Chap61: Body in the Bayou [crime/suspense]

A RIDICULOUS AI SUMMARY:  "Imagine walking the storied streets of New Orleans, where every shadow whispers tales of temptation and redemption. This week, we're peeling back the layers of this enigmatic city, following the footsteps of Detective Jade as he teeters on the brink of a life-altering decision. Haunted by the ghost of his past, Jade finds solace in the companionship of a stray pug and the echoes of his former life beckon him towards the badge he once wore with pride. But it’s not just Jade’s story that will pull you into the luminous glow of the neon lights; an ex-addict wrestling with the siren song of 'just one more' mirrors the city’s own struggle against the night.

Strap in as we ride shotgun with Detective Bailey, navigating the unpredictable and often humorous side of law enforcement. You're invited to witness a slice of life from the Big Easy that's as spicy and unexpected as a bowl of gumbo. From the quirkiness of a birthday suit-clad man in the swamp to the palpable pull of New Orleans' nightlife, this episode is a jambalaya of human complexity and the surreal moments that officers face beneath the Crescent City moon. So, pour yourself a drink (or don't, if you're fighting demons of your own), and let's take a detour into the lives of those who patrol the fine line between duty and desire."

Chapters

• 0:00 Detective Jade Considers Returning to Police
• 9:51 Detective Bailey and Jade Investigate
• 24:02 Nightlife Temptations in New Orleans

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This episode is brought to you by Nerdcore, a store in the Auburn Mall located in Auburn Maine, the place for all your nerdy needs. You can find Clarence and I's books there, as well as a plethora of other local writers, artists, 3D printed, D in details, taxidermy, you name it. They even have board games and tarot card readings, in addition to regularly hosting local creators. And as if that weren't enough, I like to dig through their used vinyl collection, which are organized into multiple genres I usually go for classical or jazz and are all reasonably priced and tested beforehand. So, yeah, check out the Nerdcore store today at the Auburn Maine Mall. And now for our feature presentation. Yeah, we really should have recorded that. That was something way more interesting. All right, so did you said you had an idea.

Speaker 2: 1:18

Nice To start.

Speaker 1: 1:19

Last we talked remember I was talking about I think I ran a couple ideas by you. I had the Jade continuation.

Speaker 2: 1:28

Yeah, didn't you want to do that one? Write that one.

Speaker 1: 1:32

Yeah, who knows when.

Speaker 2: 1:33

I'll ever write it. Who knows when that'll ever happen.

Speaker 1: 1:34

But there's that. And then there's my other unfinished story idea about the kid finding the boat.

Speaker 2: 1:39

Why don't I just use the story that we were talking about? Why don't I just take that and run with it and see where it goes?

Speaker 1: 1:46

What story were we talking about? Mr Mercedes, do you want to?

Speaker 2: 1:48

just steal that plot. No, not, mr Mercedes. The Chloe story.

Speaker 1: 1:55

Oh, I feel like you have a vision for it, though I don't really have anything interesting to insert into that. We could Let me think here I definitely have the first scene of the Jade thing in my head All right run it then.

Speaker 2: 2:11

Okay.

Speaker 1: 2:13

In a cafe, no hold on, detective Jade placed his coffee mug hard dirt then he thought he would on the table spilling a bit. His hands were a bit shaky these days, left over PTSD from events from the past couple of years. You okay, there, buckaroo, an older waitress walked by. She was holding a pot of coffee and had noticed that he'd spilled his coffee. You want me to fill you up? No, thanks, sorry, it's just my damn hands. They won't stop shaking. You know what's good for that? Not more coffee. He thought he had already had like four cups. He's trying to stay alert but he didn't know what for because he was no longer on the job. He had been on an extended hiatus after everything that had happened with his old partner and his daughter. Take it.

Speaker 2: 3:12

I've got something that'll stop you from shaking. She says. She pulls a flask from her back pocket, turns the cap and pours a little touch into his cup.

Speaker 2: 3:21

Winks at him, winks at him That'll do the trick, turns the cap back on and slides it back into her pocket. Jade nods, takes a drink. It had been a long time since he'd taken a drink and it started to come back to him the reason why he quit-. No, I'm just kidding. A slight buzz came on him very quickly and in fact his hands did start to slow down. They didn't tremble as much.

Speaker 2: 3:48

Working on anything good these days, working on anything. And he just sort of looks at her Thanks, I'm gonna end up with her, aren't I? I'm gonna have sex with her. And then he says I'm not working for the force anymore, but I have picked up a little PI work, you know, here and there, just enough to keep the lights on. She smiles at him politely and says well, you keep at it, buddy.

