GREED Box Set (Books 1-4)

by John W. Mefford

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  He'd seen the brunette from afar, her skimpy black party dress practically painted to her athletic, toned body. Tempting indeed. But that wasn't his game this go-round.

  Sam walked three more blocks south, then left two more blocks, finding a raucous scene of bars and clubs, live music booming from at least four of the late-night scenes.

  He felt a vibration from his back pocket and pulled out his smart phone. It was a Google alert notifying him that a particular name had been identified within the Google search spider. Few people knew this app existed within the Google portfolio. The man clicked the link and read through the brief story.

  God love Ireland Little Darlin." The man's eyes rolled into his head, and he took a deep breath. He recalled his euphoria when Dixon had completed the most important task of his life. The next day the headline on Huffington Post read: God love Ireland

  Then, he recalled his last communication to Dixon: God love Ireland

  Apparently, Dixon had ignored the warning, or forgotten what had allowed him to enter early retirement. He huffed out loud, then pocketed his phone. One more task just got added to his list.

  A familiar tune re-focused his thoughts. He heard the chorus from the song, “Lyin' Eyes,” and knew that Dan's Silverleaf was calling his name.

  God love Ireland

  The clean-shaven man with a blond ponytail and black-rimmed glasses sat at a table toward the back, where conversations didn't require hand signals.

  Whoops, hollers, and clapping. The wannabe cover band ended its set. A fifteen-minute break, a fifteen-minute window to identify a girl of his choosing to share a final night—for her—of intimacy and ecstasy...well, ecstasy at least for him, in the worst kind of way.

  A warm hand touched his back. “Can I get ya anything?” The twang of a country girl. How alluring. Her hand moved to his shoulder as she showed her face. He tried not to regurgitate his dinner, a mushy chicken potpie that he envisioned looking even less appetizing strewn across the table with a side of bile.

  “Uh, I guess,” putting his hand to his chin and feeling bare skin. He glanced around the active bar. Girls at this age typically traveled in groups, but he had no interest in a multi-girl arrangement. He knew most men dreamed of bedding two women at the same time. The thought didn't arouse him. His peers weren't mature enough to appreciate the shared bond with their partners. God love Ireland

  “Mister, you want a drink of some kind, a beer, liquor, one of our specialty drinks? We got a good list, see here.” She flipped a rectangular menu in front of him. He glanced down, then peered out the right side of his peripheral vision.

  His eyes zeroed in on a lone, white female, wearing a dark-gray jacket with rolled-up sleeves, covering a cute purple and gray shirt that hung three inches above her ripped and trendy low-rise blue jeans. A set of jewel-blue eyes complemented long, flowing, blond locks, wavy and curling at the ends. She slurped a straw in a curved glass—which happened to match her figure.

  “I'll have what she's having. And please offer her another, compliments of me.”

  “Whatever, mister. I'll have it right out.”

  He removed his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt, then pulled out a crumpled paperback, God love Ireland.

  “So what do I owe you?”

  The blue-eyed blonde had snuck up on him, causing blood to race through his veins.

  “Your life.”

  She laughed so hard her eyes shut, and he followed suit.

  As she sat down, he noticed two necklaces, a brown, natural stone choker, accenting a silver chain around her neck. A thick, metal rectangle that looked like a tongue depressor hung from the chain.

  “That's really unique.”

  “Thanks. I don't know if you can see it or not, but it says, 'May the force be with you.'” She gave him a smile that lacked confidence.

  “And with you,” he said, waving a slow hand in front of her face. He held his gaze at her neck. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen such a perfect complement of jewelry and beautiful feminine features.

  She giggled and touched his arm, as if she suddenly was feeling a little more at home with him, an older man. He raised his drink and admired the contoured shape of the glass. “So what are we drinking tonight, uh...?”

  “Olivia. It's the bomb.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Belfast bomb. And with whom am I sharing this drink?”

