Murder My Past

by Delia C. Pitts

  As I spoke, she tilted her head. In the crisp twilight, a smile lit her face. After a moment, she glanced at the surging traffic. We pulled into the lane for the ride home.

  Thank you for reading Murder My Past, the fifth book in the Ross Agency mystery series, featuring private detective SJ Rook and his colleagues.

  I want to express my deepest gratitude to diligent readers Cheyanne Boyd and Carol Brett who scoured an early draft of the manuscript for Murder My Past. They unearthed inconsistencies, cross-checked characterizations, and flagged holes in my plot. Their insights shaped the final manuscript in numerous ways. In our conversations, these readers were generous and supportive. I also thank my tireless editor, Sarah Monsma, who displayed all the best traits: she was as determined and meticulous as Rook, while delivering helpful suggestions with the kindness and humor of Brina. Sarah is the best editor a writer could wish for. Any remaining faults in this book are mine alone.

  The previous books in this contemporary noir series are Lost and Found in Harlem, Practice the Jealous Arts, Black and Blue in Harlem, and Pauper and Prince in Harlem. All are available in eBooks and print. If you enjoyed reading them, please consider leaving an honest review on Amazon and Goodreads. When you write reviews, you enliven the book community. Other readers will appreciate hearing from you. Further adventures of Private Eye Rook are explored in several short stories: “The Killer,” was published in The Chicago Quarterly Review, Vol. 31. Another story, “A Deadly First,” was published in the holiday crime anthology, Festive Mayhem. To learn more about these novels, stories, and my other writing, visit my website at www.deliapitts.com . You can also follow me on Instagram at deliapitts50 and on Twitter at @blacktop1950.

  Sorting fact from fiction takes on deadly urgency for Rook and Brina in the upcoming sixth novel in the series, Murder Take Two. When Rook is hired to guard the set of a hot television show filming on the streets of Harlem, he expects his toughest challenge to be fending off star-struck fans. But the private eye’s brush with Hollywood glamour quickly turns dark when the death of a top TV executive writes a grim finale to the production. The flashy murder throws Rook into a twisted struggle with a secretive killer whose motives are hidden in plain sight. A second death, a seductive star’s tragic past, and Rook’s own unspoken desires complicate the search for the killer. Murder Take Two will be released in 2022. Read on for a sneak peek at the first chapter of the next Ross Agency mystery, Murder Take Two.

  Chapter

  One

  A brick, wrapped in tin foil and tied with a silver shoe lace, exploded the pane of my office window at dawn. Dirty glass shrapnel plunked on my desk. The block bounced off the sofa’s arm, landing in a pile of glittering shards.

  I was sitting at my desk, regretting I’d added the empty calories of fake French vanilla creamer to my third cup of coffee. My stomach cried that real sugar or honest bourbon would have been a better choice. When the brick hit, I lurched in my chair, knocking the file cabinet behind me.

  On this chilly Thursday morning, boulevard traffic was hustling. As I struggled to right myself, I could hear delivery vans and garbage trucks rummaging in the dire April sunshine. The brakes of a bus moaned. I was awake because I’d hardly been to sleep. My job protecting a Hollywood TV crew filming in Harlem had wrapped at three-thirty in the morning. First call was scheduled for eight. My office was closer to the set than my apartment, so I’d spent the sliver of night dozing on my leather couch. Deflated corduroy pillows had etched little grooves in my cheek. I was waiting for the creases to subside before running a razorblade over my face.

  The night hadn’t been a total waste. I’d put the time to good use, carving up my desk. When the brick hit, I’d been bent over the oak in a gray fog of half-dreams, chiseling the hell out of my name. I worked with care; using an old hunting knife to carve Shelba Julio into the dark surface had taken me the better part of two years. Private eye jobs paid the bills, sure, but those gigs interfered with my blooming career as an engraver. This morning I’d been chipping at my name for an hour when the brick landed. I’d just started on the ROOK. All caps. That brick jerked me from a beautiful groove. The knife bucked in my fingers, carving a naked divot from my ego project. The three-inch steel blade gashed a brutal trench through the slope of my favorite letter. Now the rough-hewn R staggered like a drunk ladder.

  Banging against the metal file cabinet tore the cobwebs from my brain. The brick toss was gaudy and juvenile. Vandalism tinged with old-school flair. But efficient, like a mallet to the temple.

  I pressed the button on the knife handle, sheathing the blade. I slipped the weapon into the desk’s shallow center drawer and stood. My puffy eyelids itched; waves of vanilla coffee tilted in my stomach. Blocks away, an elevated train shrieked an insult at nobody in particular. My head throbbed in sympathy. Thanks to the brick, cool air jetted through the star-shaped hole in the glass.

