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AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thank you for taking the time to read this book. I hope you enjoyed it. All of the Carole Ann Gibson Mysteries are available as ebooks. Here’s a look at Paradise Interrupted.
From PARADISE INTERRUPTED:
Carole Ann groaned, grumbled, and reached for the phone even as, through the one eye that was open, she noted the time on the bedside clock’s digital display and wondered why the alarm hadn’t sounded. Then, as she found her ear with the phone, she had two simultaneous and conflicting thoughts: She had overslept and would be late for work, and it was Sunday! Nobody who knew her would call her a few minutes after seven o’clock on a Sunday morning unless there was a problem. She sat straight up. “Hello! Who is this?”
“Wake up, C.A. All the way up,” Jake ordered in an unusually quiet tone of voice, one devoid of emotion. There definitely was a problem
“What is it, Jake?” She was fully awake and alert and she swung her feet over the side of the bed and on to the floor.
“Steve Campos was murdered last night—early this morning—outside his beach house on the Eastern Shore. At about the same time Campos was getting his brains blown out, Pierre Chalfont and Eric LeGrande were being turned into mincemeat by a couple of dozen rounds from AK47s.”
“Who are Pierre Chalfont and Eric LeGrande?”
“One hundred percent of the Isle de Paix police force,” Jake replied. “Constables, they still call ‘em, and the poor, stupid bastards weren’t even armed. Didn’t think they needed to be since there hasn’t been a homicide on Isle de Paix in nine years.”
Carole Ann stood up and, characteristically, began to pace, even though she was not entertaining a single thought. Her brain had, like some piece of machinery, momentarily shut down. Phone still squished against her ear, she paced back and forth the length of her bedroom, a room easily large enough to accommodate pacing, until she heard Jake speak again.
“I’m sorry Jake, I was woolgathering, as my mother would say. What do we know?”
“About Campos, not much more than that, but Denis St. Almain made bail late Friday, just before the court closed for the day.”
“Goddammit!” Her exclamation was completely involuntary, for the gravity of the situation took several seconds more to formulate itself into rational thought. Then she was rendered speechless, for she knew that already every law enforcement agency in D.C., Maryland and Virginia—and there were more than two dozen of them—would be looking for Denis St. Almain, and she understood that every drug dealer in particular, and every criminal in general, would be in jeopardy until Denis St. Almain was apprehended.
“And what about, the constables, Chalfont and LeGrande? Jake, are you certain about it being assault weapons?”
She could almost see his eyes narrow and grow cold. Neither of them wanted to embrace what that portended. “As certain as I can be. Collette was practically hysterical, which, as you can imagine, must have been a sight to behold, but based on witness accounts and the condition of the bodies, I’d say there’s not much doubt about it.”
“This is insanity,” she whispered, more to herself than to Jake.
“Yeah, it is,” he responded, “and you get to be the shrink.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means that Collette is demanding that we come down there and do something. Immediately. And I can’t leave.”
“Dammit, Jake! Don’t do this to me!”
“I’m not the one doing it to you, C.A. I’ll meet you at the office in an hour. And if you swing by the Jefferson and get the fish and berries, I’ll stop in at the Chesapeake Bagel place and get the bread and cheese.” And he hung up before she could complain or cuss.
She punched the phone off but continued to stand before the balcony doors looking out at Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood come slowly but certainly to Sunday morning life: Already there were several cabin cruisers and speed boats on the placid Potomac, at least a dozen joggers and bikers on the path, and small clusters of early-rising tourists strolling the monument grounds. The tour busses would begin to roll in another hour and the museums and monuments would open soon after, and the lines would begin to form. It would be another several hours, however, before the natives began stirring and making appearances into the outside world; and because Washington was essentially a company town, and because government and politics were the company and the media its handmaiden, the news of Steve Campos’ murder would be the topic of choice of the natives. And just maybe, somewhere deep within the State Department, a couple of Caribbean desk officers would discuss the murders of the two cops. And the tourists, if they learned of the events and gave any thought to them at all, no doubt would not find either worthy of interrupting their vacations.
Carole Ann called to cancel her day’s appointments with a little bit of guilt and major trepidation: She could tell from Mike Wong’s voice that he’d heard about the Isle de Paix assassinations, though he carefully refrained from mentioning them, and she allowed him to commit her to lunch tomorrow. As if she had a choice in the matter. And she allowed Cleo, her former assistant at the law firm, to guilt-trip her about canceling brunch twice in one month. All she could do was apologize; she couldn’t even re-schedule, given that any day now might find her en route to Isle de Paix.
She stood in the shower for a long time, her thoughts and feelings as wild and tangled as the untamed Isle de Paix jungle. She’d come to think of the little island as a paradise; and though she wasn’t naive enough to believe that even paradise was perfect these days, she hadn’t once entertained the notion that the stateside brand of ugliness had invaded the place and she didn’t want to entertain it now. She also didn’t want to be forced into a hurry-up trip to the Caribbean to fix a problem she didn’t fully understand, no matter how hysterical Philippe Collette was. She allowed herself momentary amusement at the thought of the staid, formal island president hysterical. Then she wondered how possible— how likely— it was that the murder of the cops hadn’t been completely unexpected. Philippe Collette wouldn’t be the first client to withhold negative or damaging information in order to paint a rosy picture rather than a true one; and the true one was grim enough.
“Shit.” She turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. She needed coffee. And food. She remembered that Jake expected her to stop at the Jefferson Hotel for capers and lox— berries and fish to him. “Shit,” she muttered again. It was barely seven-thirty in the morning, and the day already was in the crapper. But she knew better than wonder what else could go wrong.
Other Books by Penny Mickelbury
CAROLE ANN GIBSON SERIES
One Must Wait
Where to Choose
The Step Between
Paradise Interrupted
MIMI PATTERSON/GIANNA MAGLIONE SERIES
Keeping Secrets
Night Songs
Love Notes
Darkness Descending
PHIL RODRIQUEZ SERIES
Two Graves Dug
A Murder Too Close
NON-SERIES STAND ALONES
Belle City
That Part of My Face: Short Stories
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Also by Penny Mickelbury
A Phil Rodriquez Mystery
Two Graves Dug
A Murder Too Close
The Carole Ann Gibson Mysteries
One Must Wait
Where To Choose
Paradise Interrupted
The Mimi Patterson/Gianna Maglione Mysteries
Keeping Secrets
Night Songs
Love Notes
Watch for more at Penny Mickelbury’s site.
&nbs
p; About the Author
Penny Mickelbury is the author of ten mystery novels in three successful series, as well as a novel of historical fiction, Belle City, and a collection of short stories, That Part of My Face. She also is an accomplished playwright, and has contributed articles and short stories to several magazines and journals.
Read more at Penny Mickelbury’s site.
One Must Wait Page 27