Six Murders Too Many (A Carlos McCrary Mystery Thriller Book 1)

by Dallas Gorham

  “What can you tell me?”

  “Bigs and I did this by the book from the get-go. We did this right.”

  “There’s the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way.”

  Kelly scratched her head. “Jorge says that too. I don’t get the joke.”

  “Just thinking out loud. Jorge and I were grunts in the Army—he was in Desert Storm and I was in Operation Enduring Freedom. Sometimes doing something the right way isn’t the best way. To get results, sometimes you do things the Army way.”

  Kelly knew as well as any cop that there was no such thing as a perfect investigation. “If Bigs and I missed something, we want you to find it. We need you to find it—for Jorge’s sake.” She pulled two large binders off the credenza and handed one to Chuck. “We made you a copy of the murder book.”

  “What did I do to deserve this?”

  “Barry Kleinschmidt called after you left the visitation room. He overheard you tell Jorge you’d poke around. Bigs and I don’t like the way this case turned out either. Maybe your Army way will find something we missed.”

  “How bad does it look?”

  She frowned. As bad as it gets. “Tight as a guitar string.”

  “What can you tell me?”

  “You know about the victim?”

  “Garrison Franco, street thug and mid-level drug dealer. Newspaper said he was killed in a drug deal gone bad a few weeks ago.”

  “That’s what we thought at first. But when Bigs and I got the case, we found evidence that linked Jorge Castellano to Franco’s death.”

  “What evidence?”

  She tapped the file. “Take your pick. Start with motive: Jorge and his partner, Dan Murphy, had tried for months to make a case against Franco for drug dealing. A few weeks after they started their investigation, Franco threatened Castellano for interfering with his business.”

  “So Franco had a motive to kill Jorge, not the other way around.”

  Kelly wagged her hand back and forth. “Actually, Franco told Castellano that his wife was very attractive and that her hours at the gym had paid off. Franco showed him a candid photo of Karen taken as she exited the gym. Jorge grabbed Franco by the throat, threw him across the sidewalk, and slammed him into a wall. Dan had to pull him off. Jorge said if he ever saw Franco near his wife, he’d kill him.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “Dan Murphy. And Jorge admitted it to Bigs and me.”

  Chuck shook his head. “That’s a pretty good motive. What else you got?”

  “The most damning evidence is the ballistics test. One bullet that hit Franco was in good enough shape for a ballistics match. It came from Castellano’s service pistol.”

  “How close was the match?”

  Kelly opened Chuck’s binder and turned it around so he could see it. “Look for yourself.”

  Chuck flipped to the color photograph of the ballistics test. One side featured the test bullet fired from Jorge’s service pistol. The other side was the forensics photo of the bullet recovered at the crime scene. He studied the two photos. “Oh shit. That’s a match. What else you got?”

  “The night of the killing, Jorge got an anonymous tip that we later traced to a burner phone. The tipster claimed he had taken video of Franco doing a drug deal at Northwest 87th Street and Sixth Avenue. The guy promised to deliver the video to Jorge and to testify at Franco’s trial if the DA could get him into the witness protection program.”

  “How do we know that?”

  “Jorge’s statement. And Dan Murphy confirmed that Jorge called him at home and told him about the call. This happened a little after ten o’clock the night of the murder. Bigs and I confirmed the call with phone records. Jorge told me the caller had been frightened and would only meet him in secret and only if he came alone.”

  “Sounds like a setup.”

  Kelly nodded. “Jorge and Dan thought the same thing. So Dan followed Jorge to the meet and parked around the corner in case he needed backup.”

  “So what happened?”

  The Latina detective shrugged. “The caller never showed. Jorge hung around the meeting place for an hour then they gave up and went home.” She closed the binder. “While they waited for the no-show witness, Franco was gunned down four blocks away.”

  “Did either one hear the shots?”

  Kelly sighed. “No such luck. Industrial area with three-story, concrete block and stucco buildings that make great soundproofing.”

  “Yeah,” Chuck agreed, “that’s why they make freeway sound barriers out of concrete. Dan Murphy should be his alibi for the time of the shooting.”

