The Queen & The Viper
Adam C. Mitchell
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part II
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
About the Author
Also by Adam C. Mitchell
Copyright ©2017/2020 Adam C Mitchell
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Amazon Kindle Edition
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All references to ©The Lost Angel by Adam C. Mitchell are also subject to the same terms and conditions set forth in this copyright statement.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any infringement on copyright law is theft and will be dealt with as is the laws of the country of issue.
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Cover art by A. Willmann’s
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All references to © JACK MALONE, PEGGY MALONE and JENNA created by Adam C. Mitchell is also subject to the same terms and conditions set forth in this copyright statement.
Published in the United Kingdom – Shropshire -Whitchurch
Created with Vellum
Foreword
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental. All names locations and trademarks herein are the full ownership of the author unless otherwise stated.
Hey Dad,
Skip the water. Make that one with scotch. It'll save time.
Acknowledgments
I’ve heard it said that writing a novel is a marathon, not a sprint. Well writing The Queen and The Viper was an Olympic triathlon. So to the coaches and friends who kept me going this book is for you, there are too many names mention here in a simply Acknowledgement page. But I know who you are and from the bottom of my heart thank you.
Part One
Chapter One
Of all the dames who chose to call the warm sun and sandy beaches of fair Liberty City home, Peggy Ellen was truly one of a kind. She had something about her, an allure that all women had.
As all women are queen’s in their own right. But of all these women only a few came close to near perfection, and out of those rare few only a handful truly mastered that special something that set them apart. Well, one man thought so. A man she was waiting to see, a Lieutenant who secretly loved her, a man who thought the world of her, she was his world.
This woman now that now sat outside his office. Rain rattled against everything the sound of rain on window pane echoing throughout the police station, the same was true of the Lieutenants office, the rain bringing with it a dark low-lying grey cloud.
Despite the rain and cloud outside, a warm front had blown in from the coast, the temperature making everyone on streets of Liberty uncomfortable.
The feeling of the city drifted into the office on the top floor of the building. Lieutenant Malone, rocked back in his chair. His strong fingers gripped the chairs oak arms tightly. Almost like letting them go, would be more than dire. His fingers did it more by instinct than anything else, trying everything he could to avoid the covered object on his cluttered desk, the object sat there nestled in between a now empty scotch bottle and ever-growing pile of paperwork.
Malone’s office normally was more than big enough, but now it felt small and apprehensive. The Lieutenant kept his eyes away from the glass tray, as he reached for the phone.
“Okay Claudia, send her in.”
A moment later, the woman sitting outside came in she wouldn’t have been out of place in any of the top socialite lunch parties or events that popped up through out the city. Despite the drab uniform she wore, the way she carried herself spoke volumes. It almost flowed out from its confines, the black pencil skirt and blazer almost seemed to struggle to hold in the class and style this woman had about her. She was astoundingly beautiful, and she hadn’t even tired at it.
Her looks were not angelic as to draw attention, but enough to blend in and catch someone's eye, if only for a fleeting glance. Her eyes were deep hazel and always calm— as if nothing could shock her, let alone surprise her. The well-dressed woman wrinkled her nose.
“My God Lieutenant! A man can’t live without food, water or well air and I’m told it stunts growth, if you know what I mean. So for the sake of your girl, crack a window!” Jack Malone, took off his hat and wiped his clammy forehead with a shirt sleeve.
“feel free Ellen” the man behind the desk nodded toward the cigarette box, one that he kept next to a well-stocked drinks cabinet, a gift from the Major for a job well done, and his long service. But after looking it over Peggy declined “So no window?” she said not really in the mood for his smokey cloud “Okay, fine don’t believe me, ask the M.E. Sir.” Acting Detective Sergeant Peggy Ellen second grade, looked at her superior, with an almost comical grimace. The object in the middle of Malone’s desk, was turning him an almost pale green but it had no chance in turning her stomach for a second, it would take a lot more than to upset her resolve. “Chief, after that brief transfer to Hub Cities organised crime division, It’ll take more than that little souvenir to turn me yellow.” She said mocking his masculinity subtly “after all I saw something's over there.”
Malone lifted one corner of the thick white cloth covering the glass tray. Revealing a clear glass cylinder of formaldehyde. “What’s left of a woman’s severed thigh, well what's left of it after a small army of rats had their fill anyway.”
Ellen’s lips puckered, but her resolve stayed the same. “Where’d it come in Sir?"
