Mystery: The Sam Prichard Series - Books 1-4

by David Archer

  Indie's eyes were wide open. “And you're gonna find them for me, aren't you?” she asked. “I like country music, too, I'd love to hear them!”

  Sam grinned. “I'll see what I can do about that, but not tonight. I think we need to get our little one into bed, and then we can take it easy a bit before we give it up for the night.”

  Indie was staring at him, and Sam got nervous. “What? Did I say something wrong?”

  She shook her head slowly. “You don't even know what you said, do you? Sam, you just called Kenzie 'our little one,' and that's the first time I've ever heard anyone say those words...” Suddenly she had tears on her cheeks. “That was just so sweet,” she whispered.

  Sam shrugged. “Well—I guess that's just how I think of her. I mean, I know I'm not her father, but when we're together, I just think of all three of us as being part of something, so that makes her 'ours' in that sense, right? I'm not making any sense, am I?”

  She laughed and nodded. “Yes, you are,” she said, “you're making perfect sense.” She sat and chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “If I tell you something, you promise not to freak out on me?”

  Sam grinned and looked at her. “I didn't know people still say 'freak out,' like that,” he said, “but I won't. Go ahead.”

  “Mom was an old hippie, what can I say? Anyway, what I was gonna tell you is, a couple weeks ago, when you left to go to Arkansas after that guy, Kenzie actually asked me if you were going to be her daddy.”

  Sam turned the van onto his street before he looked at her again. “And what did you say?”

  Indie rolled her eyes. “I said, 'Hush, child, we'll see!' and left it at that!” She smiled. “But I can't say I haven’t thought about it.”

  Sam slowed the van to pull into the driveway, and once he was parked, he said, “So have I. And part of me is scared of the idea, because I’ve never had kids and I don't know if I'd be good at it, and another part of me is hoping it turns out that way, but it's way too soon to be having conversations this deep, so let's get her inside and into bed.”

  Indie leaned over and kissed him, then climbed out and opened the side door to get Kenzie. She carried the little sleeper inside while Sam stood there and watched her from the driveway. He looked up at the sky for a moment, and whispered, “If you sent her into my life, then thank you. And please help me make the right choices, where they're concerned.”

  He went inside and got out two bottles of Coke, then took them into the living room, sat on the couch again and turned on the TV news, just in time to catch the story about the discovery of Barry's body. The reporter interviewed Barry's sister, Marjorie Newcomb, who was in tears.

  “He was the sweetest guy you'd ever want to know,” she said, “always had a big, warm heart for everyone. Barry was the kind of man who never met a stranger; to him, everyone was just a friend he didn't know yet. The world will be a much darker place without him in it.”

  Indie came in as the anchor was wrapping up the story. “That’s odd,” she said. “Barry's a well-known singer, but they didn't even call any of his band to ask about him, or get their reactions to his death? I'd think that would be just about as important as asking his family.”

  Sam looked at her. “It would,” he said. “Good point, and one worth looking into. For tonight, let's just spend a little time together, okay?”

  Indie grinned and came to sit beside him. She accepted her Coke and took a sip, then set it on the coffee table.

  “Sam,” she said, “sing me a song.”

  He chuckled. “What, right now? Right here?”

  She turned and kissed him, hard, then leaned back and looked him in the eye. “Yes, right now and right here! Come on, sing for me!”

  Sam looked into her eyes for a moment, then pulled her down to lean against him. “Okay,” he said, "you wanna grab my guitar for me?”

  She got up and brought it to him, then sat on the other end of the couch so she could watch him.

  “This is one of my country songs,” he said, “one we actually recorded. I'll dig that out for you another time, but here goes.” He began to play a melody then, and a moment later, he sang: (Click to Listen)

  You all remember the story, you heard a long time ago

  The prince was throwin' a party, but Cinderella couldn't go

  Then a miracle happened, and she attended after all

  And by the time it was over, Cindy was the Queen of the Ball!

