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

by John W. Mefford

  I wondered what Maggie was thinking at this exact moment, before detectives knocked on her door. Was she living in a dream world, convincing herself that taking a human life was nothing more than swatting a fly? Or had she been haunted by Courtney’s death? Hearing about her interview with Alisa, her performance must have been Oscar-worthy.

  My gut felt oddly twisted, shocked that we’d stumbled onto a murder-for-hire plot, yet more disturbed that this would-be killer duo was not the killer. Two people had sought to murder Courtney. Two. Someone else must have seedy connections to hire a professional killer, or Courtney had direct contact with the actual assassin, perhaps with a police or military background. We needed to dig deeper into her life history, all associations, even the casual ones. And we needed to explore possible motivations, jealousy, greed, lust—essentially, work our way through the seven deadly sins. Given Renee’s response the night Alisa found Olivia murdered, apparently strangled, time was not on our side. I couldn’t imagine the PR disaster she was dealing with, let alone the real fear that permeated through every person associated with the arts or who worked near the Arts District.

  Maintaining the same brainstorming psyche, I allowed theories and what-if scenarios to pepper my mind as I entered the FedEx store two miles from Logan International. I asked if I could use the bathroom, where I cleaned my wound and the blood stain off my face, then I stood behind two women, early sixties, who must have been sisters by the girth of their noses alone. Actually, they were identical twins, right down to their pear-shaped bodies and matching ensembles, plaid polyester pants and tan ribbed turtlenecks.

  “You want that delivered overnight, next day, ground? Do you want to insure? If so, what is the value of your package?”

  The clerk had apparently offered too many options.

  “Mildred, you can’t be serious if you expect the gift to arrive before our niece’s birthday. Ground is only guaranteed to get there within two weeks.”

  “Marie, are you hard of hearin’?” She thumped her own head. “This nice gentleman said the package only has to travel a couple of hundred miles, if that. Frankly, if you weren’t so paranoid to drive down the interstate, we could get there in three hours ourselves. Then, we’d actually have the chance to visit our niece for her sweet sixteen birthday. As it is, she thinks her aunts are a couple of lesbian shut-ins.”

  They continued bickering, and I stepped back, flipped through a greeting card rack, looking for something cheerful, funny, sexy for Britney. But I couldn’t shake the image of Olivia sprawled out on the parking lot surface between two cars, her eyes stuck open. Had she seen the killer, or did she die wondering who wanted her dead, and why?

  Disgust, impatience at my inability to find that one piece of evidence to break this case open slithered up my throat. I could taste it. Or was is it another surge of acid reflux? I needed more Tums.

  Realizing the one thing throttling my logical instinct was that I was stuck on the fact we had two murders without any apparent similarities, other than both victims were performers. A flurry of still shots flashed through my mind, faces of death, both so distinct. I’d wanted to connect the homicides, suggesting what most of the badged professionals would have also concluded—a serial killer stalked the Arts District, choosing his victims carefully, then killing with different methods, just to throw off authorities, or to get his jollies watching them die in unique ways.

  Or maybe the homicides weren’t connected at all. Tugging whiskers from my goatee, I’d always challenged the status quo, or at least the rationale behind it. What was I overlooking, or whom?

  The bickering drew closer, and I noticed Mildred and Marie moving my way, each babbling while the other refused to listen. I padded to the counter, the clerk noticeably worn down.

  “Manager always puts me down for the Wednesday afternoon shift. Every week I ask for any shift other than the Wednesday afternoon shift, just to avoid the Lee sisters.”

  “Fug and Ug?” I’d known a pair of twins in high school who played basketball and fit the same mold—squabbling, obnoxious, and unattractive, who’d likely spend their lives bitching about their surroundings, and then one day they’d be eighty years of age, living with each other and three deaf cats.

  He nodded, a tired grin splitting his round face. “You get me. How can you see it, and I see it, but my manager doesn’t see squat? It’s a frickin’ conspiracy, I tell you. They’re just out to screw me. Well, I’m not going to take this crap from anyone, let alone some lifelong retail loser.”

  The man untied his apron and tossed it on the counter.

  “If you leave now, you may not get your last paycheck,” I offered.

  He stuck out his chin. “Hmm.” He then slid the apron over his neck but didn’t tie it. Perhaps it was symbolic—he’d stick around, but he wasn’t going to let anyone rule his life.

  More power to him. Especially if he processed my delivery.

  We finished our business, and I strolled outside. My cabbie leaned against the door, puffing on the last third of a cigarette.

  “Those things will kill you.”

  “Doing business in Doahchester will kill ya faster. I like my odds better.” He tossed the cigarette butt to the curb then wheeled around the front end of his car.

