Murder on the Lake of Fire

by Mikel J. Wilson

  Emory slapped the steering wheel. “I remember that! And there was a big fuss when the name changed.”

  “Well, even though he renamed it after himself, the company was actually inherited by Meredith alone.”

  “So she owned it, but Victor ran it,” Emory restated, and Wayne nodded. “Didn’t Victor inherit it when she died?”

  “You would think, but Meredith’s dad insisted on Victor signing a pre-nup before he would allow them to marry. Then Meredith left nearly everything to the kids, cutting her own husband out of the company and the house – giving him some token money.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “The sheriff didn’t know for sure, but he said there were rumors Victor had been unfaithful, especially since he married his current wife a year later.”

  “So let me guess. The inheritance was entrusted to Victor until the kids turned eighteen.”

  “Eighteen,” Wayne said at the same time as Emory. “Britt would’ve turned eighteen in three months, at which time, she would’ve taken possession of half the estate. Her father would continue to be entrusted with her brother’s half until he turned eighteen.”

  “Now that she’s gone?”

  “Victor is in control of everything until the son turns eighteen. Now if the son…” Wayne rifled through his notes. “What’s the name?”

  “Ian.”

  “If Ian happens to die before his eighteenth birthday, Victor keeps everything.”

  “Not just Victor,” Emory pointed out. “His current wife would share in that fortune – a wife Britt apparently hated.”

  “Do you think Victor could’ve killed his own daughter?”

  “Parents have killed their children for lesser motives, but then why hire a private investigator?”

  Wayne huffed. “Yeah. He hired him, but to do what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was it really to solve the case or for misdirection – maybe to throw suspicion on someone else?”

  Emory didn’t say it, but Wayne had brought up a good point. Maybe the handsome PI had more to gain than the reward.

  “So what was all that with your dad saying that taking pictures of a murder victim is corpse desecration?”

  Emory sighed before delving into the explanation. “You have to understand that my dad hasn’t had any formal legal training. He was first elected sheriff when he was twenty-nine, and before that, he was a ranger at Smoky Mountains National Park. That’s how he and my mom met. Over the years, he’s established a lot of procedures based on his kind of home-spun understanding of the law. He doesn’t back down from his beliefs, so it’s best not to argue with him.”

  “Okay then,” Wayne said with a whatever smile. “Apart from that, I have to say I really like the guy. He’s quite the character and a hero to boot. I saw the Tennessee Medal of Honor hanging in his office. A deputy told me it was the only one ever given for heroism while not on active military duty. Of course, I guess you already know that.”

  “I remember it.”

  “What was it for? The deputy didn’t know, and the sheriff wouldn’t talk about it.”

  Emory didn’t like to talk about it either. “It’s a long story.”

  Wayne frowned at him. “I guess it runs in the family. By the way, I thought you were from Nashville.”

  Emory kept his eyes on the road. “I went to college there.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you grew up in Barter Ridge?”

  Emory glanced away from the road to face him. “You never asked where I was from.”

  After dropping off Wayne at the office, Emory returned to his apartment, warmed a cup of sassafras tea in the microwave and sat on the couch for a quick self-debrief. He transferred the day’s notes and pictures into a file on his work laptop and bulleted some tasks for the following day. When he was satisfied with his documentation, he typed “Britt Algarotti” into a search engine, and several links to videos of ice-skating competitions popped up.

  With the last words of Scot Trousdale, Victor Algarotti’s assistant, repeating in his head, he clicked on one posted two months earlier to see how she skated. About one minute into the routine, Emory mumbled, “She’s really good.” The video ended with the audience united in applause. “I don’t get it. What was he talking about?”

  He clicked on a video from a competition in Nashville three weeks ago, titled, “Britt Algarotti, Ass Skater.” This video was much different than the previous one. Britt seemed distracted and, true to the title, she spent more time on her ass than her ice skates. After forty seconds, she gave up and skidded off the ice, where her coach offered her a consoling hug.

