by Loretta Ross
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Death and the Redheaded Woman © 2014 by Loretta Ross
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First e-book edition © 2014
E-book ISBN: 978-0-7387-4582-4
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dedication
This book is dedicated, with love, to the memory of my parents:
EDWARD LAMONT ROSS
and
EMMA ALICE (EMERSON) ROSS
acknowledgments
Becoming a published author is a lifelong dream for me, but it is one that I never could have accomplished on my own. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the following people for their help and kindness.
First and foremost, I’d like to thank my family for overlooking my many and varied eccentricities and never, even once, trying to have me committed. I’d also like to thank them for unwittingly providing me with unlimited material, even if my agent makes me cut most of it because it’s “too bizarre to be believed.”
I’d like to thank all the wonderful people online who read and commented on my early attempts at writing. Their encouragement was invaluable and I learned more from their constructive feedback than I ever could have from books or writing courses. I’d particularly like to thank the members of the first online writing circle I ever belonged to, a Yahoo group known as Channel D. They stuck by me during some very difficult times in my personal life, and I shall be forever grateful for the friendships I made there.
In my day job, I work in retail, selling products at a very large chain store in the very small town of Warsaw, Missouri. My coworkers there, and also many of our customers, have been following my writing career from its inception. I think some of them are as excited to see this book come out as I am, and I thank them for that.
Specifically, I’d like to thank Roland Davis, who believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself and never let me give up.
I’d like to thank my editors at Midnight Ink, Terri Bischoff and Connie Hill, for all the hard work they’ve put into this book. I’d also like to thank the remarkably talented Lisa Novak for giving my story such a beautiful cover. (Isn’t she awesome?)
Last, but far from least, I’d like to thank my agent, the fabulous and amazing Janet Reid. She is probably the only shark in the world who makes the water less scary for all the little writer fishes that swim in it with her.
And on a final note, Id like to thank you for reading my book. I hope that you’ll enjoy it.
Loretta Ross
November, 2014
one
He was gorgeous and he was naked but, unfortunately, he was dead.
Wren Morgan stood in the doorway and took in the macabre sight. The Campbell house was an antebellum Victorian, the oldest house in the county. A spiral staircase rose inside a tower on the northwest corner, off the parlor. Steep, narrow steps twisted up three stories, ending at a trap door that opened into a cupola on the roof. The stranger lay draped down the bottom of the stairs, sprawled in an ungainly heap, like a discarded doll.
The hair on his head was bleach-blond, though looking at him in the all together, Wren could tell it was a dye job. He lay upside down, with his feet stretched up the steps and his head, at the bottom, twisted into an unnatural angle. Mismatched eyes stared at her unseeing, one a brilliant violet and the other simply gray. A stained glass oriel window two stories up was ajar and an early sunbeam ran down the stairs like water. Under the window, a plastic Walmart bag lay open, spilling out dark cloth. In the trees outside, a robin sang.
Gravity, acting on the blood in his body, had given the dead man one last erection.
Lying as he was, there was no way he was still alive. Still, Wren felt compelled to be certain. Crossing the dusty hardwood, she stooped to feel his throat. There was no pulse. His body was already cold and unyielding. Her fingers came away feeling slick and waxy and she scrubbed them on her jeans, fighting down bile as she retreated to the doorway to call 911.
Waiting for the police, a part of her was tempted to go out and stand in the spring sunshine. Another part, though, the part that had seen way too many horror movies, was afraid to let the dead man out of her sight. In any case, it was only a few minutes before she heard the first siren and a police cruiser squealed to a stop behind her pickup.
She heard urgent footsteps crossing the verandah and went back into the entry hall, casting nervous glances over her shoulder at the parlor, even as she opened the heavy front door. A middle-aged cop was first on the scene. It was a small town and Wren knew him by sight, but not by name. He wasn’t gorgeous, but he was dressed and, thankfully, he was alive.
“You called in a report of a dead body?”
Wren tipped her head in the direction of the parlor and trailed after him as he brushed by her. She stopped at the doorway, absurdly relieved to see that the handsome corpse was still sprawled on the stairs and not lurching around among the dust sheet-covered furniture. The cop stopped in the middle of the room, not bothering to make sure the obviously dead guy was dead. He raised his radio. “This is 127, I’ve got a confirmation on the DB.”
“Ten-four, 127.”
He turned back to Wren. “Do you know him?”
“No, I’ve never seen him before.”
He glanced around the room. “You don’t live here?”
“No, Officer … ?”
“Grigsby.”
“No, Officer Grigsby. The house has been empty for several years. The last owner left it to the Historical Society, with most of the contents to be sold at auction.”
