MURDER!
BY
DONALD WELLS
Also by Donald Wells
Blue Steele
Blue Steele - Bounty Hunter
Blue Steele - Broken
Blue Steele - Vengeance
Blue Steele - That Which Doesn't Kill Me
Blue Steele - On The Hunt
Blue Steele - First Capture
Caliber Detective Agency
Caliber Detective Agency - Generations
Caliber Detective Agency - Temptation
Caliber Detective Agency - A Ransom Paid In Blood
Caliber Detective Agency - Missing
Caliber Detective Agency - Deception
Caliber Detective Agency - Crucible
Parker & Knight
Murder!
The Reynolds Family Saga
The Many And The One
Sins & Second Chances
Dry Adultery, Wet Ambition
Of Tongue And Pen
All Good Things...
Little White Sins
Everything New Is Old Again
The Light Of Darkness
Standalone
Redemption
Double or Nothing
The Fix-It Man
Watch for more at Donald Wells’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Also By Donald Wells
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About The Author
COPYRIGHT
Further Reading: Homicide!
About the Author
1
Detective Rick Parker looked down at the tile floor and thought one word.
Murder!
He was on the fifth floor of a recently built office complex in the company of his wife and was about to sit around with a group of strangers and discuss the details of his personal life.
Murder, pure murder,
Relational Group Therapy for Couples is what they called it, but Parker thought that he’d rather be in a dark alley facing a loaded gun.
He was seated in a semi-circle of people with his wife at his right, and they were one of four couples. The doctor, a psychiatrist named Arnie Stahl, sat at the front facing the group. Parker saw that there were still two empty seats and he guessed that there would be another couple joining the group. It was July and the air-conditioning was at full blast to fight off the outside temperatures, which for the last few days had been hovering in the mid-nineties.
Despite the heat, Parker wore a blue summer-weight sport coat. It hid the gun on his belt, and he never went without one if he could help it.
The Couples Therapist, Doctor Stahl, looked every bit of what he was. Stahl was fifty-four, of average height and size with sympathetic brown eyes and thinning brown hair. His wire rim glasses sparkled beneath the harsh glare of the fluorescent lighting, and the beige carpet made his complexion look even paler than usual.
Parker also looked every bit of what he was, a cop.
No one ever took the large man for anything other than a cop and it was a source of frustration to him when he was a young officer in Philadelphia, because back then all he wanted to do was work undercover narcotics.
He grew his raven hair long, added a beard and dressed, “street” and still he looked more like a cop than the veterans at his precinct.
The problem was his eyes. He had always, and would always have a cop’s watchful, stony gaze and there wasn’t a thing to be done about it, although, someone once quipped that he could don dark glasses and go undercover as a blind drug dealer. The quip did not amuse Parker.
Now, at forty, Philadelphia and thoughts of going undercover were long behind him. He was a detective on the Washington New Jersey Police Force and had grown to love the town, a town that was quickly on its way to becoming a city.
The town had been a sleepy little place until 9/11, but in the aftermath of those tragic events a native son, Bart Bennett, returned to town from Manhattan, and within three years he had converted his family’s farm into a corporate campus, and had built a new factory on land that had been the old town dump.
Soon, farm after farm was being sold off so that new apartment complexes and single-family homes could be built, and what had been a population of several thousand multiplied quickly.
As always, more people meant more problems, and sometimes those problems were of a criminal nature, and so the town began hiring more cops.
Parker saw it as an opportunity to leave Philadelphia, a city he had grown disenchanted with, and start fresh in New Jersey. The Washington force jumped at the chance to hire him and when the town had its first murder in over thirty years, it was Rick Parker who was chosen to investigate it.
Parker solved that case and the three that have happened since and now he was technically the lone homicide detective on the Washington Police Force, although, his regular duties were of the more mundane variety. There was also a search on for another cop with Parker’s experience, and several candidates had applied and been interviewed.
His wife, Rachel, gave his big hand a squeeze and Parker took his eyes from the carpet and looked into hers.
“I appreciate you doing this. I know it’s not easy for you,” she said.
Rachel Parker was ten years younger than her husband. A petite blonde with turquoise eyes and a wide smile, it was Rachel who broke the marriage vows when she had an affair earlier in the year.
When Parker discovered the betrayal, it wounded him to his core, but he loved his wife, eventually forgave her, and told her that he would do anything to heal their marriage.
Rachel had categorized the affair as a, “stupid mistake” and the two of them entered couples’ therapy with Dr. Stahl. That was over six months ago, six months of sessions that revealed Rachel’s neediness and Parker’s bent toward autonomy.
Rachel worked as a nurse, an RN, and did the food shopping, but that was the extent of her contribution to the household, and while he knew every detail about her job and the people she worked with, he never spoke of anything work related and relaxed by taking long runs or woodworking in the basement.