Speaker 2: 4:18

And then she goes back to her other table and he's Drinking his spiked coffee and staring out the window at the traffic. And outside his window he sees a little dog, a little Pug, and the little pug is just walking around Without an owner, without a leash, without a collar, nothing, just kind of wandering, and he's afraid that it's going to go out into traffic. Oh Shit, fucking motherfucker. Jade gets up, his phone rings, he looks at it and it's his former partner bull. He swipes hanging up immediately I don't want to fucking talk to you. And he goes outside and he scoops up this pug into his hands and he says when did you come from? And he's looking up and down the street and it's a beautiful day, beautiful sunny day, and the cars are just whizzing by and he's looking up in town but the sidewalk is empty.

Speaker 1: 5:26

There's no one to be found and he starts to get this anxious, feeling like something's a little bit off. The dog starts licking his face. He looks down in it and the dogs just looking up at him longingly. And then he hears this loud Horn before he realizes it. Well, as he realizes, he turns, looks up and realizes that he's in the middle of the street and His semi truck is coming right at him. Here's one last horn before it collides with him.

Speaker 1: 5:54

But everything goes black and he wakes up, picks his head up off of the Kef, the dining, the diner table, nearly spilling his coffee. You okay, there, the old lady from before walks by with a pot of coffee. This is familiar. He thinks. He looks around the room the walls seem like they're kind of undulating a little bit and he recognizes this immediately in conjunction with the nightmare Whatever the fuck that was that just happened. Because he's been having these episodes a lot lately. He wondered if it was the medication this doctor had prescribed him, something that he couldn't pronounce the name of after the incident and he had run the side effects by him. But the doctor said there were no major side effects, except for diarrhea, which he would have liked to have known beforehand, but luckily he hadn't gotten that yet.

Speaker 1: 6:45

He looked out the window. There was no pug there, traffic was normal. He looked at the restaurant, the diner, which was buzzing. Across the diner, at the bar, he sees this woman, a very pretty black woman, also drinking a cup of coffee, reading a paper. He can see because she's wearing a long coat and the coat is pulled to the side enough that he can see the edge of what looks like a badge. And he thinks, oh, local police. Because he's not actually originally from New Orleans, he's there on vacation. Because he always wanted to see. Why am I? Oh, bourbon Street, sorry, sorry, because he likes bourbon. Okay, take it, I've introduced her.

Speaker 2: 7:33

Having a deep respect for the force. Jade stands and approaches the woman cop I see your badge there, honey. He says, holding out his hand to shake it. Thank you for your service. She takes his hand, grips it extremely tight and says don't you call me honey, but thank you. His knuckles kind of crack at the hand, squeezing. He says all right, understood, I was a policeman too for a long time, recently retired. And she looks him over in the same kind of confused yet skeptical way that women sometimes look at men. And then she says are you retired? Because a lot of us never really leave the job at this, he sort of chuckles and rubs the back of his neck.

Speaker 2: 8:20

Well yeah, kind of. I mean, I've been doing some private work and she's like yeah, the private sector, that's where a lot of us end up, those who don't die on the job or whatever. So he takes the seat beside her, which is recently freed up In fact, so recently that the plates are still there and he sits down and he starts drinking on his coffee and they get to talking. And she works at a neighboring department she works in the same city but not the same station and they get to talking about, you know, policing and their jurisdiction and all the politics that get behind it. Ah, fucking, a police are not police, are not respected like they used to be, we're always the bad guys, etc. Etc.

Speaker 2: 9:11

And it turns out that they have a lot in common and their conversation is getting deeper and more interesting. And she looks him over again and asks have you thought about coming back? I mean, I couldn't imagine just being out there being a civilian again. It seems so. She wanted to say boring, but she didn't. It seems so. I don't know, you know. And Jade says I think my time in the force is over, but if there were the right circumstances, maybe.

Speaker 1: 9:51

It was just then that she has a walkie-talkie on on the table next to her plates and it's just then that the walkie-talkie sound, a transponder comes through a person, so-and-so code. We got a 1082 on the in the swamp Shit. She puts her, she wipes her face off she had a little bit of egg yolk dripping from her face and she picks up the walkie-talkie and says 10 for I'll be there in a second. She gets up in that in that way that cops do like just another day on the job, and she puts a 50 on the table next to the plates. Thanks, matt, a young, an old man behind the counter who's been. He's been standing there the whole time just like rubbing this one spot, cleaning it so, so weirdly so that at one point Jade thought he was still hallucinating, but he wasn't the woman. Do we get her name yet? So she steps away and she she sort of nods her head at Jade, by the way, I'm detective Bailey. Bailey, I'm Jade. They shake hands and she has a look of realization on her face.

Speaker 1: 11:06

Detective Jade, ah, yeah, I remember you. You were on that case back up in Maine. And then she stopped remembering something, probably remembering the gruesome details of what had happened. Hey, are you okay? Yeah, you know I'm getting through. I'm thinking about getting back on the force soon, but just doing what I do, he said, his mind started to chill off and he realized he really didn't want to talk about it. She said, not believing him, well, I'll catch you around, you take care of yourself.