  Emory cupped his mouth with his hand. “What happened?”

  CHAPTER 6

  FIVE THICK CANDLES gripped in an iron chandelier above the claw-foot bathtub illuminated the bathroom. Blue wax traced paths onto the candles’ sides and dripped into the full tub below. As the wax hardened at the water’s touch, it blanketed the surface with a thin skin, broken only by the exposed head and knees of the body lying inside.

  Thick, dark brown hair wicked water into droplets that trickled over the closed eyes and smooth, pale skin. The water formed a brief pool in the sunken cheeks before coursing over the angular jawline and dribbling onto the wax choked around the body’s neck.

  A cell phone alarm pelted the silence, eliciting a gasp from Emory Rome. His lean, muscular body convulsed, breaking the water’s waxy surface. He lurched out of the tub onto the plush tan rug, almost hitting his head on the chandelier. Grabbing his phone from the toilet cover, he turned off the alarm and looked at the time. Almost four hours. That’s better. He had never been one to sleep more than five or six hours, but a recent bout of inexplicable insomnia made even that duration seem like a luxury. Fran’s sassafras tea that he drank the night before was soothing, even though he hated the taste, but if it invited sleep, it did so at a whisper that went unheard. After two fidgeting hours in bed, he tried the bath and aromatherapy candles, which he estimated put him to sleep after half an hour.

  Dipping his hand into the water, he pulled the drain plug, and with his wet fingers, he pinched the wick of each candle in the chandelier to extinguish the flames. He peeled off the wax that had leeched onto his body and flung it into the wastebasket before giving himself several quick pats with a towel. He examined his face in the mirror. His eyebrows ascended in a seductive curl before dipping just a touch, like the corners of his full, masculine lips. No bags under the eyes.

  As he exited the bathroom and stepped onto the hardwood floor of his one-bedroom apartment, the sudden chill to his soles shivered his body but numbed as he continued walking naked through the living room to his dust-free desk. He pushed aside his TBI badge to retrieve the remote control and turn on a satellite dance music station. His fingers grazed a half-folded newspaper from four months earlier that had, above the fold, a color photo of Emory escorting a man in handcuffs from a brick building and a headline announcing, “Massive drug bust!” with a subhead stating, “Southeast meth & MDMA supplier shut down.” He stared at the article that chronicled the epic ending to an investigation that had consumed much of his first year as a special agent. He thought again about framing it, but he wondered if doing so would monumentalize the first in a career of great achievements or a summit he would never again reach.

  Emory looked away from the newspaper and remembered when he started working at the TBI right out of college. One of his professor’s favorite phrases had become his life’s mantra: “Focus on what you want or live a life blurred by indecision.” He made the decision to sequester his personal life in favor of the career that he loved even more. It was a choice he had never regretted, except during moments of weakness – moments that came more often with insomnia.

  Retreating to his bedroom, he opened the closet and scanned suits varying in shades from charcoal to black, and he whispered his selection, “Battleship.” Moments later, he returned to the living room wearing a black field j
acket over his grey suit. He grabbed the wool satchel hanging from his desk chair, his badge and a prescription bottle – popping a pill into his mouth before placing the bottle inside his jacket pocket.

  As he picked up his phone from the bathroom, he heard the ping of a text message dropping. He didn’t recognize the number from the text’s sender, but the message read, “Meet me in my office at eight. I need to ask you something,” followed by an address. Another text sent seconds later read, “BTW, it’s Jeff Woodard.”

  “How’d he get my number?”

  Before leaving his apartment, Emory texted Wayne to let him know he was following a lead and would meet him at the medical examiner’s office at 10 a.m.

  Once in his car, he followed his phone’s directions to Knoxville’s Old City – an area formerly called The Bowery, which served as the red-light district during the first half of the last century. Now remade into a trendy neighborhood, Old City was the site of Jeff Woodard’s detective agency. He parked in front of a two-story, brown-brick building with connecting walls to similar buildings on either side.

