Trafford Publishing: Troop 1204

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Troop 1204

by Craig Estes; co-published with Durham Lane Publishing

291 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0209; ISBN 1-55369-396-5; US$26.50, C$30.95, EUR21.50, £15.50

Mystery and love story about a group of childhood friends caught up in a 40 year long series of brutal murders of 5 of their scout troop that plunges them into a web of intigue related to how each responded to the Vietnam War. The love story centers on Joshua and Carla Hilliard, who, faced with Joshua's possible indictment for the murders of his friends, set out on a jouney of discovery to solve the murders and resove the complex issues of their relationship.

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About the Book

From a new author comes a mystery that encompasses four decades of brutal murder and betrayal among a group of neighborhood friends who rise to prominence, wealth and fame, but cannot escape the choice each made about his role in this nation's longest and least understood military campaign.
TROOP 1204
On a hot summer California night in 1958, someone brutally slit the throat of a Boy Scout and carved a gruesome murder signature across the twelve year old's forehead. Now, 40 years after that horrific overnight campout, another member of Troop 1204 turns up dead in Arizona with the same latticework pattern of forehead carvings, and the police look to the surviving scouts for their killer. The latest victim, an international film idol, brings worldwide attention to the 1204 troop roster, which includes a policeman, a TV news anchor, a university professor and a doctor, as well as two lawyers and a United States Congressman.
The authorities are especially interested in Joshua Hilliard, the only scout known to be in Arizona at the time of the second killing. Hilliard, a Washington, D.C. urban design architect and decorated Vietnam War veteran, sets out to solve the crimes and clear his name. Teaming up with his wife, Carla, a high powered D.C. attorney, he retraces his life and the lives of the other ten surviving scouts, working against time to find the killer before he is indicted for the murders of his childhood friends.
From Sacramento to Phoenix and Scottsdale, Danang to Los Angeles and on to the District of Columbia and New England, the two amateur sleuths confront their past as they fight for their future. In the course of their investigation, they discover how the war has effected their friends' lives and their own feelings toward each other since Joshua's return from Vietnam. As new murders occur and old ones come to light, Josh wages a battle with long dormant memories of his tour in country while Carla comes face to face with her husband's old combat adrenaline rush and her own sexual reawakening as well.

About the Author

Craig Estes has practiced as a nationally known urban designer and city planner for more than 25 years. His neighborhood and community designs can be found in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania as well as California, Arizona, Nevada, Massechusetts, Connecticut and South America. He studied design at California State Polytechnic Universtiy and the University of Rhode Island. Troop 1204 is his first novel. His second novel, Fielder's Choice, is due out later this year and his third, Will-Oh-The-Wisp, is in progress. He lives in New England and can be reached at craigestes1204@hotmail.com.

Sample Excerpt

Chapter 1
Saturday, August 21,1958, 1:30 PM, Sacramento, California.

