Convicted Read online

  Convicted

  A Bureau Story

  Kim Fielding

  Copyright © 2019 by Kim Fielding

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  www.kfieldingwrites.com

  Cover Art: Reese Dante http://www.reesedante.com

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  Contents

  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

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The Bureau of Trans-Species Affairs

  Chapter One

  1993

  It was fucking cold outside.

  When Desmond Hughes had been a young boy in Belfast, he used to go to the Royal Cinema to see American Westerns. John Wayne, Glenn Ford, Randolph Scott, Alan Ladd, Audie Murphy. Des had felt as if he knew those men as well as he knew his neighbors. He’d practiced their accents and spent hours running around the neighborhood with friends and siblings, pretending to be cowboys, Indians, and bandits. He’d insisted to everyone that when he grew up, he was going to move to America and buy a horse. He clearly pictured himself riding through those rugged, remote landscapes with a white Stetson on his head and a six-shooter hanging from his hips. He’d capture all the bad guys.

  What he’d never once imagined—what he wouldn’t have believed if anyone had told him—was how cold the desert gets on a clear night. The air in his lungs feeling too thin to sustain him. Endless stars blinking overhead like snowflakes that never fell. And the scent of sage as brittle in his nose as thin shards of glass.

  The only warmth in addition to his government-issued orange cotton jumpsuit was a thin blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The chill of the concrete seeped right through his cheap socks. Yet despite the cold, Des remained outside, pacing within the confines of his tiny exercise yard. Six strides away, four over, six back, four over. He looked up at the sky rather than at the high concrete walls or the electrified wire that topped them. He inhaled deeply, bringing in odors of the outdoors. When he was lucky, he’d catch an owl’s call or a coyote’s howl. The faint sounds always seemed as far away as the stars.

  “And here you are in the American West, just as you promised.” He had frequent conversations with himself, and he hoped they staved off insanity rather than being a symptom of it. Or maybe insanity wouldn’t be so bad, especially if it were a comfortable kind. His grand-aunt Molly from Donegal, for instance, had believed herself to be a maighdean mhara—a mermaid—and had insisted on taking long baths daily so she wouldn’t dry out. Once in a while she grew upset because she couldn’t find the magic cap that would allow her to grow a tail and breathe beneath the water again, but mostly she was content. She used to sit at her open window and sing, in hopes of luring handsome men.

  Des wouldn’t mind that sort of insanity if it helped him tolerate incarceration. Of course it would be difficult to be a merman here in Nevada, with the ocean so very far away. He’d have to become something else instead.

  “Ah, but you’d still be a prisoner, Des. This place is full of creatures, and none of them any freer than you.”

  He never saw or heard any of his fellow inmates, but he knew they were there: Monsters too dangerous to allow in public but not so threatening that the Bureau of Trans-Species Affairs needed to destroy them. And humans who, like Des, had become involved in things they shouldn’t have. Larry had told him about this prison, probably to frighten Des and keep him close. Nobody who’s locked up there ever gets out.

  Now Des shivered hard and tried to turn his thoughts to slightly better things.

  “Remember your first Fourth of July, Des?” He’d been only ten years old when his mother sent him away to live with distant relatives in America, virtual strangers living in a small house in suburban Chicago. Although they were strict about many things, including early bedtimes, that night they’d barbecued hamburgers and let all the kids sit on the front lawn, ready to watch the nearby fireworks. Des had been delighted to get his first look at fireflies. “And you ate so many Popsicles that you were nearly ill.” He traced fingers over his bristly cheeks and chin in recollection of the sweet stickiness that had once been there.

  “I wonder what the date is now. Doesn’t matter, I suppose. I’ve even lost track of the year, and that particular Fourth was a long time ago.” He was seeing more threads of gray in his long dark-blond hair, and he supposed there were lines on his face as well.

  Still circling the inside of the exercise yard, he was in the midst of recalling his first American Halloween when the light outside the doorway blinked twice. When he’d first been imprisoned, he ignored the signal and remained outside—a small attempt at independence. But a hidden guard had shot him with a tranquilizer, and hours later Des had awakened in his cell with a pounding headache. And naked, because they’d removed his clothes and blanket—as well as his mattress and books—as punishment. Many days passed before those comforts were returned, and he hadn’t been permitted outside again for… weeks? Months? He hadn’t been sure.

  Abandoning his memories of the past, Des hurried through the doorway and the metal door slid closed. The lock engaged with a decisive thunk.

  Chapter Two

  Kurt Powell loved the running track at the Bureau’s new headquarters in Sherman Oaks. Well, tracks, plural, to be precise: one outside and one in. Sometimes he’d use both during the same day, putting in a couple of miles in the cool outdoors before sunrise and then a couple more inside when he was done for the day. Some of the other agents scoffed, not seeing the point in running around in circles. But he appreciated not worrying about traffic and other hazards. Jogging here gave him the rare opportunity to put his brain on autopilot, to move and be without thinking about where he’d been or where he was going.

