TIL DEATH
Page 1
Praise for the Zoe Chambers Mystery Series
“I loved Bridges Burned. The action starts off with a bang and never lets up. Zoe’s on the case, and she’s a heroine you’ll root for through the mystery’s twists and turns—strong and bold, but vulnerable and relatable. I adore her, and you will, too.”
– Lisa Scottoline,
New York Times Bestselling Author of Betrayed
“New York has McBain, Boston has Parker, now Vance Township, PA (“pop. 5000. Please Drive Carefully.”) has Annette Dashofy, and her rural world is just as vivid and compelling as their city noir.”
– John Lawton,
Author of the Inspector Troy Series
“I’ve been awestruck by Annette Dashofy’s storytelling for years. Look out world, you’re going to love Zoe Chambers.”
– Donnell Ann Bell,
Bestselling Author of Deadly Recall
“An easy, intriguing read, partially because the townfolks’ lives are so scandalously intertwined, but also because author Dashofy has taken pains to create a palette of unforgettable characters.”
– Mystery Scene Magazine
“Dashofy has done it again. Bridges Burned opens with a home erupting in flames. The explosion inflames simmering animosities and ignites a smoldering love that has been held in check too long. A thoroughly engaging read that will take you away.”
– Deborah Coonts,
Author of Lucky Catch
“Dashofy takes small town politics and long simmering feuds, adds colorful characters, and brings it to a boil in a welcome new series.”
– Hallie Ephron,
Author of There Was an Old Woman
“A vivid country setting, characters so real you’d know them if they walked through your door, and a long-buried secret that bursts from its grave to wreak havoc in a small community—Lost Legacy has it all.”
– Sandra Parshall,
Author of the Agatha Award-Winning Rachel Goddard Mysteries
“A big-time talent spins a wonderful small-town mystery! Annette Dashofy skillfully weaves secrets from the past into a surprising, engaging, and entertaining page turner.”
– Hank Phillippi Ryan,
Mary Higgins Clark, Agatha and Anthony Award-Winning Author
“Discerning mystery readers will appreciate Dashofy’s expert details and gripping storytelling. Zoe Chambers is an authentic character who will entertain us for a long time.”
– Nancy Martin,
Author of the Blackbird Sister Mysteries
“A terrific first mystery, with just the right blend of action, emotion and edge. I couldn’t put it down. The characters are well drawn and believable…It’s all great news for readers.”
– Mary Jane Maffini,
Author of The Dead Don’t Get Out Much
“Intriguing, with as many twists and turns as the Pennsylvania countryside it’s set in.”
– CJ Lyons,
New York Times Bestselling Author of Last Light
“Dashofy has created a charmer of a protagonist in Zoe Chambers. She’s smart, she’s sexy, she’s vulnerably romantic, and she’s one hell of a paramedic on the job.”
– Kathleen George,
Edgar-Nominated Author of the Richard Christie Series
Books in the Zoe Chambers Mystery Series
by Annette Dashofy
CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE (#1)
LOST LEGACY (#2)
BRIDGES BURNED (#3)
WITH A VENGEANCE (#4)
NO WAY HOME (#5)
UNEASY PREY (#6)
CRY WOLF (#7)
FAIR GAME (#8)
UNDER THE RADAR (#9)
TIL DEATH (#10)
Copyright
TIL DEATH
A Zoe Chambers Mystery
Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection
First Edition | June 2020
Henery Press
www.henerypress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Copyright © 2020 by Annette Dashofy
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-623-6
Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-624-3
Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-625-0
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-626-7
Printed in the United States of America
I dedicate this book to all my faithful readers who’ve followed Zoe and Pete and who’ve asked over and over if these two were ever going to get together. This one’s for you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply grateful for my “support team” in helping me create this story. Big shouts of thanks go out to Tami McClain for coming up with the seed of the idea to the entire mystery, to Chris Herndon for helping with so many of the forensic details, to Terry Dawley for answering all my police questions, and to Charles Van Keuren for tirelessly answering my legal questions regarding retrials. Any mistakes or variations from legal or medical fact are all on me and me alone.
For their help in keeping my storytelling sharp, I thank Jeff Boarts, Liz Milliron, and Peter Hayes, my incredible critique group. I couldn’t do it without your guidance and brainstorming. Also to my freelance editor, Erin George, thank you for being brutal and fabulous in not allowing plot blunders, small or large, to slip through. And to my proofreaders, Anne Tiller, Wanda Anglin, Donnell Bell, and David Freas—I deeply appreciate your eagle eyes, especially on such a tight schedule.
A huge shout of thanks to Ramona Long and her morning sprint club. We meet every single morning on her Facebook page to pledge at least one hour of writing. Every. Single. Day. Sometimes, that’s the only writing I get done. But it allows me to meet my deadlines.