  Exiting the vehicle, he saw a blue sedan parked across the street. The car was unremarkable, but the unusual appearance of the driver caught his attention. He was wearing a white ski mask that concealed his face, except for his eyes. The eyeholes were perfect circles instead of ovals, but the mask’s most striking feature was the chaotic red stitching where the mouth would be and beyond – like a hideously deformed wide grin. The driver seemed to be staring at him.

  It’s not that cold. Why the mask? Crap! Is he about to rob a place? Emory scanned the street to his left and right but saw nothing that would suggest a typical target – no bank, no convenience store and no gas station. When he glanced back at the other side of the street, the ski-mask man and the blue sedan were gone. He shrugged it off and returned his attention to his destination.

  The second floor of the building had four narrow, white-paned windows, while the street-level floor had two large green-framed windows with an arched doorway between them. The lower windows were all covered from the inside with brown drapes, and the one to the left of the door had a painted sign that read, “Mourning Dove Investigations.”

  Emory turned the brass knob of the front door and entered a reception area that looked more like a library from a twisted gothic novel. The walls were almost hidden behind full bookshelves, and the only apparent door was the one he had just come through. Lantern light fixtures illuminated a harpsichord, four antique chairs and a desk of repurposed wood, behind which sat a beautiful young woman with flawless ebony skin and short, curly black hair.

  As he approached the desk, he had to sidestep a smooth tree trunk that was anchored into the floor with one of its main branches extending to a small flap-covered opening above a bookshelf. A name plate on the desk read, “Virginia Kennon.”

  “Hello. I’m here to see Jeff Woodard.”

  Virginia kept her eyes on her laptop as she typed. “Emory?”

  Emory noticed a Buddha statue atop a rosewood altar table at her side. “Yes.”

  Virginia looked up and gave him a coy smile. “He was right about you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She didn’t answer but nodded to the chairs. “If you care to wait, he’ll be here soon.”

  Emory meandered toward the chairs, checking out the books on the shelves. They were filled with complete sets of mystery novel series, many of which appeared to be first-edition hardcovers. He saw everything from Agatha Christie’s sleuths and Sherlock Holmes to Nancy Drew and The Three Investigators. When he did make it to a chair, he saw on the nearby lamp table a stuffed bobcat, staring at him with black eyes and tufted ears perked in a pose of curiosity. Emory reached out to touch its tan and brown-spotted fur and was shocked when its large padded paw gave his hand a playful swat.

  “Holy sh…” he screamed as he jumped from the chair.

  Virginia laughed at him as if she never tired of the scare the bobcat elicited from first-time visitors. “That’s Bobbie. Don’t worry. She won’t bite.”

  “I didn’t think it was real.” He extended his hand to pet her, but before he could make contact, the front door opened.

  Jeff entered wearing his pea coat and jeans, and carrying two steaming paper cups of coffee. “Here you go, Virginia.” As the cup tapped her desktop, he followed her gaze and noticed the visitor. With a wide grin, the PI hurried across the room and shook Emory’s hand. “You’re here,” he announced as if it were a pleasant surprise.

  “Why did you want to see me?” asked Emory, startled by his own abruptness.

  Jeff motioned for him to follow. “Let’s talk in my office. Virginia, are you ready for us?”

  She sipped her coffee as her eyes returned to the laptop. “Couple of minutes.”

  Jeff walked up to one of the bookshelves and without even looking, he pulled on the only non-mystery book on the shelf – John Knowles’ A Separate Peace. The shelf swung open, revealing Jeff’s office on the other side. As soon as the door opened, Bobbie darted through it and leapt onto his desk.

  Emory couldn’t keep from scanning the room as he stepped inside. No matter where he looked, something caught his eye. It was similar to the reception area but with fewer shelves, more hanging art, a single window and an exquisite map of the world painted onto the floor. A tree trunk identical to the one in the other room stood in the corner closest to Jeff’s desk, including a branch ending at a flap-covered opening near the top of the wall.

  Hanging his coat on a wooden rack stand, Jeff took a seat behind his desk and petted Bobbie.