  So this afternoon, after working on the paperwork for the newly finished Long Beach case, Kurt headed to the locker room, changed into shorts and a tee, and began circling the indoor track at a rapid pace.

  The Long Beach case had been a complicated one. A sea serpent, of all fucking things, had showed up in the harbor, where it began interfering with ships. Nothing fatal, luckily, but it had caused a lot of damage, which pissed off the ship owners and insurance companies. Some of the people at the Bureau had advocated bringing in the Coast Guard and letting them blast the monster to bits, but apparently someone in Washington disagreed. Instead Kurt and three other agents got sent on a weird sort of fishing expedition, the goal of which was to figure out whether the serpent was sentient. He didn’t know what the course of action would have been if the creature turned out to be intelligent. The fact that it seemed about as smart as the goldfish he’d had when he was a kid put it out of the Bureau’s jurisdiction.

  The sea serpent was now somebody else’s problem, but Kurt was left with a shit ton of reports to file. Almost made him wish he still had his old job selling cigarettes and beer.

  As always
, it took several laps for him to sweat away thoughts about work. He then registered that it was Friday. After his run, he could go home and shower and maybe call and invite his buddy over. What was that phrase Vaughn liked to use? Friends with benefits. Yeah. Kurt could enjoy those benefits and spend the weekend kicking back and relaxing. He’d get some yard work in, then see if his son Jason wanted to go catch a movie or something. Kurt wouldn’t have to worry about reports until Monday morning.

  He ran a little faster in anticipation of a few days of freedom.

  As he rounded the track, there was Chief Townsend standing to the side and smiling at him.

  God dammit.

  Kurt stopped a few feet short of Townsend but kept jogging in place. “I’ll have that report to you by Tuesday, sir.”

  Townsend waved dismissively. He held an unlit cigarette in one hand and his hat in the other. “Never mind about that. O’Shea can finish it.”

  “O’Shea writes like shit, sir.”

  “I know. He could use the practice. Anyway, I’ve got something else for you.”

  Kurt tried not to groan. “It’s Friday.” Please let the situation—whatever it was—wait until next week.

  Townsend’s knowing grin suggested he knew exactly what Kurt was thinking. Hell, he likely did. The man had an uncanny knack for reading minds.

  “That it is, Powell. Tell you what. You go have a peaceful couple of days with your son, but come see me first thing Monday. I’ve got a fresh new assignment for you.”

  Well, fuck. Now Kurt was going to wonder about it all weekend. “Does it involve more boats?”

  Townsend’s laughter echoed in the vast room. “The opposite, my boy. I’m sending you to the desert.”

  God, parenting a seventeen-year-old was a strange endeavor. Jason spent half the weekend intelligently discussing his prospects for college and the other half playing on his Game Boy, scarfing fast food, and grunting in response to questions. On Saturday afternoon he drove to the movie theater—an experience Kurt found more terrifying than any monsters he’d faced, even though Jason drove reasonably well. The film his son chose was a bad remake of an old TV series, a stupid comedy that caused him to snort with laughter at potty humor and sex jokes.

  Kurt liked to think he’d been much more mature at that age. After all, at seventeen he’d already spent years participating with his parents in civil rights marches and had begun demonstrating with them against the Vietnam war as well. Although to be honest, he’d complained about it. He’d also screwed around in school, skipping classes and smoking weed with his friends, giving no thought to what would happen after graduation. His grades had been too shitty to get into anything but community college, and he’d screwed around there too. In truth, he hadn’t really grown up until he was nineteen and, irony of ironies, got shipped to Vietnam.

  That was a type of maturity he hoped Jason would never have to face.

  On Sunday night after dinner they took their usual positions at the sink, Jason washing and Kurt drying, and Jason turned talkative. “Hey Dad? Did you ever really love Mom?”

  Great. Nothing Kurt enjoyed more than talking about his complicated past. “Yeah, I did.”

  “But… you’re gay, right? So how could you love a woman?”

  Kurt paused in wiping a frying pan. “I guess it’s a different kind of love. Your mom’s beautiful. I could see that as clearly as any straight man would. And she’s smarter than anyone I know. Funny, too. I really enjoyed being with her. I suppose I mixed up that kind of love with the romantic kind. I wasn’t really clear in my own head about who I was at that point.”

  That was an understatement. He’d had sex with a few guys in Nam but chalked that up to desperate times and limited opportunities. He’d come home so messed up that he clutched frantically at anything resembling normalcy. A pretty, intelligent wife; a comfortable little house in La Crescenta; a job in a convenience store—he’d honestly believed that if he had those ordinary things, if he tried hard enough, he’d achieve ordinariness too. Just that guy who mowed his lawn on Saturdays and watched football on Sundays.

  Jason paused, suspending a dinner plate halfway out of the soapy water as he watched Kurt closely.

  “Jayjay, your mother is an amazing human being. She put up with way more than anyone should have to, and she treated me with kindness and patience when I didn’t deserve either. I’m incredibly grateful we were married because that’s how we got you. But I never loved her the way a husband should love his wife.”

