The Claudia Hershey Mysteries - Box Set: Three Claudia Hershey Mysteries

by Laura Belgrave

  “Interesting theory,” Claudia said finally, “but so what? Matheson may be slime, and he may have had good reasons to protect his political career, but that doesn’t make him a murderer. No jury on earth will buy it.”

  “They will if someone investigates him as thoroughly as I’m being investigated,” Markos said darkly. He pointed at the paper in Claudia’s hands. “Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

  “All right,” Claudia conceded. “It’s a start. And I’ll look into it.”

  Markos exhaled slowly. “At first I thought I could handle this. Murder’s not exactly uncommon in this state. There’d be some new hits and the push for me would taper off, at least enough for me to breathe.”

  “You figured wrong.”

  “Yeah. And I can’t keep running. I also don’t want to be shot down like a dog.”

  Claudia said nothing. She folded the paper twice, and stuck it in her pocket. Then she moved to hand Markos the pen light. A quarter inch shy of his hand, she let it slip from her fingers. It fell to the grass with a barely audible thud.

  They bent simultaneously to retrieve the instrument, and in that second Claudia made her move. She delivered an awkward shin kick to the inside of Markos’ leg, then deftly landed a hammer fist to the top and middle of his forearm.

  Markos bellowed. His gun flew behind him and skittered across the wet lawn. When he whirled to fumble for it, Claudia dove for the fourteenth hole. The snub-nosed .38 she’d planted there earlier was as she’d left it. She plucked the revolver out, rolled once and from a flat-belly position took aim.

  “Freeze, Markos! I got you sighted and even as dark as it is, at four feet I won’t miss.” Claudia pulled the hammer back, letting him hear the unmistakable click. “Put your hands to the moon. We’re playing by my rules now.”

  Breathing hard, Markos turned slowly, his hands raised. “You bitch,” he said.

  “You’re being melodramatic,” Claudia responded evenly. She exhaled and rose carefully, her arms outstretched and steady. “You should be grateful, Markos. Someone else would shoot you down like a rabid dog. I’m going to let you live.”

  For a moment, Claudia flirted with the idea of making Markos strip. She would not forgive him for the private performance he’d forced her into. But naw. Except for the disrobing, their meeting went more or less as planned. He’d found the guns she’d intended him to find, and not the one she didn’t. Believing her defenseless, he’d relaxed just enough for her to create an opportunity.

  She tried to tell herself it hadn’t been as close as it was.

  “Let’s go, ace. And don’t be stupid and try anything,” Claudia warned. She collected the weapons. “I’m tired. I’m cold. And I’m cranky. It would take very, very little for me to pull the trigger and we both know it.”

  With the gun trained on Markos’ back, Claudia walked him back to her car. Along the way, she gave him the Miranda spiel.

  Then: Two counts of murder one. Possession and distribution of drugs. Extortion. False imprisonment of a police officer. There would probably be others, but it was a good start.

  “You silly, freaking bitch,” Markos said sourly as Claudia forced him across the hood of the car. “I didn’t kill anyone!”

  Claudia produced a set of handcuffs and a set of leg cuffs. In moments, Markos was secured. She turned him around, and held the gun at nose level.

  “Your status as a murderer is for jurors to decide,” Claudia said mildly. “My job is to take you into custody before someone beats the breath out of you and deprives them of that opportunity.”

  Let him sweat it.

  Prodding him with the gun, Claudia forced Markos into the trunk. He cursed violently.

  Smiling, Claudia slammed the lid, then rapped the top with her keys. “Don’t worry, Mr. Markos,” she called out cheerfully. “The car’s department issue. It’s a piece of shit, complete with air holes courtesy of lots of rust. So relax. Just close your eyes and enjoy the ride. I’m an excellent driver.”

  With her trophy in the trunk, Claudia drove back to the station, humming to classical music on an all-night station.

  Chapter 25

  Pulling rank was an option Claudia had exercised sparingly, and casually at best, since her arrival in Indian Run.

  First, need rarely dictated it. Her role was foremost that of a detective. The lieutenant title she’d brought from Cleveland served solely as glitz to shore up the small department’s faltering status with the town council. Claudia understood.