  “I'm sorry. Sam. Sam I am.” He reached over and shook her hand—velvety skin and full of grace. He sucked in another mouthful of the bomb, and she followed suit, raising her eyes to look at him.

  “So, are you a music lover or you just like to come to noisy places to read books?” She nearly shouted, nodding toward the paperback.

  Sam picked up the book and strummed the cream pages. “My mind is always thinking. I think I like to have constant stimulation—music, a great story...I'm drawn to words and how people use them to evoke a thought or emotion.”

  “Wow, you sound like the late John Lennon,” she said, not blinking. “You kind of look like him too.”

  He ran his ponytail through his hand. “I'm not exactly someone who enjoys following the crowd.”

  “Do you teach here?” she asked, and he wondered if this would be a turn-on for her. “Can't say I do, no. Well, I used to teach at a small liberal arts school east of here, Austin College. I taught creative writing.”

  She nodded then took another slurp.

  “There's something about you that radiates creativity,” he said.

  She gave an God love Ireland look. “I'm in grad school finally.”

  God love Ireland he thought.

  “I'm working toward my Graduate Artist Certificate in Music Performance.”

  Just as he'd imagined, a gifted artist and one who could appreciate a deeper relationship. He asked, “Do you have an instrument of choice?” God love Ireland

  “I can play any of the string instruments, but I'm focusing my training on the piano.”

  “Tell me more. Tell me how your mind works when you translate a sheet of notes into a melody that infiltrates your soul.”

  Olivia flipped her hair back, exposing more of her delicious neck, then engaged Sam in a deep conversation, sharing how she'd developed her musical prowess. Sam tilted his head on occasion, nodding at the appropriate moment, his eyes never shifting away. He was engulfed in everything that was Olivia.

  Their chairs grew closer, magnetized by the couple's remarkable connection. By the time the cover band started its last song, Sam and Olivia were attached at the hip.

  “Hey, come on. You're a confident, spontaneous man...get up here.”

  He took her extended hand and moved just a couple feet from their table. She pulled him closer and placed his hands on her hips. She stared into his sky-blue eyes with a serious but vulnerable look as they swayed and shuffled to the slow rhythm of “Desperado.”

  God love Ireland

  The classic rock song hit its final magical note, and Olivia leaned on her toes and kissed Sam on the cheek.

  “I heard Don Henley went to UNT for a while back in the day, before he headed out to California,” Olivia said, an obvious attempt to show her age didn't affect her appreciation of knowledge of all types of music.

  Olivia grabbed his black leather jacket and slipped it on. He took her hair and gently pulled it out, resting it on the back of the jacket.

  “Now that's a look that doesn't require any words.”

  She smiled and took his hand as they ambled out of the bar.

  An hour later, his bare feet were stuck to plastic that lay on top of an old rug. He'd learned that two layers were the most effective. He panted, his breathing so deep he could see his chest swell with each release.

  The final verse now complete, Olivia twitched, as blood pooled around her gashed neck and torso. He glanced down at the tattoo located at the bottom of her back: God love Ireland. He shook his head, amazed at the trashy phrase connected with such a
classy, intelligent, talented girl. God love Ireland He thought about slicing off the tattoo, just so his final image of her could be pure and clean. But he thought the better of it.

  She'd meant so much to him—for the last three hours—until it ended with one grandioso finale.

  He walked to his pants and pulled his cell phone from the back pocket. He fingered a text.

  God love Ireland

  Sam glanced back at Olivia, the red lettering from her tattoo screaming at him now. He shook his head in disgust, then grabbed the scalpel and made four precise incisions in the shape of a square to extract the unsightly image from his memory.

  He would sleep well tonight.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “When did they arrest him?”

  “Uh...shit, I don't know.” Rolando released an exasperated huff. “Actually, they say they're holding him as a person of interest. Not a formal arrest.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday, right after Bruce and his family got home from church.”