  Jason nodded. “But you didn’t, like, fool her on purpose?”

  “You know me and you know your mother. Do you really think I could get away with that?”

  “No, I guess not,” Jason said with a laugh. “Mom knows all.”

  “Don’t you forget it. I fooled myself, really, and it was only because I was so sincere that she got taken in too. She knew I was living a lie before I did.”

  Apparently satisfied for now, Jason turned his attention back to the dishes. When that task was complete, he put on his shoes and jacket and grabbed his Game Boy, and he and Kurt got into the car. Kurt drove this time. It wasn’t far to the house where Jason and Maryann lived, the place that Kurt had once called home. When they arrived, Jason didn’t get out of the car right away.

  “Dad? Do you worry about AIDS?”

  Kurt had been rehearsing this conversation in his head for a few years, and he was ready. “I’ve lost some friends to it. But I don’t have HIV, and I’m careful to engage in safe sex.”

  Jason squirmed a little in his seat. Not, Kurt guessed, because Kurt was gay, but rather because no kid wanted to think about his parent having sex. Time to strike while the iron was hot.

  “Safe sex is important for you too, Jason. If you’re ever too embarrassed to buy condoms, you can let me know and I’ll get them for you.”

  “I’m not gay!”

  Kurt snorted. “Didn’t say you were. But straight people can transmit and catch HIV too. Not to mention herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, and all sorts of other things you want to avoid. And then there’s unwanted pregnancy, which at least is something I don’t have to worry about.”

  Jason rolled his eyes and scrunched down in his seat, mumbling something that might have been grudging agreement. After a moment or two, he cut his eyes toward Kurt. “So have you ever been in love with anyone, then? The romance kind.”

  “No.”

  “How come?”

  “Maybe I just haven’t met the right man.”

  Or maybe the part of Kurt that was capable of that kind of love was dead—rotted away in the jungles of Asia or poisoned by the booze and drugs that he had consumed in the years after he returned.

  Jason gave him another long look, his face startlingly adult. Then he shrugged and he was a teenager again. He grunted a good-bye of sorts, exited the car, and loped toward the front door.

  Chapter Three

  He knew the hour based on when the lights blinked on. The one in the corridor perpetually glowed through the thick glass panel of the metal outer door, and he’d learned to sleep despite it. But at six every morning, the fluorescent bulbs overhead began to hum and glare, and they always woke him up. Early on, he’d shouted in protest. It wasn’t as if he had a bloody appointment to get to, so why the forced early rising? But nobody answered his shouts, and he’d finally given up. It was just one more maddeningly pointless aspect of his incarceration, like jumpsuits too narrow in the shoulders and food always lukewarm.

  Rubbing his eyes, Des rose slowly off the mattress and shambled the length of his cell—six small steps—to the toilet-and-sink combo. Handy, that. Once he took a leak, he could wash his hands and face without having to move elsewhere. He brushed his teeth next, somewhat awkwardly due to the short and flimsy prison-supplied toothbrush. The clear toothpaste tasted like ashes and chemicals, but it got the job done—as did the cheap comb that tamed his long hair. And that was it for morning hygiene.

  One day every week, a guard would open the
outer door but leave the floor-to-ceiling bars closed, and he’d order Des to strip. Once Des had handed over his jumpsuit and socks and done a humiliating little display to prove he wasn’t hiding anything under his balls or up his ass, the guard would give him a razor, soap, and shampoo. The shower in the corner of the cell would turn on automatically—a low-pressure spray of lukewarm water—and Des had three minutes to scrub while the guard watched, flat-eyed. No towel to dry off with, since that was too much luxury for the likes of him. He’d shave afterward, as best as he could without a mirror, and then hand the razor, soap, and shampoo back through the bars. The guard would give him thin socks and a clean but ill-fitting jumpsuit , and Des would be left alone again.

  Today wasn’t a shaving day, so Des stayed whiskery and, he supposed, stinky. He’d long ago grown immune to his own reek.

  Exercise was next. Des jogged around the cell and did push-ups and sit-ups. Three hundred of each, and he’d do another couple of hundred later in the day. He also stacked books and used them as hand weights. Prison was a good way to remain fit, he supposed. He’d lost track of his age but suspected that, had he remained free, by now he’d have a soft belly and weak arms. He always had liked eating better than exercise—but that was before prison food.

  A guard brought his breakfast tray shortly after Des finished his sit-ups. Same as always: watery coffee, watery juice that looked orange but didn’t taste like it, a scoop of gummy unsweetened oatmeal, a few tablespoons of powdery scrambled eggs, and a slice of white bread with a pat of margarine. He ate it all, even licking the tray for the last bits. At dinner he allowed himself the luxury of remembering one favorite food. Sometimes from his childhood in Northern Ireland: Fish and chips hot enough to burn his fingers and tongue. Or his mother’s stew, fragrant with mutton and onion. Other times from his short stay in Chicago: Chop suey from the restaurant his relatives went to on special occasions. Or a vendor’s hot dog that required Des to lean forward when eating so the toppings wouldn’t drip on his clothes.