“She keeps telling me I’ve wasted my life,” LB said. “Perhaps I can earn back her respect?”
Marshal Harry stared at the holographic read out. Then at Long Barnacle. Back to the hologram.
“No one’s ever passed the entry exams in an hour.”
“No one knows the law better than a trader who cuts corners,” Long Barnacle admitted. “That’s all in the past.”
“Welcome to the team,” Harry said.
EPILOGUE
End of day, the sun falls below the trees and the scum and villainy come out to earn a living. It was early evening, and the Raptor Bar had a good crowd when I pushed open the doors and sauntered in. Ever heard a room full of people take one breath and hold it?
“I’m here for the minding of Doc,” I said. The only sound was my claws on the hardwood floor. “Here we talked and drank, laughed and drank. Played games and drank.”
“We weren’t going to bother with a minding,” the barman said. “She broke with everyone here at one time or another.”
“There is a pain I cannot carry any further.” I spoke the traditional words of the minding. “There is a grief I must share.”
I moved to the middle of the room, raised my first two segments enough for everyone to see I brought my guns. The people nearest raised their glasses high and rapped a beat on the tables. Sometimes, people take a hint.
“This is where we danced the spraglecht for the first time.”
“I had the burn marks painted over.”
There’s always one doesn’t take a hint. I pointed out a spot below the bar with a claw.
“That’s where she was lying the first time our eyes met. Red and green were always my favourite colours.”
“Doc stank worse than the drains,” a young raptor announced. He stood up, gun in hand. Before the laughter started I drew and fired. He hit the floor hard.
“That was stun setting,” I reached forward with a claw and flipped a switch. The click dominated the room. “This isn’t. I’m not here as a deputy marshal, I’m here as a grieving probable husband.”
“There is another part of this tradition?” the barman pointed out. He tapped the empty bar top. I ambled towards him. Fourteen legs moving in slow rhythm. I saw it in a movie.
“That.” I pointed at a corner table. The people using it hit the floor. “Was our table.”
“No, we burned that one out back, after—” the barman said.
“That’s where our table was.” I tossed the bounty for the Rehd Shirts on the bar top. “Take care of everyone until this is drunk.”
“Well, she wasn’t much,” the barman admitted as he began filling flagons. “But she was the only mother I got. In Doc’s memory.”
He drained a flagon. I turned, heading for the door.
“That,” I pointed to a stain on the floor, “is where we stood back to back and shot our way out.”
“After which you promised never to return,” the barman pointed out.
“Special occasion,” I said. “First time I buried a wife, needed to do it properly.”
Weapons were being drawn, stances taken. I had outstayed my welcome.
“A flame has gone from this world, a bright spark we will not see again. The world is a colder and darker place for it. I’m leaving that money here for Doc,” I pointed out. “Try to think well of her as you get tanked. Her life was pointless but her death rescued fifteen kids and the marshal. Who’s like us? Damn few and they’re all dead.”
I turned and got out while they thought that over.
The End
Also by Jack Q McNeil and available on Amazon:
When Harry Met Chunglie, it was murder
Drugged…
Trapped on a crashing spaceship…
And that’s only Chapter One…
Detective Marshal Harry Ward’s first day on the job could be her last unless fate lends a… claw?
“The elevator climbing scene is better than Star Trek: Next Generation,” A. Einstein.
“Rubbish. Picard with a group of kids, is the definitive elevator climbing scene,” B. Franklin.
Chunglie is a stowaway. He wakes to find a bunch of aliens in the cargo hold with him, and the doors are locked. One of the aliens is small, barely a hundred pounds soaking wet, and willing to stand up to thugs to protect complete strangers. She has him by the curiousity.
“I’d like to see this on Netflix,” M. Twain.
“I wouldn’t, they’d ruin the humour,” Euclid.
When the bodies start to drop, Chunglie comes to realise his new friend is the only one who can solve the mystery. But the killer has worked that out too, and it is down to Chunglie to keep Harry alive.
“I laughed all the way through,” A. Lincoln.
Buy now, because everyone has that one strange friend who would climb an elevator shaft with them…
Case of the Thrice Murdered Man
Brutally murdered...three times.
His body reconstructed by doctors, twice.
The future has always been rough, but is this going too far?
Someone keeps murdering the richest man on the planet Smuds and he wants it stopped. There is one detective marshal in Port City. One hope.
Can Marshal Harry and her deputies solve the murders before someone polishes the thrice murdered man off for good? That's him in the jar on the cover.
These and many other questions answered, when you buy this book.
Case of the Thrice Murdered Man
A When Harry Met
Chunglie Mystery
Jack Q. McNeil
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
Arthur Conan Doyle
Summed me up in one sentence there, Arty,
Jack Q.
