Assassination of a Dignitary

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by Carolyn Arnold


  “There are many cultures, The Korowai tribe of Papua New Guinea, for example, who have been reported to practice cannibalism even in this modern day,” Zachery said. “It can also be involved in religious rituals.”

  Maybe my eyes should have been fixed on the freezer, on the horror that transpired underground in Salt Lick of Bath County, Kentucky. Instead, I found my training allowing me to focus, analyze, and be objective. In order to benefit the investigation, it would demand these three things, and I wouldn’t disappoint. My attention was on the size of the table, the size of the meat grinder, and the size of the freezer. “Anyone think to ask how this all got down here in the first place?”

  All five of them faced me.

  “The opening down here is only, what, two feet square at the most? Now maybe the meat grinder would fit down, hoisted on a rope, but the table and the freezer? No way.”

  “What are you saying, Slingshot?”

  My eyes darted to Jack’s. “I’m saying there has to be another way in.” I addressed the CSI, “Did you look for any other hidden passageways? I mean the guy obviously had a thing for them.”

  “We didn’t find anything.”

  “Well, that doesn’t make sense. Where are the burial sites in relation to here?”

  “It would be that way.” Zachery pointed at the freezer.

  We connected eyes, and both of us moved toward it. It slid easily. As we shoved it to the side, it revealed an opening behind it. I looked down into it. Another light bulb spawned eerie shadows. I rose to full height. This find should at least garner some praise from Jack Harper.

  “Nothing like Hogan’s Alley is it, Kid?”

  -

  Chapter 3

  HOGAN’S ALLEY ORIGINALLY NAMED AFTER a comic strip from the late 1800s is a mock town used by the FBI in Quantico, Virginia as a training ground for future special agents. Placed on ten plus acres, the government built it with the aid of Hollywood set designers. The fact that Jack mentioned it by comparison rendered me silent.

  I latched eyes with him before studying the size of the hole. It was just large enough to fit the freezer through if turned and taken in lengthwise.

  “This guy did a lot of planning,” Paige said. She moved closer to the tunnel entrance. “He definitely didn’t want to get caught and probably never thought he would. That could be the elevated thinking of a narcissist.”

  Jack watched her speak, and something about the way his eyes fell, tracing to her lips, made me wonder about the nature of their relationship.

  “Well, I’d definitely peg him as a psychotic too. Narcissists usually only kill if it’s the result of a personal affront. But this man gutted his victims and grinded their intestines. Who knows if he ate them?” A visible shiver ran through Paige, and for some reason gauging her reaction intensified the severity of the situation.

  For the last while, the training had taken over. I had cataloged the victims as fictional, not once living and breathing individuals. With the snap back to reality, I became aware of the presence of death and the way it hung in the air like a suffocating blanket. My stomach tightened and I felt sick.

  “Question is, did these people threaten him in some way? Were they random? Or were these planned kills? The patience he seemed to execute with the cutting and burial indicates he was very organized. I’d almost lean to believe that they were planned, not random,” Zachery said.

  “It could be they reminded him of one person who wronged him. That’s not uncommon,” Paige offered.

  I was frozen in place, unable to move and incapable of thinking clearly.

  The CSI hunched over and shone a flashlight into the opening. “It spreads out after a few feet. It almost looks as high as it does in here.”

  “I want to know what happened to the intestines.” Jack made the blank statement. “Slingshot, any ideas?”

  “The guy knew he was going to prison and had them cleaned up?”

  “But why?”

  I wanted to say, what do you mean why? I thought the answer was obvious, the question rhetorical. But I reasoned on the two words Jack spoke. There was little risk that this room would be discovered even if the bodies were. And if the bodies were, what was a little ground-up human intestine? Another toss of my stomach brought bile into the back of my throat. “I’m not sure.”

  An ominous silence enveloped the room as if we were all absorbed in contemplating our mortality. The human reaction to death and uncertainty, of wanting to know but not wanting the answers, of sympathy for those lost yet relief that it wasn’t us.

  The CSI made his way through the opening. His flashlight cast more light in the dimly lit space. I followed and heard the rest of them shuffle in behind me.

  After a few feet, I was able to stand to full height.

  The CSI looked up at the lit bulb. “The guy thought of everything.”

  The electricity that had been run down here was basic and minimal. A band of wire ran from the meat room to here. But it wasn’t so much the electrical that garnered my attention.

  To the side of the room, there was a stretcher with metal straps and stirrups. Beside it was a stainless steel tray with a single knife lying on it. Just like the table and meat grinder, light refracted off it. A tube of plastic sheeting stood vertically beside the bed.

  “This just keeps getting creepier.” Paige took up position beside me.

  “Say that again,” Deputy White said. “’Cuse me.” A hand snapped up to cover his mouth.