Two characters in this story got their names from real readers of mine who entered contests. Cheryl Sweppenhiser, who requested I use her maiden name (Vranjes), and Felicia Graley, thank you!
I wouldn’t be published at all were it not for Pennwriters and Sisters in Crime. You are my tribe. Thank you. And to those at Henery Press who took a chance on my very first Zoe Chambers mystery and have supported me all along the way ever since, I will be forever grateful.
I have the absolute best readers, fans, and friends, many of whom hang out with me on Facebook at my Zoe Chambers Mysteries and Friends group. If you enjoy this book, look us up. We’d love to have you join us in the Clubhouse.
And finally, to my social-media-shy husband, Ray. This page is where I get to publicly shine a light on all you’ve done to support my writing, handing out bookmarks and postcards to total strangers, tagging along to book events only to lurk in the back of the room, and mostly, you go off to work every day so I can stay home and follow my dream. I love you for your sacrifices and for your support. Without you, there would be no Zoe and Pete.
One
Be careful what you wish for.
The phrase whispered in the dark crevasses of Zoe’s mind as she stood over a body in the Monongahela County Morgue. Growing up, she’d watched too many TV shows about medical examiners solving murders with the evidence gleaned from the deceased. Those shows made the career appear heroic, even glamorous.
Now that Zoe Chambers wore the title Chief Deputy Coroner, she knew there was nothing glamorous about autopsy.
Even less when she knew the victim.
Doc Abercrombie, the forensic pathologist contracted by the county, lifted a no-longer-beating heart from the open chest cavity. “How much longer do you have?”
Attired in surgical scrubs, rubber boots, and a heavy waterproof apron, Zoe blinked. “You talking to me?”
“Who do you think I’m talking to?” He nodded at the body. “Her?”
Zoe didn’t want to admit she hadn’t been sure. The forensic pathologist wasn’t above directing questions to the dead. And there were two autopsy techs in the room in addition to Doc, her, and County Coroner Franklin Marshall. He could’ve been speaking to any of them.
“He wants to know when’s your wedding.” Franklin, also attired in what Zoe called butcher-shop chic, perched on a stool about ten feet away. When she looked at him, he shrugged. “I’ve been working with him long enough that I can finish his sentences.”
“Two weeks,” she told the pathologist and left it at that. Autopsy wasn’t a place where she wanted to discuss her impending nuptials.
“A Valentine’s Day wedding? I’d have thought you’d be more original.”
Zoe ignored the comment. Her mind was on the young woman on the stainless-steel table. The images from the call Zoe had taken last night played across her memory. The victim’s mother, gray-haired and frantic, ushered Zoe to the bedroom in the rear of the tidy house. The deceased, not much younger than Zoe’s thirty-seven years, sat in a rocking chair, eyes closed. Except for the pallor of her face—and lack of a pulse—she could’ve been napping.
Franklin pushed off from his stool and shuffled toward Doc. “Find anything?” he asked.
“Not yet. The heart looks normal. Arteries are clear.”
“How about the aorta?”
“No aneurisms.” Doc studied Franklin. “Go back to your perch, man. You look like shit. I’ll let you know when there’s anything worth seeing.”
Doc was right. Franklin looked awful. He needed a kidney transplant. Had for months. His declining health was the key reason he’d promoted Zoe to a full-time position with his office. This morning, his coloring was worse than usual.
He ignored the order. “I wanna know what killed this young woman.” He shot a questioning look at Zoe.
“There was no obvious sign of trauma,” she said. “According to her mother, she came home from work yesterday afternoon, said she didn’t feel well, and went in the other room to rest before dinner. Her mother checked on her an hour later and found her dead in the recliner. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary at the scene that might explain her death.”
“I know. I read the report.” Doc pointed a gloved finger at the stool Franklin had vacated. “Go. Sit.”
Franklin rubbed his left arm and backed away from the table.
Satisfied, Doc returned to the deceased white female on the autopsy table, picked up his scalpel, and aimed it at the body. “You know her.” Not a question. And like the wedding inquiries, it was directed at Zoe.
“How’d you guess?”
“Because of the shade of green you turned when we started. You haven’t gotten sick in autopsy in over a year. Even then, you never lost it until further into the procedure. Hence, I reached the conclusion you know the deceased. I was trying to distract you by asking about you and your cop getting married.”
It hadn’t worked. “I went to school with her.”
“Good friend?”
Zoe closed her eyes, picturing the woman—the girl—she remembered rather than the empty shell on the autopsy table. Gina Wagner graduated Phillipsburg High School a couple of years after Zoe. Gina had been the cute, perky redhead everyone liked. Bookish and bright, she tutored other students in a variety of subjects. Even kids older than she.
Even Zoe.
