BOOKER Box Set #1 (Books 1-3: A Private Investigator Thriller Series of Crime and Suspense)

by John W. Mefford

  Pushing myself upward, water dripped off all articles of my clothing, and every part of me was chilled to the bone. I handed Tyler the used mall jacket, a matted furball with dozens of pebbles buried in the lining. “Thanks,” I said as more of an apology.

  He held the coat with two fingers a foot away from him, and I think he seriously considered leaving it on the roof.

  “Sorry I didn’t capture Phillip’s chase on my camera,” I finally admitted, the protective grocery bag flapping in the wind. “If the guy sues your company, you can always countersue, saying he’d caused you to have a heart attack, and you needed a three-month sabbatical in Hawaii to relieve the stress he caused.”

  A crease formed between Tyler’s eyes, then his face lit up, snapping a finger my direction. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

  I gave him a quick three-finger salute, then padded to the ladder, soaked socks squishing with every step, my teeth chattering like they were sending a message in Morse code.

  <><><>

  Blasting heat out of every vent, the Silver Streak sounded like a bottle rocket just before takeoff. “I’m sorry, Alisa, can you repeat that?”

  She cleared her throat and upped her volume and enunciation. “My interview with Maggie went about as you’d expect, at least on the surface. But it’s what I learned afterward that will get your attention.”

  Water dripped down my neck, and my jeans felt like they’d been lined with lead bricks. Damn, I needed a warm shower and fresh set of dry clothes. “Let’s start with the interview, so I can get a picture of Maggie Pickles.”

  “She was a little distant at first. I think she was trying to figure me out, mostly.”

  “I’m guessing you took the good cop option?”

  “That’s my personality. I bond with them, women especially. They feel at ease, open up more. At least they seem to. I’m new to this game, so I guess they could be bullshitting me.”

  “They could bullshit any trained professional, and they have. I’ve got stories, believe me.”

  “So does, Maggie, but I’ll touch on her old life in a minute.”

  “Ha-chew!”

  “Bless you,” Alisa said.

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling my forehead. “Back to Maggie. Your assessment?”

  “Maggie sat in the office and gradually started sharing more about her private life, explaining how her relationship with Eduardo started off as a simple flirtation, then grew into a passionate love affair. She said she couldn’t wake up without thinking about him.”

  “Sounds like a motive to push Courtney out of the way.”

  “Possibly. On one hand, she didn’t have to share any of that with me, at least not to that degree.”

  Nodding while exiting at Fitzhugh, I replied, “I can see where you’re coming from. Tell me more.”

  “She knew initially that Eduardo and Courtney were a couple. But we know what a manipulating cheeseball Eduardo is. She said he told her a month ago he’d split up with Courtney, and it was damn convincing,” Alisa said.

  “I could imagine that. But we need to corroborate her version of the story. Did she really believe Eduardo, or is it possible that she found out he was two-timing her, then without letting on to anyone that she knew, she killed the one woman who stood between her and undeniable passion?”

  “I like the theory, although I have to say, Maggie sold me.”

  “In what way?”

  “Passionate affair or not, she said she’s human. And she’s absolutely devastated about Courtney’s death. She believed Courtney to be genuinely nice, affable, a caring person. Maggie cried like she’d lost her best friend, in an innocent way.”

  They all do, but I didn’t interview Maggie. I was too busy chasing my demons, so I’d have to go with Alisa’s impression, with a bit of my own interpretation of course.

  “You said you learned more information after the interview?”

  “I put on my excavation hat and did some digging,” she said, a hint of pride in her southern voice.

  “You are the best.”

  “Maggie grew up near Boston, a rough town called Dorchester, lots of temptations, high unemployment. Unlike most folks in that area who go to public school, she ended up at a college preparatory school because of her dancing ability. She doesn’t have much family around, other than a brother.”

  “You sound too excited. There’s more?”

  “Her brother’s name is Donny, thirty-six years old, but in the mug shot I saw of him, he looks closer to fifty. Two nasty raised scars cut across his face, like he was mauled by a two-clawed bear.”

