amsterdam homicide 1

8/6/2019 Amsterdam Homicide 1

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AMSTERDAM HOMICIDEBy Jack Shelton



PROLOGUE:

Liam Finchley had no idea how he had gotten so far gone. What was he going todo next? His suitcases were sprawled quite unevenly in opposite regions of the dimly lithazy room, clothes hanging out the sides. The sheets on the bed were cheap and plain and

all messed up and there were ashes all over the floor of the hotel room. He had no ideahow long he had been staying there or why. He probably hadn't taken a shower in three orfour days but he couldn't be quite sure. He ran his fingers through his hair and felt thedirtiness of someone who had been sleeping in an ashtray. He got up slowly, breathing incautiously, in fear of whatever it was in his lungs that made him feel like there werespiders leaving dusty cobwebs inside him. He sat on the edge of the bed and got out apack of Pall Mall filters that he had somehow acquired off an American tourist at somepoint during his adventure and put one in his mouth. He looked into the flame from hislighter with a hint of distrust and then closed his dry, bloodshot eyes as he inhaled thefirst drag. He kept his eyes closed trying to focus on what day it was and what he haddone the night before and then he opened his eyes only to find himself making eyecontact with a stranger. -There in the dirty mirror on the opposite wall, above a beaten up,ratty old dresser he could see the face of a man frozen in time, someone with a future anda past that had somehow wandered away from his own life during the present, only tofind that those choices only turned into a new past and eliminated the promises of thefuture. And so he made eye contact with the stranger that he had been living with for solong and he started to cry.

Amsterdam was a nice city. At least it was nice if one was prepared for it. Thenagain, any place is nice if one is prepared to see something that way. For Liam, this tripwas anything but nice. No more medication. No more parents. No more friends or lovers,

just people that suck up your money and give you a good time for a few minutes, or hours

dependent upon what mood one's in. The prostitutes were like venus fly traps and hedidn't exactly feel cheered up from their services.He still had no idea why or how he had come to be here. The truth was that he had

always wanted to come to Amsterdam since he had first immersed himself into "cannabisculture" with one of his dearest friends behind the most popular pub in his town…butnow this held no meaning. This was just an escape, and an absurd one at that. Blowing allhis money in a city in an attempt to drown out his sorrows was just ridiculous. Smokingcannabis just made him more depressed in fact. If he had really wanted to drown out hissorrows he would have just started drinking. He found that the cannabis just made himconfront his own problems… and without victory of any variety, and his own distortedand melancholic perception of reality would only become amplified into something toolarge and too terrible to comprehend. Things had just become more real and more absurd.Nothing had really made him feel any better.

"Who gives a damn about smoking dope?" he found himself questioning. He hadabout £7.60 left in his wallet and no Euro at all. There was nothing for him here. Therewas just a ridiculous bill to pay that he could no longer afford and an angry Dutch fellowdownstairs ready to beat his arse come morning.

He put his cigarette out on the old wooden floor with complete disregard for the



possible rich history of the room he was staying in. He laid down and put his hands overhis eyes with complete disregard for the rich history of the world he was living in. Hepicked up the handgun he had been hiding under his pillow and placed the barrel againsthis head with complete disregard for the rich history of the life he had been living, and ashe pulled the trigger his life flashed before his eyes in a series of beautiful and terrible

memories shuffled like a deck of cards, just as he had heard it would in the movies and heseemed to recall his entire life as it added up mathematically to this very moment in spaceand time, when everything in his reality became one as nothing, leaving only an after-trickle of static like a nineteen-nineties television screen being turned off.



THE INVESTIGATION:

It was rainy as hell outside and Inspector Jan Van Gorder approached the hostel inhis light brown trenchcoat. Why anyone suspected foulplay was a mystery to him, andthis was really a waste of time for a homicide investigator… but then again, everyone in

Amsterdam was too stoned to provide Jan with any proper homicides to investigate. Thiswould be an easy one to wrap up.