  Second, Sergeant Ron Peters was a capable, if somewhat unimaginative, organizer whose methodical ways kept patrolmen in all the right place at all the right times. Indeed, scheduling was the most taxing part of his supervisory duties. A lieutenant was overkill, and Claudia accepted that.

  Third, there was Chief Mac Suggs. He liked his image as the paternal father, ruler of the roost, chief honcho, law enforcement deity, and by God, there would be no graven images before him—especially no female graven images. Claudia had a little more trouble with that one.

  Finally, because most officers were good old boys born and bred in Indian Run or in “them parts thereabout,” with few exceptions they viewed Claudia as they would some exotic species who had somehow slipped past customs and might harbor unknown viruses. At best, she could expect indifference. At worst, sullen resentment. Claudia made do.

  After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In that context, being a lieutenant was superfluous and remained that way until fifteen minutes past her arrival at the police station with Tom Markos.

  It was four-fifteen in the morning when Claudia pulled up. The station should have been deserted, a token salute to safety. But lights blazed from the windows. Patrol cars lined the street out front. Voices rode the cool night air.

  One eye on the station entrance, one eye on Markos, Claudia eased her prisoner out of the trunk. He glared hatefully, but the steam had gone out of him and he said nothing. Claudia hustled him inside, depositing him on the scarred bench beside the front desk.

  An old cracker named Stan Caruthers held down the desk as night duty officer. Caruthers, with a wisp of oily gray hair combed over his bald pate, was something of a mascot. Long past retirement age, he nevertheless refused to give up police work, even though at night it amounted to little beyond an occasional call about a barking dog. That was fine by Officer Stan, as he was affectionately known. After all, the best old movies were shown in the pre-dawn hours, and since most were in black and white, the small black and white set on the desk suited him just fine. But the TV was off right now, and he did a double take when he saw Claudia with Markos in tow.

  “I don’t believe what my eyes are relayin’ to my brain!” he drawled, peering over the top of half-moon glasses. “You got Markos already! Wait’ll the chief—”

  Claudia waved an impatient hand. “What’s going on here?”

  “Say what?” The officer’s milky eyes registered confusion.

  “I said, what’s going on here?”

  Caruthers shook his head slowly. “You’re foolin’ with me, right? You got this here fella in bracelets and you don’t know?”

  “Obviously not,” said Claudia irritably. She could hear the chief’s voice booming in the back somewhere. “You want to fill me in, Stan? Please?”

  “Well, hell’s bells, honey! You’ve just become the best part of it!”

  “Come on, Stan. Quickly, quickly! What’s up?”

  “Well, all right, then.” Caruthers adopted his best storytelling pose. “Not more’n twenty minutes ago two more bodies turned up, blood so fresh on ’em you could paint with it,” he said. “A husband and wife, dead in bed. He was one of them there psychics. She was a—whatchacallit—a medium.” Caruther’s shot Markos a dark look. “Now ain’t that just some kind of coincidence, huh?”

  What little flesh showed between Markos’ beard and eyebrows turned white as enamel. His lips moved, but nothing came out. His eyes sought Claudia’s.

  “Shit!�
� said Claudia. She slapped the desk counter with her hand. “Who found the bodies?”

  “A grandson, some young pup who was spendin’ the night.” Caruthers gave Claudia a doleful look. “Poor kid, the noise woke him up. Must’ve been terrified. Hard to say how long it was before he even peeked out. Claims he didn’t see nuthin.’”

  “How old’s the boy?”

  “Five, I hear tell. His parents are on their way to collect him.”

  “Who’s on the scene right now?”

  “Moody, and Carella’s on the way.”

  Claudia nodded. They could hold things until she got there. “Crime techs out?”

  “They been called.”

  “Okay. Give me the short version fast, Stan.”

  Delighted, the old officer filled her in, disappointed when she interrupted him or hurried him along. It was a moment he would relive for a long time. He didn’t want to be deprived.

