Mystery: The Sam Prichard Series - Books 1-4

by David Archer

  But she just wouldn’t listen, she was cryin’ even more, she said, "Last night you said you fell in love with me!"

  So I tried to break it gently, "I don’t even know your name!", and the tears went flyin’ all around the room,

  And I knew I better think of somethin’ quick before I drown, so I said, "Where we goin’ on our honeymoon?"

  Oh my goodness, won’t somebody tell me what to do, I got married in the Elvis Room last night!

  I’m sure I musta thought it was a good idea back then, but this mornin’ something just ain’t seemin’ right!

  I guess this is the reason Momma used to tell me, "Son, don’t be hangin' out in bars and gettin’ tight!"

  But it’s a little late to listen to what Momma told me now, I got married in the Elvis Room last night!

  Well, now it’s six months later, I’ve quit drinkin’ and I think that there just might be somethin’ good here after all,

  The honeymoon was perfect and her name is Lori Sue, she’s a soft and cuddly livin' lovin' doll!

  You know I knew a lot of women in my wild and single days, but I never found the one I thought was right,

  Till the night before I called my Momma on the phone and told ‘er, "I got married in the Elvis Room last night!"

  The band had gotten so into the song that, when Sam paused between the second and third verse, they'd automatically gone into a bridge that had them all dancing as they played, and Indie and Kenzie were even up on their feet. When Sam finished singing, they rolled it into a close that fit perfectly, and Sam couldn't help doing his Elvis impersonation: “Thank ya, thank ya very much!”

  “Whoo hoo!” Chris yelled, and Stan said, “Man, that's awesome!” All four girls echoed them, and Sam jokingly took a bow.

  Indie said, “Sam, what about the one you played for me, No Happy Endings? I'd love to hear what the band can do with that one!”

  Chris said, “Let 'er rip, man,” so Sam played through the first verse and chorus for them, and then they tried it together. (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, till 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!

  Once again, the band was blown away. “Man, these are great! Country music is full of heartache and sadness, and that one's gonna be a hit, I can tell! What else you got?”

  Sam played them a few more songs, and they worked them up, as well. Indie cried when they went through the song Sam had written for their wedding, and they all enjoyed practicing it again. They worked until the sun began to go down, and agreed to meet again the following day to rehearse more. With some cover tunes to fill in, they had a good show for that weekend and they knew it.

  Sam, Indie and Kenzie climbed into the truck and went home, and Sam watched Dora the Explorer with Kenzie while Indie made what she called “Instant Italian Chicken;” this consisted of putting chicken breasts into a casserole dish, covering them with pizza sauce and smothering the whole thing with shredded mozzarella cheese, then sticking it into a three hundred and fifty degree oven for forty-five minutes. When it was getting close, she put on some green beans and broccoli, and Sam began making comments about how good it all smelled.

  They came to the table, and Kenzie made them bow their heads to say grace.

  “God, thank you for our food, and for Daddy's singin'!” she said, and Indie echoed with “Amen!”

  “So,” Indie said as they dug in, “what are the other two cases about?”

  Sam grinned. “Well, one of them is in your ballpark; that woman wants to know where her husband is hiding his money. According to her, he's got several million stashed somewhere, and trying to keep the court from knowing about it. I figure you should be able to find it, and we get a ten percent finder's fee on any of it we locate. The court will make him pay up to her if we can find it, and we get paid then.”

  “Cool!” Indie said. “That's right down my alley! And the other one?”

  Sam glanced at Kenzie, who was busy slipping tiny pieces of chicken to the cat under the table and paying them no attention. “That's the one that's mixed up in Carl's case. This man came in and said his wife started acting weird a few months ago, and then disappeared. Well, it turns out that the reason she was acting weird was because she was stalking Carl Morris. When her husband woke up to find her missing from bed, she said she just couldn't sleep and went to take a drive and relax, but she was actually going to Carl's house and trying to get him to come out and talk to her. I don’t know why, yet, but that's odd that my two cases are linked that way.”

  Indie nodded. “Yeah, it is,” she said. “Have you got a lot of info on the wife? I might be able to find something on her, too, if she's turned up anywhere. Even a Jane Doe body, though I hope that's not the case, could be matched up if I have enough data.”

  “I made a lot of notes, and we can always call the husband for more if we need it. Tomorrow I'm going to talk to Carl about her, but the detective on his case says Carl was out of town and clean for when she disappeared.”

  Indie cocked her head. “What if she disappeared to go to wherever he was, and he got fed up? If he knew no one knew where she was, he might—you know.”

  Sam shrugged. “It's possible, but the cops feel sure he had nothing to do with it. I'm not gonna rule it out until I'm sure, though. And in another bit of irony, both the husband and Carl have the same lawyer, Carol Spencer. That may get interesting, too, down the line.” Sam shoved another bite of chicken into his mouth. “And incidentally, this is delicious!”