  “Nope. Murphy waited a block away around a corner. He listened to Jorge’s open cell phone line. He couldn’t see Jorge.”

  “Could Murphy have sneaked off and killed Franco himself?”

  “Bigs and I checked the GPS recorders in both unmarked cars. Neither one left the spots the guys reported in their incident report.”

  “So if Jorge or Murphy did it, he left his car on foot. Any security cameras in the neighborhood?”

  “There were two logical streets that either Jorge or Dan could use to get to the site: 85th and 86th. We canvassed every business on both streets. We found three security cameras at two businesses. No sign of anyone walking on the street.”

  The elevator dinged and Kelly looked up to see her partner come out carrying two brown paper bags in his massive hands. He maneuvered his six-and-half-feet of bulk carefully between the desks.

  Arnie “Bigs” Bigelow had retired as a defensive lineman for the Port City Pelicans when he was in his early thirties. He had been such a dominating force for the Pelican defense that sports journalists dubbed the entire defensive line The Bigs Brigade. Kelly first met Bigs when he trained at the police academy between football seasons. He became a ride-along, unpaid volunteer in the off-season.

  When the Pelicans retired his jersey, he decided to do something meaningful with the rest of his life, so he joined the Port City Police Department. He worked his way up to detective and Kelly grabbed him as a partner.

  “Got your lunch, Kelly. Hey, Chuck. You had lunch?” He set the bags on Kelly’s desk and shook hands. His giant hand swallowed the young PI’s.

  “Thanks, I’m good. Y’all go ahead.” Chuck picked up his binder. “I won’t interrupt your lunch. I’ll take this binder to that empty desk and study it while you eat. I’ll come back in a bit.”

  ###

  Kelly and Bigs stuffed their Chinese take-out dishes into the bags Bigs had brought them in. Kelly dropped the trash into a waste can beside her desk and waved Chuck over. “Okay, back to work. Whatddya want to know?”

  “Walk me through this.”

  “Lieutenant Weiner said to treat this like the victim was a solid citizen instead of a drug dealer. ‘By the book,’ she said.”

  Bigs smiled. “Mother Weiner always tells us, ‘Scumbags deserve justice too.’”

  All the cops who worked for Lieutenant Joyce Weiner called her “Mother” because she was a Jewish mother to them as well as in real life. Kelly knew that Chuck was one of the lucky ones who had worked for her back in the day.

  “We checked Franco’s car and gun for prints,” said Kelly. “Dug out one spent shell from the wall behind the car. We reviewed the autopsy. The kill shot was right to the head after Franco fell from the first ones. Franco got off three rounds before he fell. We found bullet holes in a building across the street from the dead guy. After that, we didn’t have much to go on. We put the case on hold until the ballistics came back.”

  She tapped the murder book. “That’s when we found out that Jorge’s gun was the murder weapon.”

  Chuck nodded. “It must’ve been pretty cut and dried from there.”

  “What did we miss, Chuck?” Bigs asked.

  “I’ll study the murder book again tonight. So far it looks like solid work, guys.”

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” Kelly said. “Bigs and I both wear pants, so don’t
try to blow smoke up my dress. What’d you find?”

  “You’re right, Kelly: There’s no such thing as a perfect case. Something’s tickling at the back of my mind. I just haven’t figured it out yet.”

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  “You two did the investigation the right way. I’m going to do it the Army way—out of the box.”

  To order Double Fake, Double Murder, click here Amazon.com.

  Quarterback Trap

  The third Carlos McCrary novel, Quarterback Trap is available in both electronic and print editions on Amazon.com. Free to Kindle Unlimited members. Print edition is also available on barnesandnoble.com.

  ###

  Port City is excited to be hosting the New York Jets and the Dallas Cowboys in the first Super Bowl in its fabulous, new billion-dollar stadium. Chuck McCrary’s old friend from high-school football, Bob Martinez, is starting quarterback for the Jets.

  One week before the game, Bob Martinez’s supermodel fiancée, Graciela, disappears in the middle of the night from the Super Bowl headquarters hotel. Martinez hires Chuck to find her, but he won’t let Chuck involve the police.