  But there was more to the story, and if the truth was ever told

  You'd learn that hap'ly ever after, turned into somethin' cruel and cold

  And if you're wonderin' how I know, what I'm talkin' about

  I'm the prince who once was charming, ‘til Cinderella threw me out!

  There ain't no happy endings

  There ain't no ever afters

  Why don't we stop pretending

  With all the lies and laughter?

  You know it's only in the moo—oo—vies

  Where the boy gets the girl

  There ain't no happy endings

  Out in the real world!

  You know your mama always told you, that love was waitin' at your door

  And all you gotta do is find it, and you'll be happy evermore

  But you know it's just a fairy tale, like little children love to hear

  Let's leave the stories for the children, and cry our lonely, grown-up tears!

  There ain't no happy endings

  There ain't no ever afters

  Why don't we stop pretending

  With all the lies and laughter?

  You know it's only in the moo—oo—vies

  Where the boy gets the girl

  There ain't no happy endings

  Out in the real world!

  There ain't no happy endings

  There ain't no ever afters

  Why don't we stop pretending

  With all the lies and laughter?

  You know it's only in the moo—oo—vies

  Where the boy gets the girl

  There ain't no happy endings

  Out in the real world!

  Indie sat there in silence as the last vibrations of the guitar faded away. “That was so beautiful,” she said, “but so sad.”

  Sam grinned. “Yeah, I wrote that right after my girlfriend at the time dumped me, so it was kinda dark, I know.” He set the guitar down beside the arm of the couch. “But that's not how I really feel, it was just a way to express what I was feeling at that time. I know that happy endings are possible, Indie; but I also know we have to work to make them happen.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “we do.” She slid over closer, leaned her face in and kissed him, and this time, he put his arms around her and held on. They kissed without paying attention to anything else for a long time, and when they finally broke, Sam said, “I think it's bedtime, Babe. Get on upstairs.”

  Indie smiled. “If I don't go now, I might not go at all.” She kissed him once more and then got up and headed for her bedroom. Sam sat where he was for another half hour, just thinking, and then got up and went to bed himself.

  Sam was awakened the next morning by his phone ringing, and sleepily grabbed it from his nightstand.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “I hear you wanna know what happened to Barry Wallace,” said a woman's voice.

  Sam was instantly awake. “Yes,” he said, “I most certainly do. Can you tell me?”

  “Yeah, but not over the phone. Can you meet me somewhere? Maybe at a restaurant or something, someplace pretty public? This could get me killed, so I'd rather be in a crowd.”

  “Sure. How about the Cherry Creek mall, the food court? That's always pretty crowded, but we should be able to talk.”

  “Okay,” the woman said, “that'll work. Meet me there in an hour, and I can tell you what you need to know. You'll know me, I'll be wearing a jacket with Barry's band on it.”

  She hung up before Sam could say another word, so he got up, showered and dressed. I
t wasn't even seven AM yet, so Indie and Kenzie were still in bed. He wrote a note and left it on the kitchen table, then went out and got onto his motorcycle, fired it up and rode off toward the mall.

  The weather was nice, and the ride woke him up quickly. When he got to the mall, he parked as close to the food entrance as he could, pulled his cane from the clips he'd mounted on the bike to hold it, and started walking toward the food court.

  There weren't a lot of people there yet, but he spotted a woman in a Step Back Once jacket sitting off by herself near the coffee shop. He walked past her at first and saw that she didn't react, so he got himself a cup of coffee and then went to her table.

  “Are you the lady who called me this morning?” he asked, and she looked up at him nervously. “About Barry?”

  She nodded, and he sat down. “I'm Samantha Harris,” she said. “Barry and I were old friends, and sometimes more than that, if you know what I mean. I can't believe he's dead, but I think I know how he got that way, and Billy Miller said you'd be the guy to call about it.”

