Caribbean Moon (A Manny Williams Thriller, Book One)

by Murcer, Rick

  Caribbean Moon

  A Manny Williams Thriller

  By

  RICK MURCER

  AMAZON KINDLE EDITION

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Murcer Press, LLC

  Caribbean Moon © 2012 Rick Murcer

  All rights reserved

  www.rickmurcer.com

  Amazon Kindle, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The book contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, or stored in or introduced into an information storage and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Edited by

  Jan Green - thewordverve.com

  eBook Formatting by

  Bob Houston eBook Formatting

  http://about.me/BobHouston

  Dedication

  For my wife Carrie, who believed in me.

  For JC, who loves me and keeps me on the path.

  To Josh and Elizabeth, my favorites.

  To Randy, my brother, for being my brother.

  ~~ Rick ~~

  CHAPTER-1

  “I’ll need to see your ID, sir.”

  “What?” Manny Williams stared at the pretty, Latino barmaid. He must have looked like a deer in headlights because she started to grin, rescued her composure, and asked again.

  “Uh, I’m thirty-eight years old. I don’t . . .”

  “Having trouble gettin’ served, Williams?”

  Glancing to his left he noticed Sophie Lee, his diminutive partner as she stood a few feet away wearing one of her famous gotcha grins.

  “I should have known . . . and don’t you have something else to do?”

  “Why no, no I don’t.” Sophie sat down on the nearest bar stool and crossed her legs. “And you should have known what?”

  “That you put the poor girl up to this. Does she know that even in Puerto Rico you can be arrested for messing with a cop?”

  The barmaid’s face raced from smiles to the south side of unsure.

  “Don’t listen to him. He has anger issues, plus he’s a workaholic.” Sophie lowered her voice to a whisper, drawing closer to the barmaid. “And well, among his other issues, he does the little blue pill thing.”

  The young woman’s dark eyes grew large. “Really? But he seems so . . . I mean, well, look at him.”

  “Blue pill thing?” said Manny, shaking his head.

  Sophie ignored him. “I know. He’s all blond and blue-eyed and hot. Sad, isn’t it? You just can’t tell these days.”

  “Ladies, I’m right here.”

  “Think of his poor wife.”

  “He’s married with that . . . problem?” the barmaid said.

  “Yep. It’s like having the candy but you can’t get the wrapper off, in more ways than one.”

  “Seriously, I haven’t left.”

  “He’s in denial, but he’s starting to realize he has to talk about it, find out what’s up, er, isn’t,” continued Sophie.

  “You’re right, it is sad. His wife must be miserable.”

  “Okay, I’m getting out the cuffs,” said Manny.

  “Wow. Does he like that kind of stuff?” asked the barmaid, now with a glint in her eyes.

  Sophie nodded. “I think that’s why he wanted to be a cop, you know?”

  Manny reached into his tuxedo pocket and quickly slapped one cuff on Sophie’s wrist, the other to the brass rod running under the teak wood bar.

  His partner stared in disbelief at one hand, then the other. Her stunned look was worth a million dollars to him, and Manny couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her anywhere near speechless.

  He turned back to the barmaid. “I’ll take that pina colada now.”

  “Yes sir. On the house.”

  Manny didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone mix a drink faster.

  “Hey. Williams. Are you nuts? I mean you brought cuffs to a wedding reception?” marveled Sophie.

  “You know me. I’m always prepared. And look at that, they came in handy.”

  He grabbed his drink and began to walk away.

  “Manny! You can’t leave me like this.”

  “I can. But say the magic word and you’re free.”

  Letting out a breath, her pretty face displaying her Chinese-American heritage, Sophie answered. “No.”

  “Okay. I’ll come get you in the morning, if I remember.”

  “Wait. Wait. Damn you. All right. Please let me out of these.”

  He tossed her the key. “Good girl. It’s nice when people address me with manners.”

  “I got your manners right here . . . and this ain’t over, Williams. Understand?”

  Waving her off, he left the ball room and walked through the double doors of the reception room, his grin growing wider. “I still got it,” he said out loud.

  Continuing through the lobby, taking his drink with him, he was intent on harvesting his share of the fresh Caribbean air. He pulled open the crested glass door, strolled to the stucco patio, and leaned over the wall of the posh hotel on San Juan’s Condado Strip. It was humid, and the damnable tuxedo upped his discomfort. Dots of perspiration multiplied above his lip. But that was okay. This was for Mike and Lexy’s wedding, and he’d survive. Getting married in beautiful San Juan, followed by an elaborate reception, was the wedding that dreams were made of. Not to mention the seven-day cruise that would start the next day. He hoped his fourteen-year-old daughter, Jennifer, would opt for something much less exotic when she tied the knot.

  The full moon’s pale reflection rippled across the waves as they tangoed toward shore and, ultimately, into the hotel’s barrier rock wall. He’d seen a thousand full moons, but none matched this Caribbean version. Magnificent and serene. He felt some of his perpetual tension flow away.

  Setting his drink on the ledge of the wall, he pulled out his wallet and touched his Lansing Police Department ID.

