BOOKER Box Set #2 (A Private Investigator Thriller Series of Crime and Suspense): Volumes 4-6

by John W. Mefford

  “That’s okay. We believe you,” Henry said, turning his head while moving back a step.

  “Any other evidence on the body that would connect the judge to another person?”

  “Nothing that stands out. Tips of his fingers are scraped, but that was most likely caused by him falling onto the concrete sidewalk.”

  My eyes connected with Henry’s, and I felt sure we were wondering the same thing, without saying it out loud in front of mixed company. The Judge’s cause of death was quite different than that of Officer Miller’s, whose neck was broken, yet they both shared the same type of brutal beating. Why the difference, if it was the same killer? Or, looking at it from another perspective, why the similarity, if it wasn’t the same killer?

  The three of us walked out of the examining room and into the hallway.

  “I guess you’re here because of your client?” Bobby said, shuffling his boot on the slick floor.

  “Yeah…uh, I’ve—”

  Henry jumped in, obviously not wanting to perpetuate our fabrication any further. “I guess you were at the crime scene earlier today?”

  “Half the night and this morning. Took about six cups of coffee to keep me upright,” he said with a country chuckle.

  “You know this one is going to get lots of attention from every level of the government. Hell, you might get a call from DC,” Henry said. “I can help you out on the front, give you some cover.”

  “I’ll take whatever I can get. Appreciate it.” Bobby craned his neck to the side as if he was about to fire off a laser beam of chew onto the floor, but he seemed to quickly recall that he was indoors…and chewing on a toothpick.

  We slowly meandered down the hallway. Henry and Bobby were talking shop, and I was listening in…as best as I could over the shuffling of Bobby’s worn boots.

  “I know you’re probably tired as hell after the long night, but I’d like to pick your brain.”

  “As long as my eyes are open, I guess I can oblige,” Bobby said, grasping his hands together behind his back, trying to look more academic maybe. But his Southern drawl easily countered the professor look.

  “Did the judge have his wallet stolen?”

  “Wasn’t on him, according to his wife. But it didn’t appear that anyone checked. As you can see by looking at the body, this was an emotional killing.”

  “We know we have a good idea on the COD. Have you found the actual murder weapon?” Henry asked.

  “We think so, at least at a macro level,” he said.

  “Didn’t know we were in an economics class,” I had to throw in.

  Henry shifted his eyes my way, which reminded me that, without an official badge, I should be content with listening and not speaking. As for the special badge given to me by the chief, we couldn’t use our ace of spades just yet, at least not on something this low key. The badge would be saved for the moment in time when nothing else would work. Knowing I wouldn’t win any friends when I revealed my role with the chief, I was hoping to keep it under wraps until the investigation was closed.

  “Booker, didn’t know you were still here,” Bobby said with more than a hint of sarcasm. He leaned forward, looking past Henry to me.

  “Pay me no attention. I’m just checking my email,” I said, pulling my cell phone out of my pocket, matching his sarcasm.

  “The murder weapon?” Henry asked.

  “Right. Given the red fragments and dust found on the concrete, grass, and as Dan showed us here, on the vic, we’re rather certain the red brick is sitting about a hundred feet from where they found the judge.”

  “What’s with the macro level then? Haven’t you labeled it as evidence?”

  “I wish. It’s sitting in a pile of similar red bricks.”

  Henry gave Bobby a confused look.

  “Someone is adding on to their house, or building a pool house?” I offered.

  Bobby snapped his fingers and pretended to fire a gun with his hand at me. “You got it. The perp must have jumped the fence off the park, taken one of the bricks, killed the judge, then thrown it back.”

  “Couldn’t he have taken the brick with him?” Henry asked.

  “It’s possible. We found a trail of red dust leading up to the fence. But who would want to carry around a brick?”

  “True,” Henry said, scratching the side of his head.

  “We just haven’t found the brick yet; at least we don’t think so. Crews are still out there right now.” Bobby’s voice trailed off as he pulled out his phone, then extended his arm and squinted.