“More like a close acquaintance than a good friend. The last time I saw Gina was close to five years ago. I was at the ambulance garage when the call came in. Woman in labor. The address was in the middle of Phillipsburg. Good thing she didn’t live on the opposite end of town or the baby would’ve arrived before we did. Her husband died a couple of years ago. She and her two kids moved back in with her parents.”
Franklin once again appeared at Zoe’s side. “Are her parents taking care of the kids?”
“Yeah.” Zoe looked at him. Was it her imagination or did his words sound mushy?
“Have you found anything yet?” he asked Doc.
“I told you I’d let you know when I did.”
Despite the chilly morgue temperatures, beads of sweat glistened through Franklin’s thinning hair. “What about her…her…” He fluttered a hand at the woman’s open and empty chest cavity. “What do you call it?” He brought the hand to his own chest.
Searching for words had never been a problem for the coroner. Zoe touched his arm. “Franklin? Did you eat this morning?”
“I think so.” His words definitely sounded slurred.
Doc gestured to the second tech. “Bring that stool over here.”
“I don’t need—” Before Franklin could finish the sentence, his knees buckled.
Zoe grabbed him from behind, wrapping both arms around him. Flailing, Franklin struck the stainless-steel tray holding the instruments and sent them clanging to the floor. Then he was dead weight. For a thin man, he was heavier than he looked. Zoe managed to slow his descent, going down with him, softening the fall.
Doc dropped to one knee next to them. “Never mind the stool,” he shouted at the tech. “Get some orange juice. There should be cans in the fridge in the office.”
Zoe squirmed out from under Franklin, cradling his head in her lap as she yanked off her heavy Kevlar gloves. “Call 911,” she told the pathologist.
He gave her a look. “Once a paramedic, always a paramedic. We’re already in the hospital.” He climbed to his feet. “I’ll phone the emergency department and have them send someone.”
“Tell them he’s hypoglycemic.” Zoe rested her fingers on the groove on Franklin’s neck. “Insulin shock.”
“I may deal with dead people, but I do have a medical degree.”
“Sorry,” she said to Doc’s retreating back. Beneath her fingers, Franklin’s carotid artery pulsed much too fast. She hoped she only imagined the irregularity. What she didn’t imagine was the shallowness of his breathing. The autopsy suite may have been well equipped with the tools needed to cut through bone and tissue, but she’d have happily traded them all for a heart monitor. Or even a blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope.
Beneath the heavy apron, Franklin’s chest rose—minimally—with his next inhalation. Sank on the exhalation. Then nothing.
The tech burst through the office door, clutching a small can of orange juice. Zoe pointed in the direction from which he’d just come. “Never mind the juice. Out in the hallway to the left, there’s an AED unit. Go get it.” When the young man didn’t move, she added, “Now.”
Doc strode toward Zoe and Franklin. “The Emergency Department is sending a team down. Why do you need the defibrillator?”
“Why do you think?” She immediately regretted her harsh tone. “He’s not breathing.” As she said it, the pulse beneath her fingers melted away. “No pulse. I need to start CPR.”
“I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me.”
Vance Township Police Chief Pete Adams clasped District Attorney Frattini’s hand and refused to wince at the grip meant to reinforce the DA’s position of power. “Not a problem.” As if he had a choice.
Frattini shook hands with County Detective Wayne Baronick as well before gesturing both cops to the pair of faux leather chairs facing a mahogany desk. The DA settled into his seat and leaned forward, hands folded on the desk’s surface. “I suppose you’v
e both guessed why I asked you here.”
Anyone who followed the local news knew the answer to that one. “Dustin Landis,” Pete said flatly.
“Correct.” Frattini reached for a stack of folders to his left, extracted a copy of the local edition of the Pittsburgh Reporter, and unfolded it with a deft flip of the hand. He spread it in front of Pete and Baronick, jabbing at the front-page story Pete had read over breakfast. “We worked our asses off to get that conviction. I wasn’t about to let that guy get away with murdering his wife. I crossed every ‘t,’ dotted every ‘i.’ Every search warrant was in order. Dustin Landis was—and is—guilty as sin.”
Pete sat in silence, letting the DA have his rant.
Baronick wasn’t so wise. “You’re retrying him?”
“Damned straight. I’m not about to give him a get-out-of-jail-free card.” Frattini fixed the detective with a hard stare. “You weren’t involved in the case, were you?”
“No, sir.”
Pete knew the DA was aware Baronick had still been a patrol officer nine years ago. Frattini likely knew the status of every member of law enforcement in Monongahela County then and now.
Frattini continued to study Baronick. “But you’ve read the reports.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Read them again.”
Baronick crossed an ankle over his knee. “The judge overturned the conviction because Landis claims he had ineffective counsel?”
Frattini’s jaw clenched. “Rick Hirst was a damned fine defense attorney. Landis insisted some transient murdered his wife. That was the best he could do to defend himself from the charges.” Frattini blew a disgusted puff of air. “Might as well have said a one-armed man did it.”