BOOKER Box Set #1 (Books 1-3: A Private Investigator Thriller Series of Crime and Suspense)

by John W. Mefford

Albert averted his eyes, a full moon casting splintery shadows from enormous eighty-year-old red oaks lining the two-lane road. A rural oasis carved out of the densely populated city, Preston Hollow was home to twenty-acre estates, an eclectic mix of Dallas wealth: old money, new money, Texas-born, European-born. Names included Malaouf, Perot, Hunt, Nowitzki, Troutt, Cuban. And Yates.

  “Just remember, Jared, you said in the twenty-first century. Kershaw is one of the best pitchers playing right now, without a doubt. But baseball goes back a long ways. The best I’ve ever seen? Bob Gibson, St. Louis Cardinals. He could bring the heat like no one else. Summer of 1968, he had an ERA of 1.12, with thirteen shutouts. Opposing players were terrified every time they stepped in the batter’s box. Shit, he was the best.”

  “Ha. Remember, Mom doesn’t like you cussing around me, Dad.”

  Albert smirked. “Let’s just keep it between us boys.”

  The boys had just watched the hometown Texas Rangers drop the season opener to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-1, a first for both teams to open the season playing a team in the opposite league.

  “Why didn’t you play in the major leagues, Dad? Didn’t you say you played against Don Mattingly in the minors?”

  “Ha!” Jared’s dad snorted from the far-fetched notion. “I played against Mattingly in Little League, just before we moved from Indiana.”

  “That kind of sucks, you know, the whole moving thing,” Jared said, gripping his fingers across the seams like he was ready to throw a curveball.

  “I can assure you it had no bearing on your dad playing in the major leagues.” Albert released a chuckle, then wiped tired eyes. “Besides, the next year I got to see Bob Gibson pitch.”

  Jared nodded, saying nothing else, then continued toying with the autographed baseball.

  Just past the Nowitzki estate, Albert slowed the six-hundred-horsepower vehicle and glanced at his son. He could see the truth had taken him down a couple of notches in Jared’s eyes. He instantly regretted being so transparent to his son, especially at his preteen age. Thinking back to his own childhood, he wished he’d been spared hearing the harsh reality about his father, although many of the ugly comments were no more than vitriol. God rest his soul.

  Turning into their quarter-mile long driveway, hidden tree lamps illuminated a flood of cracked shadows.

  Thwack!

  “What was that?” Jared gripped the dash, as his dad jammed the brakes.

  “Hold on, stay in here.” Albert crawled out of the driver’s seat, his eyes on high alert. Shuffling to the front of the car, he leaned over, noticed a nick taken out of the paint just above the cage-like grill. A stone with jagged edges about the size of a softball sat under the car.

  “Motherfucker.” He gritted his teeth, squinting toward a large row of shrubs lining the far side of the driveway. Unable to spot a living creature, two- or four-legged, he kicked the rock off to the side.

  Back in the car, Albert slid the gear into drive.

  “What was is it, Dad? Did you see anyone?” Jared’s voice pitched higher, his eyes wide with anxiety.

  “We’re fine. I think it was just one of these animals we’re seeing running around, the armadillos. Damn varmints will ruin a foundation, but they’re also predatory if they feel like you’re threatening them. I guess they got scared by the car.”

  Jared nodded his head, as if the believability of the story was trying to grow roots in his mind. “Right, the Bentley.”

  Rubbing his forehead in the same spot, Albert could feel his heart thump against his chest, his brain on overdrive, churning through who could have thrown the rock. He eyed the dash, considered calling up Tyler, his security guard. But he didn’t want to alarm his son, and he was sure he’d see him at the end of the driveway.

  “Nothing can hurt us in here. We’re invincible!” Jared tossed the baseball upward, caught it in the same hand, then raised both fists, like he’d just won the Battle Royale.

  Albert wasn’t thrilled with his son’s perspective of the world. But at least it didn’t match the ostentatious attitude of his prissy seventeen-year-old daughter, Sophi, whose nose couldn’t get any higher as she pranced around in designer clothes while driving a BMW 5 Series, all thanks to the spoils of her mother, his wife of the last twenty-four years.