  “Paper cuts when he wrote his doctoral thesis?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Actually, Donny might have a hard time spelling thesis. He dropped out of school before his freshman year ended. A month later, he got caught selling heroin on a street corner, and he ended up in juvie for two years.”

  “There’s got to be a reason you’re telling me Donny Pickles’ life story.”

  “Just sharing the facts. I might throw in an opinion, though.”

  “Please continue.”

  “Well, without giving you the play-by-play, Donny is a rough dude. Just six months ago, he finished a three-year sentence for breaking and entering, and assault. Apparently, he’s been in a number of scrapes—his facial scars offer proof. His parole officer also admitted that Donnie is battling drug addiction. Has been off and on since he was a teen.”

  Hairs stood up on the back of my neck, as much as they could. I was either getting a cold, or Donny’s way of life combined with Maggie’s possible motive didn’t sit right with me.

  “One other thing. The parole office said Donny and Maggie are close, despite the physical separation.”

  “I want to talk to Donny, but something tells me he wouldn’t be open to joining a Skype session. Can you get me on a flight to Boston?”

  “I’ve already pulled up Orbitz, Travelocity, Kayak. Sometimes one offers a deal the others don’t.”

  “Are you a mind reader?

  “I think you know the answer,” she said.

  “Ha-chew!”

  “You didn’t wear a coat on the stakeout, in the middle of the cold rain?”

  “I think you know the answer,” I said, now wishing I’d used a bit of logical sense. “But it was worth it. Sims showed up, along with Felix and the cowboy from the bar. The deal went down, and I have it all on my camera.”

  “What a relief. Hallelujah!”

  “I’m five minutes away from The Jewel. I need you to sift through about three or four hundred pictures on the memory card, pick out the best ones, then send them to Henry, copying me. It will need some narrative, which I can give you when I get there. Ha-chew!”

  “Do I also need to get you some cold medicine?”

  “I’m okay,” I said, wiping my face, searching my car for tissues. “Actually, I wouldn’t turn it down. I just need to get out of these wet clothes.”

  “I can’t help with the last part.”

  “Funny. Oh, while I’m still lucid, are you okay with working on the Olivia Dunham murder, considering what you saw last night?”

  Static silence. “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah.” Her tone had dipped.

  “I can work this one by myself, you know…”

  “Screw that. I was just trying to keep my emotions in check. I want to find the twisted asshole who killed Olivia. Bad.”

  Alisa was a strong-willed woman, and having her even more motivated was music to my ears.

  “I’m right there with you. While I’m in Boston, we need to do some legwork on Olivia’s background. Speak to her friends, fellow dancers, try to get a feel for what was going on in her life.”

  A keyboard rattled in the background. “I’ll add all this to my growing list of tasks.”

  “Just tell me if it’s too much.”

  “This is what I live for, Booker. I love my work. But I’ll love it even more when we figure out who killed these talented gi
rls and shove that person into a prison with Guido the pimp.”

  I released a light chuckle, but then felt another sneeze coming on.

  “Ha-ha-ha-ha-chew! Also, you said you heard dogs barking last night. Do you feel comfortable going door-to-door asking if anyone noticed someone racing through the yard about the time of the murder?”

  “I’d be fine if I had an actual PI license.”

  Valid point. I’d probably called Alisa my assistant one too many times. In reality, maybe my partner was already working with me.

  “Let’s add that to our list. You’ll have to take a lot of online classes. You game?”

  “If Booker & Associates pays for it.”

  “Always negotiating.”

  “I’m a single woman, Booker. Don’t get me wrong, I want to stay that way. But this is my opportunity to make something of myself, doing something I enjoy. I feel like I’m making a difference, not just to Booker & Associates, but to the people we work for. I want to do this as long as you need me.”

  “It feels like I need two of you right now. But I’ll settle for one Alisa.”

  Easing up to the stoplight, rain still pelting my car, I thought about the two crime scenes and the two talented women, Courtney and Olivia.

  “I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but it’s hard for me to imagine the same person involved in these two killings. Different motivations, different methods. So we’ve got two investigations on our hands. You up for that?”

