The Dead Man’s Route
June 2, 2025
On a fog-soaked Tuesday morning, the city bus number 41 arrived at the terminal on 6th and Franklin, right on time—except the driver was slumped dead over the wheel, and none of the twelve passengers had seen it happen.
Detective Lena Ortiz stood by the open door, staring at the body.
“No wounds. No signs of a struggle. Just… dropped dead mid-route,” said Officer Kim. “Security footage shows him breathing one moment, gone the next. No reaction from the passengers. They just thought he was stopping.”
“What’s his name?” Lena asked.
“Ernest Mallory. 52. Veteran driver. No complaints, no health issues. According to the coroner, he died from an overdose of fentanyl.”
Lena frowned. “He didn’t touch anything except the wheel. Who’s dosing city bus drivers?”
Back at HQ, Lena watched the bus’s interior footage again.
12 passengers. She rewound it. The camera caught a woman stepping off at Jefferson and 12th. Black coat, red scarf, holding a leather case.
Lena froze the frame.
That wasn’t a commuter bag. That was a lockbox—one of the high-security ones used by private couriers.
She ran the timestamp. The driver slumped roughly 90 seconds after the woman exited.
That was her lead.
The bus manifest had no records of her boarding. But facial recognition got a match.
Naomi Quinn, 35. No fixed address. Former lab technician. Fired two years ago for stealing controlled substances. Disappeared shortly after.
Lena tracked her to a weekly shelter meal at St. Vincent’s. She waited in an unmarked car across the street.
Naomi showed up, scarf gone but same coat, same gait.
Lena followed.
Naomi entered a laundromat. Ten minutes passed.
Lena went in.
The place was quiet. A few dryers humming. Naomi was near the back, seated on a bench.
“You should’ve kept walking,” Lena said.
Naomi looked up, her eyes hollow. “Is this about the bus?”
“Yes. The driver’s dead.”
Naomi’s face didn’t change.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“You had a lockbox. What was in it?”
She hesitated. Then: “Money. For a drop.”
“A drop?”
“I deliver packages. No questions asked. That’s the rule.”
“Who do you work for?”
Naomi looked past her, toward the dryers. “Doesn’t matter. They already know you’re here.”
Lena grabbed Naomi and pulled her outside.
As they exited, a black sedan sped by—windows tinted. The passenger window rolled down slightly.
A small red dot danced across Naomi’s shoulder.
Lena shoved her to the ground as the bullet hit the wall behind them.
The sedan screeched away.
“Still think it doesn’t matter?” Lena growled.
At the precinct, Naomi opened up.
“I work for a courier ring called The Loop,” she said. “They hire people like me—off-the-grid, no paper trail. We move things: cash, pills, documents. We never know what’s inside.”
“And the lockbox on the bus?”
“Unlabeled. But I swear I didn’t know what it was. I handed it off at 12th Street. I didn’t touch the driver.”
“Do they kill people often?”
“Only when someone asks questions.”
Forensics got a match from the bus.
Traces of fentanyl were found on the steering wheel—microscopic, but enough to kill.
It had been applied with an adhesive agent, likely from a latex glove.
The box Naomi delivered had been wiped clean.
That meant someone had prepped the driver’s wheel before the route began.
Someone with access to the depot.
The city transit supervisor gave them a list of all staff with access to Bus 41.
One name stood out: Benny Lowell, a mechanic, previously investigated for smuggling prescription meds from impounded vehicles.
Lena and Kim paid him a visit.
He wasn’t home.
But his neighbor mentioned a storage unit on 19th Street he used “for car stuff.”
The unit reeked of chemicals.
Inside were syringes, gloves, solvent bottles—and a map. A route map for bus 41, marked with red dots.
Beside it, a ledger. Names, dates, cash amounts.
Drug transfers.
Each route had a designated “clean zone”—three stops where couriers could board, exchange packages, and exit without triggering suspicion.
Bus 41 had been one of the cleanest routes.
Until Ernest Mallory saw too much.
“He confronted Benny,” Naomi said when Lena returned. “I wasn’t supposed to know, but I overheard it. Said he was going to the cops. Benny panicked.”
“Why didn’t you run?”
Naomi looked away. “Because for the first time, someone cared enough to try stopping it. I couldn’t just vanish again.”
Benny was caught at the state line, driving a stolen van filled with cash and burner phones.
He confessed to poisoning the wheel. Said he never meant for Mallory to die—only to scare him.
But fentanyl didn’t scare. It killed.
The Loop disavowed him immediately. But Lena knew better. They’d simply find another route. Another courier. Another disposable name.
A week later, Naomi was placed in protective custody. She’d turned over contacts, patterns, even burner numbers. Enough to cripple The Loop for now.
As Lena drove home, her phone buzzed.
Blocked number.
She answered.
A male voice, calm, collected.
“Detective Ortiz. Nice work with the bus case.”
“Who is this?”
“Just someone who admires precision. You disrupted our route, but not our rhythm.”
“You’ll slip eventually.”
“Maybe. But next time, our drivers won’t die. Yours might.”
Click.
She stared at the phone for a moment, then placed it face-down on the seat.
The city lights blurred in the rain ahead.
Crime didn’t sleep.
But neither did she.