REVIEWS
Robert Thornhill’s 10th book in his mystery comedy series, Lady Justice and the Book Club Murders, finds Walt Williams and his Kansas City Police Department partner, Ox, called upon to help solve a string of violent murders that appear to be the work of a serial killer.
Labeled by the Kansas City STAR, as "The Librarian", since copies of murder mysteries are left at each crime scene, the killer thinks he is pulling off the perfect murders, but like in real life, that's very difficult to do.
Thornhill's quirky humor makes these more than just another mystery; it is a fun and fast read and deserves the term "cozy" as once again justice is served by the capture of the bad guy and it's safe to travel the streets of Kansas City.
Christine Fullerton Jones, Independence, Mo.
Robert Thornhill has hit it again! This time Walt Williams and his partner, Ox, are on a mission to stop a killer who commits the perfect crime.
It’s a fast-paced thriller that leaves you thinking; exactly what does it take to pull off the perfect crime and not get caught?
Fantastic page-turner written with a bit of humor and a thought-provoking plot.
Shari Wilkinson, Goodreads
Crime can be so boringly predictable. The ‘perfect crime’, now that --- that is artistry --- or so thinks Oscar. Oscar wants to commit the perfect crime --- and he wants the members of his mundane, lifeless book club to join him. He’s been watching, scheming, and studying the list of the top ten elements for planning the perfect crime—awaiting just the right time. As Oscar shares the plan with his book club cronies, Ed and Larry, he marvels at his machinations when he sees that “they are hooked”. Little did they know, Oscar had plans for much, much more. For Oscar, what began as meager entertainment has spiraled into something dastardly. He has donned a newly discovered persona, that of a 'Thrill Kill' serial killer.
Oscar, never satisfied, continues his quest of perfecting the crime. No more dreary life and no more mind-numbing existence for him! Can he continue, undetected, or will the ‘cat slumber after a hearty meal of mouse'?
Avis Jenkins, Article Write-up
LADY JUSTICE
AND THE
BOOK CLUB MURDERS
A WALT WILLIAMS
MYSTERY/COMEDY NOVEL
ROBERT THORNHILL
Lady Justice and the Book Club Murders
Copyright August, 2012 by Robert Thornhill
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, incidents and entities included in the story are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events and entities is entirely coincidental.
The political views expressed herein may or may not be those of the author and are presented to stimulate thought.
The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
Published in the United States of America
Cover design by Peg Thornhill
1. Fiction, Humorous
2. Fiction, Mystery & Detective, General
LADY JUSTICE
AND THE
BOOK CLUB MURDERS
PROLOGUE
Monthly meeting of the Midtown Book Club at the home of Ed Weems
"Idiot!" Ed Weems mumbled as he slammed the novel on the coffee table and slid his heavy black glasses with the coke-bottle lenses up the bridge of his nose.
Larry Dunlop looked up from his own book and grinned, "They caught him, didn't they?"
"Of course they caught him. They always do," Ed replied. "One fingerprint --- the guy forgot to wipe one fingerprint off of the light switch --- that's how they got him."
Larry put down his novel and stretched, "I hope you weren't expecting the bad guy to get away with it. People don't want the bad guys to win --- everyone roots for the guy wearing the white hat. That's why, no matter how clever the perp is, he always gets caught in the end. That's what sells books."
"Well I want to read a novel about someone who commits the perfect crime. Any ideas?"
Oscar Roach had been listening to the conversation with amusement. "Exactly what is your definition of a perfect crime?"
"Well it seems pretty obvious," Ed replied. "Someone commits a crime and gets away with it."
"Too simplistic," Oscar said with a smirk. "There are actually three definitions of a perfect crime."
"Please enlighten us, Master," Ed retorted sarcastically.
"Well, first of all, there are some who believe that in order for a crime to be perfect, it must be undetectable --- that it is committed and no one ever knows about it.
"For instance, with my job as an orderly at the hospital, I could steal one pair of latex gloves from every box in every exam room for a month and nobody would ever be the wiser --- they just don't keep track of those things.
"Of course, if no one ever knew that the crime was ever committed, it wouldn't make for much of a story in a novel."
Ed was beginning to show interest, "And the second kind?"
"The second kind is the subject of most mystery novels --- a crime is committed --- the cops know about it, and it becomes a cat-and-mouse game to see whether the perpetrator was clever enough to avoid detection. Obviously your guy wasn't --- he left a fingerprint."
"Okay, then what's the third category?"
"The third category is when a crime is committed, the police know who did it, but they can't prove it."
"An example please?"