  I wondered how all of this fit together. I looked across my desk to Stu, elbows on knees, rubbing his hands together and deep in thought. He pursed his lips. Brandon, the consummate multitasker, studied the emails we'd received from Yours Truly, moving his head back and forth between the hard copies on my desk.

  The call had come within five minutes of me arriving at the office. Rolando, my new journalism buddy from the God love Ireland, said he hadn't slept all night, not since the FBI had picked up his own editor as a “person of interest” in the investigation of the double homicide.

  I still couldn't get my mind around all of this. As Stu had educated me over the last couple of years, a person of interest was a designation law enforcement officials used for a potential suspect, someone for whom they usually had circumstantial evidence and were close to filing formal charges. But sometimes those charges never materialized, whether they couldn't find that key piece of evidence that directly linked that person to the crime or the link to the crime simply didn't exist.

  “In this type of high-profile crime, the Feds have to act fast,” Stu said over the speakerphone. "Bringing in your editor, Bruce, was a bold move. With him being a member of the press, the heat gets turned up, along with exposure for the case. If this didn't get national attention before, I'm sure CNN, Fox, and every other media outlet will be all over this.

  I nodded, glancing at the dust clinging to the vintage clock near the edge of my desk.

  “They can't be wrong on this. If they are, they lose all sorts of credibility and the public will lose faith,” Stu added “And when that happens, people get scared and do stupid things. Remember the scene from the LA riots back in 1995?” I chimed in. “Ugly.”

  An indiscernible grunt from Rolando.

  The senior crime reporter said the local police and FBI showed up unannounced last Friday—similar to the scene at the God love Ireland the week prior—and interviewed everyone who'd been in the loop on the Yours Truly emails, then got their cyber unit access to the paper's IT assets. From there, apparently their investigation turned to focus on his editor. Curious to see what a possible homicidal maniac looked like, I asked Rolando to email me his editor's mug shot.

  The JPEG slowly opened as I turned my screen so Brandon and Stu could also see it. We saw a white man with a blank stare, dark hair, matted but parted in the middle. You could say he had a beard, but it looked more like a checkerboard, something you might find on a seventeen-year-old kid.

  “Have you been able to learn anything since he was arrested?” I asked.

  “I've spent most of my time being interviewed by the FBI or local Baton Rouge detectives, and then I met with our management, publisher, and two assistant editors. It's frickin' chaos!” Rolando exclaimed. “But to answer your question, I have a good source within the police department, a sergeant, who's plugged in to the FBI investigation. He said that Bruce doesn't have a solid alibi the night of the murders.”

  I popped a knuckle and put my hand to my chin. “Interesting. Did the sergeant give you any details on his alibi?”

  “Zilch,” Rolando said. “But after I asked ten more questions, he finally told me that they learned Bruce had been stalking some girl, a sophomore at LSU, for the last couple of months. Apparently, they'd met at that mega bookstore on the northeast side of town. They talked about her interning at the paper and then dated for two or three months.”

  "Didn't you say he was married?

  “Yep. Two kids, and he's forty-five years old.”

  I turned to review Bruce's mug shot and tried to imagine a twenty-year-old college sophomore being attracted to...God love Ireland.

  “This guy looks like he'd have a tough time scoring a date with a blind prostitute,” I said under my breath to Brandon and Stu, who both nodded.

  “What'd you say, Michael?”

  “Nothing. The sergeant give you anything else on Bruce?”

  "They're bringing in that girl from the café, Patricia, to see if she can ID him, although she only saw Ariel's friend from the back, real quickly as he was exiting the door.

  “By the way, I heard you found that source on your own. Nice work.”

  “Thanks. Any connection made to our mutual email lunatic, Yours Truly?”

  “The sergeant either is a good liar or he doesn't know a thing. Which tells me—”

  “They haven't been able to make that connection,” I finished.

  “Right, but they did take Bruce's work computer, and I heard they did the same at his home.”