  “Of course it is,” she said with a grin. “I didn't grow up with a hippie mom for nothing! She's a wealth of quick and easy delicious recipes, and I soaked up all of 'em!”

  “I can see a bigger belt in my future, then,” Sam said with a grin. They finished up their dinner, including Samson the cat, who had decided that Italian Chicken was high on his list of favorite dishes, too, and Kenzie went to play while Sam and Indie went to the office.

  Indie had decided to set up her computer in the office when they'd gotten back, saying that it was more professional than having it on their dining table, so they'd bought another small desk and s
et her up a work station there, then brought the printer and Sam's computer out there, as well. His big desktop computer was set up at his desk, and he'd used it earlier, but this time he pulled his chair over by Indie's desk, and watched as she began going through the information he'd gotten from Albert Corning and Juliette Connors.

  “Herman,” Indie said, referring to the program she'd written to do her searches and hacking for her, “is a multitasker, like me. I'll feed him all of Mrs. Connors' info on her husband and his investments, and let him start on that, then I'll give him all we've got on Mrs. Corning, too. He can run both searches at the same time.”

  “Just as long as he works cheap,” Sam said, and Indie chuckled.

  “He's sorta like you,” she said. “He just likes to keep me happy.”

  Sam nodded. “That's my boy! He and I are on the same page!”

  The computer gave a ding, and Indie looked at the screen. “Well, well,” she said, “he's got hit on Alex Connors already. Look at this,” she said, pointing to a line of information that Sam couldn't understand if his life depended on it. “Here's an offshore corporation that's registered through three proxies, each one belonging to the one above it, but guess who owns the top one? Connors Dental of Denver, Inc. That's our guy.” She leaned close to the screen. “Now, let's see what else we can find on him.” She typed for a moment, and then turned Herman loose again.

  “I'm just curious,” Sam said, “but how did you come up with Herman's name?”

  Indie snickered. “My mom used to play this one song a lot, Henry The Eighth. It was from an old band in the sixties named Herman's Hermits, and I always thought Herman was a cute name. If Kenzie had been a boy, she might have ended up a Herman.”

  Sam's eyebrows went up. “Lucky for her she was a girl,” he said, and Indie kicked him playfully.

  Another ding, and she turned her attention to the computer again. “Uh-oh,” she said. “Got a hit on a body that could be Mrs. Corning. It was found in the woods outside of Telluride about three months ago. Get the picture he gave you, I'm gonna see if I can get a photo of the body.”

  Sam grabbed the picture of Albert and Annie Corning from his desk, and Indie produced a photo of the Jane Doe from the news story about it. Both of them breathed a sigh of relief when there were no similarities other than age, size and hair color. Jane Doe had a squat, round face, while Annie's was thinner and longer. It wasn't her.

  “Okay, well, each one we eliminate is one we don't have to worry about, right? Herman will keep searching...”

  Another ding, and this time is was on Alex Connors, again. Another offshore corporation he owned through numerous proxies. “This guy's pretty sharp,” Indie said. “A normal asset search would never find these, not even from the feds.”

  “Yeah, but he didn't reckon on his wife hiring the PI whose wife is the world's best hacker!”

  Indie pushed him. “I'm not the best, babe, not by a long shot. I just like that what I'm doing now is helping people out.” She leaned back for a kiss, and got it. “Mmm, especially you!”

  Sam grinned. “Me, too. Let's let Herman do his thing, and go spend some time with our little girl, shall we?”

  Indie tapped a few more keys, and nodded, so they rose and went to the living room. Kenzie was in the floor with some dolls, while Samson was lounging on the couch and watching. The little gray cat glanced at them as they entered, decided they weren't bringing him any treats, and went back to watching Kenzie play. Sam picked him up and moved him to the recliner, so that he and Indie could have their usual spot on the couch, and Samson seemed to find it acceptable.

  “Kenzie,” Sam said, “wanna watch a movie?”

  “I'm busy,” the little girl answered without looking up. “You and Mommy can.”

  Indie smiled, and picked up the remote. They scanned through the channel guide and chose a movie they thought they'd like—both of them were into action movies—and settled back to watch.

  4

  Kenzie fell asleep in the floor before the movie ended, so Indie carried her up to bed, then she and Sam went back to the office to check on Herman.

  “I told him to look for bank records on any offshore companies that come back to Alex Connors,” she told Sam, grinning at the screen. “Look what he's found.” She clicked a link, and suddenly the screen was filled with data. Sam looked closely, and realized that it was a list of bank accounts, and the total of assets in all of them came to almost thirty-two million dollars.

  “Okay,” he said, “now how do we present this information in a way that will satisfy the court?”