“Dank U,” he said as the hostel manager opened the door for him.“The mess is up on the top floor. It is waked everyone in the hostel last night.” He

looked tired and concerned. “I don’t know what happened, but I think to self that thisman was not going to pay anyway.”

“Alright I’ll see what I can do. The rest of my team will be here soon, and afterwe have collected the evidence, we will clean up the mess so that you’re hostel cancontinue to function normally.” He reassured the man as he headed for the staircase.

He climbed the staircase, tired. He was getting old now and he wondered why hestill did this, but remembered in a year or so he would be able to live off his governmentcivil servant penchant plan… and he’d have it all to himself, without his wife aroundanymore.

Number three was situated on the left hand of the old smoky hallway. He couldsmell the body from outside the room, likely emboldened by the cracked door, whichlooked as though someone had walked in and immediately turned back without stoppingto shut the door entirely, in some type of shock.

He approached the door slowly, but casually. He opened the door slowly andpeered in one eye at a time, as he always did at one of these scenes. Once he finally sawthe body, it was all down hill from there.

There against an old table next to a bed was a man, a young one at that, dressed in

a disheveled suit, wedged between the bed and the table in an awkward position. Most of the back of his head was missing and blood covered the wall above the table and therewas a pool of it on the floor. In his right hand was a very large revolver, likely a .357magnum or perhaps even a .44.

“Ah, fuck!” he said sighing as he stormed back out of the room, leaving the doorcracked once again.

***

“Erik… has forensics got the body?” Jan asked from his chair by the entrance of the hostel as the other officer entered through the dirty glass door. He didn’t look up. Hewas feeling anxious about this case and just sat there smoking a cigarette.

“Yes, Inspector. They are taking it back to the station now… are you alright sir?”Inspector Van Gorder was staring blankly at the front desk thinking about what he

had seen upstairs. “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you for asking. I seem to have missed breakfastthis morning. I thought this would be a quick one. I guess there’s no note though. So I’ll



be here a few more hours.” He said choking on his cigarette.“Ah, of course. I’m sorry sir. I just thought, you know, because of your wife…”

he said as politely as possible. Jan didn’t respond. “…Well evidence is about to go up tohave a look around soon, if you want… to continue your investigation…”

“Ah, yes… of course. I’ll go up and join them,” he said with a fake smile. He

walked back up to the room and opened the old door as a flash went off in his face. He jumped, startled and dropped his cigarette on the ground with all the other cigarettebutts… he hoped this wouldn’t contaminate the evidence. Another investigator wastaking pictures of a now-open suitcase. “Hey, I’ll have a look at those things before youpack them up,” he said as he walked over to the suitcase first, coolly ignoring thepersonal affects on the nightstand and the gun on the table near the bed.

“Yes Sir,” responded the man as Jan knelt down on one knee slowly, trying not toconjure up his back pain. He began slowly unpacking the suitcase. He picked up acardigan that was balled up and set it next to the suitcase on the dusty floor- it didn’tmatter if a bit of ash got on it now.

“Ah, another tourist… How long do you think this kid was staying here?” askedthe other investigator.

“I don’t know. Maybe a week or two, I think the manager said…” he replied as hestuck his hands in avoiding a pair of dirty socks which had been uncarefully mixed inwith what appeared to be otherwise clean clothing. There were books all bent out of shape- a few English language travel guides and a copy of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D.Salinger. “Have you ever read this book?” he asked the other investigator, who didn’tlook over, “I hear the man who shot Paul McCartney had a copy of this book with himwhen he did it. I always wanted to read it… I hear it’s about a kid that runs away to NewYork City.”

“Don’t you mean John Lennon?” the other investigator asked, taking another

snapshot of the blood on the wall.Inspector Jan Van Gorder was staring into the cover of the book. It was so blank,white with a few small stripes in one corner and a plain font for the title. He wonderedwhat significance the book might have held to Liam. Flipping through the pagesbackwards he came across a dedication on the back of the title page.