“Twenty-First Precinct, North Hundred and Second.” Malone replied after consulting a pocketbook “Robert Doyle, probationer. Found a child trying to salvage this white cloth, that seems to have been used to package our little gift. Which had also been tied with postal string. Boyle's beat takes him near the docks on Ninety-eighth. This thing here was on the tide flat at the side of the adjoining Trans-continental pier.
“When was this Jack?”
“This morning around nine, doll. Doc said it had been there a week give or take a day. He says some flies had laid eggs or something near the bone. I don’t know, but the doc says it confirms the time of death. I don’t really understand the science, but I haven’t got nearly enough certificates to argue with the man who does.”
“You said it was found tied with string, Sir?” Ellen asked curiously.
“Yes string not cord so I’m informed as it’s made different.” Jack pointed to a tangled bundle at the far end of the glass tray. “Was tied anyway, it’s a needle in a haystack full of needles though. Everyone uses string in some way these days, Christ, it must be used a million times in this city alone.”
“But, sir, the marks there look more like rope, than average string, the marks are wider for a start,” she said poi
nting at the marks on the macabre hunk of flesh, the lieutenant squinted. “Well done Ellen, I noticed them too, I’ve asked the lab folk to see what magic they can do with it. But sergeant the reason I sent you—”
“You figure like me and Louise did, this might be one of the ‘Contentment’ cases?” she moved past his desk to the window, finally cracking it open a few inches, then stared down into Hampshire Avenue below.
“It’s a 60/40 bet honey, and I’m no betting man. But if you think it’s a possible, well let's run it up the flagpole and run with it. That’s why I called down to the Policewoman’s bureau, and asked for you and Detective Louise Parish, specifically you two are the best they got down there. You’ve already done more on this ‘Contentment’ assignment than most of the detectives here. If ‘crim-ident’ can lend a hand maybe, maybe get some more information on I don’t know? Documents records who knows there experts on what they do. Plus if the P.W.B and us here can work together all is on the money. What you say, Ellen, me and you working together like old times.” Malone said as he swung around to meet her.
“My office doesn’t want a scrap of credit either.”
“Damn the credit, Jack! If I could break the case. I’ve been running around in circles since the fourth body hit the slab and although the case was originally a P.W.B find, the brass don’t think us little ladies can handle any form of Homicide. Even if we are just as a much a professional than your jocks, anyway I’ve been hoping the next might be just a dizzy dame on walkabout or better a runaway bride, at least then we at the P.W.B would have something to go on, but this knowing is. If it is.” she gazed at the chewed-up thigh “one of them, well this has stepped up from just a nasty murder, this has become its own monster.” Jack Malone just nodded.
The hunk of flesh didn’t really phase her. Peggy was different. She was an oddball of the P.W.B, she seemed to see the world as it was one big cloud of grey, slowly churning into a storm of trouble. In this you had to fight for your place in it. To find a place to take your stand is all a cop could hope for in her opinion. Take a stand and fight for what you believed to be just. She had wondered a lot recently if the monster she hunted, even respected that sort of thing.
“Sir, any reason to think it’s one of these matrimonial agencies sad customers.” Malone undid his top button, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.
Malone undid his top button, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “Remember when the P.W.B. called you to liaise with that mob turncoat, and we ended up doing it over lunch at Bellissimo’s, and you said what kind of heel or yokel would have to find their skirt through a small ad in the tabloids. Mainly when you explained that they seem to go for a certain type of dame. You know the poor unlucky ones who’ve had genuine bad luck, to be disfigured crippled and the like.”
Ellen’s voice cut in bitterly, “can’t forget it Jack, every one of those pointless appeals for inquiry. Came from the friends and family of those disabled woman—or those families whose wife or sister had a facial blemish, that would give them a handicap. When it was there to turn to play the husband hunt. It’s no surprise Bo Peep’s sheep got led to the slaughter, by the vile big bad wolf, who flattered them and promised them...whatever that dirt-bag promised.”
Malone took out his pipe, thumbed in some tobacco and lit it. “Well, that there thigh bone, was broken. In two separate places or so I’m told by the M.E. Broken from what he can make out, by a short blunt instrument, like a rounders bat or heavy walking cane. What’s worse though, is it happened when she was still alive. Poor girl.”
“What leg?” Peggy Ellen asked as she turned from the office window.
“Left”
“Now if I remember rightly it’s not the first time, the left was taken was it? said the Lieutenant out loud.
“Sophie”
“Yeah, wasn’t it one of them dames…?”
“Yes Sir, Sophie Dancer's,” Peggy said eyeing the oiled cloth, covering the find to show the deceased a little bit of respect, despite her not getting it during her last moments.
