Something to die for, p.1
Something to Die For, page 1
Something to Die For
Richard Houston
Copyright © 2018, Richard Houston. All rights reserved. Including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.
Version 2020.04.14
Cover Art by Victorine Leskie
Cover photo by Candace Levy
Edited by Elise Abram
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
About the Author
Books by Richard Houston
Dedication
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED to my mother, Dorene Oetgen, who passed away at the age of 95 before the book was finished. Thank you, Mom, for believing in me all these years.
Acknowledgments
THANK YOU TO CANDACE Levy for the wonderful picture taken from my lakeside deck that was used as the background for the cover, and to my cover designer for putting it all together with the picture of the Golden, Victorine Lieske.
I’d like to thank my beta readers, George Burke, David Ellis, George Williams, Nikkib89, Faywriter and Cheryl Houston whose dedication and suggestions made my ramblings make sense.
And a big shoutout to my editor and proofreader, Elise Abrams.
Chapter One
TRAFFIC WAS BACKED up three blocks, from McDonald’s to Wal-Mart, because of people stopping to give a panhandler money at the town’s new signal light. He caught my attention because of the dog by his side. It was a Golden Retriever like Fred. I could tell the bum loved his dog because it was well-groomed and fed, which was more than I could say for the dog’s owner. I doubt if the city had foreseen the outcome of their decision to add a second light in town during the time I’d been back in Colorado. Progress waited for no one. Neither did panhandlers.
I tried not to look at him as I pulled into McDonald’s. I was there to meet a reporter who had agreed to talk with me after I’d called the local paper asking if they kept old news stories. I’d found a diary in a box of books I’d purchased at a local thrift store with an entry about sending an innocent man to the gas chamber. My eye was originally drawn to the books because of a hardcopy of Sue Grafton’s A is for Alibi. I’d told the thrift shop clerk how I’d seen first editions of the book going for over a thousand dollars. Unfortunately, the number line on this edition was 5 7 9 10 8 6 4, indicating a fourth edition, so she sold me the entire box for five dollars after I searched the internet on my phone and saw the book was worth a whopping three dollars and ninety-nine cents.
The last entry in the diary was the confession, dated May fifth, 1985. As a mystery writer, I was intrigued. Where did this happen, and who went to the gas chamber? But more importantly, whose diary was this? This might be a great plot for my next book.
Fred looked at me with his sad seal eyes when I told him to stay in the truck while I went in to meet the reporter, so I promised him a breakfast sandwich with sausage. That got him to smile. We'd had snow the night before so I didn't need to worry that he'd die of heatstroke, but I left the window open a crack anyway. Fred had a coat that would make a Grizzly jealous, and it didn't take much for him to start panting.
Heather was already sitting in a booth when I walked in. I recognized her by the description my girlfriend, Kelly, had given me after I’d told her about the diary. Kelly is a deputy for the local sheriff and the love of my life. She had said she needed more, a lot more, before she could dig up a thirty-three-year-old cold case and suggested I meet with a reporter friend of hers.
Heather was a few years younger than me, maybe in her mid-forties, and almost as tall. Even sitting in the booth, she was several heads taller than anyone else in the restaurant. My powers of observation were also helped by the fact no one else in the place was under sixty. Most of the women had gray hair or had it dyed so dark they looked like store-front mannequins with cheap wigs. The men who had hair also had gray heads. None of them tried to look younger with help from Clairol.
"Lois Lane?" I asked, sliding into the seat opposite her.
She laughed. "You must be Jacob, Kelly said you had a sense of humor."
I resisted the urge to say, "No, Clark Kent," and answered, "Yes, it's a pleasure to meet you, and please, call me Jake."
She held a huge drink cup in her hands, exposing her fingers. I noticed the lack of rings. "So, you'd like to research our archives. I hope you're not afraid of rats."
"Rats?"
"The archives are in the basement of our annex. Except for Jimmy, nobody's been down there in years. And he never came back." It was all Heather could do not to laugh. She had the cutest sile lines around her eyes.
"Must be some big rats. But let me guess. Jimmy's last name is Olsen. Right?"
She chuckled. "Kelly also told me you were sharper than a fifty-cent Bic pen. But she didn't need to tell me why you want to dig through our archives. I've heard about you, you know. I'm sure even Jimmy could guess you were on the trail of another murder. That is if we had a Jimmy working for us."
I felt wrinkles form on my brow and wondered if she could see them. "This isn't going to be in your paper, I hope?"
Her face went stone cold. Not like the granite we have back in Colorado, but a softer limestone native to Missouri. "Maybe. That's up to you, Jake."
I didn't like where this conversation was going. "I'd hoped buying you breakfast would be enough. Sorry, you beat me here and had to pay for your own coke."
"It's not money I want." Her smile returned. It wasn't a pleasant smile, though. It reminded me of the big bad wolf when he told Little Red Riding Hood, "All the better to eat you with, my dear."