  Sam sipped his coffee, but said nothing. After a moment, she went on. “Barry was dealing with Jimmy Smith, the agent, you knew about that?” Sam nodded. “Well, he came to me last Saturday afternoon, and said Jimmy said he had him a deal with Sony Records, but he had to quit his band if he wanted it. He knew I'd been through that with Jimmy once before, and wanted to talk to me about it, right? So he called me up and said could he come over, and I said it was okay.”

  She picked up her own coffee and took a big gulp of the steaming liquid. “So he tells me Jimmy's singing the same old tune, and I said he should ditch the bum, not the band. I told him he's one of the best, and if the label really wanted him, they'd have asked to talk to him by now, and he could ask them if he could bring his band along. I mean, sure, they'd probably need a better keyboardist; Janice is good, but she's got problems, y'know. But the rest of them would probably make it fine, right? So we talked for about an hour, and he said he wanted to call Jimmy and tell him the deal was a no-go, but his phone was dead, so I let him use mine. He called and said he wasn't gonna do it, and I could hear Jimmy screaming at him, but Barry finally just laughed and said Jimmy could go flip himself and hung up. A little later, he left, and he's never seen alive again, right?”

  Sam leaned forward. “You're saying you were there and actually heard him tell Smith he wouldn't take the contract?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, and then took out her phone. “Here, you can see where he called Jimmy that afternoon from this phone.” She showed him the call log, and Smith's number was there. “But that ain't all. Sunday morning, I get a call from a blocked number, and I don't ever answer those, so it went to voicemail, right? Listen to this.”

  She hit a button on her phone, and it called into her voicemail. She chose “saved messages,” and Sam heard:

  “Sammie, you should know better than to get in the middle of stuff that isn't your business. I promise you that you're gonna regret sticking your nose into this.”

  The voice sounded like Jimmy Smith's, and Sam could hear the menace in it.

  “Was that it? Has he called you again?” Sam asked.

  She shook her head. “No, but then yesterday I got this in the mail.” She pulled an envelope from her purse and handed it to him.

  The envelope had her address typed on it, with no return address, and it was one of those with the stamp already printed on it. Carefully, Sam used a pen to raise the flap and peer inside. There was what appeared to be a lock of hair in it, but when he looked again, he could see that the hair was still attached to a bit of skin, and there was a mild, foul odor coming from it.

  Sam looked up at Samantha. “I'm gonna need to take this for the lab to check out,” he said, “and the police are gonna want to talk to you about it, I'm sure.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, I figured. I just don’t want Jimmy finding out about this, cause I know how mean he can be.”

  Sam looked at her for a moment. “He claims that it was you who threw a vase at him when he was charged with assaulting you, and that you and your friends lied about it.”

  She stared at him, then lifted her left hand to show the scar of a fairly large cut. “There was no vase thrown,” she said. “He grabbed one and smashed it down on my hand in a rage, and my friends and I went running out the door screaming! That lying son of a...”

  Sam reached out and touched her hand. “I know,” he said, “I know. I figured him out pretty quickly. Let me take this and have it checked out, and I'm sure the police will want to talk to you later today, so stay close, okay? Is the number you called me from your cell phone?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. You can reach me on it, or give it to the cops, whatever.”

  Sam took the envelope with the hair and skin and walked her out to her car, which happened to be in the same area as his bike. He thanked her again, and rode out of the lot, then turned toward the main police station downtown.

  Walking into the station felt odd, since he hadn't been there more than a half-dozen times since he was shot a little over a year earlier. He went to the desk and asked for whoever was in charge of the Barry Wallace murder investigation. “I've got some possible evidence,” he added.

  The desk officer checked on a computer, and said, “That's Karen Parks. Hang on a sec, and she'll be right out.”

  Sam stood off to one side, and a moment later a heavy woman in a skirt and suit jacket appeared. “Sam?” she asked. “God, it really is you, isn't it? Come on back, and tell me what you've got.”