  That same day the odds on the Super Bowl game change dramatically when someone bets a hundred million dollars on the Cowboys to beat the point spread. Is it Vicente Vidali, the New Jersey casino owner and mob boss? Did he kidnap Graciela?

  Chuck discovers that Graciela has a secret that places her life in danger, regardless of the outcome of the game. Was she really kidnaped, or did she run away from her own secret life? Bob Martinez also has a dangerous secret that threatens to destroy his multi-million-dollar career in the NFL.

  To save Graciela’s life, Vicente Vidali demands that Martinez shave the point spread on the Super Bowl, so Vidali can collect on his hundred-million-dollar bet.

  Chuck’s search for the missing supermodel takes him from the dangerous streets and drug dealers of a South Florida ghetto to the waterfront high-rises and private island mansions of billionaires, movie stars, and crime moguls.

  Chuck must assault the mob boss’s mega-yacht, risking his own life to bring Graciela to safety. Then he must invade Vidali’s luxurious island mansion and take the fight to the mobster’s home.

  A preview of

  Quarterback Trap

  Chapter 1

  The woman stumbled through the elevator door of the parking garage, catching her spike heel in the crack. Goddammit. Why did I wear these shoes? She glanced at her watch: 3:30 a.m. She pressed the keyfob of her rental car. As she looked up, she jerked to a halt at the sight of a dirty white van parked a few feet away, its side door open.

  Strong hands grabbed her from behind. Her red Prada purse fell to the pavement, spilling its contents. Her cellphone skittered a few feet, coming to rest under the edge of the van.

  Two men half-carried, half-dragged her toward the van door.

  “What the hell…?” she sputtered.

  One of them shoved her through the open door of the van and across the second row bench toward the far wall where a second man grabbed her arm. He climbed in after her. “Grab her purse and find that cellphone.”

  The man outside the van jerked the sliding door closed, scooped up the purse and phone, and trotted around to the driver’s door. He jumped in, tossed the items onto the front passenger seat, and started the engine. As the van drove away, a tire crushed the keyfob to the woman’s rental car.

  Chapter 2

  Bob Martinez, starting quarterback for the New York Jets, eased through the crowd toward my table, fist bumping and high-fiving as he went.

  I stood and waved. Bob was a half hour late. That wasn’t like him.

  “Hey, Eighty-Eight, great to see you,” he said in Spanish.

  I had to smile. “I haven’t worn number eighty-eight in years, Bob.”

  “You’ll always be Eighty-Eight to me.”

  We shook hands and Bob pulled out a chair. He continued in Spanish. “This my breakfast?” He lifted the stainless steel covers from the two plates. “Pass the salsa, please.”

  I slid the dish across the table. When Bob spoke Spanish, it meant something was bothering him. I went along and switched to Spanish. “Two orders of huevos rancheros with brown rice and refritos on the side, like your text said.”

  “Thanks, buddy. Sorry I’m late. It’s always a madhouse when I’m in public.” He checked his phone before he smothered his food with salsa. “I never know how long it’ll take to get anywhere.”

  “It goes with the territory. When you’re starting in the Super Bowl, everyone wants a piece of you. It must be tough to handle so much attention. It’s like you’re on stage all the time.”

  “You do what you gotta do.” Bob looked at his phone again and frowned. He dug into his huevos rancheros. “These folks are football fans; it wouldn’t be right to ignore them.”

  “Your text didn’t say what to order for Graciela. Where is your gorgeous fiancée?”

  For an instant, there was a look in Bob’s eyes, then it was gone. He stuffed a forkful of huevos in his mouth. “Gracie doesn’t eat breakfast; I thought you knew.” He rolled a tortilla in his fingers.

  A small boy approached the table and waited for my friend to notice him.

  Bob set down the tortilla and wiped his hands on a napkin. “Hey, sport. How’s it going?” He’d switched to English.

  The boy blushed and blurted out, “How come everybody calls you the Mexican Muscle?”

  Bob grinned at the nervous youth. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Travis McKinnon, sir.”

  Bob shook hands. “Bob Martinez. Pleased to meet you, Travis.”