  “All right. Look, get Markos processed and into lock-up, and start pushing the paperwork,” Claudia told him. “I’ll—”

  “Son of a bitch! This is a total crock! You can’t railroad me for—”

  Claudia whirled on the big man. “Shut up, Markos.”

  She turned back to Stan. “I’ll take care of the reports later. There’s going to be a bunch.” She reeled off a list of felony charges and put Markos’ revolver on the desk. “Tag this and get it in the evidence locker. I’ve got to go find the chief.” As she was leaving, she heard Officer Stan telling Markos that yessir, boy, he was in a heap of trouble.

  Claudia pushed past three patrolmen and into Suggs’ office. The chief was shouting into the phone, red-faced and sweating. He slammed the receiver down the moment his eyes fell on his detective.

  “Where in hell have you been, Hershey?” he roared. “Markos is makin’ fools of us and dog meat out of the people we’re supposed to be protectin’, but you’re not at home. You’re not—”

  “I’ve been—”

  “—answerin’ your portable. Your vehicle ain’t showin’ on any street. We got ourselves a goddamned double homicide and—”

  “I just—”

  “—the one homicide dick I got is out carousin’ like a bitch in heat!”

  She let him go on, watched him pop Tums, listened to him catalog sins and omissions and invoke God’s name in every conceivable way. Waste of time, he called her. High heels lookin’ for brains. A disgrace to the fine callin’ of law enforcement.

  A cluster of officers gathered just outside the office. This was good theater, fodder for weeks of stories. And still she let him go on, until he was spent, physiology demanding that he pause for air.

  Then she quietly closed the door, her posture betraying nothing to the cops just outside. But when she turned back to Suggs there was heat in her eyes.

  “You’re a blind man, Suggs, a clown in costume,” Claudia said hotly, wielding words like a blunt instrument. “You want so badly to protect your image and believe that Indian Run is sacrosanct that you’re willing to trade justice for expediency.”

  “Just a damned minute, Hershey. I—”

  “No! You wait a minute, Suggs, because I’m not finished.” Claudia crossed to the chief’s desk. Her voice rose slightly. “I’ve got your Tom Markos right outside this door. I picked him up tonight and—”

  “That lowlife’s right here?”

  “Shut up and listen to me!” Claudia hissed. “He’ll do hard time for pushing drugs. And you can throw the rest of the murders at him and maybe even make a circumstantial case for at least Overton’s death. But in the end, when it goes to a jury, he won’t do time for murder because he didn’t have anything to do with them—not hers, not these latest two, and not Avery’s.”

  “That’s rubbish, Hershey, and I’ve had just about enough of it.” Suggs grappled for a Tums. “Your stubborn streak’s rubbed out any common sense you might’ve had.”

  “No sir!” Claudia violently shook her head. “The time of death on this Lancashire couple is going to show he’s innocent—by God, I don’t need a medical examiner’s report to know it—and if you book Markos now you’re going to be eating your badge in front of the whole town while more people die.”

  She told him about the meeting at the fourteenth hole, the sequence of events, the timing. She told him about Matheson, quickly showed him the paper, explained its significance, that it implicated him at least as strongly as Markos, but like Markos, not strongly enough. Suggs looked at Claudia a little less certainly.

  “What you have is some sick animal out there, Chief.” Claudia inhaled. “He’s a sociopath, and that makes him a loose cannon. Donna Overton was his first victim, and probably for a specific reason. Somehow, she set him off. The others—Avery and Betty Lancashire, anyway—they’re dead just because they talk to spirits. That means something to your killer, something a whole lot more involved than what we can even guess at.”

  Suggs grunted. “I don’t know,” he said lamely. He rubbed his eyes. “It don’t make sense. It—”

  “It does make sense,” Claudia insisted. “It makes sense to him, and he will kill again.”

  Suggs looked away. He stared at the wall, at the mounted fish. “You’re talking about a serial killer, aren’t you, Hershey? The worst kind. Someone who doesn’t play by the rules.”

  “Yes, maybe.” Claudia thought about it. “But he’s not a serial killer in any conventional sense, at least I don’t think so. Doesn’t fit the profile.”

  “Meaning what?” The chief turned back to her.