“You’re with the Historical Society?”
“No, I’m with Keystone and Sons Auctioneers. It’s my job to prepare the estate for sale. I came in this morning to start cataloging and appraising it.”
“When’s the last time you were in here?”
“This is the first time I’ve come. We only got the contract yesterday.”
<
br /> “Did you touch anything?”
Wren thought it out. “The doorknobs on both sides of the front door, the door jamb to this room, and I felt his neck.”
“You felt his neck? Why?”
“For a pulse. To see if he was really dead.”
Grigsby glanced up at her and she caught a glint of dark humor in his eyes. “You do realize that human heads can’t turn that way, right?”
“It never hurt my dolls.”
He snorted. “All right, well, we’re going to need your fingerprints and you’ll need to go down to headquarters and make a formal statement. You can do that this morning?” It wasn’t really a question.
“Sure. We have a sale starting at ten, but I don’t have to be anywhere before then.”
“You’re not planning on having a sale here at ten?”
“No, the Campbell estate is nowhere near ready to go to auction. Though it would be interesting to see people’s faces when I start taking bids on a naked dead guy. Can’t imagine I’d get too many offers.”
Grigsby shook his head. “You just might be surprised about that one.”
_____
Death Bogart needed a win.
Death pulled his ten-year-old Jeep Grand Cherokee up in front of the East Bledsoe Ferry police station and turned to his passenger. “Okay, I’m going to come around there and uncuff you long enough for you to get out of the vehicle. I’m not in the mood to put up with any more crap from you today, so I expect you to behave yourself and come quietly. If you try to run again, you will be kissing the pavement. Do you understand?”
Tyrone Blount nodded once, sullen. “So what happens now?”
“You get locked up and I get paid.”
Death swung down from the driver’s seat and circled the vehicle to retrieve his prisoner. Blount was in his mid-forties, scrawny and flabby, with a sallow complexion. He reeked of stale cigarette smoke and sour clothes, and he was nervous and twitchy. Death had him in handcuffs, with the chain run through the chicken grip. He could read the older man’s body language like a children’s book, so when he reached up to unlock the cuffs, he was ready for Blount to take a swing at him and try to slip past and run away.
As soon as he was free, Blount aimed a clumsy punch at Death and launched himself from the Jeep, aiming to knock the ex-Marine down with his body weight. Death simply stepped aside, deflecting the punch and moving back in time to catch Blount by the back of his shirt and lower him to the ground. In less than three seconds, Blount was lying face-down with his hands cuffed again, this time behind his back.
Death pulled himself to his feet and stood swaying for a minute, waiting for his breathing to even out and the black spots to leave his vision. Then he dragged the would-be fugitive to his feet, frog-marched him into the police station, and turned him over to the desk sergeant.
Like the town of East Bledsoe Ferry, the police station was tiny. The cops’ bullpen opened out just behind the front desk. Waiting for his body receipt, he let his gaze wander the room. It settled on a young woman who was sitting at one of the desks, filling out a form. She was pretty, in a girl-next-door kind of way, with pale skin and freckles and long, thick, red hair she wore in a single braid down her back. Whatever she was writing had her full attention. She leaned over the desk, eyes narrowed in concentration and the tip of her tongue peeking out the side of her mouth.
She wasn’t really beautiful—nowhere near in Madeline’s league —but Death had had his fill of beautiful people lately. The redhead looked, he thought, like someone he could get to like. He wondered if there was any chance that she might like him back.
A door at the back of the bullpen opened and a short, dark-haired young man strutted in. He wore a uniform but no gun and a simple name tag instead of a badge. A large key ring jingled at his waist. He crossed to the redhead, eyes gleaming.
“So, you finally get a guy naked and he’s dead! And he was still warmer than your last boyfriend!”
The woman turned red but didn’t look up. Her tongue disappeared and her lips thinned. Obviously determined to ignore him, she kept writing. The man leaned down, forearms on the desk next to her, crowding her.
“And I heard he even had a hard-on. That’s something you’ve never seen before. At least he didn’t have to worry you’d make his balls fall off, being as how he was already dead and all. I bet you didn’t call us right away. You didn’t, did you? I bet you just jumped on that bad boy and had you some cold cuts for breakfast.” He wiggled his hips suggestively and made obscene grunting noises.
“Farrington!” A beefy man with a shock of white hair stuck his head out of an office. “I’ve got a whole drawer full of applications from people who want to work at the jail. So, if you’d rather be a standup comedian, you just let me know.”
“Hey, Chief! Aw, you know you couldn’t get along without me. I run that jail. I am that jail.”