  I picked up my pen and scribbled out the names of the four places in which emails were sent: Baton Rouge, Oxford, Tallahassee, and our paper in DFW. I circled each and wondered if Bruce had been taking a college tour.

  “I'm sure your work life is a load of fun right now,” I said. “I can feel your stress, Rolando, but I can't tell which way you're leaning. Pro Bruce or pro law enforcement?”

  A loud exhale. “It's almost surreal. Frankly, Bruce has been a pain in my ass for years. He's always taking the opposite perspective, and usually, his instincts are wrong,” Rolando said with a higher-pitched voice. "I don't care for the guy at all, work or not. Still...this might seem strange, but when they arrest one of your own, it's different. It's like they indicted our whole profession."

  I'd heard cops express similar feelings about their fellow officers of the law. Even if a colleague had committed brutal crimes, the whole group felt a combination of disappointment and sympathy. “By the way, Rolando, we're picking up any stories you write and running those in our paper, part of our southwest alliance,” I said.

  “Thanks...I guess. There's nothing easy about any of this.”

  Brandon gestured that he had a question.

  “Hey, Rolando, one thing doesn't add up. The murdered girl, Ariel, had supposedly spelled out F-O-X to Patricia. Did you ask your source about that?” Brandon's brow was furrowed from his intense focus.

  “I didn't have to. Bruce's last name is Foxworthy.”

  I shot a glance at both of my guys. The FBI might have just hunted down a serial killer.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  An unseasonal warm front had swept through the area, and temperatures soared into the upper seventies. I pressed two buttons and my car windows glided downward. I took in a deep breath, catching a distant scent of a skunk, as I winded through our neighborhood, unconvinced that in early February we'd seen the final freeze of the winter. A few years ago at this same time of year—when the Dallas Cowboys played Super Bowl host—over a foot of snow fell in two days, leaving a two-inch sheet of ice and temperatures no higher than the teens. The high-dollar tourists thought they'd accidentally landed in Detroit instead of Dallas.

  The news from Rolando had been swirling in my mind ever since our call earlier that morning. Part of me believed the arrest of Rolando's editor was a personal attack on the press, and one that should not go unanswered. The other part of me—the logical me—heard the information provided b
y Rolando's police source and believed there was a strong possibility that Bruce Foxworthy was indeed the sick bastard who killed two college girls in Baton Rouge. But was he Yours Truly? Maybe multiple perps were involved. It was possible the murders and the emails weren't even connected. The questions outnumbered the answers, and I knew my best shot at working through the puzzle was to take a long run. It had been weeks—maybe since before Christmas—when I'd last fit in a decent workout. My lungs, muscles, and even my joints begged for physical exertion, and my cluttered mind needed to find the purge and reboot button.

  I drove by the front of the house and slowed to a crawl, stunned to see someone trimming our hedges. The shirtless man with sweat glistening off his broad lumberjack shoulders was, purportedly, my brother—from another father, of course. I cruised around the back to the garage, my internal temperature rising at the exact rate my mood was dropping. Not a good sign for my next conversation.

  I strode into the house and saw two ladies drinking tea, leering out the window and giggling like teenage girls ogling a poster of Zac Efron.

  “If you take a picture it might last longer,” I said with a hint of attitude.

  “Oh baby, glad you're home...I think.” Marisa took three cautious steps my way, then wrapped her arms around my neck and planted a kiss.

  That helped.

  My wife turned back to Carrie, her neck still arched to take in as much of the outdoor scenery as possible.

  “Hey, Carrie. Why don't you take Jeremiah some ice water? I'm sure he's thirsty.”

  “Yeah, maybe we can get him to pour it over his chest, and we can watch a hunky waterfall.” Carrie roared with laughter.

  “I'm sure he'd love to put on a strip-tease show for you, Carrie.” Marisa looked back at me and rolled her eyes at her hormonal friend.