  Jack was the last to come through the tunnel. I swear even he paused when his eyes settled on the items in the room. “What do you make of it, Kid?”

  I put both hands on my hips. The one near the gun wanted to pull it on the man, but my control won out. Why was it only me who needed to provide the answers?

  “He killed them here.” I pointed back to where we came from. “Ground up their intestines in there.” I felt sick.

  “Whoa nicely put, Pending,” Zachery said.

  “And how did he get them down here?”

  “Well, there’s got to be another way in. The freezer alone discloses that, and I mean obviously he wouldn’t be able to make the victims go down the ladder, past the meat grinder.” I took a deep breath. Tell me this is the worst we will ever have to deal with. I wanted to say the words audibly but knew it would be construed as a weakness. “There has to be another way in here, a passageway that connects to the burial sites.”

  Paige said, “Bingham—”

  “You assume,” Jack corrected her. “Maybe he worked with someone from the start. They picked the victims and brought them here.”

  She disregarded him. “Bingham brought them down through the passageway that comes off the cellar. Maybe he drugged them or held them at gunpoint—”

  “Or knife point.”

  Paige rolled her eyes.

  I looked forward to the day I could express myself in that manner to the Supervisory Special Agent.

  “Whatever. The point is he had a system worked out. Bring them down, bring them in here, cut them, kill them, gut them—”

  “You’re assuming he didn’t gut them while alive.”

  The deputy tightened the placement of his hand over his mouth and swiveled his hips to the right.

  “You said kill them, and then gut them?” Jack asked.

  “Either way.” A large exhale moved her hair briefly upward. “Gut them to kill them. There you happy? He’s one sick son of a bitch either way.”

  “And he just went away on a fluke charge, killing cows and assaulting a neighbor.” I knew once the words came out I should have thought them through. Deputy White looked capable of hauling me to the field and flogging me.

  “Cattle are a v-very important investment ’round here. Farmin’ is what we people do. It’s to be respected an’ so is the livestock.”

  The hin
t of a smirk dusted Jack’s lips. My discomfort brought him happiness. I felt my earlobes heat with anger.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Then what did you mean?” Both the Kentucky-bred deputy and the local CSI kept their eyes on me.

  “He has ten bodies buried underneath his property. Ten human bodies. There’s a freezer which seems to have been used to hold the unspeakable.” My arms pointed in both directions. “Numerous passageways, all the secrecy. Who was this guy really? And don’t say a killer. Because I think he was more than that.”

  “What are you saying, Slingshot?”

  “He didn’t kill them like this for no reason.” I gestured toward Zachery. “Maybe it’s something to do with that coinherence symbol of his, or maybe it has something to do with the health profession, but whatever it is, it was for a reason. This guy had something to say.”

  Zachery stepped toward me. I moved back. He said, “The killers always have something to say.”

  “Well, I believe this one has more to say than most.” All of them watched me as if I were about to shed light on the case. I wish I were

  You have reached the end of the sample. For purchase options, visit:

  http://carolynarnold.net/eleven/

  -

  Overview of Assassination of a Dignitary

  The Italian Mafia never forgets...

  Raymond Hunter’s dark past has returned and demands one final favor. Now fifteen years later, settled as an accountant and family man, he assumed life would be calm. He thought wrong. The Italian mafia wants him back.

  The directions were simple: Kill Governor Behler and be out for good.

  Despite the odd request since the mafia typically respects dignitaries, in order to protect his family, he has no choice but to accept the job. He picks the date and location Niagara Falls, New York two hundred and forty miles away. But by the time he returns home, he finds out the assassination attempt failed, his family has been kidnapped, and he has twenty-four hours to set things right if he wants to see them again.

  With time running out, Raymond discovers the real reason they wanted Behler dead and finds out he’s placed himself and his family right in the middle of a mafia power struggle. What he doesn’t realize is that law enforcement is also closing in.

  -

  About the Author

  CAROLYN ARNOLD is the international best-selling and award-winning author of the Madison Knight, Brandon Fisher, and McKinley Mystery series. She is the only author with POLICE PROCEDURALS RESPECTED BY LAW ENFORCEMENT.™

  Carolyn was born in a small town, but that doesn’t keep her from dreaming big. And on par with her large dreams is her overactive imagination that conjures up killers and cases to solve. She currently lives in a city near Toronto with her husband and two beagles, Max and Chelsea. She is also a member of Crime Writers of Canada.

  Connect with CAROLYN ARNOLD Online:

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  And don’t forget to sign up for her newsletter for up-to-date information on release and special offers at

  carolynarnold.net/newsletters.

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Epilogue

  Note to Readers

  Newsletter

  Preview of Eleven

  Overview of Assassination of a Dignitary

  About the Author

 

 

 


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