I waited for the punch line. It looked like we were in for a staring match. Her steel-gray eyes were boring into mine like a red-hot laser.
She finally blinked. "You've solved more murders in our little corner of the woods than Jessica Fletcher could have. Rumor at the paper is if you stay here much longer, we'll have a higher murder rate than Cabot Cove."
"I had a lot of help from my friends, and we just happened to be in the right place at the right time."
"Friends? Oh, you mean that old lady you live with.”
“We live in the house behind her. It was given to me by Bonnie’s sister for taking care of the homestead and it’s 160 acres, and for the record, age is just a number. Bonnie is sharper than a whole pack of Bic pens."
“We?”
“Me and Fred, Tigger lives with Bonnie in the big house.”
"Is Fred another name for Winnie the Pooh? Do you always mix your metaphors, Jake?"
“Tigger is Bonnie’s cat. Fred rescued her when she was abandoned as a kitten.”
Her eyes lit up and she cut me off before I could finish. "Oh yes. Fred’s your dog. I remember that article. What was the headline? Fred the Wonder Dog? Wish I'd written it."
Heather didn't wait for me to respond. She was on a roll so I let her finish for fear I'd say the wrong thing. "No, Jake. I need to show CJ that I can do more than report on so and so's wedding or bake sale. I'll not only get you access to those archives, but I'll also help you as well. And not as a rodent exterminator. I'm a whiz with computers. If the information you want is on the web somewhere, I'll find it for you."
“CJ?”
“My boss and editor.” She had put down her soda some time ago and now had her elbows placed firmly on the table so her hands could support her chin. She stared into my eyes while hers sparkled. "I want you to give me an exclusive to the story. I smell something big here. Maybe it will even get me out of this hick paper and a job as an investigative reporter with one of the stations in Springfield."
She was good, but evidently hadn't investigated me as much as she said or she'd know I didn't need help with web searches. "Consider the story yours, Heather. Now, what would you like for breakfast?”
She leaned back in her seat with a sly smile on her lips. “Seeing how you’re buying, I’ll start with pancakes, eggs and sausage, and a side of what you want me to look for.”
Heather ate a breakfast that could feed an orphanage for a month. It took her almost as long to eat it as it did for me to tell her about the diary. Not that I had that much to say. I had ordered the same breakfast for myself and the manners that had been drilled i
“That’s it?” she asked after swallowing a bite of her pancake. “There was no mention of who might have been the real killer?” Her tone of voice was grating and mocking.
“No, but maybe you can find out by searching your archives.”
Heather paused with a fork load of eggs, that could have passed for a slice of processed cheese, inches from her mouth. “Those go back over one hundred years. It may take a while.”
“She dated it May 5, 1985, when she wrote in her diary about sending an innocent man to the gas chamber. How many trials have you had in Truman that resulted in a death sentence? I’m sure that shouldn’t be hard to find and once we know who was executed, I might be able to track down who wrote the diary and who she was protecting.”
“She? How do you know it was a she and not a he? And why are you so sure it happened in Truman? Who’s to say the crime didn’t occur somewhere else and she, or he, moved here later?”
“It may be sexists, but the handwriting is too good to be a guy’s. Plus, I don’t know many guys who have a diary, especially a pink one. My gut tells me the crime happened here, or at least in the county because a couple of her diary entries mentioned local landmarks like the rock hanging over the lake that locals call Lover’s Leap.”
She swallowed her egg and took a big sip from her coke to wash it down before answering. Evidently, she’d been raised with manners, too. “Let’s hope your gut doesn’t end up giving us both indigestion. I’ll start my search by looking for when the state went to lethal injection, then capital crimes before that. Like you said, we haven’t had many murders in our little town. At least not until you arrived.”
BY THE TIME I'D HEADED back to Fred and my truck the weather had changed. The sun had chased away the dismal gray clouds and it looked like it might be a nice day after all. Heather said she couldn’t start until Monday, and it would take her a couple of days to get the information I needed, so I thought this would be a great time to get back to work on the house, but first I'd take some time to spend with my best friend. Fred loved it when I took him fishing at the pond where we would play fetch with a stick while waiting for the catfish to bite.
Those plans were soon forgotten when the clouds returned and a strong east wind came out of nowhere. The temperature dropped several degrees by the time I got to my truck and I could have kicked myself for leaving Fred's window open when I saw he wasn’t shaking the truck back and forth, wagging his tail, the way he usually does when I've been gone for more than fifteen minutes. I thought he must be cuddled up on the floor trying to stay warm.
"Sorry, Old Boy," I said as I put my key into the door lock. Then I froze.
The door wasn’t locked and Fred wasn't on the floor, or anywhere else I could see. I quickly opened the door and looked under the seat. I knew there was no way he could get under there, but I looked anyway. Then I slammed the door and scanned the parking lot. "Fred!" I yelled.