  “Can’t see shit without my readers. Who am I kidding? I never wear the damn things anyway. Uh…nothing yet from the CSI team.”

  “Mind if I challenge your red-brick theory?” I asked, purposely keeping my sights off Henry.

  “Shoot.”

  “We believe this was an emotional killing, but that is usually associated with a spontaneous action, like road rage or someone threatening them,” I said.

  “I’m following ya,” Bobby said, nodding.

  “The other type of emotional killing is usually driven by jealousy or a vendetta of some kind. So, if the perp shows up knowing he’s going to kill the judge, maybe because the judge sentenced him to prison a while back, wouldn’t he already have the weapon?”

  “I can see your point.” Bobby’s jaw crunched on the toothpick, his eyes wandering over my shoulder.

  I let that point sit for a moment as we approached the set of elevators.

  “Want to take the stairs?” Henry had already opened the door, and the three of us started the slow trek upward.

  Bobby stopped on the third step, as if a couple of data points had just intersected. “Are you trying to say the killer didn’t use the brick? Because that’s kind of hard to dispute at this point.”

  “I’m wondering if the killer knew the bricks would be there.”

  “And I guess he could have known the judge’s routine. His wife says he took the same walk with his dog every night.”

  “You didn’t mention a dog was there,” Henry said.

  “Oh, missed that part. Must be my brain fog,” Bobby said, rubbing his face that had more than a few gray whiskers. “It was like clockwork. The judge took his St. Bernard, Bentley, on the same path after work every evening.”

  “The dog didn’t get injured?” Henry asked.

  “Nothing obvious. We’re sending a vet over to the house to give him a full check just to make sure.”

  “Strange that the dog wouldn’t be more protective, try to chase the perp away,” Henry said, shifting from me to the detective.

  “Apparently, this dog was scared of his own shadow, or at least wasn’t into confrontation, unless it was a wayward squirrel. Bentley ran back to the house, dragging his leash. That’s when the wife came looking for her husband.”

  “She was the one who found him?” I asked as we pushed through the door on the first floor and moved toward the front door.

  “Yeah. The family living nearest the park heard a woman screaming, ran outside, and found her draped across her husband, covered in blood.”

  “So you’ve ruled out any role she might have played in it?”

  A deep crevice formed between Bobby’s eyes. “I think you know how this works. No one is eliminated as a possible suspect until evidence allows us to cross them off the list.”

  So far, Bobby was passing all the tests.

  Bobby added, “So, despite the grief from Ms. Fischer, she isn’t free just yet.”

  “The brick,” I said, steering us back on point. “A bunch of questions come to mind. If you don’t find it in that neighbor’s backyard, then the killer must have taken it with him or dumped it elsewhere.”

  “I got a few uniforms canvassing the area, in case it doesn’t turn up in the backyard. Might have DNA from the perp—”

  “And we’ll need it for the trial,” Henry spoke up.

  Scratching my goatee, I looked through the glass door of the building, noticed rain falling
at a steady pace.

  “Any witnesses come forward?”

  “Just one. A man was walking to his mailbox when he saw a younger guy on his bicycle. Said it looked odd. The cyclist had on khakis and a dark jacket of some kind. The man said he’d never seen him in his neighborhood.”

  “I guess you’re working on a better description, a sketch—”

  “I’m on top of it, yes. The man is at headquarters right now working with our one….yes, one sketch artist. Damn budget keeps getting cut, and we won’t have money to fill our gas tanks every day.”

  Henry chimed in, “I hear ya.”

  Bobby scoffed. “What did they do, lower your quota of highlighters and print cartridges?” He leaned back and laughed, then he stuck his thumb in his front pocket. I almost wondered why he was working the big-city cop scene. His personality seemed better suited for Mabank or Hico, not Dallas.