Speaker 1: 11:36

Jade suddenly had a realization he wanted to be on a job. He just wanted to be around that type of work again. He said hey, could I ride along? She said you think that's a good idea? Yeah, I think it might help me. You know, as you say, it's kind of or as you didn't say, it's kind of boring out here. So she shrugs and they go into her car. Did you know that by day I'm a plumber? That's right, and we at the Writers Block are proud to announce that one of our sponsors is Mark Niagara Services. Based out of Westbrook, maine, and servicing most of Southern Maine, mark Niagara Services is available for all your plumbing, heating, gas and even sprinkler needs. It could just be my employee bias, but I can confirm that the work done by these guys is clean, efficient and affordable, and all done within a reasonable time period. You won't ever have a leak or go cold with Mark Niagara Services, and if you're already experiencing one or both of those two things, you won't have to worry much longer. Reach out to Mark Niagara Services at mnigroservicescom that's the letter M-N-I-G-R-O services at gmailcom. Links are also available in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 12:48

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Speaker 1: 13:29

Today they go through the streets of New Orleans and they drive out of the main city because they were on Bourbon Street, basically in the tourist area, and they drive, and they drive and they get to Swamp Area, swamp Country, and the roads start to turn into dirt. Jade has rolled down his window because it is so humid, which is not unusual there. He's got sweat coming down his brow. He wipes it off and he says is it always humid here, this humid? She said, oh yeah, that's why I like to put the air conditioner on, but you apparently like to keep the window open. So he quickly rolls up the window and notices that they are slowing down. They've turned off the main dirt road onto a smaller dirt road and they're approaching an open swamp.

Speaker 2: 14:20

The car pulls off to the side of the road, but not too far onto the shoulder, because the water is kind of marshy. I mean the land is kind of marshy. Jade steps out and immediately right into a puddle. Ah, fucking fuck, son of a bitch, she gets out to what was her name? Again Bailey Detective.

Speaker 1: 14:40

Bailey, detective Bailey.

Speaker 2: 14:42

Detective Bailey gets out of the car. It should have been Nova Detective.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Nova Bailey, it is Bailey, whatever you want.

Speaker 2: 14:50

Detective Bailey gets out of the car and starts walking and she's kind of looking around as they often do oh, this is the location they told me, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot. And then she stops and she looks and she sees what can only be a naked man running through the swamps. Ah, not this again. And Jade gives her a, decide I, yeah, I don't miss the force that much. Can I go home now? And they both look at each other and at the same time they both say math, math, math. Oh, because it's always, for whatever reason, a lot of people get high on drugs and then they take their clothes off and they start mucking through the water, heading towards this guy who is attracting alligators. They see them marching around they're not marching, but see them swarming on him and they're going apprehensively towards the naked man. No-transcript.

Speaker 1: 16:05

Get, Go on, get. She says she's taken out a baton and she's like whacking the ground. Jade has never seen this before. He doesn't know if this is standard. Only thing he knows about animals is whatever Steven Irwin told him. But this woman has balls. She's approaching them while patting the ground, almost like a blind man feeling around Go on, get Go. And then she picks up a rock and chucks it at one of the gators. By the way, if you're listening, don't do this. I'm pretty sure this is not accurate. One of the gators turns and sort of snarls in the way that a gator does. If it does, she bats it on the nose. Get out of here, Go on get.

Speaker 1: 16:48

Standard. She says, turning back to Jade, and goes uh-huh, the gator looks like it's about to jump at her, but then, at the last minute, decides against it and they all go he goes first like he's the leader of the pack. This is I know nothing about gators, clearly and all of the gators follow him. It's like a gang of gators. And they disappear into the swamp.

Speaker 1: 17:12

The naked man has now decided to sit down on a log and he looks like he's out of breath. He says, jeez man. He wipes his head because it's still pretty humid and Jade notices it's quite buggy out and he starts to he's paranoid. He starts to think about, like West Nile virus and all of that hey, do you have any bug spray? But Doctor Detective Bailey ignores him and goes for it and then bops the naked man on the head with her baton. He said, john, if I ever catch you out here again, I'm I'm just gonna let the gators eat you. Ah, come on, bailey, clearly irregular. Where are your goddamn clothes?

Speaker 1: 17:52

He kind of puts his head back and swivels it on his neck and just like looks up to the sky in that like drugged, dazed way and then he falls backwards into the swamp. I don't remember. Well, it's a good thing you're here. Jade, can you help me get him into the car? He rolls up his sleeves and the man doesn't struggle, but he's kind of heavy and it's not the best feeling to have the swamp water on you and the naked man who's sweating. They get him into the back of the cruiser. He's passed out snoring and they look at each other. But it's then that Jade notices something weird from behind a nearby tree. He thinks he sees an arm. Bailey, she looks to where he's pointing and her eyes widen. Take it.