  “Hell yes, I’m up for that. We solve these murders, we’ll have clients lined up outside our office begging us to take their cases.”

  For some reason, I envisioned lying on a beach south of the border, sun warming my body through palm trees, aqua waves lapping against the shoreline, a fruity drink at my side, as my legion of first-rate investigators solved cases in six cities, including London and Barcelona. Was that my end goal?

  “Booker, are you daydreaming or just asleep at the wheel?”

  “Ha. I can’t sleep when I’m wetter than a seal.”

  I pulled onto Greenville, moving south, monster drops of rain pinging the car.

  “Sounds like you’re at a firing range.”

  “That reminds me. Ha-chew! … I need you to do me one more favor.”

  14

  “If you’re not a fighter, don’t live in Dorchester. It’s a ghetto where Irish and black gangs rule the street, where hood rats and thugs kill each other over a pick-up basketball game, or even a sneer. Don’t raise your kids in Dorchester, because they’ll eventually be pulled into the gangs just to survive. After that, their lives are trash, waiting for that moment until they spend the rest of their lives in prison or taste dirt six feet under.”

  Bordered by the Neponset River at Lower Mills, just east of Milton, one of the most historic neighborhoods in the country was also the most dangerous, according to Donny Pickles’ parole officer. We’d spoken by phone just after I touched down at Logan Airport in the teeth of Boston, the smallest big city I’d ever seen. His account of the town where Donny lived was disconcerting, if not surprising. But I figured he’d been so transparent because he was about to retire from his Suffolk Country job after forty-two years of keeping tabs on generations of criminals. Not all bad people, he said, but enough to make you question the evolution of mankind.

  “You sure about that address?” Anxious eyes glared at me through the rearview mirror, the cabdriver questioning my sanity, I was certain.

  “It’s not changing. If you don’t want to take me there, I can find another cab,” I said, running my hand across the expansive back seat, more duct tape than vinyl.

  “You pay, I’ll take you there.” He nodded, I replied with the same, and he motored ahead.

  Rolling on an uneven surface in the poorest section of town, the car stripped of anything resembling a shock absorber, my head clanged against the roof. It didn’t help my disposition or my headache. I pressed fingers on the sides of my nose and took in a breath, a brief respite from clogged nasal passages, my eyes squinting from a low sun on the eastern bank. With my bloodstream filled with a plethora of over-the-counter medication, mental focus came in spurts. I was damn glad not to be driving, even if I had to take in the foul smell of smoke, mildew, and urine. Who knows what the hell had taken place on this seat.

  “Fuckin’ lights,” the cab driver muttered, slamming his wrist on top of the steering wheel. “How can they get shit done in this town when every cah is just pahked on the street?” Obviously, a native Bostonian.

  Taking in another congested breath, I thought about Henry’s call last night. Using photos I’d provided and my eyewitness account of the NorthPark Center swap, he used his influence as assistant DA to have the DPD track down both vehicles. Cops pulled over the Camaro first and asked to search the car. The men wearing matching Cowboys raincoats watched DPD officers tear open three grocery bags containing clear Ziploc bags full of translucent, jagged rocks—crystal meth—or so they thought. The two men were handcuffed, arrested, and driven into the division, where, after analysis by a detective from the Narcotics Unit, it was determined that the bags of crystal meth were actually pieces of a shattered mirror.

  Not an hour later, Sims and crew were picked up, and they, too, complied with the search request. Inside the black duffel bag, fellow cops found workout clothes and a pair of sneakers. From what one of the officers relayed up the chain, Sims apparently laughed out loud, then said in a hushed tone, “Tell Booker I’m coming after his nigger ass.”

  I’d been set up. I didn’t know how, or even for what purpose, but the entire scene had been constructed for Booker T. Adams. I didn’t know whether to feel honored or embarrassed. Who was I fooling? I felt like a naive teenager who’d lost a bet about whether the sky was blue. I felt like a fucking idiot. Add in the verbal threat, and I felt like a pound of sea salt had been dumped into my sawed-open chest wall.