  Manfred Robert Williams, Sergeant Detective, Lansing Police Department.

  After eleven years, it still gave him a kick to see his title in print, almost as much as seeing his real name. His sometimes-eccentric father had pulled the name Manfred from where-the- sun-don’t-shine because he had wanted his only son to be different.

  Mission accomplished.

  His strong fingers loosened the black bowtie, and he released a pent-up breath. It felt good to get away, but there were cases to solve. The thing is there would always be too many cases, too many sickos, and not enough hours. Walking hand-in-hand with that was the fact he had no real sense of when enough was enough. It all added up to a workaholic’s perfect storm. Sophie had hit that nail on the head.

  Complicating things even more were the results of his wife’s last mammogram. There was something there, an anomaly that the doctor couldn’t quite figure out. Louise had assured him it was nothing, that they would review the test results with the doc when they got home from this trip. But it didn’t sound like “nothing.”

  Louise had insisted they not cancel this trip for a plethora of reasons, and she was right with most of them. Besides, his need to chill out ha
d become as obvious as an elephant in the kitchen.

  He sipped the drink—coconut aroma strong even if the drink was not—and tried to enjoy the scene in front of him. But his thoughts wandered again, this time to the job—what else—and his latest case. So much for relaxing.

  “Good God, I’ve got the attention span of a two-year-old,” he growled. But the grisly homicide involving the murdered wife of a prominent psychologist clung to his hip, refusing to let go. The details of the murder stormed his senses. He tried to shove them away, but they hung in there like a door-to-door environmental activist. Who knows? Maybe he didn’t want to stop the thoughts from coming. He winced. Now there’s a question for the department shrink.

  Sylvia Martin’s eyes—lifeless, posed in a glassy, haunting stare—were the picture the killer wanted no one to forget. Only the brutality of the attack matched its senselessness. The suspect had played out a host of sexual fantasies with her—postmortem, according to the CSU report. Not just sex either. He had lain waste to the corpse with such force that much of the upper torso had become a purple-and-black teething bar.

  Alex Downs, the department’s head Crime Scene Investigator, could only remember one case with similar brutality. Eleven years prior, a psycho named Robert Peppercorn had attacked four young women and had raped, beaten, and bitten them repeatedly, falling just short of killing the victims.

  After he had acted out his malefic fantasies, Peppercorn had congenially handed each of his victims a long-stemmed, red rose and thanked them for a good time. Sylvia Martin’s killer had left a black rose draped across her ravaged torso. Manny suspected it was no coincidence. The LPD wanted to talk to Peppercorn pronto. But he had been deemed cured by his psychological team and, after his release last year, had moved on. In fact, no one had heard from him since, not even his mother.

  Manny rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. There were differences. Men like Peppercorn were motivated and controlled by impulses, disorganized, but the killer in the Martin case was a cold, calculating psychopath. Alex and his Crime Scene Unit saw obvious similarities to Peppercorn’s “work,” but said forensic dentistry was just not that reliable, and there were only fragmented bite marks, not clean ones from which to make a partial mold. Alex said it was like the killer had varied his marks on purpose. And that was a detail Manny didn’t think Peppercorn was capable of manipulating. He just wasn’t that bright. Still, if they could locate him, Peppercorn would be a good place to start.

  His thoughts ran deeper as he passed a hand through his hair, an old nervous habit from adolescence.

  Was the whole world going crazy? What kind of animal does that to another human? It made Jack the Ripper seem like Captain Kangaroo.

  It was more than a random act; he felt it in his bones. The investigation could use him now, his intuition.

  Let it go, man. The department can handle things for a week. You’re on vacation. Louise needs you; concentrate on her for a change.

  Again, he switched focus to the coconut delight in his hand while he tried to bum rush the overwhelming nuances of the job.

  Sometimes these nuances loomed like unholy apparitions and hung on with a life of their own. He pushed again, and they scampered to some recluse corner of his head. No more work. Not here. Not now.

  That’s when the ear-splitting scream interrupted paradise.

  CHAPTER-2

  Eli Jenkins heard the shriek echo from somewhere beyond the pool, but didn’t care. Hell, it might provide a small, well-timed diversion. He stayed focused on the newlyweds sauntering toward the shadowy northwest corner of the hotel’s courtyard, their arms around each other’s waists.

  They giggled and bumped playfully as they moved near the wall, past the steamy, chlorine-filled Jacuzzi. Alone and in love.

  Except they weren’t alone.

  Mike and Lexy Crosby were so absorbed with each other, and with the night, that it would have been impossible to notice the towering figure standing in the opaque shadows. Unless the couple had been looking for him. Really looking. Which they weren’t.

  Jenkins stood mere yards from their eventual destination, hands clenched in powerful fists. He could do it now. He could tear them apart, and no one would see.