  Eighteen-inch tires clipped gaps in the porous pavers, ground cover growing out of each one. Albert checked his rearview, watching for anyone to step out of the shadows. All was clear. He’d had custom steel plates built into the Bentley’s side panels, making the car virtually bulletproof. But he knew if someone wanted you bad enough, that person could find a way to get to you.

  As they rolled up to the garage, Albert clicked the opener.

  “Looks like Mom started another one of her projects.” Jared laughed.

  They both stared at six rattan rocking chairs, white paint nearly a hundred-percent stripped, slivers of torn rattan dangling this way and that, resting on newspaper inside a six-car garage. The rockers took up the two open spaces.

  “Wouldn’t your mother think it makes more sense to protect a two-hundred-thousand-dollar investment than some crappy old chairs she probably picked up at a flea market sale?”

  Huffing through his nose, Albert parked just under the basketball goal.

  “Can you ask your mom if she can find a different place for her project? I didn’t see Tyler when we rolled in. I’m going to find him, talk to him a moment. Can you do that for me?”

  “Sure thing, Dad.”

  Jared jumped out of the car and jogged toward the garage. “Hey, Dad,” Jared yelled with a cupped hand, a good sixty feet away.

  Already distracted by his own thoughts and Tyler’s lack of presence, Albert paused.

  “Dad, can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, sure. What’s up, Jared?” Albert’s eyes searched the surroundings as leaves ruffled beyond a cluster of trees toward the back side of the property.

  “Just wanted you to know I had a blast tonight. Thanks for taking me.” Jared tossed the ball and popped it back into his palm.

  “Sure thing, son. Glad you enjoyed it.” A warm sensation temporarily replaced a pit of anxiety, and Albert believed that’s why he put up with all the bullshit from stockholders and board members, and even spoiled family members. Moments like those with his son were irreplaceable.

  A yodeling owl from a branch above refocused Albert’s attention, and he walked down brick landscaping steps. Wind tousled his thinning hair as leaves whirled into a mini-spiral, then collapsed onto natural stone pavers. He looked straight up, trying to find a clear view of the sky through the cacophony of tree branches, searching for stars or the moon. He could feel it in his bones, a late-season cold front was blowing in. Leaves and other debris continued stirring, skipping across his path, the only sounds being produced by Mother Nature.

  “Tyler, are you over there?” Albert paused, looked across the backyard to the other side of a round pool, which had a hundred-foot diameter. Windblown ripples of water propelled a red, spongy pool mat, and it drifted toward the back end of the pool. With a nice-sized tire hanging over his belly, Albert walked in that direction, noticing a flurry of moss and leaves flying into the water. He’d just cleaned out the pool over the weekend.

  “Sometimes I don’t know why I even bother,” he said to no one, bending over and grabbing hold of the weighty foam float, then scraping it along the edge of the pool until it flopped to a stop.

  A sound…or so he thought. A quick inhale, then slowly he released a silent breath, a spark of electricity climbing his spine.

  “Someone there?” he called into the dimly lit forest of trees that outlined the property and served as a sound barrier against the neighbors’ outdoor parties. Licking his lips, he turned his head back and forth, searching for someone he hoped not to find. His pistol was locked away in a safe inside. Didn’t have time to mess with running back into the house.

  Where the hell was Tyler?

  Thinking back, he recall
ed why he’d hired the former NorthPark Center security director. The Evergreen Energy home office had been the target of two tree-hugging environmental groups, nothing but radical extremists in his mind. Countless times, he had to wade through a mob of screaming hippies holding up signs just outside the gates of their Forest Lane headquarters.

  “Evergreen Energy is run by a bunch of frauds!”

  “Fuck the frackers!”

  “Stop fracking. It pollutes our water!”

  “Evergreen—the kings of fracking!”

