No Sign of Murder

by Alan Russell

“You’d be my first sale.”

  “I know good art when I hear it.”

  “I’ll bet you don’t have a painting in your house.”

  “Wrong. I’m looking at one right now. It was delivered today by my friend Don Bryant.”

  “Is he an artist?”

  “No. A cop.”

  “What kind of painting is it?”

  I looked at the canvas. It didn’t have a frame yet, and probably never would. Vincent’s blood already looked faded, and it wasn’t even thirty hours old.

  “It’s modern, I guess.”

  I felt the urge again. My left hand grabbed my right arm, grabbed it and tried to stop it. It wasn’t entirely successful, and I dropped the phone in my struggle. When my fit was over, I picked it up.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Tuntland. I was clumsy. And I should let you get back to your work.”

  She didn’t want to break our connection, tried to keep me talking.

  “What’s your painting titled, Mr. Winter?”

  But the word didn’t come from my lips. It rose from my hand. My right index finger jabbed out and then pushed forward under my left palm, and this time I didn’t try to stop it.

  THE END

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  Please read on for a note from Alan, followed by sneak peeks at:

  The Forest Prime Evil

  A Private Investigator Stuart Winter Novel

  Available now

  US UK CA AU DE FR ES IT NL JP BR MX IN

  Political Suicide

  A Thriller

  On sale November 5, 2019

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  No Sign of Murder was my first published novel. When it comes to first books, I think most writers remember their first novel even more than they do their first love.

  Writers, you must understand, are a strange breed.

  I finished writing the first draft of this novel in 1988. In the more than thirty years since, the world has changed dramatically. The PC—personal computer—was just beginning to come into its own. Back then, there was no internet. Information was obtained through library searches and telephone calls and letters. No one had cell phones, and there was no GPS. Travel meant maps and atlases, and going out in the field to do research.

  The light bulb for writing this book first went off when I visited my wife at her workplace. Laura was a graduate student in anthropology at Stanford University, as well as a research assistant at a primate facility, where she worked with gorillas versed in sign language. As I observed her communicating with her charges, I was struck by a sense of wonder. My wife was actually talking with a gorilla. I felt privileged to be an observer, and I was struck by the need to translate what I was seeing into a fictional story.

  The more I thought about what I wanted to write, the more excited I became. In some ways, the journey of my protagonist, Stuart Winter, became my own journey—my detective had to try and figure out a world that was foreign to him, the world of the deaf. I was forced to try and navigate that same world.

  I also needed a crash course in the life of a private investigator. Because I didn’t know any private eyes, I did what people had to do before the technological revolution—I asked around. I tracked down a PI who agreed to let me spend time with him on the job. Like most writers, I love to live vicariously. The PI actually utilized me in stakeouts and investigations. In the writing of this novel, I was able to document some of his “tricks of the trade” in the guise of fiction.

  No Sign of Murder was begun when I was still in my twenties. At the time of its writing, I bemoaned the gentrification of San Francisco; I didn’t know what was occurring was only the beginning of such. What I wrote about back then was my own perceived snapshot of that time. In rereleasing this book, I decided to do a small amount of updating—the pay phones Stuart Winter used no longer exist, so I thought it best to give him a cell phone—but other than some technological revisions, I left the heart of the book intact. When the book came out, I thought it was daring that my protagonist had a good friend who was gay. Nowadays that seems passé, and I am sure my treatment of their friendship seems ham-handed. I just hope it didn’t, and doesn’t, come across as patronizing, which was never my intent.

  Similarly, I hope what I wrote wasn’t (and isn’t) insulting to the world of the deaf. My protagonist was a “stranger in a strange land.” He was a visitor to the world of the hearing disabled. I wanted to offer his perspectives as an outsider (which very much paralleled my own). Since the book’s publication, many changes have occurred in the deaf community. Some believe deaf culture should be identified as Deaf culture (deaf being capitalized). I decided not to include that discussion in the reissue of this novel, nor did I bring up the subject of cochlear implants.