  “Meaning—I don’t know—ninety percent of the known serial killers murder because of some sexual drive, some perversity that compels them to kill again and again. We already know our killer’s not in this for sexual thrills.”

  “Then we’re in way over our heads.”

  “Not necessarily.” Claudia paused to light a cigarette, most of the venom out. “There’s a certain logic to what this guy is doing. Overton’s death, I think, was spontaneous, but not random. She did something or said something that triggered him, and probably at some point when they’d met.”

  “But we’ve been over the client list, friends, associates. We’ve gone full circle on that.”

  “Yeah, we have, but we’re still missing something, something that’s right under our noses.” Smoke drifted to the ceiling, where countless cigarettes had already colored the acoustical panels a dull yellow. “Look. Every indication is that Overton let him in, and only a few minutes after she got home. He might not have planned to kill her for that matter. But rage, whatever was building, exploded. He bashed her hard and fast, intentionally broke a finger, and got out. Then he knocked over the jack o’lantern, and probably left a footprint in it—”

  “Which we’d have if Ridley hadn’t mucked up the crime scene,” Suggs muttered.

  “Yeah. Anyway, he didn’t stop to make it look like a robbery. He didn’t knock himself out covering his trail. In Avery’s, he did. But he also left his signature with that finger. Whatever it means to him, he has to do it. And this couple tonight, I bet we’ll find the same thing.”

  Suggs pinched his nose between his finger, thinking. “Then I guess there’s only one question, Hershey.” The chief looked up. “Can you find this guy? Stop him?”

  “Maybe. Yes, I think so. But not your way.”

  “Meaning?”

  Claudia hitched an eyebrow. “Meaning I need full authority out there”—Claudia gestured behind her— “full authority over every man, every move—and with your complete backing. I can’t be second-guessed. I won’t be second-guessed.”

  “That’s a lot,” Suggs said stonily.

  “We’ve both made mistakes with this, Chief.” Claudia reflexively removed her glasses, gave them a quick rub on her shirt. “Me, I came here to get myself and my daughter away from the underbelly of police work—God, I wanted to take us away from all of that. So I’ve been half-stepping. I’ve let my instincts and experience be diluted because resisting, having to
prove myself, pisses me off. And you, you’ve encouraged that because I’m not the package you thought you bought.”

  “Hershey, I don’t know if I’ll ever really take to you,” Suggs began slowly. “You got a way about you that, aw hell, just rubs me wrong.”

  “Granted, my bedside manner leaves something to be desired.”

  A weary half-smile found its way to Suggs’ face. “Yeah. Something like that.”

  “So?”

  “So, looks like—”

  The door flew open, and the old night duty officer pushed in, breathing heavily. “We got a problem with that feller that’s been brung in, that—”

  “Markos?” Claudia said sharply.

  Caruthers nodded, panting. “Yeah, some of the boys, they—”

  Before he finished Claudia was out the door. Commotion sounded from the all-purpose room.

  Markos was on the floor, on his knees. Bobby Ridley, the officer who had taken the original call on Donna Overton, gripped him from behind. Standing over Markos was Lester Fry, a fleshy patrol officer whose father had been on the force before him. Fry had a reputation for using his fists on the streets; he was using them now.

  Mesmerized, a half dozen patrolmen stood in a semi-circle around them.

  “Fry!” yelled Claudia. “Get your hands off of him!”

  Fry paused with one arm raised. He smiled insolently. “What’s the matter, Detective? Haven’t you ever seen a man take a tumble down the stairs before?” His fist chopped Markos’ kidney with a thwack.

  “Let him go!” Claudia made her way toward the fray. She shoved a patrolman out of her way. “I said let him go!”

  Thwack! Thwack!

  “Move, goddamn it,” Claudia muttered, pushing her way forward. When she got to Fry she grabbed a handful of shirt and yanked back, grunting with the effort. He stumbled, cursing. But before he could push her off, Claudia slammed him against a wall, hard. She pulled him off, then threw him against it again.

  Fry roared, and tried to break her hold. But Claudia sought the pressure point under his nose with a finger, jabbed up. Tears sprang to Fry’s eyes; his hands closed around his nose.