted into a knot on her lap. When she gave him the news of her pregnancy, the corner of Joe Avery’s mouth twitched a fraction before he told her congratulations, his voice flat.
“If it’s a boy, I’d like to name him Jacob, after my father,” she said. “Would that be okay with you?”
When he walked back over to the door he’d just entered, his wife said, “Where are you going? Dinner is almost ready.”
“Where else? I’m going to head down to the tavern. Thought I’d toss back a few and tell the fellas. Gonna be a father. Ain’t that something?”
“Did you get paid today? Isn’t this payday? The name…we don’t have to talk about it right now.”
He laughed through his nose and walked out the door.
He found his group of regulars at a corner table near the back. They were just getting started, their pitchers of beer still half full. They’d come straight from the foundry, their faces blackened except around the eyes where the safety goggles they wore kept the soot away. They looked like a table full of raccoons getting ready to tie one on.
When Avery told them the news of his wife’s pregnancy, his co-workers all hooted and hollered and poured him a glass of beer. Then one of them said something stronger was in order and waived the waitress over. “Whiskey for everyone, little darling. One of us is gonna be a father, though I thank Jesus H. his own damned self it ain’t me.” He gave her ass a squeeze and the waitress let him. She needed the tip money. When she returned they told her to leave the bottle. Joe Avery tried to pull out his wallet, but the others wouldn’t hear of it. “Not tonight, buddy boy. For the father to be, drinks are on us.”
Avery smiled a much bigger smile than the one he’d given his wife, then put his wallet away. When someone poured him a shot, they dropped it into his glass of beer and said, “Bottoms up.” They all clinked glasses—the first of many—and drank the night away.
Later in the early morning hours last call came and went, most of Avery’s buddies now long gone. When the only other man at the table offered him a ride home, Avery mumbled something to the effect of, “Walked here…walk back. Gotta somber up.”
“You mean sober up.” He checked his watch. “Better get after it, too. Gotta punch the clock in less than three hours. C’mon, I’ll help you.”
Avery yanked his arm away. “M’all right.”
“Suit yourself, then. See you later.”
Avery didn’t answer. He rested his forehead on the table until the bartender came over and nudged him with the business end of a push broom.
“Time to head home, Joe.”
“Am home.”
“No, you’re not. You’re in my bar and the bar is closed. Should have been closed to you a long time ago. Want me to call you a cab?”
“No. Walk.” When Avery stood the room spun and he had to hold on to his chair for a moment. Then he felt the bile rise in the back of his throat and despite the spinning room he made it out the back door before vomiting in the alley.
The bartender followed him out, said, “Take ‘er easy, Joe. Congrats on the kid.” Then he stepped back inside, pulled the door shut, and locked it behind him.
Avery woke four hours later, still drunk in the alley, but not as wobbly. When he reached for his pocket watch—the only gift he’d ever received from his own father—to check the time he realized it was missing. He’d cherished that watch ever since he’d been a boy. The face of the watch was silver with gold hands and black Roman numerals. The engraving on the inside of the lid was simple and direct. From your father, with love. When he checked for his wallet he found that missing as well. He’d cashed his paycheck on the way home—all two weeks’ worth—and now it was gone. He spat in the alley, rubbed his face with both hands, then walked out into the street. When he asked a passerby the time, he felt the blood drain from his face when answered. He was an hour late for work.
By the time he arrived he was covered in sweat, the black streaks on his face making him look more like a zebra than a raccoon. The foreman, though not pleased, had heard the news about Avery’s wife being pregnant and the celebratory events of the night before. He didn’t smile when he spoke, but there was kindness in his voice. “Don’t let it happen again.”
“It won’t.” He turned toward the operating cab of the hoist, the factory floor tilting slightly as he did. The foreman caught the tilt.
“You okay, Joe?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Got mugged last night. They got my watch and all my pay. Take any overtime you can give me.”
“That’s rough. I’ll see what I can do. Better get on the hoist. You’re gonna back up the line.” It never occurred to the foreman to send Avery home for a sick day.
Avery nodded and climbed into the cab. The furnace was blasting out the heat and when the metallurgist was satisfied the molten brass had been properly smelted, he stepped away from the furnace, removed his fireproof helmet, wiped the sweat from his brow, and released a lever that allowed the liquid metal to flow from the furnace and into the ladle. The ladle was essentially a giant bucket made from some sort of infusible metal that could handle the heat. It was attached to the hoist by a series of cables and pulleys that allowed the hoist operator to raise, lower, and pour the metal as needed. When the ladle was full, the metallurgist made a twirling motion at Avery. A sign to raise the bucket and make the transport to the casting area.
Avery caught the twirl, but when he looked at the control levers he couldn’t remember which one did what. Maybe it was the alcohol still surging through his system, or maybe it was the fact that he’d been robbed of his pay—money that was supposed to cover groceries and rent—but either way, when he reached out and grabbed the lever that would raise the bucket of molten metal in the air and carry it to the casting station, he grabbed the wrong one.
The ladle—already ten feet high because the furnace drain had to be well above the floor—didn’t slowly raise as Avery had intended. Instead it tipped violently to one side in a quick massive pour that spread molten brass across the foundry floor, some of it splashing back up and hitting the metallurgist. His body was somewhat protected by the fireproof gear he wore, but his face and head were completely exposed.
Avery pushed the lever back in place, but by then it was much too late. Men were scattering out of the way of the lethal metal, alarm bells were ringing, red lights were flashing everywhere, and the metallurgist’s face seemed to be melting away from his skull. Someone tried to grab him by the arm with a long rod that had a hook on one end to pull him away. But the metallurgist couldn’t see, his face on fire, his vision gone, and when he felt the hook on his arm, somewhere in the bowels of his brain he imagined the hook and the attempt of his own rescue as the hand of death pulling him to a place he desperately didn’t want to go. He fought the hook the way a drowning person often fights with panic against their own rescuer. He jerked his arm free, but lost any semblance of balance he may have had in the process. When he fell to the floor he landed in the puddle of molten metal. The fire suppression system kicked in, everyone ran for the exits, and the metallurgist fought against himself until his nerve endings were burned away.