“That jail is two blocks that way. Now go.”
“I’m goin’. I’m goin’.”
Farrington pranced over and came out the door next to the front desk, where he stopped to examine Death disdainfully. He looked him up and down, openly sneering. “Yeah, I’m looking at you. What are you gonna do about it? Huh? Huh?” He feinted at Death like a boxer, invading his personal space, trying to make him flinch. Death just frowned down at him, bemused.
The top of the kid’s head didn’t clear his shoulder.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Loser.”
“Now, Farrington!” the chief snapped.
“Right. I’m going. I’m gone already!” Giving Death one last belligerent glare, Farrington disappeared out the door.
Death turned back to the police chief, now standing across the counter from him, reading from a sheaf of papers. “Man, what is his problem?”
“He wasn’t dropped on his head enough as a child.” The chief glanced up with a grimace. “He’s the mayor’s nephew. When he turned eighteen the fire chief and the head of the public works department and I played a hand of poker to see who got him.”
“You lost?”
“I always did suck at cards. Was there something I could do for you, son?”
“Oh, uh, surety recovery agent. I brought you a skip.”
“He brought in Tyrone Blount, Chief,” one of the cops volunteered. “Jones’s getting his body receipt.” There was a crash and a muffled curse from the back. “… or possibly breaking the printer.”
The chief gave Death a wry grin. “It could be a minute.” He studied the younger man. “I haven’t seen you around before.”
“I haven’t been around, and I’m pretty new to this.”
“But you are licensed?”
“Yes, sir.” Dutifully he produced his shiny new licenses, both of them, to save time. “Private investigation and surety recovery.”
“Death? Your name is Death?”
“Yes, sir. It’s pronounced ‘Deeth’ though.”
“Like Wimsey!”
Looking up at the new voice, he found the redhead turned to face him. Her eyes were blue. A strand of hair, escaped from her braid, framed an oval face. The delighted smile she was giving him warmed him in places that he hadn’t even realized had grown cold.
He grinned back at her, charmed. “Yeah! Like Wimsey!”
“Wimsey?” the police chief asked.
“Lord Peter. He was a fictional detective. In the books? Dorothy Sayers? It was his name, well, one of his names. Peter Death Bredon … “seeing a complete lack of comprehension on the cop’s face, he let his voice trail off. “Anyway, it’s an old family name. I was named after my grandfather.”
“Oh, well. Tradition’s a good thing. So, Death Bogart? You know that sounds like a hero in one of my wife’s bodice rippers.”
“Well, I have aspired to bodice ripping. A time or two.”
The redhead had completed her business and the cop she’d been talking to escorted her to the door and let her through into the lobby. She paused for a moment there, shy a
nd blushing, clearly wanting to speak but not knowing what to say. And Death wanted her to stay, but his own voice in his head mocked him.
Hey, babe! My name’s Death and I’m a penniless military reject. I live in my car. Wanna go out sometime?
He gave her a sad smile and turned away and after a minute he heard the door close behind her.
The police chief’s name was Reynolds. Death read it off his name tag and filed it away for future reference. He was shuffling through a stack of pictures. Crime scene photos, Death realized.
“That the dead body the little guy was spouting off about?”
“Yeah. Nothing too sinister. He was breaking and entering and fell down a flight of stairs. We’re just waiting on a fingerprint match to close the case.”
Death caught a glimpse of a head shot and sucked in a quick breath. Using one finger, he pulled the picture around so he could look at it right-side-up. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Reynolds looked up sharply. “You know him?”
“I know who he is. Was. Ex-con. Flow Whitaker.”
“Flow?”
“Theodore really. Flow was a nickname because he was a fence and a money launderer. Cash flow? Also, it was a reference to Pretty Boy Floyd. Whitaker was a pretty boy too.”
“How do you know him?”
“He’s connected to a case I’m working on. So, listen. That place he was breaking into—it wouldn’t happen to have been the Fairchild estate, would it?”
“The old Campbell place.”
“Oh.” Death frowned, disappointed.
Reynolds consulted his papers. “Belongs to the Historical Society. It was willed to them by the last owner, the late Mrs. Ava Fairchild. Campbell was her maiden name. The place had been in her family since before the Civil War. I think you’d better come back and sit down.”
two
The Keystone sons of Keystone and Sons were 63, now, twins who dressed and acted so different you had to really look at them to see they were identical. Sam wore a black suit, even in the hottest weather, with a western string tie and a dusty fedora. Roy dressed in bib overalls and a plaid flannel shirt. They still did most of the calling themselves; Roy’s wife, Leona, managed the business and they had sons of their own now, and grandsons even, to do the heavy lifting.