Liam Don’t forget, never run away alone.

xx Sarah

Who was this Sarah? Maybe if they could call her they could clear up this wholething. She would say he was depressed, they’d rule it a suicide and Jan could go home.But now Jan was starting to enjoy this case. He admired the kid’s taste. He had alwayswanted to read this book, and in all his years, he never had. But some kid who’s alreadylived long enough to feel the need to kill himself in a hotel in this city has already readthis book. It made Jan feel old… really old.

“Inspector? You mean John Lennon?” asked the other investigator, looking overat Jan in puzzlement.



“I’m sorry what?” he said as he looked up from the book whose pages he’d beenthumbing round the age.

“John Lennon… You meant John Lennon. Paul McCartney is still alive.” Said theother investigator as he turned around scoping out the floor near where the body hadbeen. Jan’s face produced a sad look. “My wife saw him last year. He is a great singer.

Do you like The Beatles, the Rock and Roll?”“They’re okay,” he replied vacantly, remembering the days when The Beatles

were popular on the radio. The world was simpler back then. Jan was just a teenager then.He remembered smoking cannabis once in a café with some foreigners and listening toThe Beatles playing. He thought the music was quite good and wanted to buy one of theirrecords but he got drunk that night and somehow ended up thrown in one the canals. Hesmelt horrible for two days and his father forbid him from going into the city again. If hisfather could only see him now- fishing bodies out of the city’s canals for a living. Heimagined his father would still never be proud of him, even if he were the most decoratedinspector in Amsterdam.

He set the book aside, although he wished he could’ve set it aside for himself. Hereturned to thinking about the dedication in the book. “Perhaps he’s run away… Itwouldn’t be the first time,” he thought. Perhaps this boy had run away alone, and now hewas dead and if he’d just listened to this girl, it wouldn’t have happened…

Now Jan had to know what had happened. He eagerly reached back into thesuitcase again, as flashes continued to go off behind him. There was a frayed and foldedticket from LHR to AMS dating back two weeks. Next to it was a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland passport that held the identity of one Liam N.Finchley. “It looks like we have an ID. I think if we send this down with evidence we’llget a match to the body.”

“Alright, let me take a picture of the ID and whatever else you’ve got there,

Inspector,” said the other investigator as he walked over and Jan started to get up. Hegrabbed Jan by the shoulder and helped him up.“Dank U,” Jan said, embarrassed that he should require any help getting up. “I

can get up myself, you rookie moron!” he wanted to tell him.Now that the Inspector was up he decided to look around other areas of the room.

In the closet was a rather expensive trench coat which hadn’t been taken care of properly.The kid, Liam rather, must have been wealthy. The pockets were empty and so were thepockets of the jeans on the floor of the closet. He walked over to the nightstand where theteam that had taken the body had left the personal affects. There was a gold ring, anexpensive looking watch, a wallet, an empty condom rapper, a handful of unidentifiedloose pharmaceutical-looking pills, several receipts, a packet of cannabis seeds, and fourempty baggies, one of which had likely contained some type of powder, the others withlittle green bits, in one a stem of a cannabis bud. He opened the wallet, which he was toldcontained no identification.

So all Liam had on him at his time of death was an English five pound note, a fewcoins and no local currency at all. Why was there no money if this kid was wealthy?Perhaps he was cut off. Maybe his bank accounts had run dry. But there were no credit ordebit cards in the wallet. In fact the wallet was new. Maybe he spent all his money on a



new wallet. Maybe he was mugged.Inspector Van Gorder was beginning to put these things together now. A young

man named Liam Finchley has run away alone from his life of privilege, his girlfriendSarah(?), all to come to this city where he’s had sex, gone on a drug binge and then shothimself in the head after getting mugged. There was no mobile phone for him to call

anyone… perhaps no one to call. But the gun, that was the part that really didn’t makeany sense. “Is the gun still here?” he asked, knowing perfectly well where the gun was.

“Yes sir. Over on the table…” he pointed to the table next to the bed andInspector Van Gorder made his way over to it slowly. The gun inspired nervousness andtension in Jan. It was a large gun, not the normal black market pistol that one could easilyacquire in a city where handguns are outlawed.