  The stereotypical cowboy detective took a phone call, then waved at us as he headed to his car. Actually, it was a truck, about ten years beyond its prime.

  “Booker, you might want to give the judge’s wife a call, see if you can sign her up as a client,” Henry said, staring at the rain on the other side of the door.

  “It’s not really my style to solicit the widows.”

  “We need to cover our tracks, just in case. We’re not doing this for our health, and certainly not for career advancement,” Henry said, his eyes widening for a quick second to emphasize his point.

  “Yeah, I know.” I thought for a moment about how I might initiate a conversation with the judge’s wife.

  Henry pushed through the glass revolving door, then paused under the awning.

  “I’ve already sent a few files to Alisa. Should give you some more data to chew on.”

  “Might taste better than a toothpick,” I said, arching an eyebrow.

  “I know. What’s up with that?” Henry shook his head as he tucked his portfolio under his jacket.

  “We all have our vices, I suppose. Speaking of, I haven’t been able to squeeze in my workout today.”

  “Better get a wet suit.”

  My phone buzzed, and I checked the screen. “It’s the chief. I better get it.”

  “Call me if it’s anything important,” Henry said, holding his hand to his ear. He took off for his car.

  “Booker here.”

  The chief got right to it, without introduction: “So is there any connection to the other murders?”

  “Hi, Chief. At this stage, it’s hard to say definitively. From the evidence I’ve seen from Henry, from talking to a detective, and from getting a preliminary ME report, there are similarities. But at this point, it could be circumstantial.”

  I heard heavy breathing through the headset over the gentle rain, and it wasn’t the creepy type of heavy breathing.

  “Dammit, Booker, I need results. Why do you think I picked you for this case?”

  Patience wasn’t his strong suit.

  “I know you’re under a lot of pressure,” I said.

  “Shit, Booker, I eat pressure for breakfast. We thought this situation was loaded when two cops were murdered. Now, we have a judge’s murder on our hands. Did you hear that? A judge. That crime alone will make the headlines from Dallas to Denmark. Hell.” He sounded like a brooding child.

  “I feel like I’m making some progress. Lots of ground to cover, especially with this third murder. But if we can find a link between all three of the victims, and evidence to support a lone killer, then it’s not a cop killer we’re after.”

  “You’re right, Booker. It’s worse. It would stretch from the front ranks to the court system. Every judge and city and county official would hire a bodyguard, ready to take out the first person who looked like a deviant. Dallas would start to resemble the Old West. Is that what you want, going back in time a hundred fifty years?”

  “I wouldn’t be allowed to vote, or have this job a hundred fifty years ago.” I quickly realized the way that came across. “Didn’t mean to shoot from the hip.”

  I heard an audible breath, but nothing else for a few seconds. Was the guy having a heart attack?

  “Chief?”

  “Uh, yeah.” He sounded distracted, as if he was speaking with someone else.

  “Are we speaking in confidence right now?”

  “Of course. You know the tight lid I’ve put on this case.”

  I wasn’t convinced he was telling the truth, but I couldn’t call him out. Not without knowing for certain.

  “Look, I’m working this case with everything I got. I have a few leads, but I need a little more time.”

  “Fuck that, Booker. You want another cop or judge killed on your watch?”

  I thought it was “our watch,” but I wasn’t going to argue the point.

  “Of course not. But you hired a PI, not a police force. It takes some time.”

  “Dammit, I don’t have the luxury of time. Make. Progress. Now.”

  The phone line went dead.

  I stared at the phone, my jaw clenched as my mind sifted through a string of hyphenated descriptive terms. I’d dealt with plenty of guys like Ligon in my past, most with the word “coach” in front of their names. And just like a college football coach, they charmed you to sign on board, then kicked your ass the moment you started.

  I pocketed the phone and walked around to the side lot, rain pelting off my black leather jacket, knowing I’d already accepted the chief’s challenge. I owned it. Dallas, even with all its warts, was my home turf. I’d worn the uniform, put bad guys behind bars. I knew about all the risks, as well as the related cynicism that ebbed and flowed through the various layers of our multicultural population.