Rachel complained that Parker never opened up to her about his feelings while Parker revealed that he sometimes felt more like Rachel’s father than her husband, because he handled everything in their marriage, from finances to planning vacations, everything fell on his shoulders.
Those revelations and insights came hard, and now Dr. Stahl wanted them to sit in a room of strangers and speak about private pain. Parker would do it. If it meant saving his marriage he would do it, because he knew one thing above all others, he loved his wife.
Parker stared into Rachel’s eyes.
“Easy or hard, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, you know?”
Rachel smiled. “I know.”
The room they sat in was rectangular with the wallboard painted a soothing blue, but there was a glass door that led to the hallway, and when Parker looked through it and saw who was walking their way, his eyes turned to slits.
“What the hell is he doing here?”
Rachel followed his gaze and gasped. “Oh no,”
Walking towards the therapy room was the man Rachel had her affair with, Timothy Hearn. At twenty-eight, Hearn was even younger than Rachel and his beach boy good looks and brilliant blue eyes attracted more women than Parker’s handsome, but stony, face ever would.
; Hearn’s income also dwarfed Parker’s as his family had deep roots in the area and owned several businesses.
Walking beside Hearn was his wife, Emily; it was Emily who had made Parker aware of his wife’s infidelity, and he knew that she hated Rachel.
Hearn opened the door, stepped in behind his wife, and then looked shocked as he spotted Rachel.
Emily Hearn pointed at Rachel. She was a dark-haired beauty with a slim, but shapely figure.
“What is your whore doing here?”
Hearn looked flabbergasted, and Parker was relieved to see that Rachel did as well; apparently, neither knew that the other would be present.
Dr. Stahl shot up from his chair and went to Emily.
“Mrs. Hearn, Emily, what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? I come here to save my marriage and I find my husband’s whore staring at me, that’s what’s wrong.”
Parker winced at Emily’s use of the word, whore, but understood the bitterness behind it. He had thought of Hearn in far less flattering terms and was currently fighting the impulse to punch the man in the face, as he had when he found out about the affair.
Dr. Stahl’s head was swiveling back and forth between Rachel and Timothy Hearn as a sickening realization came upon him.
“Oh God, are you telling me that Rachel is the woman your husband had the affair with?”
“Affair? It wasn’t an affair. They fucked, doctor, they snuck off whenever they could and they fucked. Why the hell is that bitch here?”
The doctor looked as if he wanted to cry as he answered.
“I apologize deeply. This is a terrible twist of fate and nothing more, you see, I’ve been treating both you and your husband and the Parkers over the last few months, but because you’ve only used first names I—oh no, there’s no excuse for this and all four of you have my sincere apology.”
“You scheduled us in the same group?” Rachel said.
“Yes.” Stahl nodded. “As I said, it’s all just a terrible twist of fate, but I’ll rectify it. There are other groups that I can suggest.”
Emily looked up at her husband.
“You knew this bitch would be here, didn’t you?”
Hearn jerked his eyes from Rachel. He had been staring at her when his wife spoke.
“No... no, I, I didn’t know. Like the doctor said, a twist of fate,”
When Hearn stopped talking, he went back to staring at Rachel.
“How have you been? You look good.”
Parker stepped in front of Rachel, blocking Hearn’s view.
“Take your wife and head for the elevator, now.”
Hearn laughed.
“Is that an order, Officer? You know you’re lucky that Rachel talked me out of filing assault charges against you.”
Parker stepped closer.
“Leave now, or I just might press my luck.”
“Is that a threat?”
Parker reached out and grabbed a fistful of Hearn’s shirt, but Rachel clutched his wrist.
“Let him go, Rick. He hasn’t done anything, like the doctor said, this is all a big mistake.”
“Whore!” Emily shouted, practically screaming the word into Rachel’s ear.
Parker let go of Hearn and guided Rachel away from the woman.
“Just leave, the two of you,”
Dr. Stahl began herding Emily toward the door.
“Yes, please leave, I’ll call later and we’ll discuss our options.”
Emily went out into the hall in a huff, but Hearn turned in the doorway to stare back at Rachel.
“You look good, very good,”
Parker went for him, but Dr. Stahl got between them and slammed the door on Hearn.
Parker turned around to find the other three couples in the room staring at him, but when he looked at his wife, he saw that her eyes were gazing through the glass door, watching Hearn’s departure.
Four days later, he came home to find a note telling him that she had run off with Timothy Hearn.
2
Six weeks later.
The girl laying on her side atop the entryway floor was dead, but there was little blood and Parker thought that the murder must have taken place very recently.
The girl, woman actually, given that the ID in her purse gave her age as nineteen, and it also told him that her address was the house next door.
Her name was Tiffany Grace, and she had bled from a wound on her left side, but because of the sparse amount of blood, Parker suspected that the murder weapon had pierced her heart, ending her life, and stopping the flow of blood.
The girl was a looker, Parker thought.