  He’d heard everything. But words never meant much to Albert, as long as the groups didn’t impact the company’s bottom line. His vice president of communications, however, had provided ample evidence of the public relations hit Evergreen would continue to take if the company didn’t respond. So they launched a media campaign to smother those who lived to fight with corporations that fueled the world’s global economy. It took a couple of months and about ten million dollars, but the new Evergreen pro-environment propaganda machine had begun to redirect the noise, creating a new image for the company and for Albert Yates. The flock of stoners slowly gave up hope, or got distracted by a swarm of butterflies and evaporated into thin air.

  All except for one small faction—a few demented souls who wouldn’t stop until they’d bankrupted the company, forced Albert to step down from his lofty position, or convinced the company to alter their gas exploration procedures.

  Like that would ever happen.

  The group was small, but effective in creating an atmosphere of hate and fear. They left nasty notes with pictures of dead animals on the cars owned by everyone in headquarters. While Albert had received threats previously—it more or less went with the CEO title—the one he received six weeks earlier did a number on him. Late one Friday afternoon after all the administrative assistants and peons had left, Albert picked up a ringing phone, only to hear a breathy voice utter one simple sentence: “Stop fracking, or we will hunt you down and kill you.”

  That’s when he’d hired Tyler. He could recall an icy patch form on the back of his neck…just like now.

  The same noise as before…and it wasn’t the wind, or two colliding branches. Was that a grunt, someone trying to speak?

  “Tyler?” His voice pitched a half-octave higher, but still soft. He quickly glanced back at the house and spotted a single light through closed shades in the kitchen. Swallowing, his throat felt like it was coated in cold glue. His ear crackled, and he stepped toward the noise near the pool shed.

  “Tyler, are you okay?” He spoke only to reassure himself that he was safe, on his own property. Who would dare invade Billionaire’s Row?

  Snap.

  Dropping his eyes, he found a broken twig under his rubber sole, then allowed his lungs to release air.

  Uhh. Uhh.

  No mistake this time. Someone was moaning.

  Albert could feel his pulse thumping his temples, his head about to explode. Damn, he wished he’d spent a few hours a week working out.

  More leaves and branches crunched under his weight as he reached for the edge of the red brick shed that was no larger than a one-car garage.

  “Tyler. It’s Albert. Everything okay?” His voice fought to push air through his constricted chest.

  Nearing the far corner of the shed he stopped, anchored his arm against the side, edging his neck forward.

  Shoes, pants, a knee, jostling around. Arcing around the corner, Albert found Tyler squirming in the dense underbrush, his hands and feet tied together behind his back, facing the opposite direction.

  “What the hell?”

  Albert lunged forward, leaned down to Tyler’s face.

  “Tyler, what happened? Are you okay?” he panted.

  The security guard’s head shook violently, tears streaming down his face. Albert shifted another couple of feet and saw a T-shirt of some kind stuffed into Tyler’s mouth, tied to his head with some type of thin rope. He pulled on the T-shirt, but the rope was taut. He tugged harder, and it felt like he was holding the end of a bone with a dog clamping down on the other end.

  The rope finally loosened just enough to allow enough slack for Albert to start pulling the T-shirt away from the guard’s mouth.

  “Tyler, I’m trying—”

  Without warning, a thin wire ripped into Albert’s throat. He fell backward, but he didn’t fall to the ground. Whoever had the other end lifted Albert off the ground, the wire burrowing into folds of flesh, a heavy scent of copper in the air. Clawing at the wire, Albert’s fingernails dug into his own neck, but they couldn’t wedge behind the wire. Tiny bursts of air escaped, nothing more than feeble gags. Darkness invaded his thoughts as his vision lost focus of Tyler’s blurry back squirming like a fish out of water.

  Albert swung his arms back, grasping for human body parts—an arm, hand, maybe the beast’s testicles. Nothing but air, like he was swinging at a Bob Gibson fastball.

  Just before drifting away, he thought he heard words, phlegmy grunts.

  Then, with his pumpkin head about to explode from pressure, his neck nearly severed, Albert Yates said a quick prayer, asking for repentance.

  But he couldn’t reverse the undoable.

  And then it all went dark.