  Just then, I heard an engine roar. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something big and white barreling toward me. I turned my head and spotted the front grille of a massive sedan less than ten feet from me.

  Was I so out of it that I allowed myself to walk into the middle of a street, toward an oncoming car?

  I spun and dove to the side. In midair, I could have sworn the car swerved toward me. The front end clipped my Doc Marten boot, spinning me like a helicopter blade. I ricocheted off an SUV and a minivan, then tumbled to the wet surface, forcing out a painful groan.

  Glancing up, the white boat sped off. Through rain-soaked windows, I thought I spotted someone wearing red in the passenger seat. Was he bald? And black?

  “Fucking asshole.” Closing my eyes, I reached for the back of my head. A lump had already formed. I looked at my fingers and saw blood. Raindrops pelted my face as I peered across the parking lot and replayed the last thirty seconds, ending with a conclusive thought.

  It was Metrick.

  8

  “You going to sit still or am I going to have to handcuff you?” Alisa said while using a pair of tweezers to remove chunks of glass from the back of my head.

  “Can that be an option a little later when I feel better?” I asked as I laid my head across her lap in our PI office above The Jewel.

  “Why, Booker T. Adams! You’ve never been that…uh, straightforward with me before.”

  “Me either,” Justin said in monotone.

  “Thanks for knocking,” I said with a muffled voice.

  “Any time. I’m just the owner of the business leasing you this space,” Justin said, pulling around to where he could see what was going on. “What the hell? Did someone shoot you in the head?”

  “That would mean he’d added brain cells,” Alisa said.

  “Thanks,” I said, obviously not in a position to counter any points being made. I tried twisting my neck toward Justin. “What’s up with this ownership thing?”

  “Stop. Moving,” Alisa growled, gripping my neck in her hand.

  “I’m just busting your balls, Booker. And no One Nut jokes in return,” he said. “Seriously, this looks like something a medical professional should be doing. I know Alisa has many skills, including being a top-notch private investigator, but I think this might fal
l out of her wheelhouse.”

  “It’s nothing. I can’t really see the back of my head. Alisa’s just cleaning out a little cut.”

  “Nothing but a mere flesh wound,” Justin said in the worst British accent, paying homage to the Monty Python movies we’d watched dozens of times as teenagers.

  “Nice try,” I said to Justin, who started chuckling.

  “Are we close to finishing yet?” I knew we had real work to accomplish.

  “Shit, Booker, if you were a normal person, we wouldn’t have to be doing surgery in the middle of a bar,” Alisa said.

  “We’re in our office fourteen steps above the bar, and I didn’t want to waste the time sitting in the emergency room at Parkland. Have you seen that place?”

  “Uh, yeah. It’s like…an emergency room, where people get glass pulled out of their head and get stitches and shit,” Justin added.

  Alisa finished the glass-pulling exercise, then doused my head with peroxide.

  “That stings.”

  “Good,” they said in tandem.

  “Hold this against your head,” she said, pressing a gauze pad over the cleaned wound.

  I took control and sat up.

  “Tell me the other guy looks worse than you do,” Justin said, kicking back in my office chair, plopping his feet on my desk.

  “It was the back window of a minivan.”

  “Oooh. A minivan.”

  “You think minivans have cooties, Justin?” Alisa asked.

  “It’s more about what they represent. Wives, kids, boring routines. Not my cup of tea.”

  “Ever the playboy.”

  Turning my torso, I could easily see Alisa’s eye roll.

  “Do you mind if I take my chair back? Alisa and I have some important business to discuss.”

  Justin picked himself up and moved to the side as I took a seat, my hand still holding the bandage against my head.

  “Does that business include figuring out your next date?”

  Alisa and I both stopped moving. Our eyes locked on each other, then we turned to Justin.

  “How long have you known?”

  “Years.”