Tiffany Grace had been five-foot-three and weighed 112 lbs. The blond hair looked natural and her wide-opened eyes were still blue, although there was no sheen upon them. They looked like the dusty eyes of a doll whose owner had outgrown her.
Tiffany had been wearing white cotton shorts and the contrast with her tanned flesh was stark, even in death. Her halter top was an emerald green that left her flat stomach bare, lying down as she was, her breasts had slid nearly free of the fabric and above her left nipple was the tiny tattoo of a heart .
The colors were vibrant and the tattoo looked new, but then, the girl had been vibrant and new.
Parker turned to the crime scene photographer who was also the coroner’s assistant, a young, black woman named Stella Harvey.
“I’ll need a close-up of that tattoo on her breast, and any other ones you guys find.”
Stella nodded, and Parker thought that she looked shaken.
“You okay, Stella?”
“Yeah, it’s just that she looks like a friend of mine. It’s not her, and she’s younger than my friend, but the resemblance... it’s a little creepy.”
“Yeah, I’ve had that happen to me once or twice. When’s Colton getting here?”
Colton was Jasper Colton, a retired general practitioner who worked as the town’s coroner.
“Jasper’s letting me go solo on this one.” Stella said.
Parker looked at her in surprise.
“I thought you had to be a doctor to be a coroner?”
“You don’t have to be a doctor to be a coroner, that’s only for M.E.’s, but I am a doctor, I received my degree two weeks ago.”
“Get the hell out of here; you’re too young to be a doctor.”
Stella laughed. “How old do you think I am, Rick?”
Parker shrugged. “Twenty-three, twenty-four?”
“I’m thirty-one, and if I hadn’t wasted time at law school I would have been a doctor years ago.”
Parker stared at her. Stella Harvey was shapely and as fit as anyone he knew. He’d seen her running in the park often, while he had been putting in his own miles. Her brown eyes were large and devoid of surrounding wrinkles and the only lines on her face could be classified as laugh lines.
“Damn Stella, I thought you were just a kid. Should I start calling you Dr. Harvey?”
“Yeah, right after I begin calling you Detective Parker, for now, let’s keep it Stella and Rick,”
“All right; and when can I expect the autopsy?”
“There are two ahead of her from that car wreck last night out on I-95, but I think Colton will let me put her to the front of the line. He’ll also be assisting me, in case you’re worried.”
“I wasn’t worried. If Colton thinks you’re ready then that’s good enough for me, but excuse me, I think it’s time I go and talk to the homeowners.”
“You mean suspects, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess in this instance they’re one and the same.”
The homeowners were Alex and Mandy Kent, and it wasn’t lost on Parker that either one or both of the Kents probably murdered Tiffany, since the killer had reset the home’s burglar alarm upon leaving. Whoever killed the girl was very familiar with the house.
The house was part of the old Washington, the picturesque town. It had been built back in the 1950’s and kept in good shape by the Kent
s.
The home and its neighbors had once been as alike as a batch of chocolate chip cookies. The developer that built them had used the same basic theme. When first built, they were a line of two-story rectangular boxes with brick at their base and aluminum siding over the rest. It wouldn’t have surprised Parker to learn that they had all been the same color.
The past sixty or so years had wrought changes on the homes however, and now they were as different as their underlying sameness would allow.
Some homes had decks or pools out back while others had squat additions that likely housed another bedroom or a home office. Aluminum siding was still dominant on most, but the shades and styles varied greatly and were interspersed among neighbors who preferred stucco, and one or two had even applied cedar shingles.
Landscaping also set the homes apart, and especially so in the case of the Kent home. The lawn was a green wonder and sat behind manicured hedges. Even the trees looked manicured, or at least well-trimmed and Parker had taken a quick look at the large garden in the back, as well as the oversized shed.
The inside of the medium-sized home was richly decorated and the flat screen bolted to the living room wall was one of the biggest televisions that Parker had ever seen.
The house said middle-class, but the Kents had money, the two late model, luxury cars told you that before you ever stepped inside, but they also had a dead woman lying just inside their front door, and Parker intended to find out who killed her.
Parker walked into the dining room and found Alex and Mandy Kent seated at opposite ends of a table that could seat eight. The physical distance was a telltale sign of trouble in a marriage that Parker knew well.
When he had first learned of his wife’s betrayal with Timothy Hearn, he found himself steering clear of her, despite the fact that he still loved her. It had taken a few days for him to get over the hurt, and he wondered if the Kents were going through a similar thing, and if so, was the victim, Tiffany Grace, a contributing factor.
Parker said nothing for a moment, but just let his eyes take in the couple.
Alex Kent was handsome, in his late-thirties with dark hair and a tall, athletic build. His blue eyes met Parker’s dark gaze without hesitation and held a look of worry. Kent was wearing a pair of chinos with a green polo shirt and, beneath the table, Parker saw that his feet were clad in sneakers.
Murder! (Parker & Knight Book 1) Page 1