The Sam Prichard Series - Books 9-12 (Sam Prichard Boxed Set 3)

by David Archer

“Hey, babe,” he said. “You girls ready for me to come and join you?”

  BOOK 10

  GHOST

  1

  For an ex-cop with a bad hip, Sam Prichard seemed to be doing pretty well. He had spent the first couple of years after he was medically retired just getting used to being a civilian again, but then a neighbor with a missing granddaughter had asked him for help. Sam had agreed to ask around and see what he could find out, which led him into the middle of a plot to destroy the country. Working with an old man from the Department of Homeland Security, and with the help of a young computer whiz named Indiana Perkins, Sam had thwarted the plot and rescued the little girl.

  It felt good to be back in action, and Uncle Sam had been rather grateful financially, so Sam had decided to go into the Private Investigator business. He had the experience and the knowledge of the law, and it just seemed like a waste not to put it all to work doing something.

  Indie, the hacker who’d helped him crack that first case, had been living on the street with her four-year-old daughter, McKenzie. Knowing how dangerous that could be, Sam had offered her the use of the spare bedrooms on the second floor of his house, so she suddenly became his temporary assistant/housekeeper/secretary, and she and the little girl began to grow on him in a hurry.

  It wasn't long before Sam and Indie were in love and married, and Sam blundered into a side gig as the lead singer for a local band. Not only was it fun, it was becoming lucrative, as well. The band was hot, Sam was popular and the songs he was writing were keeping them at the top of the local area charts.

  On the job, however, Sam kept getting dragged into matters of national security. After almost dying more than once, he finally decided he'd had enough. He announced his retirement from PI work, and the band began to perform more often. Sam Prichard looked like he had a future in the music business.

  But then, just a few weeks ago, the band's bass player was arrested for murdering her ex-husband. With no one else to turn to, she begged Sam for help, and he found himself beating the bushes for clues once again. He found the killer, cleared the bass player's name, and realized that he missed the thrill of the chase.

  Sam came out of retirement.

  Between being a PI and fronting a hot band, free time wasn't something Sam knew a lot about. So, whenever the opportunity presented itself, he would do his best to take advantage of it in a way that pleased his family. Usually, that meant going out to do something the whole family would enjoy, but occasionally he would insist on leaving little McKenzie with her grandmothers while he took his wife out on a date night.

  On this particular night, Sam had taken Indie to a lovely little place out in the country, a restaurant known for its romantic atmosphere and fine food. They had a wonderful time, just enjoying one another's company and whispering the loving words that came so naturally to them. They didn't get evenings like this very often, so Sam wanted to make the most of it.

  They had come in his Corvette because they both loved the feel of the car on the curvy mountain roads outside Denver, and Sam often thought the car liked it too. It was fun to feel the G-forces trying to throw them to one side of the car or the other as the tires screamed, trying to hold their grip on the road in the curves. Sam knew the road and wasn't the least bit intimidated by it. As long as he didn't get a speeding ticket, he wouldn't be too concerned.

  Fate, however, has a tendency to throw a monkey wrench into plans. While Sam and Indie were laughing and enjoying the ride, other people were having a much more serious evening.

  They had just pulled around a curve, and Sam's eyes went wide as he grabbed the shifter to downshift and slow the car. A man had run out of the woods beside the road, and he froze like a deer when the Corvette's headlights hit him. Sam slammed on the brakes and the man turned his head to look back into the brush.

  Sam got a brief, clear look at the man's face, but then his head seemed to explode. A split second later, the sound of a shotgun blast tore the night apart.

  Indie screamed as the car slid to a stop, barely a half-dozen feet from the dead man. Sam got out of the car as quickly as he could manage, his .40-caliber Glock in his hand and pointed in the direction the shot had come from. There was no sign of the shooter, so Sam hobbled toward the victim as fast as his bad hip would allow him. He was hoping beyond hope that the man would still be alive, but most of his head was gone. From the base of his nose upward, there was only mangled bone and gore.