  With three long strides, he moved through the shadows and locked in on the newlyweds. He would destroy the groom and then help himself to the fine, young fruits that Crosby’s new wife flaunted like a Las Vegas whore. Then he’d steal her soul, and if time allowed, he would make sure it happened with a slow, excruciating process. Anyone who hooked up with Crosby’s ilk deserved that kind of communion with the Grim Reaper. He would make her dance an agonizing waltz with fear, turning her mind to Play-Doh. She would beg him to kill her. They all would.

  His heart rate strutted with anticipation. He wanted to see her face as she checked out, as her life-light faded like a dying star. Then, at just the right moment, he would catch her soul and keep it for his own. She would be part of him forever, like the others in Michigan. Just like that. They were with him, even now. The more the merrier.

  Migrating closer to the unmindful lovers, he could barely contain his thoughts. There was no rush like the hunt. Nothing compared to the thrill of the chase as unsuspecting prey, shadowed by a merciless predator, lived in ignorance regarding their advancing fate. It was how it should be.

  Twenty feet. He could feel their insignificant lives being crushed and snatched from them by his greedy hands. The man-mountain was now completely out of the shadows.

  One stride left.

  Slowing, his dark eyes tracked the small beads of sweat that slid lazily down Lexy’s neck toward her partially exposed cleavage. His nostrils flared with her scent.

  He was judge, jury, and, of course, executioner—the very best part.

  Abruptly, his anticipation turned to a limitless rage. It coursed through him as an endless resource, like black in outer space. The rage had been his constant companion, his life partner. Their mutual intimacy gave them purpose, like a symbiotic parasite and its helpless host. And now, they were both ready.

  He returned his focus to the doomed bride and groom, taking one last, long stride that would ensure his immortality. This was it. All he had to do was reach out and they were his, eternally.

  Until death do us part.

  CHAPTER-3

  The scream erupted again, to his left. Manny’s insides leapt somewhere past his throat, as he whirled to locate the source of the raucous shriek, reaching for a weapon he’d left locked in the safe of his Lansing home.

  He searched frantically through the dim glow of the courtyard. It took a minute, but it soon dawned on him that it hadn’t been a scream of horror, or even alarm, but a piercing laugh coming from a boisterous, vacation-clad group of young women., The ladies were clearly enjoying the cash bar, though a little too loudly for him. Or maybe he was just wound too tight.

  Imagine that.

  One of the women stopped walking and turned to Manny. “Sorry if we startled you.” She moved closer. “I think I could make it up to you if you wanted to come to my room.”

  “What a wonderful offer, but my wife wouldn’t approve.”

  She grinned. “Lucky woman.”

  The young ladies continued to stampede past, and he realized they could probably teach him a thing or two. Living in the here-and-now wasn’t a bad thing.

  He ran his hand through his hair, concentrating on bringing his heart rate down to 150 mph.

  The word is “relax,” Detective Williams.

  Leaning against the railing, he looked past the two pools adorning the verdant courtyard and noticed the stars of the night, talking and laughing through the shadowy confines of the trees. This splendor was such a contrast to the gruesome, Hell-spawned scenes that he had become far too intimate with.

  The bride and the groom stood in the shadow of the rock wall fifty yards away. She was still wearing the white, rhinestone-studded wedding dress that danced against the light whenever she moved. He guessed
she wanted to wear it as long as she could.

  Lexy had chosen wisely. Mike was a good man, strong, with a sense of purpose.

  Manny had been a twenty-three-year-old rookie when he partnered up with Mike’s dad, Gavin Crosby. Mike had been just twelve. Good kid then and a fine young man and excellent cop now, just like his dad.

  Gavin had been a great mentor, a clever detective, and a perfect choice as Lansing’s Police Chief. He had always been firm but fair, and Manny loved him like a big brother. To see Gavin’s son marry a wonderful woman like Lexy Castro was truly a pleasure. He felt like a proud uncle.

  The small, stone bridge that led across the waterway to San Juan’s venerable old fort, San Cristobal, caught his eye, hovering above and beyond the bay. He followed the lit skyline to the cruise ship wharf where they would board the Ocean Duchess in the morning. Her lighted frame and distinctive exhaust stack towered above the pier district of San Juan, creating a striking silhouette, especially at night.

  “Manny Williams. What are you doing out here alone? You could be accosted or something worse.”

  He looked to the sky and smiled. That voice was unmistakable. Liz Casnovsky, Lansing’s accomplished DA, took a couple of awkward steps toward him and settled at his right. She was dressed in a silver, sequin-littered designer gown. Her black Prada heels and matching handbag topped off a sensational look.

  She hooked her lean arm through his and gave him a peck on the cheek. Her breath was tinged with Kahlua, and her eyes held a slightly glazed quality.

  “Well, if that happened, I guess I’d know who to hire to put the bad people away.”

  “Damn straight, you would. Besides, no one gets to accost you but me, got it?”

  “Got it,” he mused. “Where’s Lynn? Did you ditch your devoted husband already?”

  “Devoted my ass! Whatever,” she slurred. “Do you know that he actually had the audacity to say I’ve had enough to drink and that I should go to bed before I hurt myself?” Liz straightened as to shuck away the words spoken by her husband, swaying a little too far to the left.