The Peace Haven Murders

by M. Glenn Graves

  “Some friendly advice to help you stay healthy,” the muffled voice said. “Stop investigating those deaths in Clancyville. Nothing good will come of it. Especially for you.”

  I started to speak. I was not as quick to the response as Rogers, however. She was in full throttle before I could offer any comeback.

  “Who do you think you are, you low life? You will regret the day you called here and threatened me.”

  “Now, now, Sweetheart, just consider this nothing more than a warning shot across the bow. It simply will not be healthy for you to continue looking into nothing.”

  “It must be something or you wouldn’t be threatening me.”

  “The advice is free, Sweetheart. You’ve been warned. That’s as much as I can do for you.”

  “Stop calling me Sweetheart, you scum bag. I’ll have you know ….”

  The click of the receiver on the speaker phone was abrupt. Rogers couldn’t finish her rebuttal.

  “Some people’s kids. Of all the nerve to call here and threaten us,” Rogers was about as upset as a computer could get.

  “This is a good break,” I said.

  “Well, I suppose it is.”

  “Did you get the number?”

  “Of course I have the number.”

  She gave it to me along with the address.

  “Shall I call them back?” she asked.

  “No. I’ll just run over and pay them a visit. Obviously we are onto something.”

  “Obviously. What are we onto?”

  “I have no idea.”

  10

  By the time we found the location of the mysterious caller on the north side of town, the rain was falling at a steady rate. The wind from the ocean was chilly, but not so that Sam and I had to run the heater in the car. I was eating a little package of peanut butter and crackers. Sam was helping me.

  I was parked across the street and down, maybe, half a block from the entrance to the apartment building. This was the exciting work of detecting, sitting with a black Lab in a parked car with a steady rain coming down munching on peanut butter crackers. Sam’s panting was fogging up the windshield. Must have been the thrill of the hunt for him or his excitement over the peanut butter crackers.

  It was almost noon. There was no movement at the house that we could see. At least no one was coming or going by the door we were watching.

  “Your fog is spreading to my side of the windshield.”

  He turned his head to my voice without comment. He was chewing.

  “Why can’t dogs hold their breath?”

  He moved towards me and nudged me with his large nose. Then suddenly he jumped into the back seat, turned around, and rested his oversized head on the back of the front seat, still looking out of the windshield toward the door of the apartment building. Ever vigilant.

  “Thank you.”

  He offered a heavy sigh, almost a snort. Perhaps it was my chit-chat that bothered him the most. It could have been that I was now out of peanut butter crackers and he was still hungry.

  Now and then I would turn on the wipers to whisk away the accumulated rainfall. My stomach growled loudly and Sam rolled his eyes toward me.

  “Another hour and then we break for lunch. Exhilarating, huh?”

  He rolled his eyes back towards the windshield and presumably back towards the apartment entrance. Since Sam didn’t talk much, it was hard to know what exactly he concentrated on during these stakeouts with me. We had been doing this kind of thrilling detecting together for a few years now. All in all, he was quite good with surveillance.

  It was nearing 1:30 when a man walked out of the door of the apartment building and crossed the street. I took a couple of pictures with my super-duper detective cell phone before he got into a car and drove away. Sam and I followed.

  Ten minutes later the suspect pulled into a diner, parked and went inside. Crooks have to eat too. I pulled the car next to his and we waited.

  Twenty minutes into our wait, I could see our man coming back towards his car. Sam and I climbed out and moved towards him as if to going into the greasy spoon.

  “Food any good here?” I asked. The direct approach. Nothing like meeting one’s enemies head on with a 95 pound dog. And growing.

  He looked straight at me and then at Sam.

  “Yeah. Food’s good. The dog ain’t welcome inside.”

  There was apparently no recognition on his part of who I was.

  I put Sam back into the car and headed into the diner.

  “You new around here?” he asked. This was likely his best pick up line.

  “Just passing through,” I offered.

  “Where you from?”

  Oftentimes when I am trailing suspects and they don’t know me, my best disguise is nothing more than my usual makeup and some feminine-like blouse. Being a woman is like traveling incognito. He had no idea who I was or that anyone of my gender would be following him. I was tempted to answer his question by saying Clancyville, but I knew the coincidence would be too startling for him and I would lose the edge I presently had.

  “Raleigh,” I lied. It was only a white lie, as they say, since I had once lived there for a few months.

  “Here long?”

  “Just food and out.”

  “Too bad.” He got into his car and I walked around the corner to the diner. Sam and I were hungry and I wanted to end the conversation.

  While I waited for the sandwiches, I emailed Rogers my photos of the suspect. By the time I had the sandwiches and was back in the car, she had some info related to the pictures. While Sam was chomping away on his cheeseburger, I listened to Rogers give me some particulars.

  “His name is Michael Barnok, alias Barney Michaels, alias Mitchell Barnes, alias Bob Mitchell….”

  “I get the picture. Go on.”

  “Rap sheet is long and adventuresome. Petty crimes. Passed some time in juvenal detention. Multiple overnights in the local lockups. Assault charges but nothing that stuck. Seems to be a low-level criminal headed for the big-time, so to speak.”