The Case of the Thrice Murdered Man Copyright © 2019 by Kevin Kelly. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Cover designed by Germancreative. Additional tweaks Sharon Taylor
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Jack Q McNeil
Visit my website at www.fullmentalpacket.com
Dedicated to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Reading everything he ever wrote when I was a teenager gave me a lifelong love of detective fiction.
CHAPTER 1
NO ONE WAS MURDERED. For the second day. We caught up with the filing. Port City was a hive of villainy which normally kept the only detective marshal and her two deputies busy. Still, the lack of bodies dropping seemed a good thing until the marshal suggested a team-building exercise. Another of those human things no one else had heard of.
The fumes from open tins of paint gave me a nice buzz. The brush handles were so long I needed two claws to manipulate each brush, and I was using four brushes. I have fourteen limbs, so I had claws to spare for holding paint tins.
“What’s your hurry?” Marshal Harry, the planet Smuds token human, asked. She held a paint tin in one hand and a brush in the other and worked on a different wall of our office.
“One, I just want to get this task over with,” I said as I kept working. “And two, there hasn’t been a murder for two days, so we’re due a new case.”
“That is true,” Deputy Marshal Long Barnacle said. “Murders do seem to be unusually regular around here.”
LB had joined us a month earlier and was the third reason I was using two brushes to get the job done. He is a Moordenaap, a species of one-ton carnivorous apes with huge hands and great, long arms. Even sat on his butt, he covered his wall quickly and easily. I’m not saying I felt
in competition with the junior member of the team, but I was determined to finish first.
“You know, in all my years as a military policeman, I think I only investigated two murders. Here we are, solving a murder every two days.” He shook his grey, orange, and black-striped head. “The modern world for you, eh?”
“Tell me again why we’re doing this?” I asked, shaking one of the brushes. “I mean, no one paints walls manually when the decorator bots are included in the price of the paint.”
“This is a team-building exercise,” Marshal Harry said. “We’re working together to be a better team.”
“I’m an insect,” I pointed out, in case she hadn’t noticed the seven body segments and fourteen limbs. “We’re born working as a team.”
The idea that you could build a team just didn’t fit into my head. Then there was the preparation for painting. Marshal Harry had changed out of her blue uniform into what she called dungarees. These were special clothes for painting walls. Humans have specific clothes for different tasks. Never ask a human round for the weekend if you treasure wardrobe space.
Harry finished her part of the wall, but only up to arm’s length. “I need a ladder,” she said, looking at an unpainted strip below the ceiling.
“Well, if it’s teamwork you want…” LB scooped her butt in one spade-like hand and lifted her closer to the ceiling
“Show off,” I said.
“Now boys,” Marshal Harry giggled, “remember we’re a team.”
We spent the morning turning pale blue walls into something called “cream” and then stopped for lunch.
I lay in front of the marshal’s desk, enjoying the feeling of not having to move.
“Could you try to look less like a dead bug?” the marshal asked, biting into a sandwich. I sprawled my claws and palps to take up more carpet. A four-metre-long arthropod can take up a lot of space when he wants to.
“The dead bug look is his party piece,” Long Barnacle said, roaring with laughter.
“Humans are weird,” I pointed out, not for the first time. “Any other species, when they have nothing to do, find a shady spot out of the sun and go to sleep.”
“Doing manual tasks together helps us get to know each other.”
“I’m a centipede with cybernetic implants, he’s a Moordenaap, you’re a Homo Sapiens; what else is there to know?”
“Well, for a start, I’ve learned that you’re a big picture thinker,” the marshal said.
“If you say so.” I have cybernetic implants and a collection of apps which help me understand over eighty thousand languages. But that doesn’t mean I understand the people speaking those languages.
“I think I understand,” LB said. “We used to do drudge work in the military police back home.”
I also carry seven weapons in holsters riveted between my limbs. I gave them names a long time ago, after a drinking session. I mention that now because it will be important shortly.
“Okay, here’s something you don’t know,” I said. “I left my planet to get away from manual labour.”
“Relax, let your guard down—"
The street door burst open, glass shattered as it hit the wall. A black, armoured form filled the frame. It held a gun. I drew and fired while its leg was still raised. It toppled to the floor face first.
“I am relaxed, but I never lower my guard.”
“Chunglie!” Marshal Harry said. “It may not have meant any harm.”
“That’s a Tooyr armoured and armed,” LB said, dragging the marshal behind her desk and drawing his sidearm. “Trust me, he means harm.”
I waved the gun in my claw. “This is Pistol Pete, my electromagnetic pulse gun,” I said. “Shut down the powered armour, that’s all.”
The guy on the floor was wearing a third of a ton of metal, but that didn’t stop him raising his helmeted head and gun hand.
“This is a Maxslapper Fifteen,” a muffled voice said. A handsome pair of antlers stuck through slots in the sides of the black helmet. Unkind people say that Tooyr brains are made of horn. “The most powerful hand weapon in the galaxy. So, you got to ask yourself if you feel lucky at all?”