  There are a host of stories that occurred between writing The End and getting this book published. I had no idea how the world of publishing worked. In another author’s note I should write about my naïveté when it came getting an agent (as she told me, I broke just about every rule in writing, with the exception that she was convinced I had written a very good novel). Somehow the novel written by this babe in the woods was bought by not one but two publishers (another long story), and when it came out the book was given a stand-alone review in the New York Times. Miracles do happen.

  Here is my first novel, warts and all. I was inordinately proud of the book when it first came out. As a more seasoned writer, I can now identify areas I would have changed, but even all these years later I am still pleased with the overall product, and I hope you will be as well.

  Alan Russell

  October 1, 2019

  THE FOREST PRIME EVIL SNEAK PEEK

  The Forest Prime Evil

  A Private Investigator Stuart Winter Novel

  Available now

  “Smoothly plotted, deftly written, and thought-provoking.”—San Diego Union-Tribune

  THE STAIRWAY LEADING to my walk-up office on Geary sometimes attracts the homeless, but this was the first squatter I had ever seen in the lotus position. Drawing nearer, I recognized Josh Needleman. It had been five years since I had seen or talked with him. I called his name softly, and he opened his eyes. They were as dark as I remembered them, maybe a shade less brooding than Rasputin’s. He rose with a yogi’s grace, which probably explained a few years of his disappearance. Josh didn’t bother with the conventional handshake, or inquiries about how I had been doing, just acted as if I should have been expecting him. Naturally, he didn’t have an appointment. As I remembered, Josh had never been much for appointments. He once told me he never wanted to be a “prisoner of time.” By his appearance, it hadn’t taken him captive yet.

  He was wearing homespun, still apparently believing it wrong to use any leather or animal product for clothing. Josh had once told me that it was not one of “man’s higher purposes” to enslave and kill animals. His major quandary, I think, was trying to find what all man’s higher purposes are. But, in the course of a sentence or two, I learned that he hadn’t yet achieved sainthood. He was still human enough. He wanted revenge.

  “We have made a vow,” Josh told me, “to find Christopher Shepard’s murderer, and exact justice upon those who killed him. This is a sacred pledge, one to which we have bound ourselves.”

  Christopher Shepard, better known as the Green Man, had thought that planting trees could solve the ills of the world, could cure pollution, end global warming, and help give new life to a tired planet. For twenty years the Green Man had quite literally worked at the grassroots level, getting down on his hands and knees to plant seeds and seedlings in the earth. A month ago, he himself had been planted in the ground.

  Shepard’s death had brought more
notoriety to Sequoia Summer than three months of active protesting. The summer-long gathering had attracted a small army of mostly young, mostly irreverent protesters to Humboldt County. In an effort to stop old-growth deforestation, the activists had linked arms against bulldozers and defied chain saws by tree sitting. David with a monkey wrench against Goliath.

  Shepard was found dead in the middle of a controversial primeval forest he called home, a branch through his skull. One of his favorite quotations had been “He that loves the tree loves the branch.” The proverb took on a new, and perverse, meaning in his death.

  The death had been ruled accidental, the result of a limb that had fallen from one of the towering redwoods. No landscape is without its inherent dangers. Around the redwood forest are visible reminders of its hazards. When limbs fall several hundred feet, they frequently embed themselves deep in the forest floor. To the uninitiated, these limbs are often mistaken for trees. Over the years, the local folk have had reason to give them a name: widow-makers.

  Some creative journalists had suggested that Shepard’s body was found in a Christlike pose, supported by the wood. It wasn’t like that, but none of the environmentalists had asked for retractions. What they wanted was an investigation. In Humboldt County, “cover-up” was being shouted almost as loudly as “timber.”