  Indie smiled. “Easy,” she said, tapped a few keys, and suddenly the printer was spitting out sheets of paper. More than fifteen pages came out before it was done, and Sam looked at them to see that each one listed the offshore company, its ownership all the way back to Alex's dental corporation, and the relevant banks and account numbers with the amount of money in each one. The documents were clear and concise, and would allow the court—and the IRS—to nail Connors for hiding assets. With all of this, Sam figured, Connors wasn't only looking at contempt of court—he was probably going to get federal jail time for tax fraud.

  “Wow,” he said. “This'll do it. If the government doesn't hit her too hard, we're looking at about one-point-five million in finder’s fees, babe. If they do, we should still see half a million or so.”

  “I done good?”

  “Oh, baby,” Sam said, “you done did real good! Maybe we should stick to asset recovery, and forget all the other stuff!”

  Indie smiled. “Nah, you'd get bored. Can't have that, now, can we?”

  “Good point,” Sam said, and kissed her. “Anything on Mrs. Corning?”

  Indie tapped, and a new screen of data appeared. “We've got three more Jane Does—I'm looking for pictures, now,” she said, and a moment later there were three photos on the screen, but none of them were Annie Corning. “Then there's a woman who was picked up in Indiana, apparently suffering from some form of amnesia; let's take a look at—nope, not her. This gal is one of those who doesn't want to be found, I think.”

  Sam nodded. “I'm beginning to think so, too,” he said. “The question is, why not?” He shook his head. “See what we can get on Mr. Corning, find out if there's anything he isn't telling me that might shed light on this.”

  “Okay, I'll set Herman to looking into him overnight, and we can go to bed. I don't know about you, baby, but I'm beat.”

  Sam grinned at her. “Me, too,” he said. “Bed sounds good.”

  Indie grinned back. “Fine, but we have to get some sleep, too!”

  Morning came like it always does, and Sam rolled over to find that Indie was already up. He could smell coffee, so he got up and took a quick shower, then dressed in his usual jeans and polo shirt and went out to the kitchen. Kenzie was already at the table, and Samson was under it, waiting for his own secret breakfast.

  “Something in here smells wonderful,” Sam said as he went to get a cup. Indie slapped his hand and pointed to the table, where a steaming cup was already waiting for him.

  “It should,” she said. “I got up early to make hash brown casserole, another one of mom's easy recipes. Hash browns, scrambled eggs and sausage all mixed together, and baked in the oven for half an hour, and then I made sausage gravy to go over it. If you don't love it, I'll ring your neck!”

  Sam grinned. “I sincerely doubt I'm in any danger of not loving it,” he said. “From the smell alone, I'd say it's gonna be the best thing I've eaten in at least twenty-four hours!”

  Indie walked over and kissed him as he sat down at the table, and then went to take the casserole out of the oven. A moment later she set it onto the table, and added a pitcher of gravy, while Sam dished it out to all of their plates. He poured gravy over his own, and Kenzie nodded when he asked if she wanted some, so he poured it over hers, too, then over Indie's.

  “God,” Kenzie said, “thank you for Mommy making this good breakfast for us to eat,
Amen!”

  “Amen!” they both echoed, and they all dug in. Sam took one bite, and then started exaggeratedly moaning with pleasure, while Kenzie laughed at him.

  “Daddy likes it,” she said, and Sam nodded enthusiastically.

  “This is absolutely delicious,” he said. “Babe, you are the best cook ever!”

  They chatted while they ate, and Sam said that he was going to go and speak with Carl Morris again that morning. He wanted to ask about Annie Corning, to find out just what the story was there. They finished breakfast, then set Kenzie up with the TV while Sam and Indie went out to the office to check on Herman.

  Herman had been busy. Not only had he dug up almost everything about Albert Corning's life, but he had four more Jane Does—none of them turned out to be Annie, and Sam and Indie breathed a sigh of relief—and another news story about a woman who seemed not to know who she was. Indie called up the story, and they both froze. The photo of the woman in question showed none other than Annie Corning!

  Sam immediately went to his desk and called the police department in Coos Bay, Oregon, where the woman had been found wandering around the bay almost three months earlier. According to the story, fishermen had found her walking around and looking dazed, and when they asked her if she was okay, she had just stared at them. She hadn’t said a word when police were called, just looking at them as if she didn't understand a word they were saying, and so several interpreters were brought in to try other languages, but she'd finally looked at a policewoman and said, “I don't know what you want me to say.” She'd gone silent again after that, but when she was asked who she was, she only shrugged and began to cry. They'd taken her to the local hospital, but since she wasn't sick or injured, she'd been transferred to a mental facility, where she remained.

  “Dispatch,” came the answer.

  “Hello, my name is Sam Prichard, and I'm a private investigator in Colorado. I'm working a case on a missing woman, and I've just come across a news story about the woman you folks found wandering around three months ago. Can you tell me if she's ever been identified?”