  Emory nodded toward the feline. “You know, bobcats are illegal to own in Tennessee.”

  “Not if you get it from a licensed breeder. I have the documentation to support it, so stand down, Agent Rome.” Jeff patted the bobcat on the backside. “Go home, Bobbie.”

  The bobcat jumped from the desk to the tree trunk and, although twice the size of a housecat, climbed it with grace and speed to the flap-covered opening, disappearing on the other side.

  “Where did she go?”

  Jeff pointed up. “I live upstairs.”

  Emory spread out his arms. “You have an impressive office.”

  A glittering smile cut across Jeff’s face. “Thanks. Sometimes you have to create your own mystery.”

  “I have a mystery for you.” Emory sat at one of the two tracery cathedral chairs that faced Jeff’s desk. “How did you get my number?”

  “From your business card.”

  “I didn’t give you—”

  “You intrigue me, Emory Rome.”

  “Me?” Emory could feel his face flush. “Why do you say that?”

  “I can tell you’ve got something inside you that your muted demeanor and dull, grey suits aren’t going to keep pent up forever.”

  Before Emory could respond, Virginia entered. “I’m in, and I have some leads for you to check out.” Carrying the laptop under her arm, she walked over to Jeff’s side of the desk and opened it.

  Jeff glanced at the computer and at Emory. “We’re about to share information with you in good faith because I need some help from you.”

  Emory eyed him with cautious intrigue. “What sort of help?”

  Jeff waved off the question. “We’ll get to that later. Go ahead, Virginia.”

  The young woman nodded to the screen, the back of the computer facing Emory. “Britt had a boyfriend, Dan Claymon—”

  Jeff interrupted her. “Victor said she didn’t have a boyfriend.”

  “He lied. Well, sort of. The two were all ODA up until a week ago.”

  Emory tapped on the desk. “ODA?”

  Jeff rolled his eyes up from the screen. “Online displays of affection.”

  Virginia continued, “At that point, their exchanges became hostile over—”

  “Wait a second.” Emory raised his right hand as if calling for a timeout. “How are you getting access to information like that?”

  Je
ff pointed at the laptop. “Through Britt Algarotti’s computer.”

  “Her comp…Where did you get that?”

  “Her brother gave it to me.”

  Exasperated, Emory stood and pointed at the laptop. “You obtained this illegally.”

  Virginia backed away from the desk. “Perhaps I should let you two settle this.” She left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Jeff glared at Emory with obvious annoyance. “Did you not hear me? Her brother gave it to me.”

  “He’s thirteen. He doesn’t have the authority. Anything gleaned from it now would be unusable.”

  “Well I don’t plan on gleaning anything from it. I’m just getting some information about her life, so I can solve the case and collect my check.”

  “But that’s wrong.”

  “I’m not going to keep it.”

  Emory threw up his hands. “That’s not the issue.”

  Jeff walked around the desk to stand before the TBI special agent. “No, the issue is that you and I are in the same game, but I have a different playbook.” He pointed at Emory’s chest, and the tip of his finger tapped his sternum. “I don’t have to follow yours.”

  “The right thing to do—”

  “The boundary between right and wrong isn’t stationary. It moves according to circumstance.”

  “No, it doesn’t. What’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong!”

  Jeff brandished his right hand. “If I slapped you right now because you’re getting annoying, that would be wrong.” He lowered his hand. “If you had just fainted, and I slapped you to wake you up, you’d be thanking me.”

  Emory scowled at him. “I’ve never fainted.”

  Jeff let loose a little laugh. “Now who’s missing the point? You can’t tell me you’ve never bent the law, not even a little.”

  “I follow the rules.”

  “Why? What have the rules ever done for you?”

  Jeff was standing so close now, Emory could see the rhythm of his heart in the veins of his muscular neck. “Listen, I’m going to pretend I didn’t see this.” He motioned toward the laptop. “Don’t look at it anymore, and give it back to that kid. I’m outta here.”