Bastard (A Novel)

George Hamilton continued sleeping on the couch for two days straight, snoring loudly the entire time.

Jennifer Hamilton shook him by the shoulders.

"George. George. Wake up!"

George woke up immediately, without saying good morning, and paced back and forth across the apartment floor.

He put his head in his hands as he paced.

He stopped in his tracks, sat on the couch, and stared at the ceiling, still in the same clothes he had worn on Friday night.

It was now late Sunday evening.

Normally, George Hamilton could compartmentalize: His cases were vile, but he never brought his work home with him.

Instead, he would enjoy some of Jennifer's excellent food or talk with Marlene about journalism, but this time...

This time, something was different.

As George mulled the case over in his head, he remembered Roseanne. Dead on the floor with blood spurting from her chest, staining her red dress a darker crimson, her high heel shoes still on, complementing her pale skin and her long, blonde hair, with droplets of blood contaminating its beauty.

The image would not let him go, no matter how hard he tried to forget it.

The figure was beautiful, yet disturbing. An image of a lost love of sorts. A waste of a life of a gorgeous woman, ill-advised though she may have been. A maternal body, void of the opportunity to provide for her child in any way, shape, or form. A lost love, her spirit taken by a man she had once promised her life to. The whole affair was vomit-inducing. Devastating. But mostly, it was tragic.

George Hamilton went to the bathroom in his apartment late Sunday night.

He could feel the heaving coming on as his stomach tingled with misery.

He vomited into the toilet, boiling over with guck.

"George! George!" Jennifer hurried over.

"George, my darling. I'm worried about you. You're usually not like this with your cases. Are you alright?"

"No, but I don't really have much of a choice, do I?" He snapped. "It's not like you'll support us if I quit, with your shit blog and all."

"George!"

"I'm sorry," George quickly caught himself. "It's a lovely blog and I support you, always. I'm just overwhelmed with this case. That's all. It just...It just doesn't make sense."

He was on the move again, thinking.

"Why would Frank Miller, an accomplished and knowledgable lawyer, leave the body there, for all of us to see? Hmm?"

He put his index finger to his chin.

"Why would he not hide it, bury the body?"

"Well, George. You must remember it was Sarah who called the cops. Frank didn't have much of a say in the matter. I've overheard what happened, you know, from Susan."

"Not Susan!" George groaned.

"Yes, Susan, and, well, you, when you come home on the phone. She was raped, wasn't she? Sarah?"

"Yes, yes. Don't tell anyone I told you, but she was raped, and her father did it. Bastard. That's why Roseanne was so upset, you know."

"I'm sure of it."

George threw his hands up in exasperation.

"I can't find Frank anywhere. There's not a damn trace of him, and Darlene. She's not even showing up for work. She started blowing me off ever since I confronted her. You know she's a suspect, right? My own coworker is now a suspect in the murder case I'm trying to solve. We've tried to track Frank down with cameras. Nothing. We couldn't put a tracking device on him, of course, because he's run away, and we can't technically prove he's the killer. Him and Sarah both have DNA that causes them to look guilty, but he's the primary suspect. Sarah, for all intents and purposes, is an innocent victim in this whole situation. Problem is, we can't arrest him if we can't FUCKING FIND HIM. He's killing other people right now, wherever he is, I'm sure of it!" George spat.