I tried to listen, but an old van with a bad muffler two spaces down had chosen that moment to leave. I waited until the driver had gone around the restaurant toward the exit before yelling again. "Freddie! Come here, boy, I brought you a sausage McMuffin." It was a lie, but one I knew he couldn’t ignore. He never turned down a meal.
Still nothing. The only response I got was from an older couple who were getting into an ancient Crown Victoria. They’d been watching me but looked away when I started walking toward them. They quickly got in their car and drove off before I could ask if they’d seen anything.
I panicked. What if he'd run after a critter toward the highway? I wasn't thinking straight. Fred was too big to get out of the space at the top of the window. I'd only cracked it five or six inches. His head was bigger than that. The window was open the way I'd left it. Then it dawned on me. Someone must have let him out.
I left my truck and ran toward the highway behind the restaurant. It's a four-lane, major US highway, that sits twenty feet above Mc Donald's parking lot because of an overpass spanning the road below. I ran toward the onramp, which was only yards from where my truck was parked. No sign of Fred anywhere. I thought about going up the onramp to the main road but noticed the tall grass separating the ramp from the parking lot had not been disturbed. I made a quick mental note to check the highway from my truck later. My best bet at the moment would be to ask the bum on the corner if he'd seen anything, so I walked over to him.
The panhandler held his dog by its collar and watched me as I approached. His face and body language told me he knew I wasn't coming over to give him money.
"That's a funny name to give a dog," he said when I got close enough to smell him. Even without the east wind that had died down to a breeze, he reeked of booze, cigarettes and body odor suggesting he was either highly allergic to showers, or trained skunks to drink and smoke in his spare time.
I held back my reflex to vomit. "His sister was named Ginger, so we thought the name Fred was cute. I didn't realize at the time how confusing it could be."
I reached out to pet his dog as I maneuvered to the windward side of the panhandler. "You didn't happen to see where he went, did you?"
He dropped the cigarette he'd been smoking and methodically buried it into the dead grass with the heel of his boot.
"That depends," he answered with a sneer borrowed from the smile Heather had used earlier. I wondered if the wicked witch had come from here. Surely those smiles must be genetic.
I removed my wallet from my hip pocket and fished out a five-dollar bill, and made the mistake of letting him see inside.
The money disappeared into his pants pocket faster than a prairie dog jumping into his den when chased by Fred. "Can hardly buy my dog a can of dog food with that," he said and coughed. The cough soon turned into a hacking cough, the kind my father had before he died. I was afraid he’d cough up blood if he didn’t get it under control.
I waited until he stopped and wiped his mouth with his dirty shirt sleeve. This time I pulled out a twenty but held it away from his nicotine-stained fingers. "Well, did you see what happened to my dog?"
His eyes never left the picture of Andrew Jackson. "A couple pulled up in an older SUV, and took your dog ‘bout ten minutes before you come out."
I gave him the twenty and reached into my wallet for another. "How did they get the door open? It was locked."
He must have seen the doubt on my face. "The guy had one of them things you see on TV. You know, that thing they slip down a window to unlock a door." His wicked smile was back. "They must of known what they was doing cause the next thing I seen, the woman in the SUV opens her door and holds out what looked like a big piece of meat. She done shut the door the second he jumped in the car. The creeps sped past me without even stopping, and acted like me and Goldie was invisible or something."
I gave the bum my last twenty and thanked him without offering to shake his hand. "You didn't happen to get a license number or make of the SUV, did you?"
"A Suburban or Denali, I think. Oh yeah, it had dealer plates, too,” he said, holding the twenty to the light the way one does to check a counterfeit bill. “Thanks, Mister. You just made my little girl's day. I'll be able to buy her something nice to wear to school."
My mouth dropped to my shoes. “You have a family?”
“Just my little girl. Her mama died last year from cancer, but not before losing our house, car, and everything else we’d worked for. I was a truck driver working for a company that didn’t believe in giving its employees no insurance. Had to make the stockholders happy, I guess. She’s staying with her grandma ‘till I can get enough to rent us something decent.”
He took a breath to spit on the ground before continuing. “That’s what I think of them greedy stockholders. Anyway, I made too much for Medicaid, but not enough to pay the doctors. Then they fired me for taking too much time off to tend to my Jenny.”
I took what little I had left in my wallet and gave it to him. “It isn’t much, but maybe you can buy your little girl something nice with it.”
Chapter Two
WALKING BACK TO MY truck was the toughest thing I'd done in a long while. I wanted to keep searching for Fred on the slim chance he escaped from his dognappers, but I also needed to call the sheriff and report the incident before the couple who took him could get too far away. Maybe Kelly could search the DMV database for used SUVs belonging to a dealer. Then again, that might be impossible if it hadn't been registered yet. I didn't know, and couldn't think straight. How in the world would I get him back?
