WHAT GOES AROUND
ANGIE BARTONI
CASE FILE
By
MW HUFFMAN
OTHER BOOKS BY MW HUFFMAN
THE END–BOOK I of The Event Series
THE BEGINNING–BOOK II of The Event Series
THE REVELATION–BOOK III of The Event Series
The Second Civil War–BOOK I-A Nation Divided
The Second Civil War–Book II-A Nation at War
The Second Civil War–Book III–A Nation Healing
Project BlueBolt – BOOK I – American Gulags
Project BlueBolt – BOOK II - The Gulag Journal
Project BlueBolt – BOOK III – American Uprising
REVOLUTION
THE BRINK
CLOSE PROXIMITY
BLACKSTAR
CHIMERA
WORLDS END
SUN BURST
Sins of the Fathers
The Unfinished
Angie Bartoni Case File # 1 - The Alphabet Murders
Angie Bartoni Case File # 2 - Frost Bite
Angie Bartoni Case File # 3 - Dead Aim
Angie Bartoni Case File # 4 - What Goes Around
Angie Bartoni Case File # 5 - Nothing to Lose
Angie Bartoni Case File # 6 - Shadow Man
Angie Bartoni Case File # 7 – The Club
Angie Bartoni Case File # 8 – Shakespeare Murders
Angie Bartoni Case File # 9 – One Too Many
Angie Bartoni Case File #10 – Weak Link
Angie Bartoni Case File #11 – Vanishing Act
Angie Bartoni Case File #12 – Victim’s Advocate
Angie Bartoni Case File #13 – Payback
Angie Bartoni Case File #14 – Dead on Arrival
The Logan Files - Blond Deception
The Logan Files - Innocence and Avarice
The Logan Files - The Deal Breaker
The Logan Files – Pain Center
Norris Files – Insurrection
Norris Files - Silver2
CHAPTER ONE
Yuck. I could smell the odor of decaying flesh as soon as we reached the barn. Actually I had caught a whiff of it earlier, before we even approached the door. I looked over at Dan and could tell by the slightly green tinge to his complexion that he smelled it too.
“Angie. We know the body is in there. Couldn’t we just call the ME and Crime Scene boys?”
“Wiener,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t throw up right then and there. Okay, you may be wondering why I am even outside a barn with an obviously dead person inside. Probably a couple of reasons. One is that I am a detective. The other is that I’m not really using my head here. Dan was right. He knew it was in there, I knew it was in there and obviously the killer knew it was in there. So why not just call the ME?
I decided not to dwell on it and kicked at the door. It all most put me on my butt. It looks so easy when the women in high heels, low cut blouses and short skirts do it on television. Oh yeah, this isn’t television and the person in the barn won’t be trying out for another bit part in a show tomorrow.
“Dan.”
“Okay. I still think we should just call it in.”
“Just kick the door in.”
“Okay,” he said like a little school boy might when told to clean his room.
He reared back and slammed his big foot into the door. It splintered into a few hundred pieces. I was going to glare at him for making it look so easy but the smell stopped me cold. This was going to be bad. . . really, really bad.
I turned on my flashlight, held my breath and stuck my head in the door. I played the light around the room and immediately saw what was causing the stench. I pulled my head back out, took a few steps back from the door and exhaled.
“I take it you found the body,” Dan said.
I was still trying to breathe shallowly so I just held up my fingers.
“Three? There are three bodies in there?” he asked getting the deer in the headlights thing going.
I nodded yes, still not sure I ever wanted to breathe again.
“Did you recognize anyone?”
“I didn’t look long enough to recognize anything except the three bodies hanging.”
“Hanging?”
“Yeah.”
“I hope one of them is the person we are looking for,” he said and then immediately realized what he had said.
“I didn’t mean…I meant…”
“Easy. I know what you meant. Now you can go call it in, unless you want to go see for yourself,” I told him.
“No, no. I’ll take your word for it. I’ll call it in.”
**
My name is Angelina Bartoni and I have been a detective for longer than I want to recall. Age, after all, is a pretty high price to pay to get maturity. I’m six foot tall, with blond hair, blue eyes, and look knock out gorgeous. I lie. I’m closer to five foot five, dishwater blond hair, I can never figure out what color my eyes really are, maybe gray. And I am far from knock out gorgeous. I'm knocking on the door of forty and hoping it won’t answer. I’m not unattractive but it takes a few buckets of makeup to improve me much. I don’t put a lot of effort into it. I’m what you would call a WYSIWYG, what you see is what you get.
I don’t work with partners very often or very well but almost a year ago the Captain told me I was to train Dan Roberts. So far I haven’t managed to get him killed and someplace along the line I actually started liking to work with him. Maybe I am mellowing out.