“Spinster. Thirty-six, grade school teacher out of Rook Falls. The poor woman had her hip broken in an auto-mobile mash-up in November 1932. Double fracture, set at Mormon Hope Memorial Hospital. Entered into the agencies program with the Herald of Contentment Matrimonial Agency two years later. Came to Liberty October 2nd after being introduced to an Edward Henderson by mail. Then to 4761 Sunrise Avenue in the upper part of the city.”
The Lieutenant checked back with his pocketbook on his desk. “Length of the femur was 16.5 inches. Factor in Sophie’s weight and average thigh bone for a woman of her age, at three and six tenths. About sixty-five inches tall. Would this Danvers—?”
“She was just short of five feet three, Jack. By the Saint Winifred’s board of Education’s records anyway. What must have been more important to Henderson, was Sophie Danvers had a dime shy of one thousand two hundred dollars in the Liberty National Savings Bank. A week after she arrived, she had all her money save two cents transferred in from Rook Falls Savings and Loans, On October 3rd the next day it was all drawn out. Since that withdrawal though there hasn’t been a single trace of either of them.”
“Any description of this Henderson, sergeant.” Peggy shrugged.
“He’s a ghost, well if you call a fleeting glance from Sophie’s uncle something to go on. Henderson never went up to Rook Falls, as far as we can tell, and all the uncle remembered was that he was good looking and had a moustache or goatee, he can’t remember which.” Malone took a long draw from his pipe “Well that’s a great help!” Then the Lieutenant called via the office phone for Benjamin Morgan, a beat cop who’d pulled in a collar one for Jack’s boys at the precinct, he hoped he’d take the thigh bone back down to the cold morgue and police butcher. “Oh and Morgan best high-tale it back to your precinct, before your higher up’s rip you a new one,” Jack added playfully.
“What about Henderson neighbours or friends?”
“Rooming house, with a blind landlord. But what we can tell. He hardly used the room though. When the P.W.B searched it, he saw his bed had hardly been used, and it looked like from the few groceries about the room, that he stayed here maybe once or twice a week. Best our profiler could tell from what she saw, he seemed to have a dark streak in him.”
“Result, send out an all points alert, all boroughs, to pick up any guys with a dark side and a moustache. Then reserve the Liberty Lions stadium to hold them all. How about the other four whose missing? Same dirt-bag each time?” To be honest, she didn’t know. She didn’t really see Henderson as her guy in the first place, but right now she had no choice, but to run with it.
“I wish I could remember what that stuff makes me think of,” she said as she gazed at the grey tangled mess left on his desk in a paper bag. A second piece of evidence Jack had on his desk.
“About the possible suspects in the other cases— I’m up against one of those things, boss. All this does seem similar but at the same time not. The only thing that plays out are the disappearances of the women are all identical, Every time the man sent the woman a train ticket- first class no expense spared, to come to Liberty. Plus flowers were sent every single time, white roses to be exact, boss. Can you tie that, as I certainly can’t? Also, every woman dropped out of existence three days later, four at a push after getting their money transferred over.”
“Seems to me, it's all cut from the same cloth” Jack added. “That’s what I thought. But the men all had different names and each time a different address to boot,” she said a hint of frustration had crept into her being.
“What the crap, if they’re all grifters of veteran crooks, they could pick out a new alias or address as easily as a dame picks a new pair of overpriced shoes!” That jibe at woman didn’t help Peggy’s mood, the frustration was just brewing up. “I saw some of the correspondence letters, gained from the adverts. Each man posted to the agency. But none of the handwriting matched up.”
“Forgery? Or maybe a part
ner who writes them” Jack wondered aloud, then continued “It’s not usual for a killer to get attached like he seems to have done, then reel them in for the slaughter like this. Unless like I said it’s a partner or gang. Which I guess could be possible, from all the different descriptions and names of the men. All the men’s photos were different too, as each agency file requires a snapshot of their ugly mug. One of the Contentment’s rules apparently. One had a beard, one as bald as a cue ball and was way over fifty. The first case if I remember rightly was a guy called Simpson and he was just a pimple at twenty years old, or so the victim’s brother claimed. It really put a noose around my neck, when I first looked into it, I don’t mind telling you Peg.” Jack Malone spread his hands “We’ll have to go at it hard from this end I guess. The white cloth is easy enough to get at any five-and-dime. Be very hard to trace I’m told no surprise there though I guess. But if this killer butchered the Danvers dame. There well—there’d be more well pieces to dispose of, well apart from our little thigh bone.”“It is harder to get rid of a cadaver, they don’t exactly fit into one's car trunk. Maybe he slipped up he was was careless with our missing piece” Peggy added darkly. Jack just laughed
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