  It was a grisly sight, but Sam had seen worse in his time, so he managed to keep his dinner down. He picked up a stick that was lying in the road and used it to open the man's jacket and look for some form of identification.

  There was nothing. The guy was lying on his side, so Sam poked at all of his pockets and determined that they were empty. The hackles on the back of his neck began to rise.

  Indie got out of the car and slowly approached him, her phone in her hand as she spoke to the 911 dispatcher. Amazingly, she managed not to get sick and contaminate what was obviously the scene of a murder.

  “Yes, we’re pretty sure he’s dead,” Indie said. “My husband is checking him now, he’s a private investigator. His name? Sam Prichard.”

  Sam turned his attention back to the victim. The guy was wearing a pretty cheap suit, the sort that you can buy right off the rack at just about any big department store. Sam knew about those kinds of suits because he owned a few of them. A cheap suit didn’t really mean anything, but the shot that killed the poor guy had literally blown him completely out of his shoes, and Sam glanced at one of them. The labeling on the insole said Brooks Brothers, and the shoes were almost identical to a pair worn by his lead guitarist. They had cost over thirteen hundred dollars, and Sam wondered why a man who could afford such shoes would be wearing a cheap department store suit.

  It didn't occur to him to wonder if the shoes might belong to someone else. There were other things about the dead man that suggested he was no stranger to wealth, as well. His hands, for instance, were soft, uncallused, the kind of hands that had never known any type of actual physical labor. His nails had been recently manicured and the skin that Sam could see sported the kind of tan that usually required many hours of leisure time in the sun.

  “The Sheriff's office is on the way,” Indie said. “I told them we were sure the man was dead, but they're sending an ambulance anyway.”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah, that's the way they do things. They seem to just naturally assume that a witness calling in something like this probably went to public school and isn’t smart enough to know whether or not somebody with half his head blown off is dead, so they spend a great big chunk of their annual budget to send out an expert to make an official determination.”

  Sam stood and looked out into the woods, in the direction the shot had come from. The trees were dense and the night was dark, so he really couldn’t see very much. It suddenly occurred to him that whoever shot the guy could be aiming that 12-gauge directly at him at that very moment, but he didn't think so. Whoever had chased this poor man through the woods and blown his head off had probably panicked and fled when Sam's car screeched to a halt.

  “Indie,” Sam said. “Do me a favor and go stand over by the car, out of the headlights.”

  “Am I blocking your light?” Indie asked. “I can move…”

  “No, babe, I just don’t want you standing in the bright lights. Whoever did this could still be around, I’d really rather they not get a chance to aim that shotgun at your pretty head.”

  Indie grimaced at his words, then turned and went to stand beside the Corvette. She made sure she was as invisible as possible in the darkness and then turned her attention back to Sam.

  Sam was pretty sure the shooter was long gone, but he had wanted Indie out of sight, just in case. If he was wrong, then he and Indie could easily both be dead within moments. Sam often got pretty upset with himself for jumping blindly into things like this. It was always dangerous to stick your neck out, as Sam knew very well, but
some instinct inside would always make him dive in headfirst whenever he stumbled across a crime.

  That was almost always a mistake, and would probably prove to be one in this case. Instead of getting out of the car to check on the victim, he should have thrown it into reverse and gotten the hell out of there as fast as he possibly could. Anybody with half a brain would have simply called 911 and let the police handle the situation. Instead, Sam’s instinctual involvement could have conceivably put himself and his wife in grave danger.

  Relax, he said to himself. If he wanted us dead, we’d already be down.

  “Was that a shotgun that he got hit with?” Indie asked. “It sounded awful loud.”

  Sam looked up at her and nodded his head. “Yeah,” he said. “Sounded to me like a 12-gauge, most likely loaded with double-ought buckshot. That's the same as being shot by a dozen .32-caliber guns at the same time. About the only thing I can think of that could do this much damage.”