They just stare at each other. No one moves an inch. No one even breathes; and then, Josh yells as loud as he can. "Get the hell out of here or we'll make hamburger out of you and eat you for lunch!" The effect on the enemy is instantaneous. As if the words are bullets fired from a machine gun, the five milk cows turn tail and stampede across the field to the edge of a pond at the lower end of the pasture. Now milling around, they keep a close eye on Joshua Evan Hilliard, aged twelve and 14 of his best friends since the first grade as they labor in the 105-degree heat to erect ten of Boy Scout Troop 1204's two man tents.
"Why are we stuck here in this stupid field five miles from home, watching out for cow pies when we could be swimming and boating up at Tahoe?" moans Brucie, one of the Troop's youngest and, by far, its most vocal member. Although he was not one of the first of the troop to see his twelfth birthday, Brucie is already somewhat taller and stronger than a number of the other boys and an accomplished athlete in both little league baseball and pee wee football. What he is not is a happy camper and, along with a majority of the other boys, misery is slowly turning to anger with a hint of potential insurrection.
Instead of the cool deep blue waters and stunning mountain vistas of Lake Tahoe, one hundred miles to the east, 1204's camp site occupies a soccer field sized patch of arid brown stubble covered field next to an abandoned brick factory five miles south of downtown Sacramento, California. The pond, known locally as Mungers Lake, is really nothing more than a two-acre hole in the ground. Originally created to provide a raw water supply for use in the production of the brick, the now unused hole fills up with storm water in winter, only to return in summer, to a pit of brown, brackish liquid that now conspires to stymie all attempts to view a reflection of one's face on its greenish surface. Exhausted, Josh sits down in the field and looks over at Brucie, also collapsed face down about three feet away.
"Hey, Brucie, maybe our parents told the Little General not to take us out of town. You know, it was a last minute announcement and we do have to be back in class on Monday."
In fact, the selection of Mungers Lake over Lake Tahoe is the brainchild of the Little General, AKA Harvey Standish, 1204's scout master. Standish; 39 years old, stocky and rapidly balding, is the owner of a small independent butcher shop in South Sacramento, a veteran of World War Two and the one adult male in the neighborhood willing to take of the job of guiding a bunch of ninth graders toward manhood. In truth, Harvey relishes the opportunity to finally get the command of the unit of combat troops that had eluded him during the big war. He had missed actual combat, instead languishing for four long years as a mess cook's assistant at a small Army supply base in Pittsburg, California. In his mind the Mungers Lake campout provides the perfect opportunity to whip the unit into shape by driving his troops to overcome their harsh environment and thereby achieve greatness through his leadership.
By six p.m. the tents are up and the two latrines dug and screened with plywood. Ten minutes later, Standish has fired up the propane camp stove and within minutes, he is serving the evening meal including jumbo sized hot dogs, beans, corn bread and orange Jell-O.
Having filled his Boy Scout issue metal plate, Josh reflects, as he walks under a tree and plops down, that he has been with these guys his whole life. Calvin Charles Moss (Cal) and Jonathan Richard Clemens (Ricky) live in the two houses on either side of his own while Kenneth Scott Robinson ((Kenny), Peter Jason Hines (Beet) and John Michael Russo (Jack) reside on the same block. Nathaniel John Calder (Nate), Roland Lyman Bates (Rowdy), Nicholas Melford Burns (Nick), David Clark Bolenger (David) and Dean Ryan Grant (Arnie) all live within a five block radius of Josh while Daniel Jesus Rodrigues (Danny) and Henry Batholomew Lee (Hank) each live over their parents' Riverside Boulevard business establishments. The two rich kids, Thomas Lansing Connelly (Tommy) and the rabble rousing Brucie (Bruce Douglas Gannett) both make their homes in the exclusive College Terrace neighborhood on the other side of William Land Park. While rearranging the food on his plate and daydreaming of floating on the cool clear waters of either Brucie's or Tommy's swimming pools, Josh's face suddenly contorts in confusion. The hot dog on his plate seems to be covered with a pattern of shallow incisions splitting the surface of the dog from end to end.
"What the shit is this?" he questions in bewilderment as he studies a series of short angled cuts running across one, and in some places, two incisions, stretching the length of the dog. The latticework of lines remind him of the stitches he got when he fell off his bike the previous year and cut his arm.
Beet, sitting next to him, looks down at his own dog and exclaims, "the Little G-General m-must really hate hot dogs. My m-mom just b-boils them to d-death."
