After twenty soul bending years as a detective with the LAPD, Sergeant Nick Blaine thought he knew evil. That was until he came across the murder of Ainsley Brown, a charismatic young gay man trying to live unapologetically in 1980s Los Angeles. Popular on the social scene, Ainsley was beloved by all but one man. The man who loved him so much he would rather see Ainsley dead than with another. Yet, the murders don't stop with Ainsley Brown. Before he's able to catch his killer, Nick Blaine will find himself taken from the streets of L.A. to the bayou of Louisiana and back again, all while hot on the heels of a killer.
Having suffered heart-breaking loss, Blaine must not only solve the case, he must also figure out a way to find comfort and solace in a world determined to let his demon chase him. With every step Blaine and his faithful partner in crime, Detective Phillips, find themselves falling deeper into a cesspool of murder, drugs, and sex. Will they be able to stay afloat?
After twenty soul bending years as a detective with the LAPD, Sergeant Nick Blaine thought he knew evil. That was until he came across the murder of Ainsley Brown, a charismatic young gay man trying to live unapologetically in 1980s Los Angeles. Popular on the social scene, Ainsley was beloved by all but one man. The man who loved him so much he would rather see Ainsley dead than with another. Yet, the murders don't stop with Ainsley Brown. Before he's able to catch his killer, Nick Blaine will find himself taken from the streets of L.A. to the bayou of Louisiana and back again, all while hot on the heels of a killer.
Having suffered heart-breaking loss, Blaine must not only solve the case, he must also figure out a way to find comfort and solace in a world determined to let his demon chase him. With every step Blaine and his faithful partner in crime, Detective Phillips, find themselves falling deeper into a cesspool of murder, drugs, and sex. Will they be able to stay afloat?
Conrad Knowles was feeling good. Caught up in that state of alcohol infusion that straddles euphoria and melancholy, he was leaning toward the former. An older man caught his eye across the dance floor, and they were sizing up one another when Ainsley Brown sidled up to the bar, dripping with sweat and nervous energy.
âHey,â he yelled over the music to Conrad. âWe need to go. Itâs nearly two.â
âSo?â Conrad replied while gazing at the men across the way.
âI need to be back in case Rodney calls.âÂ
âI just got a fresh drink and am thinking of making a new friend.â Conrad gestured toward his quarry.
âOh hell,â Ainsley wailed. âThatâs Carl. Everybody here has slept with Carl.âÂ
âI havenât.â
âLetâs move. You know how Rodney is if Iâm out all night.âÂ
Rodney Williams. Conrad could barely contain his contempt and fear of the man. Just hearing the name caused instinctive eye-rolling. âMan, you need to cut that guy off.â He took a large gulp of his drink.
âNow that Iâm done with school, I can,â Ainsley assured him. âBut not tonight, so letâs go.â
Conrad downed his vodka tonic and made a final passing glance at Carl before letting Ainsley take him by the elbow and guide him out the door to the car Rodney had lent them. It was useless to argue with Ainsley about his benefactor, but Conrad was just drunk enough to try. âMan, you have to tell Rodney youâre not his mistress.â
âYou know itâs not like that.â
âIsnât it? The man showers you with money and presents, and you do whatever he tells you.â
"It's not like that," Ainsley argued. "He's just looking out for my mom and us."
Conrad had heard that line before. "So, he's looking out for your well-being?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"And he's looking after you for your mama?"
"Yes."Â
âWell, did he tell your mama that someone attacked and tried to kill your ass right after you got to Los Angeles?â
âDonât be stupid,â Ainsley was getting irritated.Â
âHas Rodney told her how much heâs into you?â
â You know itâs not like that with Rodney. And you know that my mom doesnât know about the men in my life. She has no idea Iâm gay.â
âDoesnât she?â Conrad was incredulous that Coretta Brown had no idea her older son was homosexual. He had never gone to any lengths to pretend otherwise.
âLook,â Ainsley said as he pulled over to the curb in front of the building where they were staying, âWeâre on that plane tomorrow, and when we get back to Chicago, Iâll call Rodney and have a talk with him about backing off.â
âSure, sure.â Conrad derided.
