THE INNOCENTS
A cop pursues a violent felon to avenge his father
Nathan Senthil
Polite note to the reader
This book is written in US English except where fidelity to other languages or accents is appropriate.
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For Dr. Aarthi,
a rockstar surgeon who saves babies for a living.
You are a hero in its truest meaning,
and my inspiration to live with purpose.
To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.
- Martin Luther King
Contents
Part I: Lolly
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
Part II: Joshua
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Part III: Gabriel
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
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Part I: Lolly
Chapter 1
July 27, 1967. 02:01 P.M.
A determined kick thumped inside Iris Durant’s stomach and rescued her from a near-death state. As her eyes fluttered open, she discerned that she lay on her side, facing the caved in head of a man she had lived with for a decade. The gash, deep and messy, exposed pink brain within the crushed cranium that oozed dark viscous blood.
Another kick pushed her into reality even further—a reality filled with a myriad of unpleasant noises: the distant sounds of assault rifles being fired, military men barking orders, sirens wailing, glass shattering, and people yelling.
A deafening boom stunned her already feebly beating heart. The explosion not only reverberated through her shop, but also shook the very ground she lay upon.
It’s the tanks.
When the electricity still powered their TV, the news had reported that the forty-ton war-machines had arrived to finish the job which men from the National Guard failed to.
Witnessing the carnage, a stranger would have been forgiven for assuming he was smack-dab in the middle of a battlefield. In a way, he would have been correct, but this was not Vietnam or Stalingrad. Iris’s ransacked shop, along with her dead husband, was located on the 12th Street, Detroit.
Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What had started as a relatively simple raid in an unlicensed bar on the West Side turned into a full-blown riot between the blacks and Detroit PD. Though skin color played a vital role in inciting the incident, the riot later became a free-for-all plundering fest. Iris’s store, ‘Goodwill Electronix’, was in fact robbed by a variety of criminals, including whites. Together.
And the victims weren’t of one particular ethnicity either. Iris was white, and Lawrence was black. Both of them were thrashed with baseball bats wielded by browns. Thankfully, the hooligan who’d hit Iris was only a boy, barely out of adolescence. He had swung the bat from an awkward angle with little force and a lot of hesitation. She just hated it when kids were forced into a life of crime.
Iris moved, trying to get up, but the bump in her stomach prevented her from turning over. Getting her bearings, she planted an elbow and then a hand. The billing counter provided help; she grabbed its ledge and heaved herself up. Her knees shook and threatened to collapse. When she stood straight, her world slipped under her feet. If not for the grip she had on the table, gravity would have triumphed.
Dizzy, while hammers battered within her temples, Iris reckoned her vision was completely black on the right side. She dared to peel a hand from the table and brought it to her head. Trembling cold fingers traced her face. There was a craggy lump, where the eye should have been, but she felt no pain. Hand still holding the table, she stumbled to her left and looked into the shelved mirrored back wall behind the counter, where the radios used to be. The lump was her right eye bulging out of proportion; the blood and vitreous fluid ran down her dust-covered cheek.
As Iris digested the horrible image in the mirror, something tinged in her lower abdomen. Before she understood what happened, warm liquid ran down her inner thighs.
No, no, no!
Accumulating all her strength, she cried out for help but her voice failed, and the desperate scream came out with a gasp of air. Did it really matter, though? She knew no one would come to her rescue. Good people had already fled the neighborhood, leaving it to the mercy of wolves.
The shortage of options disheartened Iris, and the grim situation sank in: she must deliver unassisted.
She bent down, pulled up the hem of her long skirt, and secured it in her mouth. Locking a thumb on the strap of her underwear, she shoved them down but couldn’t get them past the knees. So she stood up, wriggled them further down, used her feet to remove them completely and flung them across the floor with a toe.
Something happened inside, and she felt the contents of her entire body being vacuumed out. Her throat let out another groan, and this time there was no air. It was all pain.
The contraction eventually unclutched her from its stinging grasp, and her heartbeat decelerated, blessing her with