  He waited until they were in her cubicle and then handed her the envelope. “This was sent to a woman who contacted me this morning, Samantha Harris. She's also got a voicemail message saved on her phone that may implicate a possible suspect, name of Jimmy Smith.”

  Karen looked into the envelope and made a face at the odor, then looked back at Sam. “Jimmy Smith, the talent agent? We've had a dozen calls saying he had it in for Wallace, but there's nothing to tie him to anything. We haven't even gone out to talk to him, yet, just because most of the calls seem so hostile; sounds more like they want Smith in trouble than any concern for what really happened to Wallace. You got any reason to think he was involved?”

  “Some things seem to indicate it,” Sam said. “I know that Smith was trying to get Barry to sign a record deal that required him to leave his band behind, and apparently he didn't want to do that. According to Smith, the day he disappeared he agreed, and said he was going to tell the band that night, but they claim they never saw him. Now Samantha tells me he came to her that afternoon to talk about it, and used her phone to call Smith and tell him it was no deal. Barry left and disappeared, but the next day, a voice that sounds like Smith called her phone and left a warning voicemail, telling her she should stay out of it. This came in the mail to her yesterday, and she said a friend of hers that I'd spoken to said she should call me.”

  Karen looked into the envelope again. “Hair color's right,” she said, “but we'll need DNA to be sure it's his. That'll take weeks.” She looked at Sam. “So it's true you went into PI? Is that how you got involved in this?”

  “Yep. The band hired me to try to track him down, but now they want me to find his killer. Naturally, I'll share everything, and I'm hoping you’ll do the same.”

  She smiled. “Anything for an old comrade,” she said. “I haven't forgotten our time in the juvie division together, or that you saved my bacon there a couple of times.”

  “Thanks, Karen,” Sam said with a smile. “I appreciate it. Here's Samantha's number, and that's her address on the envelope. I suggest you get a copy of that voicemail, have it run through voice analysis. If it's Smith, then he's my favorite for this one, so far.”

  “If it is, it'll get us enough for a warrant. Whoever sent this to your girl must have Wallace's head in a freezer, somewhere, or did until yesterday. If it was at Smith's house, we'll find at least traces of it.”

  Sam thanked her again and g
ot up. He made a detour over to Narcotics before he left the building and saw Dan Jacobs at his old desk, so he snuck up on him and put both hands over his eyes.

  Dan froze, but then laughed. “Sam, you old son, how are you?” Sam let him go, and he spun around in his chair and stood to wrap his old partner in a hug.

  “Oof!” Sam said. “I'm good, or I was ‘til you broke me! I figured I've been yakkin' at you on the phone enough; I was here talking to homicide, and wanted to pop in before I left.”

  “Good thing you did, or I'd have had to come hunting you! You on a murder case?”

  “Yeah, as of yesterday. MP I was looking for turned up dead in a ditch, minus hands and head. I just got handed what may be part of his scalp, so I brought it in.”

  Dan scowled. “I hate murder cases,” he said. “I'll stick to drugs and vice.”

  The two men chatted for a few minutes, and then Sam's phone went off. He looked to see Indie's number, and answered.

  “Yeah, Babe,” he said without thinking, and Dan's eyebrows went up a half inch. “Babe?” he mouthed silently, but Sam ignored him.

  “Sam, I just got to thinking about some things this morning, and I realized I didn't ever check out that songwriter, Bill Miller. I had Herman do a run on him, and you're not gonna believe what I found!”

  Sam grinned. “So, tell me, then, and I'll do my best.”

  “Bill Miller isn't a William—he's a Wilhelmina!”

  6

  “Wait a minute,” Sam said. “Run that by me again, only in English.”

  Indie laughed. “Yeah, that's what I said, too. Bill Miller was born Wilhelmina Marie Miller, a girl, only in 2003, not long after he got out of high school, he left town for about a year. When he came back, he went by the name Bill, and has been posing as a man ever since. He's only got his mother still living here, no other family, and apparently he's enough of a loner that no one's ever made a fuss about it.”