âShhh⌠who is that?â Ainsley asked as he looked out the windshield.
A man came around the building and out of the shadows onto Normandie Avenue, where they were parked. He stood in front of the vehicle and pulled something from his pocket. It appeared to be a small piece of paper. He quietly stared at it a moment before looking at Conrad and Ainsley and back again.
Ainsley rolled down the window to holler at the man and find out his business. He didnât have time to react to the gunshots fired into the car.
**********
Pancho Villaâs, a little restaurant not far from LAPDâs Rampart Division, was relatively quiet in the late afternoon. The cops who frequented at lunch and after shift had either already left or were yet to come. Still, Martha was mixing a batch of her famous margaritas while her husband, Manuel, tended to the grill.Â
In a large, red booth tucked away in the farthest corner of the place, a reporter sat, listening with rapt attention as he was regaled by a middle-aged policeman of days and crimes long gone by.Â
Lawson Daly had worked for the paper for several years and never tired of meeting up with a member of the police force. Their tales were fascinatingâespecially those of Detective Sergeant Nick Blaine.Â
Blaine's long-time partner, John Phillips, once described the man as having a face like a catcher's mitt. Daly wasn't sure that was an accurate portrayal. It was true that Blaine was pushing fifty and a little round in the midsection, but he was tall and sturdily built. He had lost his hair ages ago, as well as his 20/20 vision. Yet, he had a youthful, virile, quality.Â
Daly couldn't help but notice that Blaine looked like a man who knew what a hard day at work was like. He admired that about him as he sat in the booth, sipping his beer and listening as Blaine explained why he had been awarded the LAPD's prestigious Medal of Valor.Â
"I was in plain clothes, and it was pouring rain, so I wore an overcoat. The guy had no idea I was a cop. My former partner, Detective George Romero, didn't want to get wet, so he waited in the car while I ran quickly to deposit my check. I went in the back door but noticed this guy come in from the other direction. Something wasn't right about him."
"You could tell that by looking at him?" Daly asked between bites of chili verde.
"Maybe not by looking at him. It was more of a gut feeling."
"Ah," Daly said through a mouthful of food, "The ol' cop's gut."
Blaine smiled knowingly as he continued. "The teller helping me walked away from the window for a brief moment, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye that same guy was at the window next to me. He took a brown bag out of his coat and handed it to the teller, and then pulled that coat back a bit and tapped on the handle of what looked like a .38 tucked into the waistband of his jeans."
Daly chewed slowly. His attention was focused on Blaine's story.
Blaine took a sip of his beer. "I was tense and aware there were people at the bus stop directly in front of the building. It was a congregation of potential victims out there if that jerk started shooting up the place. I tried to think of ways I could minimize the casualties.Â
"The teller came back, and I tried to catch her attention by saying she made a mistake. I thought she would go to the back again to figure out what she had done wrong, and that would get her out of danger. But she hesitated and looked at me funny before insisting the numbers were right and tried again to hand me the paper.
"'To better assess the situation, I turned as though I was leaving. But the guy was on to me. He flashed the butt of that revolver and told me, âBe cool.ââ
"What did you do?" Daly asked, nearly breathless with anticipation.
"Well," Blaine went on, "The man motioned for the teller at his window to clean out her cash drawer and the drawer of the teller who had been helping me. Luckily, it wasn't her first rodeo either, and before turning over the cash, she triggered the silent alarm.Â
"As she handed him the bag of cash, I relied on my old high school wrestling moves. I jumped behind him to secure his hands and bounce him. But the sucker was quick and got his left arm free. He used it to grab a display that had been on the counter and hit me over the head with it."
"Did it hurt?"Â
"It was cardboard. He tried to run for the door, but I had a grip on his right wrist. I seized his shoulder in a badly conceived attempt to wrangle him to the floor.
âNow, I'm not a young man, and I wasn't then either. I was forty-one, and this was some young guy who was in much better shape than me. So, we dragged each other around quite a bit as he tried to get free, and I tried to stop him. I finally got him on the floor and was able to get him on his belly."
"And then?"
