Boystown: Three Nick Nowak Mysteries excerpt by Marshall Thornton

In Boystown, a collection of stories by Marshall Thornton, a former police officer turned private investigator, Nick Nowak is haunted by his abrupt departure from the department, as well as, the traumatic end of his relationship with librarian Daniel Laverty. In these three stories set in Chicago during the early eighties, Nick locates a missing young man for a mysterious client, solves a case of arson at a popular nightspot, and goes undercover to prove a dramatic suicide was actually murder. When he isn’t detecting, and sometimes when he is, Nick moves through a series of casual relationships. But his long suppressed romantic side surfaces when he meets Detective Bert Harker. Will he give love another chance? Or, will he continue to bury himself in the arms of strangers?

Boystown: Three Nick Nowak Mysteries
Publisher: Torquere Press (June 8, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1610402332
ISBN-13: 978-1610402330


Excerpt: (from Little Boy Fallen, the third story in the book)

Always be careful who you trick with. I should have that tattooed on my forehead so I can see it every morning when I shave.

The woman was waiting for me when I got to my office. She looked to be in her late forties, thick around the hips, busty. There was lot of red lipstick caked onto her lips, and her hair was done up in a way that had probably gotten a lot of attention during the Eisenhower administration. At first, I thought she was a patient of the dentist down the hall, but when I pulled my keys out and started to unlock the door, she came over.

“Are you Mr. Nowak?” she asked.

A few weeks shy of my thirty-third birthday, I didn’t much like being called 'mister' by anyone who wasn’t still in grammar school. “You can call me Nick.”

I opened the door and led her into my tiny office. The furniture was crammed together, and still I had room left over for a dead corn plant in one corner. The window was big, taking up most of the outer wall. Eight floors below was LaSalle Street. Across the way stood an ultra-modern, steel and glass building that was so tall it cut out most of my light.

“He said you were nice,” she commented, while making herself comfortable in my guest chair. She wore a red cloth coat with a white fox collar. Instead of a purse, she carried a photo album, clutching it tight to her chest.
I hung my suede jacket on the back of my door and pulled a box of Marlboros out of the pocket.

I decided not to ask who ‘he’ was. Not yet. Instead, I asked, “What’s your name, ma’am?”

“Helen Borlock.” I sat down at my desk and lit a cigarette while she talked. “He told me to come. He said you’d help. You can help, can’t you?”

“I don’t know if I can help,” I said honestly. “I don’t know why you’re here.”

She gave me a confused look, as though I should know why she was there. “Bobby told me to come. He said you’d help.”

“Bobby who?”

“Bobby Martin.”

I was pretty sure I didn’t know a Bobby Martin and said so.

“Bobby was my son’s roommate. One of them, I mean. There were four of them living there. Sweet boys, always laughing. The apartment is on Clark and Fullerton. They did it up nice. Every room a different color.”

I still hadn’t a clue who she was talking about.

Abruptly, she held out the photo album. “This is my Lenny.” To be polite, I took the album. “I never wanted to name him Leonard. My husband insisted. He’d had a friend, in the Marines. Wanted to name his son Leonard, after his friend. The friend died, you see.”

I flipped the album open. There was Helen with an infant. I was right. In her day, Helen had been a looker. I flipped a few pages and Lenny began to grow up. Looked like he was on his way to being a looker, too.

“What is it Bobby thought I could help you with?”

She glanced out the window like she suddenly needed to check the weather. It was overcast and threatening to rain or, worse, throw in one last snowstorm for the winter. After a little sigh, she said, “Three weeks ago, my son was murdered.”

“Mrs. Borlock, I’m a private investigator. I don’t investigate murders. The police do that.”

“They don’t care. Lenny is just another pervert to them.”

I waited a few moments, considering. I was telling her the truth. It wasn’t the kind of thing I did.

Or at least tried not to do. Mainly I did background checks, skip traces, once in a while a little surveillance. That was it. Murder was different. Yes, I used to be a policeman, but I’d only worked a beat. I’d never been a detective. In the nearly six years I spent on the job, when it came to murder I’d never done much more than secure a crime scene and make sure witnesses stayed put.

“Can you afford a private investigator?” I asked her.

“Yes. I always put a little aside for Lenny. Ever since he was a little boy.” She stared at her hands, which seemed particularly empty now that I was flipping through the photo album. “I used to think I’d give him the money on his wedding. He was sixteen when I figured out that was never going to happen, so for a while I thought I’d give him the money to go to college. But he was never book smart. Last couple of years, I’ve been waiting to see, did he maybe want to start a business or get a nice beau and buy a house.” Her voice turned bitter. “I should have given it to him. Should have let him spend it on whatever he wanted.”

She looked like she might break down, but fortunately she didn’t. I took the final drag off my cigarette and stubbed it out. Against my better judgment, I said, “Tell me what happened to Lenny.”

“Someone pushed him off the seventh floor of the atrium at Water Tower.”

That seemed pretty cut and dried. “Were there witnesses?”

“It was a little after ten in the morning.”

“No one saw him being pushed?”

She shook her head.

“So, how do you know he was pushed?”

Mrs. Borlock pursed her lips. Tears popped into her eyes and threatened to spill over onto her cheeks. “You’re going to tell me my boy killed himself, just like the police.”

“Right now, I’m not telling you anything. Right now, I’m asking questions. How do you know he was pushed?”

“I just know,” she spat. “I know Lenny. And he wouldn’t kill himself.”

“Why wouldn’t Lenny kill himself?” I was expecting a lame answer, like she’d raised him as a good Catholic, and, since it was against God’s law, he wouldn’t do it. But she didn’t say that. She said something completely different.

“Lenny was the happiest person I ever met.”

To purchase, click here