"Sure. In 2009, there was a jewel heist. The thief left behind his DNA, which led to an arrest. Unfortunately for the police, the DNA was from identical twins. Neither of them would talk, so it could not be proven beyond reasonable doubt which twin was the thief."
Ed was impressed. "You seem to know a lot about this subject."
"I've been looking into it."
"Any particular reason?"
Oscar paused before he spoke, "Because I'm going to do it."
Ed was taken by surprise. "Do what?"
"Commit the perfect crime."
Ed and Larry exchanged worried glances.
"What the hell are you talking about, Oscar?" Larry asked. "You're a middle-aged hospital orderly for chrissakes!"
"Exactly my point," Oscar replied with resolve.
"My life is pathetic and so are yours --- and so is this stupid club."
"What's so bad about our club?" Ed asked indignantly.
"Do I really have to spell it out? We started out with ten members and one-by-one they've been dropping away --- mostly because they've found something better to do with their lives --- like Liz, who moved back to Columbia to finish her degree at MU.
"All that's left is us losers."
"Hey, speak for yourself, you jerk!" Larry retorted.
"Oh please, Larry. You're a forty-year-old custodian in a middle school who spends his day cleaning up after snotty-nosed kids, and Ed, you spend your life in a cubicle doing data entry into a computer for an h
uge accounting firm that doesn't even know you exist.
"When was the last time that you did something REALLY exciting --- something that made you feel like you were living on the edge?
"When was the last time you got laid --- or even had a date?
Neither of them responded.
"Have I made my point?"
"Don't you think committing a crime is a bit extreme?" Ed asked. "Wouldn't it be more logical to plan a canoe trip or maybe a weekend at Branson?"
Oscar shook his head in disgust. "Nope, an evening with Andy Williams is not my idea of living on the edge --- it has to be a crime --- and not just any crime --- murder.
"I'm going to commit the perfect murder!"
Ed and Larry were speechless.
"I'm going to do it and I want you two to do it too. Let's turn this pathetic club into something special --- something that will make our hearts race --- something that will challenge our intellect and something that will take us away from our dreary lives."
"But --- murder!" Larry stammered. "I could never kill someone --- not on purpose anyway."
"It's not that big of a deal," Oscar replied. "I see people die at the hospital every day. Look at the obituaries in the Kansas City Star. Dozens of people die every week.
"I'm not talking about killing the Mayor or somebody like that. The streets are filled with the homeless and prostitutes. Their lives already suck and we would be doing them and the city a favor by getting rid of a few.
"Think of the challenge. We each have read dozens of crime novels and watched countless TV shows. We know what we have to do to commit the perfect crime. All we have to do is create our plan and execute it.
"We can do this --- I know we can!
"Are you in?"
CHAPTER 1
My name is Walt Williams and like Lazarus, I have just been resurrected from the dead --- not by Divine Intervention, but by the U.S. Secret Service.
For the past four months, I had been undercover in the presidential campaign of Benjamin Franklin Foster.
The nature of my assignment was such that the 69 year-old cop, Walt Williams, had to be taken out of the picture, so a very elaborate plot was staged in which I met my demise.
I was given the whole end-of-life package, an obituary in the paper, a funeral with all of the trappings and a cozy casket in which I was to spend eternity.
Only the Secret Service guys attached to Ben Foster’s campaign, Captain Short and my wife, Maggie, knew that I hadn’t really kicked the bucket.
It goes without saying that my tragic death was quite a shock to the people closest to me. Ox, my partner, my dad, Willie, my good friend and maintenance man and Mary, the housemother at my Three Trails Hotel, took the news pretty hard.
Ironically, in the end, it was their quick action that kept my fake death from becoming a reality.
Now that I am again moving among the living, I spend my days seeing the startled expression on people’s faces and hearing them mutter, “Walt Williams! I thought you were dead!”
I typically respond with, “Yeah, I’ve been getting a lot of that lately, but like Mark Twain, the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Then I have to tell them the whole story of my undercover assignment.
Thankfully, most of the people that witness my resurrection express genuine joy at seeing me, once again, among the living.
However, after the initial shock wears off, there are those that can’t resist putting in their two cents worth.
Pastor Bob, the cleric that officiated my funeral, bluntly told me that the first one was on the house, but when I died again it was going to cost me dearly.
Jerry the Joker, my tenant who fancies himself a stand-up comic, couldn’t wait to tell me his favorite ‘death’ joke.
“Two old guys wonder if there’s baseball in heaven, and promise each other that the first to die will somehow let the other one know. A week later, one of them dies. A week after that, his friend recognizes his voice coming down from the clouds.
‘Joe, I’ve got some good news and some bad news,’ the disembodied voice reports. ‘The good news is that there is a baseball team in heaven. The bad news is that you’re pitching on Friday.’”