Right now we are working on the suspected abduction of a wealthy businessman’s wife. I say suspected because all we have is his word and that isn’t always a good indicator of the truth. If it really was an abduction then we will have to turn it over to the Feds. I honestly didn’t get a very good look at any of the three women in the barn. It was a pretty ugly scene. Once the ME gets here I will go back inside with him and try to make a positive ID.
The other problem is, who were the other two females? So far we had no one else reporting a missing person or abduction. My partner, Dan walked back over and informed me that it would be at least an hour before they could get here. Seems a mini-gang war took place and three bangers were dead. All we can do now is wait.
CHAPTER TWO
Doctor Sorenson is our medical examiner and we go back to my early days as a cop. He can still remember when I passed out cold at my first autopsy. Sorenson only has two years to go before he retires so he is pretty crusty.
“Bartoni, did it ever occur to you to find a body before it started to rot?” he said as he came up to me.
He was his usual clothes horse. Brown pants, a blue and green plaid shirt, black belt, and black shoes. I was thankful that he didn’t have his orange flowered tie on.
“Well grumpy, I just call them like I find them.”
“Find them sooner,” he shot back.
“I will endeavor to do that next time.”
“Do you even know what ‘endeavor’ means?”
“That’s what I have Dan for. He knows all kinds of big words.”
“So what’s inside the barn. Smells pretty rank even from here,” the ME said.
“Three women. Hung. Looks like they were pretty well worked over,” I replied.
“Three? All in the same place? Well at least I don’t have to run all over hell’s half acre.”
“Always happy to accommodate,” I replied.
“Another big word. You going in with me?”
“I’d better, you would probably miss them since you’re so anci
ent. It’s dark in there.”
He just grunted and opened a small container of camphor. He scooped out a finger full and placed it under each nostril.
“Can I borrow some of that?” I asked.
“Get your own,” he said.
“Don’t make me hurt you grump butt.”
He spread some under my nose and off we went. Neither of us was looking forward to going inside the barn. I stepped inside and shined my light on the suspended bodies. A rope had been placed over a beam and tied to their ankles. They were all three hanging upside down. All three had their throats slit.
Sorenson walked over, stooped down, and looked at the neck of the first victim then moved on to the other two.
“Jagged,” he muttered.
“Serrated knife?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. Something more crude. Any of them your missing person?”
“Yeah I think so. The one in the middle.”
“The Jameson woman?”
“Sure looks like her, except for the bruises, bite marks, puncture wounds, and slit throat,” I replied.
“Enthralling,” the ME said, “See, I know some big words too.”
**
“I was just getting ready to come in,” Dan said as we came out of the barn.
“Sure you were.”
“No, really. I was filling the captain in. He wants us back there just as soon as we finish up.”
“Where the hell are the CSI guys?” I asked.
“Ten minutes out.”
“Well I want to turn this over to them. One of the bodies belonged to Melody Jameson. We need to go over our files and begin again.”
“So Ken Jameson didn’t do it.”
“I’m not saying that just yet but it was pretty brutal. I’m not sure a husband could do that and of course there is the small matter of the other two women.”
“So where do you want to start?” Dan asked.
“At the beginning.”
CHAPTER THREE
For the most part, I do not play well with others. I tolerate them when I have to but mostly I just ignore them. That is, except for the captain. He is the boss after all, so I have to play nice with him. Actually, he is a pretty good guy overall. He is a little more hands-on than I would like but at least he is willing to get in the trenches when necessary.
“Bartoni, Roberts. Office.”
Did I mention that he wasn’t much for elaborate communication either?
We went in and sat down on the couch that faced his desk. I noticed he hadn’t reset his clock to daylight savings time. It was an hour off.
“So, whatchta got?”
“It was Melody Jameson. There were two other girls with her. All beaten and tortured before having their throats slit.”
“How long?”
“Don’t know yet. Sorenson is working on it.”
“You told Mr. Jameson yet?”
“Nope. We were going to do that the very next thing.”
“Three women. Serial killer by definition. This is not good. Not good at all.”
“Then we shouldn’t be sitting here jacking our jaws. We need to be working it.”
He gave me one of his looks. They don’t scare me, I’ve seen them a thousand times.
“Look captain, I don’t want to treat this as a kidnapping. It was a straight murder. We don’t know how long the others have been dead. I don’t want the FBI poking their noses in this.”
“That will depend on how fast you get this solved and if other bodies start showing up. You know the Mayor isn’t going to sit on this for long. The city is hosting the Pan-Am games in just a month so you need to get crackin’ or it won’t matter what you want.”
“Got it. We are off to see Mr. Jameson,”
“Keep me informed. Now out.”
That drives me crazy. He ends every conversation in his office with ‘now out’. As opposed to what? ‘In?’
**
Ken Jameson had money. Too damn much of it as far as I was concerned. Big house, six car garage, live in maid, and a swimming pool bigger than my house.
“Man,” Dan muttered.
“Yeah. What the hell does this guy do for a living?”
“An investment broker,” Dan answered.
“I get that but just what does he really do?”