  Sam turned back to the dead man in the road. He appeared to be in his early-to-mid 30s, and seemed to have been in pretty good shape physically. The man's haircut, from what remained of it, was neat and stylish, which indicated it was done by someone other than a common barber, another sign that the man had been at least somewhat affluent.

  Sam sniffed. “He was wearing cologne,” he said. “Strong enough I can smell it even over the blood.”

  Indie nodded. “That's Killian,” she said. “It’s called Straight to Heaven.”

  Sam looked up at her, his face a question mark. “Killian?”

  “That cologne,” she said. “That's Straight to Heaven, by Killian. Stan wears it. I asked him what it was cause I wanted to get some for you, but then he said it was almost three hundred dollars an ounce, so you got Calvin Klein's cheap stuff, instead.”

  Sam shook his head. “I can't imagine how you can recognize a fragrance like that.”

  “I'm a woman,” Indie said with a grin. “We notice things that make our men smell better, trust me.”

  Sam shook his head. “Expensive shoes,” he said, “expensive haircut, expensive cologne and a cheap suit. Something about this just strikes me as being off, somehow.”

  The sound of a siren could be heard in the distance, and a sheriff's patrol car arrived a moment later. Sam showed them his ID and recounted what he had seen and done, and the deputies took their statements. As they were finishing up, a detective arrived, a man named John Dickens whom Sam knew from his days on the police force.

  “Hey, John,” Sam said.

  “Sam,” Dickens replied. “It's been a while. How did you happen to be here?”

  “Took the wife out to dinner, and we were headed for home. I almost ran over this guy when he ran out in front of me, but somebody shot him while I was slamming on the brakes. I already gave my statement to the deputies, but I figure you might have other questions.”

  Dickens looked down at the body and then looked around. “You said he ran out in front of you. Which direction did he come from?”

  Sam pointed into the woods to the right of the road. “He came out of there,” Sam said. “He froze like a deer when my lights hit him, then looked back into the woods and that's when the gun went off. Sounded like a 12-gauge, but I never saw the shooter.”

  Dickens grimaced. “Well, that was going to be my next question. Anything else you think I need to know?”

  “I told the deputies, but it looks to me like this guy isn't wearing his own suit. From the cologne, the haircut and the shoes, I'd expect him to be wearing Armani, but that suit looks like it came off the clearance rack at Kmart.”

  Dickens glanced at the body again. “Yeah, looks like a cheap one. How do you know about the cologne?”

  “That was me,” Indie said. “We know someone who wears that cologne, and it's expensive stuff. That's why I don't buy it for Sam.”

  Dickens stood there for a few seconds, then nodded at Sam. “Okay, you can go on home. I'll let you know if I have any other questions. Gimme a phone number.”

  Sam handed Dickens his business card and said goodbye, and then he and Indie got into the Corvette. They drove the rest of the way home in silence, but Sam thought he heard a sniffle once or twice from Indie's side of the car.

  “You okay, Babe?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I was just thinking about that poor man. I mean, I don’t know why he got shot, for all we know he might have been a monster of some kind, but there’s just something sad about seeing someone die all alone.”

  Sam reached over and took her hand. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  2

  Indie wasn't particularly happy about Sam being back in the PI business, but she was a dutiful wife and a more-than-capable assistant. After Sam decided to come out of retirement, they had resumed advertising his services and spent most of their mornings in the office that was attached to the side of their garage. The room had a private entrance that came off of the driveway, which was almost big enough to qualify as a small parking lot, and Sam had even made a sign to let potential clients know they’d found the place.

  It had been a couple of weeks since they saw the man shot in the road, and life had quickly gone back to normal. On this particular morning, Sam had an appointment scheduled for nine AM. A car pulled up in the driveway just before that time, and a tall black man followed the walkway to get to the office entrance. Indie opened the door and invited him inside, and Sam saw that he had a dog with him, a big black-and-tan German Shepherd.

  “Is it okay for Freddie to come in?” the man asked.