  I had grieved over the Green Man’s death but hadn’t paid much mind to those who claimed a murder had been committed. These days it’s rare for a well-known person to die without an accompanying conspiracy theory, and usually a TV limited series. I had followed the controversy, but I hadn’t expected it to show up on my doorstep. Josh’s talk of vows and pledging and binding sounded right out of the Middle Ages.

  “Who,” I asked, “is ‘we’?”

  POLITICAL SUICIDE SNEAK PEEK

  Political Suicide

  A Thriller

  On sale November 5, 2019

  “A rocket ride of action, political intrigue, and suspense.”—San Diego Magazine

  It was five minutes until midnight and I was facing the prospect of another bar and another witching hour. I took a few deep breaths and hoped that my heavy breathing would energize me. It was time to work, time to be the human sponge.

  I was staying at the Blue Crab Inn located along Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. The resort featured two restaurants and one bar. I was shopping the property, a euphemism for spying. My job was to offer management my impressions and suggestions. I was the anonymous guest, the fly on the wall, and sometimes the fly in the ointment.

  The Jimmy Sooks Lounge overlooks the Miles River. Male blue crabs are called jimmies and the females are referred to as sooks, thus the name. I knew the lay of the land, having audited the Blue Crab Inn three times in the past year. It was a good account, meaning they were happy with my work and they paid promptly. Five years ago, I started my company, the Last Resort. At the time, the company name might have been a personal confession as well. The work is mostly corporate undercover. The company stationery lists my Maryland private investigator’s license number, but that’s strictly for show. When pressed by strangers as to my profession, I always say, “I’m a hospitality consultant,” the same answer hookers usually give.

  Another deep breath. Of late, it was the only kind of heavy breathing going on in my life. It was showtime. I walked into the bar and registered my impressions with one look at the room.

  Jimmy Sooks Lounge less than a third full. One bartender, one cocktail waitress on duty. ESPN on television. Muzak in background. Overall, lounge appears to be clean and kept up, though some debris under the table closest to hallway is clearly visible to anyone entering the room.

  There were three seats available at the bar. In less than a second, I decided on the best place to sit, a spot that afforded me a direct view of the register and the point-of-sale printer. As I made my way to the counter, I gave the impression of being just another business sort out to finish my workday with a nightcap. I was wearing my Invisible Man outfit—a blue blazer, gray slacks, and a loosened red paisley tie.

  Condiment tray needs attention. Fruit flies hovering over limes and cherries. Some swizzle sticks on counter. Toothpicks and a bar napkin on floor. Liquor display in disarray. Bottles not arranged neatly, some labels not facing forward. One patron with an empty glass. Bartender One slouching against back counter talking with what appears to be a friend, a white male, approximately twenty-five, with short, curly black hair, and a gold earring.

  I took a seat and casually craned my neck around for a look-see. There was a mirror stretching along the bar wall that would provide me the eyes that some people swore were in the back of my head.

  Cobwebs in southeast corner of bar. Nautical memorabilia also in need of attention from housekeeping. Dust on anchor and dip net displays. Cellophane wrappers and other debris visible on crab traps hanging on wall. Eleven patrons in lounge. Four at counter: Earring Man; Empty Glass, who’s an older white male; and Lovey-Dovey Couple, both white, she blond hair, him brown. In the lounge are three businessmen at a table, all clean-shaven, two white, one black; white male in corner; a Hispanic couple in the back booth closest to hallway; a white female in booth closest to wall.

  With my peripheral vision I took in the unhurried approach of the bartender. He stood in front of me and said, “What can I get you?”

  No opening pleasantries, no smile. Management needs to coach staff on proper method of approaching a guest. Bartender One is Todd, a white male, six feet tall, two hundred pounds, wearing a uniform and name tag. He has short brown hair, a mustache, and a tattoo of a bulldog on left wrist.

  “Vodka and tonic. Light on the ice. And a water back, please.”

  “You got it.”