  “Connections?”

  “Known associations … let’s see, nothing that strikes a chord. Wait. Here’s a name. I’m scrolling, dearie. Greg Gilroy. Oh, this is sweet. Gregory “Guns” Gilroy. Love those nicknames, don’t you? Wonder what that means?”

  “Need I draw you a picture?”

  “No. I can connect the dots. Probably better than you.”

  “Address on Guns Gilroy?”

  “You’ll never guess.”

  “Our current stakeout.”

  “Pretty and smart.”

  “So the question now is, who hired these low-level thugs to threaten me?”

  “I think it is more than threaten, sweetie pie.”

  “Maybe. But at least one of them doesn’t even know what I look like.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just had a face to face with him. No reaction. Well, he did try to hit on me a little.”

  “Maybe he was just being cool and careful.”

  “Some people don’t know how to be cool or careful. No, Guns must be the main guy on this mission. That’s why Barnok had to go get the food for them. Gopher.”

  “Super detective does it again.”

  “Just call me Wonder Woman. We’ll see how this plays out.”

  “Where to next?”

  “Sam and I will stay on the stakeout for the time being. I can process while I watch these birds. I’d like to know what their job really is concerning me.”

  “Anything I can be doing?”

  “Yeah. Check to see if you can find any connection between Guns or Barnok and the Sizemore Corporation. Or maybe more directly…Ernest Jr. or Sr. and one of the two boys here. Call me if anything pops up.”

  “You’re always first on my list, Sweets.

  11

  I must have dozed off because of the sound of tapping on my car window awakened me. Sam likewise must have been slumbering since he gulped down his lun
ch a couple of hours ago and his growling alarm clock never sounded to alert me that someone might be approaching the car. I had returned to my sleuthing posture near the apartment building where Barnok and Gilroy were staying, only this time I parked a block away to avoid running into Barnok again.

  The tapping sound was coming from a gun barrel gently rapping my driver’s side window. It’s hard to act nonchalant when the barrel of a .38 is just inches from your cheek.

  I rolled down the window, giving indifference my best shot. The rain had stopped, but the clouds still covered the sky.

  “Yo, Baby Sister. Need some assistance?”

  “No. I’m fine. Just waiting on my boyfriend to arrive.”

  “You be waitin’ a long time. I spotted you this morning.”

  “He’s driving in from Richmond.”

  “That so. He live around here?”

  “Moving in. Newcomer.”

  “Well, consider this that old time Welcome Wagon thing. Get out of the car.”

  I studied the whole scene to see if he was alone. No one else was clearly visible at the moment, so I figured that this must be Guns welcoming me to the neighborhood. Barnok must have told him about me. Perhaps some male braggadocio and heightened embellishment. Just my luck.

  “I’ll wait here by the car. I don’t want to miss him.”

  “Neighborhood not safe for a white lady. Now get out of the car.”

  He waved his gun so that I would naturally tremble in fear of the weapon.

  “Where we going?” I sounded naïve.

  “Look at brochures of the city.”

  “I should leave my boyfriend a note. He’ll be arriving any minute now.”

  “Not likely, Honey Bunch. Now move. Slowly.”

  My gun was holstered in the small of my back. It was the best place I had found when I had to carry. Not altogether comfortable, but suitable for me. I got out of the car. My window was still down.

  “I need to get my purse, if you don’t mind,” I said as I opened the back door. I knew that Sam was awake by now with all the talking, but due to his keen awareness of danger he had not shown himself to the man with the gun. Some things are inborn in some animals. The tinted car windows also helped to hide him on the floorboard.

  “Here, let me assist you in that purse retrieval,” he pushed me back with his non-gun hand and looked into the back seat to find my purse.

  Sam lunged for the wrist of his gun hand with lightning speed. Of course, he had the element of surprise which aided considerably. He latched onto the wrist with his teeth and Mr. Welcome Wagon dropped his gun in the back seat of my car. I drew my .45 and had the barrel against his head before he could even fathom what had just happened. I told Sam to release his wrist.

  Sam’s reluctance to release his captive was obvious to me. He returned to the back seat and picked up the gun in his mouth.

  “Both hands on the trunk of the car,” I said and backed away a safe distance from Welcome Wagon while all the time keeping my eyes on him.

  “Yo, baby, I’m bleeding here and don’t let that pooch slobber all over my weapon.”

  “You’ll probably live. Both hands on the car. Lean over, feet apart. You won’t be needing your gun for some time.”

  The rear window of my car shattered seconds before I heard the sound of the shot. The bullet must have missed my left ear by an inch or so. I was on the other side of the car when the second shot hit the roof of the car to my immediate left. I could see through the car windows on my side that Sam was crouching onto the floorboard once again. Lucky for us the shooter wasn’t good at his job. Two shots, two misses.

  I opened the backdoor of the car on my side and Sam joined me. Despite the ineptness of the shooter thus far, I feared he might get lucky if Sam stayed inside the car. He emerged from the car with the gun still in the clutches of his teeth. Backup.

