Chapter 1

Ed Harris had gotten off duty at 6:00 A.M. and driven the fifteen miles to his off base apartment. After 12 years in the Air force, Ed had finally gotten tired of living in a barracks and had rented himself a little one bedroom apartment in town. He liked the privacy. The ability to sit by himself, doing nothing, without constant interruptions, was what he had been seeking. His apartment gave him that.

He had parked and was walking up the stairs when he heard a shot fired, a woman screaming, and then two more shots in quick succession. Ed ran up the remaining stairs and towards the sounds he'd heard. A door opened just as he had arrived at it, and a woman collided with him, forcefully enough to send her tumbling back inside the apartment she had been leaving in such a hurry. Ed reached in to give her a hand back up when he spotted a bloody mess lying on the floor next to the fallen woman. The bloody mess in question was Ed's neighbor, Ted Forrest. He was bloody because someone had just fired three shots into him, two in the chest and one in the face, just to the right of his nose.

"Please, I've got to go. Please, let me go, I've got to get home, please?" The woman was back on her feet, trying to push past Ed, who was effectively blocking the door.

"Hold it lady, you aren't going anywhere until the police get here. Just settle down." Ed restrained her in his arms easily. She was panicked, but not to the point where she was very resisting yet. She just collapsed against him and began weeping disconsolately against his chest. Ed grabbed her black handbag from underneath her arm and led her around the body to the sofa on the far side of the room. He was careful to avoid stepping in any blood or disturbing the crime scene in any way. He helped her sit down and then opened her purse, confirming with his own eyes that the probable murder weapon was inside. There was a small pistol, a revolver, blue tinted gray, resting on top of the pile of things in the purse. Ed looked down at the woman, really taking a look at her for the first time. She appeared to be in her late 30's, brown hair, dark complected, on the shortish side and carrying about an extra 30 pounds of weight on her. She was neither pretty or homely in her facial features. Ed thought that he'd describe her as average looking, probably Hispanic. Ed knew she wasn't anything at all like the other girls he's seen with Ted in the past.

The woman continued to keep her head down, her crying somewhat abated but still taking place quietly. She now seemed to be having problems with a case of hiccups. Ed started looking around for a telephone, wanting to call in the authorities and let them get to the bottom of this mess. He saw a phone on the breakfast nook over in the kitchen. It was fifteen feet away and Ed didn't want to put that much distance between himself and the woman, afraid she'd make a run for it. He had just about talked himself into chancing it, when a young girl opened the bedroom door and peeked her head out. She saw Ed and the woman and then looked over at the dead body by the door. She opened the bedroom door and started to walk towards Ed before she stopped short and collapsed onto the carpet. One second, she was walking just fine, the next one she was dropping in a pile on the floor. She made some noise as she fell down and the woman on the sofa looked up. Seeing the girl, she jumped up from the sofa and ran over to her.

"Maria! Get up Maria." She started to gently shake the unconscious girl. Ed stood between her and the door, making sure that neither tried to leave the apartment. The woman put her arms under the girls and dragged her over to the sofa, lifting her and sitting her up on one end, and then sitting herself down right next to the girl. She then began rubbing the girl's arm and talking to her quietly, soothingly, reassuring the girl that things would be OK. After a couple minutes, the girl opened her eyes and hugged the older woman and started to cry. The two spoke together quietly for a time and then the woman asked Ed if he would get the girl a glass of water.

"You get her the water, I'll stay right here and make sure neither of you makes a run for it. There's a dead man over there and the police are going to want to talk with both of you." Ed motioned with his hand towards the kitchen and the woman got up and went to the sink. She found a glass and filled it with water and returned to the sofa, offering the girl the glass and watching as she drank it down. The woman took the empty glass from the girl and put it down on a lamp table next to the sofa's edge.

"Please let my daughter leave. She didn't shoot him, I did. I don't want her here when the police come. Please, she's only 14 years old." As she spoke, she used her hands to urge the girl up off the couch. The girl resisted, clinging to the woman and saying no, no, no each time the woman tried to move her away. Both of them were crying as they struggled, each trying to get their way. Ed finally told them both to quit it and asked the woman what had happened to lead up to the killing.

"He was a bastard, that man, using innocent girls, giving them drugs and making them do terrible things to earn him money. He took my Maria and made her into a whore! She's a baby, and he had her doing things that were unspeakable for a grown up to do, let alone a little girl. He gave her drugs and then he made her sell herself to get money for more drugs."