Spiritual Blogs

https://martianconcerns2070.blogspot.com/2025/07/more-martian-concerns-by-aidan-gregory.html

It's a detective story, among other things, and it's free at my blogspot page. This is the first story in a compilation of short stories for my fourth book.-Here's and axcerpt; 

                                                    More Martian Concerns 

                                                                   by  

                                                         Aidan Gregory 

                                                           Goombahs 

     Paul Ricci had just awakened on his hospital bed after dozing off late in the afternoon. He was sleeping more. Stage four pancreatic cancer had exhausted him.  

  Paul was given five months to live about four months before. 

  His wife, Carol, had gone home with his two adult children.  Carol had things to do at their home, and his children had their own families.  

  His children had stopped in almost every day to sit with him, as did Carol.  They stopped bringing the grandchildren because the sight of him would upset them. His body was emaciated. Paul had, in a way, said goodbye to them weeks before. 

  There was a knock on the half-opened door.  

   With his eyes closed Paul said, “Come in,” in a loud whisper. He turned his head toward the door and opened his eyes. He immediately grinned. 

“Where have you been for the last forty three years?” Paul said to Gary Moore, even though he knew that Gary had been living in South Jersey in Atlantic County near the cranberry bogs. And they had run into each other in town and spoken at a high school reunions. 

“I hadn’t checked my Facebook page in a while and there were posts that you were here. I had a meeting in the area today. How are you holding up?” Gary asked as he shook Paul’s hand. 

 Gary, a wrinkling sixty-year-old man of average build and sandy hair was in good shape and didn’t offer a hearty handshake, for obvious reasons. 

“Pain killer's help. Sleeping all the time,” Paul replied. Paul was staying in the hospice wing of a nursing home in North Jersey. “I thought you were retired?” 

“I volunteered to help on a cold case and a new lead brought me up here. Had a meeting with the Bergen County Sherrif. I work cold cases for departments all over Atlantic County. So, how’s the family?” Gary asked, not wanting to ask about his condition. 

“Everyone's good,” he paused then said, “The grand kids are afraid of me. They way I look. I don't want them to visit anymore. I don’t want to scare them,” Paul replied. 

  Gary nodded his head and tried not to grin.  “You can laugh. I get it,” Paul said.  

“Yeah, this isn’t funny though. I feel bad for bad you,” and Gary meant it. They were friends when they were kids. Gary thought of the last few conversations they had at those reunions, talking to one another with ease after years of no contact, as they were now. 

“Yeah, I know, but I had a good life. Shorter than I expected but good.  Good family. Lots of good memories,” Paul said.  After a short silence he said, “Your family?” 

“Good, thanks,” Gary replied. He started looking around the hospital room at all the flowers and cards. 

  Paul knew that Gary had a messy divorce years before. He didn’t push it. 

“First, they all send me get well cards. Then, more flowers than you get at a funeral,” Paul said with a grin, “One of the guys sent me a cactus.” Gary laughed. 

  Gary had taken off his winter coat when he had first come in and draped it on the back of the chair he was sitting in. He reached into the side pocket and retrieved a small care package.  He placed it on the night table next to the bed. “Ginseng tea for energy. Some cranberry tea, too,” Gary said. 

  “Thanks,” Paul replied with a smile.  Paul’s curly hair had all but fallen out from the chemo treatments, but his smile was the same.   

  The grave situation Paul was in suddenly became real for Gary and memories flashed. 

  When he first walked into the room, Gary had looked out the window over the valley of the town where he and Paul had grown up. The twilight and the cold weather reminded him of winter track practice. 

  Late in the afternoon the school halls would be empty. Hollers and laughter could be heard from the gym along with squeaky sneakers. 

  Paul practiced the long jump, he was taller. But they both practiced triple jump and pole vaulting. 

  There were other kids on the team too, and they would help slide the pole vault pit on the shiny gym floor after hauling it out of storage. 

  There was usually a wrestling match on the pit, or Indian leg wrestling. 