  Over the boy’s shoulder, Bob saw a middle-aged man in a Jets tee-shirt watching from a nearby table. The man smiled and shrugged. “Is that guy in the Jets shirt your dad?”

  Travis glanced back at the man. “Yes, sir. I asked him why they call you the Mexican Muscle. He said he didn’t know.”

  “Lots of people ask me that. A sportswriter on a Cleveland newspaper came up with the nickname when the Browns drafted me a few years ago. I’m Mexican-American like my friend Eighty-Eight here, and I’m kinda big. The nickname stuck, even when the Browns traded me to New York.”

  The boy turned to me. “Why does he call you Eighty-Eight? Do you play for the Jets too?”

  “No,” I answered. “I wore number eighty-eight when Bob and I played together at Theodore Roosevelt High School. I was a tight end.”

  “Oh.” Travis turned back to Bob. “Can I take your picture, sir?”

  “Sure thing.” Bob waved the boy’s father over. “Why don’t you take a picture of Travis and me together?”

  While the boy’s father took out his camera, Bob turned to the boy. “Did you know that where I was born, Travis is a famous name?”

  Travis’s eyes grew wider. “Where’s that, sir?”

  “Texas. William Barrett Travis was a hero of the Alamo. Lots of people in Texas are named after him.”

  “I’m from New York.”

  “Well, I am too—now. I live in New York City.” He put his arm around the boy’s shoulder, and they both faced the camera. “Say ‘Go Jets.’”

  After giving Travis’s father a fist bump, Bob picked up the tortilla and used it to scoop eggs onto his fork. “Kids like that make it worth all the hassle.”

  My friend should have been on top of the world with the Super Bowl a week away, but instead he looked troubled. “Bob, you speak Spanish when something’s bothering you. What’s on your mind, amigo? Does it have anything to do with you checking your phone every five seconds?”

  He switched back to English. “I’m sure it’s nothing, really, Eighty-Eight.” He scooped up a mouthful of rice.

  “When a guy says ‘it’s nothing, really,’ it means there’s something there. What is it?”

  Bob’s mouth drew into a thin line. “Gracie wasn’t there when I woke up this morning.”

  “Wasn’t where?”

  “In our hotel sui
te. In our bed, for God’s sake. The players have a curfew before a big game, and there’s no game bigger than the Super Bowl. I left the party at 10:30 last night. Gracie was having a good time, said she wasn’t ready to leave. Told me she’d be along later and not to wake her in the morning. She wanted to sleep in.”

  He drank some orange juice. “When the alarm went off at six, she wasn’t there. Her side of the bed hadn’t been slept in. I’ve been calling and texting every few minutes since then. Her phone goes straight to voicemail. Frankly, I’m freaking out a little.” He finished the first order of huevos rancheros and started on the refried beans.

  “Did you go look for her?”

  Bob continued to eat mechanically. “That’s why I was late to meet you, buddy. I checked with the front desk. Then I went to the concierge in case she’d left a message, a note, anything. Nobody’s seen her this morning.”

  “Has Gracie ever done anything like this before?”

  “What do you mean ‘like this’?”

  “Disappeared—without telling you.”

  Bob looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was nearby. He lowered his voice. “Once or twice… when she was snorting.”

  “Snorting? You mean cocaine? That’s bad news.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Bob drank the rest of his juice and signaled the server to bring more. “I’m scared as hell that Gracie scored some coke last night after I left. She could be off god-knows-where doing god-knows-what with god-knows-who.” He ate without enjoyment, refueling an empty tank. He ate the last morsel of rice from the first plate, set it aside, and tackled the second plate.

  I sipped my coffee. “When the three of us had dinner in New York two weeks ago, she seemed fine.”

  “She doesn’t talk about her, ah, former problem.”

  “I never heard any rumors that Gracie was addicted.”

  Bob shrugged. “We managed to keep it out of the papers. I sent her to rehab last summer under another name while I was at training camp. She stayed there through the pre-season and came out to watch our season opener against the Steelers. She’s been clean ever since.” He frowned and poked at his food. “At least that’s what she told me.”