"I was exhausted, so I laid down on top of him to keep him still and catch my breath. I asked one of the tellers to go round back and get Romero.Â
âLater I learned she ran out into the downpour, tapped on the window, and told him I needed him inside. Romero told her to bugger off, that I was fine. He wasn't going out in the rain. She kept at him, though, and finally got him to roll down the window. She told him I was pinning down a would-be bank robber and needed backup. Well, that, of course, got him moving, and he rushed in. When he saw me sprawled out on top of the guy, he made some smart-ass remark like, "You told me you were depositing a check, not getting in your cardio for the month."
Daly was amused. Blaine was a fascinating subject for his story. He had tried to interview Blaine's old partner, the famous crime writer Justice Steele. But Justice didn't have time and suggested Nick Blaine in his stead. Daly was finding it to have been a fair trade. Not only was he getting a night of good food and great entertainment, but he was gaining insight into one of the more celebrated officers in the LAPD.Â
"So, Sergeant," Daly said between bites of tortilla chips, "When you're not on the job, what do you and the wife like to do?"
Blaine grew quiet. "We haven't done anything for a long time," he replied. "Helen passed a few years ago."
Daly apologized. Steele hadn't relayed that information.
Blaine's countenance grew wistful as he recalled the family he used to have.
Daly hardly knew Blaine, but felt there was more than heartache in the officer's voice. Regret maybe? He looked up from his beer and noticed that Blaine's mind was far away and his eyes bleary, but just for a moment.Â
Blaine quickly composed himself before saying, "Did Steele ever tell you about the â68 riots?" He leaned back in his seat and began to regale Daly with exploits from twenty years prior as he and the reporter continued to drink and swap stories.Â
As they talked, they were joined by other off-duty officers meandering in for a quick one before going home, keeping Martha's blender whirring well into the night.
Measured Deception is the first book in the Nick Blaine Mystery series by the writing team of Richard E. Kalk and T.A. Pryor, and it is a very good new police procedural-style murder mystery investigation set in 1984 Los Angeles. Sergeant Detective Nice Blaine and his partner, Detective John Phillips, investigate the shooting death of Ainsley Brown, a young gay man, which occurred as he and his roommate parked their car in front of their apartment building. While there were several people on the scene, no one, including the surviving roommate, could give the detectives definitive details of what happened or where or how the murderer fled. However, many of the young manâs friends and family members implicated Ainsleyâs self-proclaimed godfather, Rodney Williams, the man who was paying Ainsleyâs way through beauty school, as his killer. The accusations and conflicting reports of Rodneyâs relationship with Ainsley and the discovery that he is the beneficiary of multiple life insurance policies taken out on the young manâs life raise the detectivesâ suspicions, as does his long history of contacts with local law enforcement. But without a shred of concrete evidence that Rodney is behind the murder, all they can do is continue to search for clues.
Sergeant Detective Nick Blaine is an interesting character who is totally focused on his cases but willing to discuss his illustrious career with a reporter who needs a human-interest story. Having lost his wife and only child in a traffic accident a couple of years earlier, heâs at the age where he should be winding down. However, his gut is telling him something is off with this case, and heâs not ready to hang up his shield.
Detective John Phillips is Blaineâs able and capable partner with his own family drama. Estranged from his much-loved and looked-up-to older brother, Stephen, the investigation into the Ainsley Brown murder exposes his parentsâ struggles with their eldest sonâs sexual orientation and lifestyle choices.
The plot follows the traditional path of an old-school police procedural, with the detectives working every angle in person out in the community. It was an interesting realization that while 1984 doesnât seem that long ago, itâs actually 40 years, and a lot of technological advances in everyday life have been made, let alone law enforcement, that we take for granted today: no cellphones, no personal computers even. If you wanted to talk to a suspect, you had to catch them at their house or workplace, even for a phone call. Answering machines werenât even that common. However, dogged persistence and attention to every clue finally pay off for the two detectives, but the resolution doesnât happen before additional tragedy strikes.
With an interesting and intrepid pair of detectives, reminiscent of Sergeant Joe Friday and Detective Bill Gannon of Dragnet fame, and an engaging style of storytelling, I recommend MEASURED DECEPTION to mystery readers, especially those who enjoy the police procedural sub-genre.