Arnie now jumps in before Beet stutters a mouthful of food back out onto his plate.
"I think he enjoys torturing these dogs as much as he's enjoyed torturing us today."
"Hey, guys, he is a butcher, you know, maybe that's just what butchers do," adds Ricky in an attempt to get his friends off the subject. He just wants to eat his dog, not subject it to group analysis.
"Who cares how he cooked them, I'm so hungry I could eat anything that didn't come out of that mud hole over there," exclaims Rowdy briefly looking over at Mungers Lake and then dives into his food.
"Well, I'm n-not eating this c-crap!" Beet exclaims, jumping up and inadvertently bumps Hank's arm, causing him to spill his cup of watery condensed milk over the entire contents of his plate.
"God damn it, Beet!" Hank yells as he looks at his dog, beans and cornbread floating in a sea of white foam. Only the Jell-O, protected in its separate plastic bowl, has survived. Standing up, he gives Beet an angry look and then starts laughing. "Shit, I think you did me a favor, Beet. Maybe I'll just load up on more Jell-O."
Two hours later, with dinner over and kitchen patrol completed, everyone, including the Little General, fall exhausted into their sleeping bags. Turning off their official Boy Scout flashlights, they doze off with the vain hope that each will find himself at home in his own bed when the sun comes up.
In fact, that's exactly what happens. Some time after lights out, the cows get their revenge. Around midnight Brucie wakes up with a terrible thirst. Not content with just plain old water, he decides a chocolate shake is in order. Gathering his canteen, a box of Nestles Quick and two cans of Carnation condensed milk, he proceeds to concoct the shake in the dark so as not to wake David, his soon to be unfortunate tent mate. Fumbling around in the dark, Brucie finally realizes that shake making requires a lighted work area. Engaging the flashlight, his heart seems to stop in mid beat. A huge cow head, mouth drooling, red eyes staring through the tent flaps, reveals itself in the newfound illumination.
"Oh, shit," yells Brucie, throwing his hands and the large mug containing the partially mixed shake into the air. With his yell, mixed with an even louder cow bellow, all hell breaks loose. The cow stampedes, carrying Brucie and David's tent with it, tent pegs and all. David, immediately covered with the sticky brown goop from Brucie's mug, attempts flight, thinking the cow, after shitting all over him, is now going to trample him to death. The rest of the herd, following their tent draped leader's example, take off in a stampede straight though 1204's camp, bowling over the kitchen table, sending the camp stove flying. "Hell and goddamn it, Brucie," screams David as he gathers himself up to view the catastrophe, finally realizing he is not covered in cow shit, but some kind of chocolate substance.
Stumbling out of his tent, the Little General runs around in his boxer shorts and sleeveless T-shirt, attempting to rally his troops and count heads to make sure there are no casualties. The cows, now content following their successful raid, mill about near the pond uttering a final series of moos and bellows to chronicle their victory. "I want everyone to answer troop roll when I call your name," Standish screams and watches as his disoriented troops shuffle into formation.
Josh, waiting while The Little General calls the roll down through the G's now listens closely.
"Hamner, here; Hellinger, here; Hilliard, here; Hines,- Hines, where the hell is Hines?" Standish yells with a slight tremor creeping into his voice.
"Who bunked with Beet?" Brucie yells out.
"He bunked with me, but he was gone when the cows came through," responds Rowdy.
With his pants finally on and Smokey Bear hat firmly in place, Standish clamors to keep command of his troops.
"Listen up everyone, get your flashlights, then get in line two arms lengths apart. We're going to first search the field from camp down to the pond. If we don't find him there, we'll then search the area around the old factory building."
Everyone follows orders and within minutes a human line over 40 feet long begins moving, in parallel across the field. Suddenly, after the line had made it about half way to the pond, someone near the middle of the line trips, falls down and then lets out an anguished howl.
"It's Hines, Sir, he's right here and there's blood all over him." Josh, Cal and Ricky, all close to the center of the line, are the first of his friends to reach Beet. None of them has ever seen a dead person, but there is no mistaking where the blood came from.
"God, Josh, look at his neck," whispers Cal.
Neither Josh nor Ricky can miss the terrible crescent represented by the dark red line running from ear to ear across Beet's throat. But even more startling is the mass of carefully crafted dark red incisions on his forehead, quite reminiscent of the artful latticework cuts that had graced their evening meal.

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