  Careful to avoid shredding my fingertips, I lifted the brick from the glass heap. I flicked the silver shoelace, but didn’t pull it. Tied under the lace was a sheet of white paper, gleaming pure against the shiny foil. The page was thick and expensive, like the perfume it was doused with. I’d read the love letter in a minute, but first I wanted to catch the guilty clown who’d wrecked my window. And my morning.

  Cradling the brick, I crunched to the window. I looked through the web of cracked glass to the roof of the grocery next door. Fumes of rotten flowers and bruised fruit pulsed on the updraft in the narrow gangway. A slim figure tip-toed along the roof edge, arms outstretched for balance, head silhouetted against the gray clouds. Snub nose, soft lips sucked for concentration. Black tufts formed a ragged Mohawk. Yellow sweatshirt bagged over spindly torso. I recognized the brick-slinger: Randall Blunt, a twelve-year old neighborhood hotshot climbing the rungs to career criminal.

  I started to shout his name. Then clamped shut again. I was pissed, but startling Randall into a fatal plunge was a step too far. I was a private eye, sworn to protect lives, not end them. Randall needed help, not another boot in the ass. I rushed for the door. I could cut off the kid’s escape in the alley behind our building, if I ran.

  Run was a loose term. A roadside bomb in Iraq had destroyed two toes on my left foot, gifting me a dull ache, survivor’s guilt, and a permanent limp. I jogged through the empty outer office of our detective agency, along the hall, and down the stairs to the rear entrance. I counted on surprise: I figured Randall would retreat to his sister’s place or the local boxing gym. The quickest route to either was by the alley.

  I punched through the rear door to the outside. A deli occupied the first floor of our building. The fatty stench of sausage, butter, onion, and garlic fluttered across my face. Smashed produce boxes were stacked waist-high next to garbage bins along one side of the narrow cement court. At the end of the yard, I eased open the gate in the chain-link fence and waited for my quarry. Metallic clanking marked Randall’s trip down a fire escape to the alley. When he crept by, I sprang, grabbing the hood of his sweatshirt.

  “Randall, my man. How’re you doing?” I twisted the spongy cloth until the boy’s throat bobbled under my fist. “Out early on a school day, aren’t you?”

  “Mr. Rook. I – I didn’t see you!” His eyes bulged, the brown pupils swimming in pools of white. Sweat popped across his nose. A nice face, sweet even. Rich brown skin over baby features, large gap between the two front teeth. Chocolate and nougat on Randall’s breath was Snickers, not the breakfast of champions. The lower lip tremble could have been fake. But no one was that good an actor.

  I held the brick to his face. “You saw enough to toss this through my window.” The white paper flapped in a sudden gust.

  “You…you were inside? I didn’t know. I swear… I didn’t mean to hurt nobody.”

  “Not hurt, kid. You just dinged my pride.” I relaxed my grip on Randall’s collar, but didn’t smile. He staggered a step. I jerked him verti
cal. “Who put you up to this?”

  “I ain’t telling.” He straightened to his full four-foot-ten and squared his scrawny shoulders. “I’m no snitch, Mr. Rook.”

  “Sure, kid.”

  I grinned and nodded. We agreed on the code of the street: secrets demanded silence. My left hand still on the boy’s neck, I pinched the paper with my right thumb and index finger. I shook it loose from the shoelace. The brick plunked to the pavement between us. I unfurled the page and scanned it. “How much did she pay you to deliver this note?”

  Randall’s eyes bugged. He gulped over a whisper, “You know her?”

  “Of course. She’s my boss. She signed the message, see?” I waved the paper, but didn’t let him read it.

  “No disrespect, man. But that butch with the pushed-in face is your boss?” Randall kicked at the brick. The tin foil split and we watched pink chunks tumble through the rip. “I thought you worked for Old Man Ross at the detective agency.”

  “I do.” Off his frown, I explained. “Opal Cunningham is my temporary boss. Just this week.”

  As an operative with the Ross Agency, I corralled petty disturbances around our Harlem neighborhood. I dug up criminal records, nabbed thieves who preyed on scatterbrained relatives, or traced runaway spouses and skip-artist business partners. Assignments weren’t always safe or clean. Or even sane. The work stretched my imagination, tested my grit. I helped people and brought home a few hundred bucks a week. The trade was fair: straightforward jobs for low-key clients. Good work, no frills. Ordinary laced with miles of tedium.

  But this week in April was different. A welcome taste of excitement and glamour after a bleak winter. I was hired muscle for Zenith Metropole Entertainment, a production company filming an episode of their hit TV show, “Undaunted,” in our neighborhood. My job was to keep three-way peace between fancy Hollywood invaders, star-struck tourists, and rowdy regulars from Harlem’s streets. Tomorrow would be my last day.