“From the looks of it, skims money off the top from the investors and pisses away the rest of it. We’ll probably be arresting him someday for some kind of scheme.”
I parked our car behind a sports car that was about six inches tall and ten feet wide.
“What the hell is that?” I asked Dan.
“I think it’s called a Rapier.”
“Rape her?”
“Rapier.”
“And you can drive it on the street?”
“It’s street legal, so yeah.”
“If it hit a speed bump it would get stuck with the wheels off the ground like a beached whale,” I said.
“I guess they go around them.”
I rang the doorbell and someplace deep in the house I could hear it. I swear it played Beethoven’s fifth symphony before someone finally answered. We were greeted by Mr. Jameson in a towel with wet hair.
“Sorry. I guess we caught you at a bad time,” I managed to get out.
“No problem. I was just in the pool.”
“Ah.”
“Ken,” some young thing said, running into the front room. All she had on was a smile. Not even a towel. Dan’s eyes bugged out.
“Oh,” she said and turned and ran back out.
“Yes well. Like I said, I was in the pool.”
“Okay. TMI. Look I hate to ruin your day but we found your wife’s body. She has been murdered.”
“Oh. Oh, dear. This really is awkward.”
“Awkward? Awkward? It’s awkward,” Dan said to me.
“Yes. Really awkward,” I replied.
“You know what I mean,” Ken said.
“No, actually I don’t,” Dan said, “Why don’t you explain that to me.”
“I mean, this probably doesn’t look very good. I’m in the pool and you are here to tell me you found my wife’s body.”
“Not to mention the naked teenager in your pool.”
“She’s not a teenager. She’s twenty-one,” Ken said.
“Really? Why don’t you just show her ID to us. She sure didn’t look twenty-one to me,” I chimed in.
“Look, okay. You delivered the message. My wife is dead. My friend’s age has nothing to do with this. Thank you for letting me know,” he said and started to shut the door.
I think Danny boy got a little irritated because he shoved the door back causing Ken to lose his balance and fall down on his butt. All I can say is that it was more than I needed to see.
“You had better get out of here. I’ll sue your ass for assault,” he said fastening his towel around him.
“That would be a really stupid idea. We would have to bring in your little friend to see if she saw anything. Are you sure you want to go down that road?” Dan asked.
“Look. Just go.”
“You be at the station at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. We want to go over the case and have some questions we want answered,” I told him.
“Not without my attorney.”
“Goodness, by all means. Bring him along. That really proves you have nothing to hide. Doesn’t it Dan?”
“Hmmm. I guess if I was sure I had nothing to do with my wife’s murder I wouldn’t need an attorney present but you know, on the other hand…”
“Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. Anyway Ken, just be there with or without your attorney. It really doesn’t matter to us one way or the other,” I told him.
He closed the door and we walked back to the car.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Seventeen at most.”
“I meant about tomorrow? Will he bring his attorney along?”
“Not now.”
CHAPTER FOUR
>
“Don’t say it.”
“What?”
“You know what,” I said.
“Angie, I’m not that kind of guy.”
“Are you gloating? You are, aren’t you? Don’t make me hurt you Dan,” I told him.
“Angie, Angie. Do I look like the type that would gloat over something so childish as Jameson coming without his attorney?” Dan said trying to look all innocent.
I should just sock him in the nose except he is a lot bigger than me and I would probably hurt my hand. I could shoot him but somehow that seems a little harsh.
“Let’s just get this over with,” I finally said.
We walked to the ‘interview’ room. At one time we interrogated people in these very same rooms. Now we interview them. Same thing, different word. Are we politically correct or what?
Ken was sitting at the table and I sat down across from him. Dan leaned against the wall.
“Thank you for coming in,” I said.
“Like I had a choice,” Ken replied.
Oooh. Bad attitude already and we were just starting. I decided to just let it go.
“Mr. Jameson, I would like you to tell me about your relationship with your deceased wife.”
“I’ve been over that a dozen times.”
“Let’s make it thirteen in that case,” I replied.
“Fine. You already know that we were getting a divorce. She filed a little over a month ago. For whatever reason, she moved out but I was footing the bill. She was living in a suite at the Ambassador.”
“It was pretty ugly wasn’t it? Fighting over assets?” I prompted.
“No more so than any couple with money. She wanted half of everything, including my future earnings. No way was that going to happen. Yeah, it was heating up but I sure the hell didn’t kill her over it,” Ken replied.
“And yet she got a restraining order against you. You went to the Ambassador and caused quite a scene. The cops were called and you even shoved one of the officers.”
“I was mad. I blew up okay? That was the day I got the notice about future earnings and I just sort of lost it.”
“So you were in a stalemate of sorts. What was she holding over your head to make her think she could get you to agree to her demands?”
WHAT GOES AROUND - ANGIE BARTONI CASE FILE #4 (ANGIE BARTONI CASE FILES Book 1) Page 1