  Welcome Wagon was nowhere to be seen. My field of vision was limited because of the downward angle of the shooter’s line of fire. Unless Mr. Wagon was really stupid, he should have been long gone.

  I took the gun from Sam’s teeth and wiped off the handle with my blouse.

  “Try not to slobber on the guns in the future. Stay here. I’m moving.”

  I needed to get closer to the shooter if I was to have any chance of discouraging him. I spotted a row of trash cans about 50 yards in front of my car, up from the apartment building, but on the same side of the street as the building. I made a run, still trusting in the shooter’s inability to hit anything. I estimated that the shooter was no higher than the second or third floor of the apartment complex. I fired a couple of shots in his general direction while moving towards the cans.

  The shooter had time to fire one round at me, the moving target. I reached the cans unscathed. This guy must have failed Rifle Shooting 101 often. But he was dangerous since he had a gun and was firing it. I needed a diversion to cross the street. Sam was my only leverage.

  “Go that way, fast,” I yelled at Sam, wondering if my plan was way too dangerous for even a poor marksman.

  Sam bolted. A second later, I moved quickly to the front door of the apartment building. My plan worked. The shooter had not fired a shot in my direction. In fact, I heard no shot fired at all. Sam was out of sight, so I had no idea where he had stopped running.

  I entered the front door and climbed the stairs to my right. The hallway of the second floor was empty. I waited a minute or so for some sign of movement or sound, but there was nothing. I ran up the next flight of steps and cautiously peered into the third floor hallway. I listened while trying to hold my breath. Silence.

  I moved from the doorway to the vending machine alcove where I could protect myself and see the remainder of the third floor hallway. No one. Nothing. Silence. I waited a few more seconds because that’s what detectives who want to live usually do. Haste makes for dead detectives.

  Back behind me, from the front of the building, I heard Sam barking. By the time I had rejoined him outside, he was standing on my side of the street studying a partially empty parking lot. He must have seen something, but he wasn’t telling me exactly what it was. I figured that the two guys had bolted, maybe even with a getaway car, and he was pointing that out to me in his typical, silent, canine manner. Always honing my sleuthing skills.

  My cell phone rang.

  “Go ahead,” I answered. It was Rogers.

  “So what’s happening to that lead?”

  “They fired a few rounds at us, tried to kidnap me at gun point, but they escaped without answering in my questions.”

  “In other words, another normal day for you – two steps forward, one back.”

  “At least I am rattling somebody’s cage.”

  12

  I was sitting by the window that faces the roof line of the other buildings in my section of Norfolk. The view didn’t cost that much. My office is my apartment and vice versa. I was pondering my life’s work while consuming my third cup of coffee. It was early, around 7 something. Sam was in Never Land on the couch.

  Pondering is good if one has time to do it. My profession often gives me time to do it. I wish it were otherwise, but one does what one can. I was in the midst of my usual conundrum within my pondering when there was a double knock on my front door. Sam raised his head as he looked toward the door. He was waiting on me to get up and answer. I obeyed.

  I peeped through the view hole in the middle of the door and was pleased to see my benevolent Uncle Walters standing there in his casual three-piece suit which always looked stylish.

  I hurriedly opened the door and hugged him before he had a chance to say hello.

  “I should come more often,” he offered.

  “There’s always a hug and a few kisses waiting for you here.”

  “I shall make a note.”

  “Come in.”

  He entered with that Bostonian air that I had come to adore. Not uppity or snobbish. Nor was it rude or egotistical. It was simply the way he carried himsel
f, as though he intuitively knew he was important without being overbearing about it. It was the way I always believed the legendary Sherlock Holmes might have carried himself. It was a touch of class. Sophistication.

  His gray-tweed three piece suit was set off by the red rose in his lapel and the scarlet tie pin which stood out against his evergreen tie with the double Windsor knot. He still carried the cane for no apparent reason other than he looked good with it. I suspected that he might have known that.

  “Hot on the trail of some desperate criminals, I suppose?”

  “Ever vigilant.”

  “Tell me about it,” he laid his cane on the computer table next to Rogers and sat on the end of the couch opposite Sam. Sam raised his head, wagged his tail a time or two, and returned to his sleeping posture for the moment.

  I related the events up to that point. He offered his insightful “Hmm” a few times, but made no comments until I finished the little I knew.

  “You have obviously stirred someone’s pot of soup.”

  “But whose?”

  “Ah, the proverbial question. Do you think the two men you mentioned will come after you again?”

  “Probably.”

  “Well, since you have no other leads, you will likely stay on the pursuit of the two men who tried to, ah, eliminate you.”

  “My thinking, too.”

  “And your next move would be to ….” he waited for my response.

  “Follow the only clues I have.”

  “If those shooters are smart, they will not return to their apartment.”

  “They don’t strike me as being the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, so my money is on their return to the apartment.”

  “You have a plan.”

  “I do.”

  “May I assist you and give Sam a respite?”

  “Actually I think I need brawn and brain for this one.”

  “I am highly offended. Gray matter often trumps muscle power,” Walters said.

  “No question. But with two less-than-intelligent low-life criminals trying to shoot me, I’m going for a highly skilled, adept shooter as well as one who uses his brain.”