  The coach would whistle, and they would stretch and do sprints then sprint with the seventeen-foot carbon fiber poles. They would plant the tip of the pole in between the pit mats and practice swinging their feet up toward the ceiling then twist at the waist, as if going over a crossbar. 

  During the spring they’d practice outside on the fields behind the school preparing for the track meets and weeks later they’d host one or take a crazy teen aged school bus ride to another school for a meet. 

  Before high school and middle school Paul lived several blocks away from Gary and they attended the same grammar school.  

  It was safe in those days, and all the kids walked together on the same road that led to the school. Even in the rain and snow with raincoats and winter boots. 

  They were the same age and had been in classes together. They had gone to dozens of birthday parties and Field Days and Easter egg hunts. At Halloween the neighborhood streets were swarming with costumed kids running around.  

  No one locked their doors. 

  “Remember the two brothers? The skinny kid and his big, kind of fat brother?” Gary asked Paul. Paul looked at him quizzically. “They both had the Krate bicycles with banana seats. The skinny kid had an orange one and the fat kid had a red one,” Gary said. 

“The capo’s kids,” Paul said. 

  A capo had moved into an expensive house a few blocks away. His two sons were always bullying other kids. The skinny one would pick a fight and if you fought back the fat brother would punch you. 

  One day it was Gary’s turn to get picked on.  He fought back and got punched. But before he was punched a second time Paul stepped in and punched the fat kid in the stomach. 

  “You punched him, and he ran home crying. The skinny one said that he was going to tell his father and that you’d be in big trouble,” Gary said, grinning. 

 “The capo called my father. They had words. I don’t remember what was said but my father said not to apologize, and not to worry,” Paul replied, also grinning. 

  After fourth grade Paul and his family moved to one of the new developments in town. His father put up a six-foot fence around the property and Dobermans were always on patrol in the yard.  

  Paul went to the other junior high school, and they didn’t hear from one another again until high school. 

  Gary suddenly remembered one night in late spring during their senior year in high school. There was a party at someone's house and Paul was there with fiends from his neighborhood, and Carol. Gary was with his friends.  

  He and Paul got to talking about something when Paul asked Gary if he wanted to see his father’s 1965 Pontiac Catalina convertible parked in the street. They went out front together with Carol and a girl named Beth, who were giggling about something. 

  The Pontiac was candy apple red and in mint condition. The house lights glistened off it. Paul offered to take them for a ride and he and Beth climbed into the back seat. 

  Paul drove slowly and carefully up and down the spacious streets with the radio playing pop songs. They all jabbered about one thing or another. Carol slid over on the front bench seat to sit close to Paul, and he put his arm around her. Gary put his arm on the top of the back seat above Beth. He caught Paul’s eye in the rear-view mirror and they both grinned as the warm night air wafted around them. 

  “Can you tell me a little about the case?” Paul asked. 

  “Sure. A teenage girl got separated from her friends at Brigantine Castle back in the late ‘70’s. She never came home. There were no leads then and the case was closed. 

  But someone sent an anonymous lead to the Galloway police department snail mail a few days ago. We traced the letter back to a mailbox in Paramus. That post office sent us the security camera footage from the night before the letter was posted. Someone wearing a surgical mask, a hoodie, and gloves had dropped the letter in the box after 2 a.m. He or she walked out of the camera’s view. The letter and envelope had been sprinkled with bleach to oxidate DNA strands.  

  The letter stated that the killer was a retired Bergen County Sheriffs officer. I met with one of the assistant Sheriff's and you can imagine he was not pleased by the prospect of attracting attention to their department. He said he was sure that it was a frame up by a disgruntled criminal. He gave me the suspect’s phone number, and I’ll give him a call later tonight.” 

  Paul looked Gary over for a moment. Gary had told him, on the several occasions that they had met, about some of the cases he had worked on and solved. Terrible stuff. The job had negatively affected his marriage, and he was still at it.

  He was good at it.