  4

  Smacking a hand on the desk, my back arched to attention. Glass had smashed off concrete in the bar one floor below us—the third such smash in the last fifteen minutes. Justin’s pride and joy, The Jewel, was starting to sound like a second-tier honkytonk after hosting a bikini mud-wrestling contest.

  “Don’t pay any attention to it. I’ve tried talking to that man, and he’s just in his own world.” Alisa’s amber eyes peered up and spotted a wayward curl. She blew the wavy lock out of her face.

  “A different world than usual?” The Justin I’d known since we were middle school football teammates—the fastest white boy I’d ever seen cutting across the turf—wasn’t inclined to watch money slip through his fingers, unless there was a marketing angle associated with it. A couple of months back he hosted a bartender contest, one based on the flare and artistry of creating adult beverages.

  Who knew that elite bartenders were essentially a traveling sideshow, each with their own little posse?

  But the man who’d taken an abandoned car parts building off Greenville Avenue and transformed it into a rather successful small business over the last ten years, counted every dollar that went in and out of The Jewel. From what he’d hinted at, the majority flowed back into the bar.

  Alisa huffed out a breath, then brushed a finger under tired eyes. Five years my senior, we’d actually met on the party circuit when I’d attended the University of Texas in Austin. We had a brief, one night fling, then moved on with our lives. She started working for Justin about five years ago, and we’d never really brought up our past. No need. She had her life, and I’d certainly had my share of experiences since graduating.

  “He’s going to be the death of me,” she said, fluttering her eyes.

  “Got something in your eye?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you pull your eyelid over the eyeball, the piece of debris usually—”

  “I’m not as ditzy as you think I am.”

  “I never said you were ditzy. Just blond. That’s not the same thing.” I let out a deep chuckle.

  “Ha! I just had my eyelashes done, and I can’t touch them or I’ll look off balance.”

  I nodded, acting like I understood her predicament. “Justin asking you to work longer hours?”

  “Yes, but it’s not just that. Mentally, he’s out to lunch. Which puts more on me. Sometimes I feel like his mother, running around cleaning up his messes. Then again, he looks like a walking zombie, working night and day on that new business with the Double Ds.”

  Against my urging, Justin had partnered with David Bradley, chef and proprietor of a five-star Asian fusion restaurant called Marvel—yes, the one that highlighted such comic superheroes as Spider Man, Captain America, and Iron
Man—in a side food truck business. To say I had a history with David and his youthful cover boy toy and partner Dax, was putting it mildly. David had been the focal point of my first PI case. Presenting himself as an investment consultant, he preyed on women who’d just buried their husbands, using his natural charm and good looks to convince them to invest in a Real Estate Investment Trust.

  My involvement started when I’d heard he swindled twenty-five thousand dollars from Justin’s sister, Jenna. Over the course of a few weeks, I located David and eventually pulled information from him and Dax. The REIT, owned privately by Chicago businessman Vincent Sciafini, existed, more or less, but the investors would never see their money again.

  Working as little more than an indentured servant, David had secured the investments from unsuspecting women to pay off a massive gambling debt of more than a million bucks that he owed Sciafini, once nicknamed “The Shark.” In addition to retaining debt obligations from his connections to casino owners in Las Vegas, Sciafini owned several Chicago-based companies, most of which gave the impression of a legitimate business.

  David once described Sciafini as having ties to organized crime, but I learned Sciafini was organized crime. And he essentially owned David, who apparently had a brilliant financial mind, and his restaurant.

  But that’s when it got complicated. I swore to David that I wouldn’t turn him into the authorities if he handed over the name of a Dallas cop who was running a drug-dealing operation, information he’d overheard while running his restaurant. The FBI eventually arrested Ernie Sims, an old nemesis of mine who played a part in getting me pushed out of the Dallas Police Department. But that only created deeper ties with David, and as a result, Sciafini. And now, my old buddy Justin had been sucked into the vortex. I’d yet to tell Justin the whole story. I’d hinted at some of the risks, but I couldn’t afford for the whole sordid affair to become even more public. I did it to protect Justin, as much as my family and myself, but I quickly realized my inaction had probably created the opposite effect, exposing my best buddy to the tentacles of organized crime.