  “I saw you hanging around the set all week, Randall. Scrounging errands, picking up extra coin.” I pressed the kid with a twist of his collar. “So, Opal Cunningham asked you to do this little job?”

  Maybe he was tired; maybe baffled by the mystery of adult ways. Whatever his reasons, Randall sighed, then spilled: “Yeah, she asked me if I knew you, where you worked. I said sure. She handed me the brick, wrapped like a friggin’ birthday present with the note tied on it. And her funky perfume all over it.” He sniffed, then paused for the perfect beat. “And she told me to throw it in your window.”

  “Why not deliver at the front door, like a regular letter?”

  “Nah, Opal’s a stone freak, man. She’s off-the-chain wild. Said I had to chuck it. Window open or shut, didn’t matter. I had to throw it.”

  “Dramatic effect,” I said. I’d seen enough theatrics from the Zenith crowd over the past four days to earn a degree in acting.

  The boy shrugged and raised two flattened palms. “I don’t know nothin’ about no drama. Or no effect. But she did pay me ten real dollars. And she promised I’d get another ten after I done it.” He looked up, water twinkling on his lids. “Now, you gone and wrecked it. And, I don’t get my ten dollars.” The wail was heart-wrenching. Almost.

  “Wrecked? You’re the one who broke my window, remember? I ought to call the cops.”

  “No, don’t do that, Mr. Rook.” The boy squirmed, but I tensed my grip.

  Nobody in this neighborhood wanted the police involved. Ever. So, I escalated my threat: “Or maybe I’ll buzz your sister, see what she thinks about your second-story act.”

  “Oh, no! You can’t tell Kara! She’ll kill me.”

  I knew his big sister from the local basketball courts. Kara was twenty-four and tough as cement. “I’m counting on it.”

  Randall’s huge eyes scraped my face in search of mercy, but I stiffened. I could have pouted, but that would have been over-the-top.

  “Look, kid. Here’s what we’ll do. You want me to keep your secret, right?”

  The boy nodded. “Please.”

  “I’ll do it. Your secret’s safe. But here’s the deal. You get to school, stay clear of the boulevard today, and I’ll make good on your money. Deal?” He lips pursed, he dipped his chin. I fished my wallet from the back pocket of my jeans and pulled a bill. “You said ten? Here’s five.”

  Randall nodded again, eyes wide and shiny. “Thanks, Mr. Rook. You’re a straight-up dude.” He stuffed the cash in a pocket. “I hope you don’t get in no trouble with your boss over this.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll square it with Opal. And tonight, I check with your sister to see if you made it to school.” I had no intention of leaking our secret deal to his sister. But to keep the menace going, I lowered my face to his and delivered a squint-eyed glare.

  His lip dropped. “Ah, jeez! I didn’t do nothing wrong… Nothing real wrong.” Randall scratched his scalp as a new thought passed under it. “Say, you working on the TV show like that. You know those big flash stars, right?”

  “Not exactly.” I stood tall and bobbed my eyebrows so he’d know the modesty was false.

  “But you know ‘em enough, don’t you?”

  “Enough for what?”

  “Enough to ask that hot babe Vicky for her autograph.” The boy sucked the gap between his teeth like a grizzled player. Vicky Joyce, the show’s lead, was a break-out star. An Instagram goddess with a million followers. Personality Magazine had named her “Sexiest Woman on the Planet.”

  I’d never spoken to her. “You mean Vicky Joyce.”

  “Yeah, her. That chick is sex on a stick! Piece of ass force tears to your eyes.” Lines quoted from his older running buddies, no doubt. Imitation lust gleamed through Randall’s long lashes. “You know her?”

  I’d never met her. “Sure, kid. I know Vicky.” The white lie could polish my neighborhood rep.

  His eyes bugged in wonder. “Can you get me a signed picture of Vicky Joyce? I’d boost rank in my crew if I scored that. You can hook me up, right?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “You’re the straight-up bomb!”

  “Beat it, kid.”

  “Dope!” Snapping a salute, Randall skipped away.

  “Yeah, sure. Dope.”

  Five paces from me, he turned, flashing a cell phone. He snapped me holding the letter chest high. “Now I got proof I did the job,” he crowed. “I show this to Opal, she’ll pay up too. I can earn twice off this one gig.” The little hustler was violating our secret deal already.

  Randall grinned at the prospect of double-dipping, then tapped his temple to brag on his smarts. A poke of his sneaker scattered pebbles and tin cans as he disappeared down the alley.

  I smoothed the white paper against my thigh. As humid spices pummeled my nose, I read its message again: “Rook – Believe Me. My Murder is No Fake – Opal Cunningham.”

  Like I said, dramatic effect. I crumpled the paper and shoved it in my pocket.