“Has it been dusted for prints?” he enquired.“Yes sir.” Jan picked up the revolver which was quite heavy. He recognised it

immediately. It was definitely a Smith & Wesson Model 629 .44 magnum. The owner of such a gun really doesn’t want much left of their target. Perfect for a suicide where nochance of vegetablisation is allowed. He flipped out the cylinder, which still had anempty shell in it and five other unfired shells. He thought of the night his wife died. Shewas also murdered with a Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum. If this was a black-market gun,and an unusual one at that, maybe it was the exact same one. This made Jan very nervous.It was so difficult to make the gun disappear the first time, and here it was in his handsagain.

“Well did they find any prints?” he added over the sound of another flash.“Sorry what?”“Did they find any fucking prints?” he asked more urgently.“Yes sir. Three sets I believe… Is everything alright?” the other investigator

responded, a bit shocked, lowering his camera. Jan started laughing.

“Is everything alright?” Jan asked slowly as he sat on the bed facing the wall.“No, sir,” he laughed, “This is the gun that killed my wife,” he added as he spun thecylinder around and locked it back in.

“What? How do you know that sir?” the other investigator asked as he slowlyinched back towards the closet.

“Because I’m the one that shot her with it, and now it’s still got my prints on itnow doesn’t it?” He put the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger.



EPILOGUE:

The walls of The Leiden Medical Institute’s criminally insane wing were thin.The inspector could hear the other patients yelling and screaming all night on the westside of the room and bizarre chanting on the east side, or at least he thought these were

the east and west sides. He had been transferred to Leiden from Amsterdam after the trial.Charged with tampering with evidence, possession of illegal weapons, abuse of policepower and murder he pleaded insane and found himself locked up for life. He wouldhowever live off of the state, somewhat like the pension plan he had more than earnedover the years.

He was happy that when he had tried to shoot himself in the head, the empty shellthat had already killed Liam had been next in the cylinder. He was then easily tackled bythe other investigator and held down by the evidence crew upon their arrival. He grew tolike this alternate ending, though. This way, he could still do things in his old age. Heeven got to read a copy of The Catcher in the Rye . He didn’t like it though.



Author’s Note: Amsterdam Homicide

Amsterdam Homicide is easily my most elaborate piece of work. It has the mosttwists, turns, surprises and structure. It is the piece of work I am proudest of. It started as

a story about a boy running away and killing himself after a long string of bizarreexperiences in Amsterdam. The intent was to craft some bizarre concept novel withwhich others could relate, in order to promote general understanding amongst all humanbeings. This spark was quickly put out by a sea of distractions that drove me away fromthe character. Attempts to return to this story were short-lived due to inability to choose adirection in which to take the story. I decided that the investigation of the death of LiamFinchley could be an integral part of the story, and as I wove this strange story, I wasquickly confronted with even more options.

I decided to make this story as full of surprises and weirdness as possible. Thelanguage is full of strange ambiguities and there are always little red herrings and strangebits of foreshadowing scattered throughout the tale. The intentional ambiguities in theplot and unlikliness of every detail are specifically intended to make the reader questioneverything they read, and maybe even reality in general. This is ultra surrealism under theguise of archetypal classic fiction elements complete with easily identifiable clichés. Ican’t honestly say that this story is about anything other than everything that it means tobe a human being. It’s a display of the complexity of human emotions in every grey areaand a strange blurring together of good and evil, right and wrong, appropriate andinappropriate, fact and fiction, true and false all in a way that makes perfect sense, inorder to inspire as much weirdness as possible. The title is an example of this:Amsterdam Homicide is about an Amsterdam Homicide detective investigating anAmsterdam Suicide which isn’t really the central theme, but rather the real Amsterdam

Homicide which is only vaguely hinted at throughout and not revealed until theconclusion.Essentially, I’m very happy with the way it turned out, because of the advice I

took in class, specifically, to focus more on Inspector Van Gorder rather than Liam, asLiam is dead, leaving little to no room for character development. Van Gorder is a moreinteresting character, I agree, and I’ve tried to make him as complex as possible for ashort story.

amsterdam homicide 1

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