Avery, sitting high above it all in the cab of the hoist watched him die, and in the midst of the noise and smell and steam and flashing lights he vomited again less than five hours from the time he was kicked out of the bar.
Chapter Two
The blast furnace had an automatic shut-off valve that killed the fuel feed unit, closed the inlet ducts, and opened the chimney flues to let the heat escape. The fire suppression system knocked out the floor fire and stopped the molten brass from spreading any further than it already had. When it was safe to exit the hoist, Avery climbed down in a robotic fashion, his leg and arm movements stuttered and uncoordinated. When he walked outside he found his co-workers waiting for him, many of them the same men he drank with the previous evening. There was no mistaking their expressions or the thoughts running through their heads. When Avery glanced at the gate, he saw a police car pulling up to the scene. In the distance he could hear the firetrucks approaching.
The man who had tried to rescue the metallurgist had been at the bar last night, though Avery wasn’t sure what time he’d left. He still held the long rod, its butt end resting on the ground, the hook high in the air. He spun it in his hands and the curved end of the shaft twisted like a weather vane. When he spoke, his words were packed with anger and disgust.
“I can’t imagine a worse death. Can you, Joe?”
Avery held his hands out in front of himself. “I…I can’t. It was an accident.”
“It was ignorance, is what it was, plain and simple. Man had a family.” He spun the shaft again, the hook glinting in the sunlight.
“I grabbed the wrong lever. I didn’t mean to.”
“How long you think it took him to die, Joe?”
“What? What kind of question is that?”
The man with the hook and shaft reached into his pants and pulled out a pocket watch, and clicked the lid open with his finger. Even though he was still drunk, his vision not right, Avery could make out the face of the watch—silver with gold hands and black Roman numerals. The man with the shaft and hook, the man who Avery thought was his friend, had robbed him of his father’s watch and most likely his last two weeks worth of pay.
Suddenly Avery didn’t feel drunk or even hung over. The rush of adrenaline that poured through his system blanketed the effects of the alcohol and he felt every bit as hot as the blast furnace in the foundry. That’s when Avery did something that set off a chain of events, his own death guaranteed, though it would take nearly twenty years to happen.
The first officer on the scene was a Marion County Sheriff’s deputy, a rookie. When he pulled up to the foundry’s gate, his vision of the events about to play out were almost completely obscured by the line of men. One of them held some sort of long metal rod that was hooked on one end. It almost looked like a cane made for a giant. Smoke and steam were pouring out of the doors and windows of the foundry. When he turned around, he saw the sheriff pulling up to the gate in his squad car. With reinforcements right behind him, the rookie got brave and pushed his way through the crowd of men, his baton in one hand, the holster strap that secured his sidearm unsnapped in case things turned uglier than anticipated. The radio call had mentioned something about an accident, but with certain groups, you didn’t take chances. He thought this group fell into that category. He didn’t hear the sheriff telling him to wait.
He made it to the front of the line, right behind the man with the long metal rod. He was about to squeeze through and address the men from the front when all of a sudden the man with the rod did a quick side step to avoid Avery’s charge. Avery collided with the rookie who wasn’t prepared for the hit. The young deputy was knocked flat on his back, his head impacting the pavement with a sickening crunch. His eyes remained open and fixed, both pupils instantly enlarged almost to the edges of their irises. His sidearm had slipped its holster and lie on the pavement, next to his body.
Avery scrambled up off the cop and away from the blood seeping from the back of the officer’s skull. He turned in time to see the hook coming at him. He ducked and heard the whoosh of the shaft as it missed his head by less than an inch. When he glanced down he saw the cop’s gun on the ground. With all logical thought process now gone, he grabbed the weapon, turned toward the man whom he thought was his friend, the man he’d been drinking with last night, the same man who had stolen his watch and money, and began firing. He kept pulling the trigger until the hammer began clicking on spent rounds, the gun now useless to him.
But it didn’t matter. The man with the hook was dead. Avery had managed to hit him three times, twice in the chest, and once in the neck. Most of the other men had backed away when they saw Avery pick up the gun, and then the sheriff was right there, his own weapon out, swinging it side to side, shouting for everyone to step back.
Everyone did, except for Joe Avery, who sat down on the ground, the weapon skittering away as his butt hit the concrete and his teeth clicked together. He put his face in his hands.
He’d killed three men inside of ten minutes.
It took the rest of the day to secure and process the scene. The workers all gave their statements before being sent home…the factory shut down for repairs and cleanup. The coroner’s office confirmed the cause and manner of death of the metallurgist, the sheriff’s deputy, and the man who’d been shot to death.
Avery was sitting handcuffed in the back of the squad car as the sheriff informed him of his rights. “Anything you want to say?”
“My wife is pregnant,” Avery said.
The sheriff tipped his head and closed one eye. His own wife had recently given birth to their first child—a boy—and he wasn’t sure how to answer that statement, so he didn’t. “I meant, would you like to make any sort of statement before we take you down to central booking?”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Avery said. “The man I shot…I don’t know what I was thinking. I thought he was my friend. We got drunk last night and when I passed out in the alley, he robbed me of my pay and the only thing I ever cherished in my whole entire life.”
You don’t cherish your wife or unborn baby? “What’s that?” the sheriff asked.
“It was a pocket watch my father gave me when I was a child. There’s an inscription on the inside cover. I’d like to have it returned. Is that possible?”