  To make matters worse, I’d brought Henry into this mess, and now his reputation had been soiled.

  Attempting my second round of temple massages, my head pulsated, a combination of heat and pressure. I could hear Samantha’s assessment of her dad: “You’re Thomas the Tank Engine, Daddy. You sound like a stuffy steam locomotive.”

  Had I been so obsessed with catching Sims that I’d completely lost my ability to decipher situations and make rational decisions?

  I’d asked myself that question a hundred times since the plane took off from DFW airport before sunrise earlier in the morning.

  Feeling a loose spring jab into my butt cheek, I lifted upward and shifted left, my arm bumping the heavy object stashed in my coat pocket.

  I was so out of it, I almost forgot about the handgun. Damn, I needed a jolt of caffeine. Then again, did I want to pump adrenaline on top of the loopy haze I was in? I reached in my pocket, and wrapped my hand around the ergonomic Nill wood grip of my Sig Sauer P226 X5. Realizing whom I was confronting, I didn’t want to take any chances, so I’d asked Alisa to overnight my handgun to Boston. The cabbie had no idea what I’d picked up at the FedEx store just after leaving Logan. I didn’t want him thinking he was toting around a maniacal, cold-blooded hit man. Without a license to carry in the state of Massachusetts, they’d charge me and hold me in jail until I could make bail. The process would eat up most of a day, hours that I simply didn’t have. And, with a conviction, I’d be at risk of losing my Texas PI license.

  My pulse battered my throbbing headache as I watched the landscape devolve into boarded-up homes, half-crushed apartment buildings, groups of young people smoking something illegal—faces of a lost generation. I’d seen my share of impoverished youth in South Dallas, and far too many had fallen prey to enticements that only quickened their journey to a lifetime of pain and suffering, for them and their families.

  “Three more blocks, and I’ll have you there in no time,” the cabbie said.

  If no time equated to a ninety-minute cab fare, then I guess he was right. I reminded myself I could bill this back
to the client, Renee, although our fees, including expenses, were being paid by Muffin Cromwell.

  I thought about Britney. We’d traded voicemails since she marched out of the Ritz, each of us apologizing. Our time together had been euphoric, but I guess I’d been fooling myself into thinking two people could fall in love and live happily ever after without disappointing each other. It wasn’t a comfortable space for me. In the past, this was the usually when I bolted. But Britney, our relationship, seemed different. Time would only tell if I’d allow myself to feel and provide love unconditionally, like I did with my daughter.

  “Get yo fuckin’ hands off my cah,” the cabbie yelled out the window to a couple of punks who’d decided to drape themselves over the side at a stop sign. “Jesus H. Christ.”

  He honked, then sped another three blocks before hanging a right.

  “Just down here on the right, sir.”

  Brakes squeaked to stop. I forked over a good chunk of cash, then pushed myself out the door. “You sticking around? I only need about fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  Given my skin color in the Irish section of the town, I didn’t want to push my luck, even with the Sig Sauer tucked inside my jacket.

  “I ain’t sticking around this shithole. Call the service. If I’m nearby, I’ll pick you up. Otherwise, I’m not sure anyone else will drive into this neighborhood.”

  “Now you tell me this?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, then threw it into drive and screeched away from the scene.

  Not eager to be target practice from the rundown apartment complex, I hoofed it across a patch of dirt and weeds, moving about a hundred feet to the main door. Piles of crushed brick rose from the landscape, beer and soda cans littered the yard, along with other garbage. Two-foot banks of dirty snow were affixed to the base of the building.

  Once inside, darkness consumed the hallway, where a single light blinked on and off. Moving at a quick clip, I searched for a way up to apartment 3E, hoping no one would see me and send out a warning signal. During one of the longer lighted moments, I spotted stairs sat at the end of the hallway behind a metal door with a small glass window. Thirty feet from the end, a door on the left burst open, an overweight man wearing a dirty, sleeveless shirt barked at someone behind him, a mangled cigar hanging from his lips. He eyed me but never stopped yelling orders. I was pretty sure he was harmless, at least to me.