Speaker 2: 18:46

What is it? They saw An arm.

Speaker 1: 18:48

An arm. There's a body over there. Yeah, that's the real problem.

Speaker 2: 18:55

She pushes the door closed with the naked man inside and says don't go anywhere. And they start walking toward the body and there they find a young woman, clothes, thankfully, maybe roughly 25 years of age, blonde, and they call it in Through the walkie-talkie.

Speaker 1: 19:20

I don't know.

Speaker 2: 19:21

And Jade begins doing what he used to do back in the day Starts looking at the body, starts checking for ID, those sorts of things. And as he's going through her belongings, her pockets and such, he comes across a pill bottle, pulls it out, shakes it there's still a handful of pills there and he reads it and it's some kind of heart medication. I don't know. That's not very interesting. Maybe she died of a heart attack. And as he begins tohe doesn't want to move the body because of the crime scene investigation team. So he just sort of moves her head a little bit to look underneath her and he sees laceration marks around her neck.

Speaker 1: 20:12

And as he's about to put her back down, he feels movement and he sees her head, this girl's head, start to turn. She's still alive. She looks up at him when am I? Where am I? Who are you? Can you help me? He, in surprise, he drops her. He was not expecting this, because she is brutally dead. She was definitely dead. And when he drops her he notices she goes limp again.

Speaker 1: 20:49

Detective Bailey, I think we got a live one over here. She comes back over and puts herand kneels down, lifts the girl up, puts her finger on her neck to check for a pulse, but the girl's still dead. Are you sure about that, jade? She just spoke to me Now. She's dead as a doorknob. She puts her back down and starts to go back to the car. And as Jade starts to turn away, she sees the girlbecause she's placed the girl so her face is away from him. But the girl starts to turn around. She's like in the swamp water, like shallow swamp water, facing away from him. But she starts to wriggle like a fish and then her arm bends in a weirdly backwards way and she starts to pull herself, turn herself around and she's got that wide-eyed look and then she starts to smile, can you help me? And then Jade wakes up again.

Speaker 1: 21:47

He's in the cruiser. The man, the naked man, is still in the back. How was that? You've been out like a light bulb, I keep wanting to say, dr Bailey. Detective Bailey said it was night time now and it looked like they were approaching coming back into the city. What just happened there? You kind of had a fall. You passed out after we put the man in the back. But what about the body, the girl? Detective Bailey just nodded her head. I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. Take it.

Speaker 2: 22:18

Nobody this might be a two-parter Nobody, no girl, what the fuck is going on? And he remembers the heart medication and he searches his pocket to see if he had stuck it in. It's like I think these guys are fucking with me, I think they're lying to me, I think, but he finds nothing. Ah shit, I really gotta get checked out. Something's going on and Bailey kind of gives him the side eye.

Speaker 2: 22:44

You all right over there and she's starting to wonder if she should have brought him along. Yeah, I think I'm okay. They pull up to the police station.

Speaker 1: 22:53

I remember my first naked body man.

Speaker 2: 22:56

I remember my first naked man. And they walk the man who is now barely wearing one of the uniform shirts around his waist to cover up his nudity into the station for processing. Ah, I guess this is where we part ways. Bailey says thanks for the trip, Thanks for the old memories, he says, reaching out to shake her hand. Yeah, take care of yourself there, Jade.

Speaker 1: 23:23

Thank you, I will oh man, yeah, that's the story, no, no, what's a good way to leave it? Because I don't actually know what's happening now?

Speaker 2: 23:35

I didn't know what was happening from the beginning.

Speaker 1: 23:38

So Jade walks outside. It started to rain. It's a humid, warm rain, still hot out, and they're near Bourbon Street again and he can hear that the crowd has started to pick up. We can hear music. He can hear drumming on pails as people that sit out there, and he can feel the rhythm. And he's experienced this before. When he first got to New Orleans he was shocked at how there weren't that many people outside and he thought, well, this isn't anything like I thought New Orleans would be. But as the sun starts to set, people start to come out. It's almost like the vampires come out or whatever, and something about the energy that just sweeps out at night. It sweeps you into the street and brings you along with it, especially if you are an ex-addict, alcoholic.

Speaker 2: 24:32

Like a Zadarans commercial.

Speaker 1: 24:34

I don't know what that means. He said where did that fucking thought come from? And he finds himself pulled in that direction. He knows he shouldn't, but he just wants one more drink. And that's how every night is gone since he's been back, since he's been in New Orleans on his hiatus, and before he knows it he's caught up in the chaos of it all and absorbed by the nightlife. To be continued, this has been the Writers Block, cool kids. Remember to subscribe and tune in next week for the next episode of the Writers Block, the coolest podcast of all time Time, time, time, time Time.