  “Of course,” Indie said. Sam reached behind himself and pulled the door shut that led into the main house; Samson, little Kenzie’s cat, had a tendency to come wandering in now and then, and Freddie looked big enough to consider the cat an appetizer. Sam turned back to face his visitor and immediately noticed that both man and dog were limping. Indie went back to her own desk and smiled. “You must be Mister Wilson,” she said. She turned and indicated Sam with a wave of her hand. “I’m Indie and this is my husband, Sam Prichard. How can we help you today?”

  Before the man could answer, the dog looked up at Indie and wagged his tail, whining softly. She smiled, then bent down and began petting him, and the dog leaned closer to nuzzle her. She laughed and stroked his head, looking up at Wilson. “I hope this is okay,” she said. “I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist.”

  Wilson grinned. “Old Freddie'll be your friend for life, now,” he said loudly. “He absolutely loves a pretty girl, he does.”

  Indie smiled and led the two of them over to Sam's desk. Sam stood and leaned forward to shake Wilson's hand. “Sam Prichard,” he said.

  “Jack Wilson,” he replied, and his grip was strong and confident. He was still speaking loudly, and Sam realized that he must have some hearing loss. “I been hearing some good things about you, Sam. Friend of mine, Tom Andover, he says you're the guy to come to if you got a problem. That right?”

  Sam smiled. “Well, I try. You're talking about Tom Andover from the police department? I know him, a good man.”

  Jack nodded. “Yeah, he is. He says the same about you, too, by the way.” He cleared his throat, glanced down at his dog, and then looked back up at Sam. “Me and Freddie, we was EOD, explosive ordnance detail in the Army, over in Afghanistan. We was clearing a building full of ISIS when the bomb we were looking for went off. I was pinned under rubble and my left leg was crushed; Freddie was hit by falling debris and had some serious fractures to his pelvis and right hip, and we were the lucky ones. The rest of the squad didn't make it out.”

  “I'm sorry to hear that,” Sam said.

  “ISIS was all around, and one of 'em came through what was left of the building to make sure we was all dead. He found me and was about to put a bullet in my head, but Freddie, somehow he was able to jump and take the bastard down, and I managed to get my hands on his gun. That took care of that problem, and we got carried out a few hours later. I lost my leg, but they patched Freddie
up best they could and gave us both honorable discharges. I got to adopt him, they got this new program—they used to just put Military War Dogs down when they were done with them, calling them 'obsolete equipment,' you believe that? Freddie ain't a piece of equipment, he's my partner and my very best friend.”

  Sam looked at the dog, and thought about the fact that he might have been killed just because he'd been wounded or wasn't needed anymore. “I can believe it,” Sam said, “but I'm glad it didn't turn out that way for Freddie.” Freddie wagged his tail when he heard his name, and Sam looked back at Jack. “So, what can we do for you and Freddie, today?”

  Jack reached into a pocket and took out a piece of paper, unfolded it and passed it across the desk. At first glance, Sam thought it was a ransom note, because it was made of letters cut out of magazines, but it wasn't. It said:

  Your wife is a slut. She has been cheating on you with your best friend while you were in the war. She is still going to see him behind your back.

  Sam read it through and looked up at Jack. “Do you believe this?” Sam asked him.

  “Hell, no,” he said. “I ain't even told my wife I got it. Good Lord, man, my best friend is Max Hernandez, and he runs Animal Partners. That’s a charity organization that provides service animals for disabled veterans.”

  Sam smiled. “Service animals?”

  “Yeah. Max gets dogs from shelters, where they might get put down, then trains them to be guide dogs, mobility dogs, hearing dogs and such for disabled vets. He does a lot of work with the Wounded Warrior Project, too. Me and Freddie help out when we can, training the dogs, and sometimes we even help out with the other animals. It’s amazing to watch Freddie showing other dogs how to do things. He’s about the smartest dog I done ever seen.”

  Indie had been listening, and she moved over then to sit on the floor next to Freddie. The dog didn't need a lot of prompting to lie down and let her rub his belly.