  Bartender One makes no attempt to upgrade drink order. House vodka is Smirnoff. Judging by call bottles, he could simply have asked, “Stolichnaya?” Or, “Skyy?” Or, better yet, “Do you have a preference of vodka?” Bartender One uses glass to get ice instead of using ice scoop. If glass breaks in ice it is a potential hazard. Recommend that all bartenders be required to use ice scoop. He free-pours the drink. Five-count pour. Recommend to management that bartenders use shot glass and splash for a consistent pour. Lime garnish placed in drink.

  The bartender returned with the two drinks, placed the napkins down on the counter, and put the glasses atop them.

  “That will be seven seventy-five.”

  No offer to run a tab. No inquiry as to whether I’m a guest in the hotel. Lost opportunity for personalization of service. Management should encourage Bartender One to start a tab as it facilitates more drink orders.

  I removed a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet. When performing an audit, you always pay cash at the bar to see if the staff is following what bean counters call cash-control procedures. One of my jobs is to bloodhound the path of the money. Since time immemorial publicans have worried about ducats safely landing in the till instead of in an employee’s pocket.

  Bartender One immediately retrieves tendered twenty-dollar bill. Money picked up without acknowledgment of appreciation. Management should stress that all servers thank guests upon payment.

  I don’t particularly care for vodka, but I always make a point of ordering a clear drink because it’s easy to look through. Raising my drink, I pretended to take a long sip. What I was really doing was peering through the looking glass. As the bartender approached the register, the tingle in my neck clued me to what was going to happen a moment before it did. Maybe it was the bartender’s momentary pause at the cash register, or it could have been the surreptitious tilt of his head followed by the almost imperceptible look to the right, and then to his left. I always wondered if my foreknowledge was the result of physical giveaways, or if I was sensitized to some unseen vibration. It was the kind of thing I never probed too closely for fear of losing the magic.

  At 11:58 Bartender One hits the NO SALE key on the register. He puts the twenty-dollar bill into the till, acts as if he’s depositing money for the drink, but a
ctually removes twenty dollars in change. In his hand he palms a five-dollar bill.

  The bartender returned with my change, muttered, “Thank you,” then walked off.

  No receipt offered for obvious reasons. Management might consider having bartenders dispense receipts with all drinks. Twelve dollars and twenty-five cents in change returned to me at 11:59.

  I tracked the bartender’s movements. He stopped as if to tidy up some glasses on the back counter, but his subterfuge was obvious.

  At 11:59:45 Bartender One slips five-dollar bill into tip jar.

  There was a small sense of letdown. Part of the anticlimax was this feeling of having witnessed too many venial sins in my thirty-five years. There was also this sense that the last act had already been played out, but that my job as critic required me to watch the rest of an overly long scene. Management and ownership would feel cheated if I didn’t stay in the bar for at least an hour. They always liked the details and comments in my reports. I was living proof of the devil in the details.

  Though the kitchen is still open, Bartender One makes no attempt to sell appetizers and food. Management needs to stress that all lounge staff make this offer to patrons.

  Epitaph on my tombstone, I thought: Do you want fries with that?

  Only one table tent with bar menu visible at counter. Management should coordinate with bartenders re table tents to make sure an adequate number are on display.

  From the corner of my eye, I watched Empty Glass signal for a refill. The bartender, looking almost directly at the man, missed his gesture. Obliviousness in serving staff always reminded me of David McCord’s summation of a waiter’s being called to heaven: By and by, God caught his eye.

  “I’m ready for another one,” I heard the man say.

  The bar television was tuned into a cable news station that was covering the contentious state of the presidential primary season. The political divide was as bad as it had ever been, with elections marked by a bombing, as well as the assassination attempt on Mark Stanton. The Republican congressman had suffered a wound to his arm, but that had only kept him out of the race for a few weeks. Most of the candidates had reported death threats, and security had been shored up. It didn’t help matters that no candidate had yet secured enough delegate votes to guarantee the nomination of either major party. Even though Super Tuesday had come and gone almost two months earlier, the dogfight continued.