Then, of course, he had to finish up with the Woody Allen quote, “I’m not afraid of dying --- I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
The incident that tugged on my heartstrings the most was the reaction of Bernice, another of my tenants, and my dad’s current squeeze.
Poor, sweet Bernice is in her late eighties, suffers from the early stages of Alzheimer’s and is probably not that far from knocking on Heaven’s door.
Somehow, she couldn’t quite grasp the fact that I really didn’t die. After all, she had attended my funeral and seen my casket lowered into the ground.
In her mind, I had actually passed through the veil and miraculously returned.
“What was it like, Walt? Did you see the bright light? Were your loved ones there to welcome you?”
I’m sure that she realized that her own passing was not that far away and she was hoping for reassurance that the journey would be a pleasant one.
Rather than try to convince her that I never really died, I assured her that my experience was all that I hoped that it would be.
She went back to her apartment smiling, her face glowing with peace and contentment.
Now that the election ordeal was over, I was looking forward to two things, the holiday season that lay ahead and getting back into a normal routine with my partner, Ox.
In my absence, poor Ox, who was already grieving over my death, was saddled with an assortment of new partners.
Changing partners is kind of like buying a new pair of shoes --- the old ones fit just right and were so very comfortable and the new ones, for some reason, just don’t seem to measure up.
After twenty-three years on the force, Ox had experienced a succession of partners, but for some reason, the old guy was his favorite.
On our first day back together, Ox grabbed me up in his big beefy arms and squeezed me tight enough that I had to stop by my chiropractor on the way home that evening. The pain was real --- but so was the sentiment.
As we made our way to the squad room, the first guy I encountered was Officer Lincoln Murdock.
He had been a thorn in my side from my first day on the job.
He had resented the City Retiree Action Patrol in general, and me in particular. He went out of his way to give me a hard time until Ox intervened rather forcefully after which things seemed to cool off.
As I watched my funeral service via closed circuit TV, I was surprised to see Officer Murdock take the podium and I was even more surprised at his words, “I can be a real ass sometimes and I wasn’t very kind to Walt Williams. I thought the department had made a mistake starting the City Retiree Action Patrol. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Walt, Vince and Ed Jacobs, all members of the Patrol, are men that I have been proud to serve with, and now two of them have given their lives in the line of duty.
“I just want to publicly apologize to Walt for the way I treated him. I just wish that I could have done it while he was alive.”
We just stood there in the hall, awkwardly staring at each other.
Finally, Murdock spoke, “Walt --- I ---”
I could see that he was struggling.
“Lincoln, it’s okay. I heard what you had to say at my funeral and it meant a lot to me.”
He nodded and extended his hand.
Neither of us said another word --- we didn’t have to.
In the squad room, I was greeted with cheers, catcalls and, of course, friendly ribbing.
Officer Dooley got in the first lick, “Hey Walt, you owe me $27.50 for the flowers I sent to your stupid funeral!”
Thankfully, Captain Short arrived and brought the meeting to order.
After officially welcoming me back, he got down to business.
When the mee
ting was over, the Captain waved at Ox and me, “I’d like to see the two of you in my office.”
Ox and I both grimaced at the same time. These invitations usually meant that the Captain had some quirky assignment up his sleeve.
When we entered his office, a fellow about my age with a ruddy, weathered complexion and fleshy waddle under his chin, rose to greet us.
“Ox, Walt, I’d like you to meet Buster McElroy. Buster is the plant manager for Dyson Foods in Monett, Missouri.”
Buster grabbed our hands and shook them so vigorously that his waddle --- well, it waddled.
“Glad to meetcha both,” he said with twang in his voice that was almost southern, but not quite.
The Captain saw the questioning looks on our faces. “Dyson Foods has a huge turkey processing plant in Monett and he has a problem. He needs our help.”
We both looked at Buster who was holding an SD computer memory chip for us to see.
“Somebody is putting one of these memory chips in the giblet bag that goes inside our turkeys with a note that says to watch this before you eat this turkey.”
Just the mention of ‘giblets’ sent a shudder up my spine.
Two years ago, Maggie and I decided to cook the Thanksgiving turkey for our friends.
We were virgins --- it was the first turkey for both of us, and I was appalled when I discovered the bag of body parts that was stuffed in the turkey’s innards.
Being a woman, Maggie somehow instinctively knew that it contained giblets.
Curiosity overcame me and I went to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, where I discovered that, “Giblets are the edible offal of a fowl including the heart, gizzard, liver, and other visceral organs.”
It failed to mention that the creature’s neck, which is particularly offensive, was in there too.
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