I holstered my EMP gun and drew Trembling Bob. The bone-handled grip and carved horn trigger were the only parts most people recognised.
“This… to be honest, no one can tell me what this is. I found it on a battlefield. But if you don’t drop that gun, we’ll need a vacuum cleaner to collect your remains.”
“That looks nasty. Boss! You got to get me better armour for this gig,” he said over his shoulder.
A chrome-plated, egg-shaped capsule floated into the office and spoke: “When I said `open the door`, I foolishly imagined you would use the handle.”
“Sorry, boss, but these guys are known to be armed and dangerous.”
“That is true,” I said.
“I never carry a weapon,” Marshal Harry piped up.
“She doesn’t have to,” LB shouted, waggling his gun. “We protect her.”
“Could everyone put their weapons away, please? With my luck, you’ll all miss each other and kill me again.”
“What?” the marshal asked.
“Who were you?” LB asked.
“My name is cruisOVO, I was a clean-living Qoh Mode, a Pisces age thirty-two. I never did any harm to anyone. But I have been murdered three times in the past few years, and I have had quite enough.”
“What?” Okay, not my wittiest comeback, but this was my first floating egg. The silver egg floated over to the marshal’s desk and the top half slid open, revealing a Perspex dome with three pounds of grey, wrinkled brain inside.
“Am I addressing the detective marshal and her deputies?” cruisOVO asked.
“Yes, that’s right. I’m Marshal Harry Ward and these are my deputies, Chunglie and Long Barnacle. How can we help you?”
“I need you to solve my murders,” cruisOVO said. “I mean, the first time it happened, I was poisoned at a restaurant and my doctors brought me back from the dead- I thanked my lucky stars that I could afford such doctors. Then last year I was murdered when my ground car was smashed by a transportlug. The doctors brought me back and I made the best of it. Donations to charity and so on. But last month, my space yacht caught suicide and dived into a moon, and all the doctors could save was my brain in this support capsule. I have asked them to stop bringing me back, but my doctors insist they are doing me a favour.”
“The murders were investigated by your own private security people? There’s only a short note in our incident report file,” LB said. His eyes were unfocused as he concentrated on the data being imported directly to his brain from the Marshal Service’s central HQ. “The service did not consider the planet Smuds or its moons within our jurisdiction at the time.”
“You know,” Marshal Harry said, “I’ve never met anyone who has been murdered more than once.”
“I’ve always been unlucky,” the egg said. “I am aware that at the time of my murders, the Marshal Service did not cover the Waddudu homeworld, but now that you are here, I am hoping you can help.”
“Wow, you must have really expensive anti-gravs in there,” I said, pinging the egg with a claw.
“Yes, I do,” cruisOVO said. “Could you stop doing that?”
“Where did the money come from?” I asked. Deputies are supposed to ask questions, and I figured I was getting the hang of it. “Not a lot of jobs for floating eggs?”
“Grandfather OVO made the whole family rich. They all died when our Cranberry Knees space yacht crashed on take-off, and I inherited the lot.”
“I remember that,” I said. “The richest people in this star system all got snuffed at the same time.”
“Chunglie, please, try to have some empathy. This man has lost his whole family.”
Man? All I saw was a floating jar of brains. The Tooyr’s armour had rebooted and he clambered to his feet.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Do I shoot the egg guard or not?”
/> “Go wait by the car, Com Poh,” the egg ordered. “You’re supposed to guard my life, not threaten law officers or break doors.”
“Sorry, boss.” Com Poh picked up the door and leaned it back in the frame, with himself on the outside. The silver egg drifted towards me until I stopped it with a claw.
“Pity,” I said, waving Trembling Bob. “Tooyr are tasty if you cook them right.”
“Chunglie!”
“Sorry, Marshal, forgot I was vegan for a minute.” It took all the strength of three claws to pull the safety catch back on Trembling Bob before I could holster it.
“You’re the worst vegan I’ve ever met,” LB said. I shrugged that one off, because it was true.
“Com Poh means well, but he is a little too keen for action since my wife bought him that armour and gun. Now, marshal, you have made a reputation of solving cases no one else can. I believe that only you can solve my murders.”
The egg drifted across the room as it spoke. LB reached out one long arm, stopped it hitting our freshly-painted wall, and started it drifting back towards the door.
“The Hotsburg Supremacy was one case,” the marshal said, holding up a single digit. We’d had a lot of attention over her solving that one. Harry didn’t seem to believe she deserved it. There was a glow of power from the base of the egg, and it began drifting towards the marshal.
“But no one else could solve it,” cruisOVO said. “Please, find my killer before they try again. I couldn’t stand to be murdered again.”
“How do you know all the murders were done by the same guy?” I said. “Maybe three people don’t like you.”
When Harry Met Chunglie Box Set Page 18