  The moment my hand touched the cab door handle, my phone buzzed in my back pocket. My pulse started clocking, betting an irrational Renee was on the other end, ready to either fire me or rip me a new one for not finding the killer before Olivia was murdered, or pissed that I’d traveled all the way to Boston’s lower end to uncover a could-have-been murder plot.

  Glancing down, the number didn’t bring up a contact. “Booker here,” I said, slamming the cab door shut.

  “They have him.”

  I brought the phone into my sight, then back to my ear. “Who is this?”

  “They pummeled his face, kicked him in the ribs. I ran to help, but they threw him in the back and stole him. He’s gone.”

  “Dax?”

  Dax’s normal pompous voice trembled as if he was tied to a block of ice.

  “I…I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

  Vincent Sciafini.

  Heat ascended into my neck, my wounded head throbbing in rhythm with my increased heart rate. “Oh my God, Dax. I never thought Sciafini would take it this far. I thought by assaulting you, he’d delivered his barbaric message. I’m not sure we have a choice. I think we need to call the—”

  “It wasn’t Sciafini.”

  Holding a fist to my forehead, I had to replay the words. “Not Sciafini? How do you know?”

  A shaky breath. “Three hours after my David was kidnapped just behind Marvel, I received a call. It was Sims. He sounded maniacal, laughing. I could hear him spitting…I think on my David. He’s absolutely repulsive.”

  “And?” My racing heart battered my chest wall, adrenaline ready to shoot me through the cab rooftop.

  “They know David told you about the drug deal at NorthPark Center. It was all a setup to figure out who was on to them, who’d been talking.”

  “How? How did they know it was me?”

  “Sims said he has pictures of you on the mall rooftop.”

  He’d been a step ahead of us the whole time.

  Instantly, Henry’s voicemail shot into my mind, the words Sims told an officer when he was pulled over, purportedly to locate the drug deal money in the black duffel bag. “Tell Booker I’m coming after his nigger ass.”

  Was Sims trying to get to me by kidnapping David? Had he already planned to kidnap David once he confirmed my presence and purpose?

  One lie after another had pulled the Double Ds into a suffocating, inescapable pit of quicksand. It all started with David’s gambling problem, which led to mountainous debt. Sciafini inherited David’s debt and, apparently, claimed ownership of all things David, including his brain. When he thought David had broken his warped set of rules, he sent a shot across the bow by assaulting Dax. On the other side of the ledger, where
I stood with my client who’d been robbed of twenty-five grand, David had attempted to wiggle his way out of being turned into authorities by providing me dirt on Sims. Ultimately, Internal Affairs pegged Felix, and Felix alone, for crimes against the state, and Sims skated free. Interestingly, he’d kept Felix under his wing, as if the former CSI technician would serve a greater good—at least his definition of good.

  What did all of this mean? Sims must be framing someone in Internal Affairs, or has them on his payroll. But how did he find out David fed information to me? What led Sims to set up the drug deal skit?

  “What else did Sims tell you? Does he want ransom? What else could he want besides sending us a message?”

  A sniffle. “He said wants people to keep their mouths shut. And until he can be guaranteed of that, David will remain in custody.”

  “Custody, my ass. He’s deranged if he thinks he’s operating on behalf of the DPD.” I could feel my blood pulsate, rage building deep inside.

  A jet streaked overhead as the cab pulled through the crowded entrance at Logan.

  “Look, Booker, I’m calling you because I don’t know where to turn. I want my David back safe. I don’t care how that happens.”

  If I went to Henry, the cops, even the FBI, we’d all go down…well, maybe not Sciafini. It appeared he had nine lives. And Sims had connections in high places. So that really meant David, Dax, and I. But I couldn’t allow David to be killed either.

  Tossing four bills through an open window to the cab driver, I plodded into the airport.

  “Dax, hold tight. I have an idea, but I need twenty-four, maybe thirty-six hours.”

  I walked up to the ticket counter, put down my ID, and said, “I need to change my flight to Chicago.”

  I then took a quick cab ride back to the same FedEx store I’d already visited twice that day. Protection couldn’t be overlooked.

  15

  Striding across the fifteenth-floor windowed walkway between two glazed, terra-cotta Wrigley Building Towers, I got as far as halfway until I felt the first sway. I paused, gripped a window ceiling ledge, and waited for another dip. Turning my head, the view—accentuated by the height and the rubbery link connecting two of Chicago’s most recognizable towers—ignited heart palpitations.

  Frigid winds cutting across Lake Michigan gusted over thirty miles per hour, creating slight bending and leaning on the fifty-three-foot connector. According to security guards down on planet Earth, this was the only way to reach the offices of SI, Inc., also known as Sciafini Investments.

  Not even twenty-four hours earlier, I’d experienced similar equilibrium issues, though brought on by artificial means—taking every cold medicine drug I could find and my head being used as a ship hull christened by an empty beer bottle. My general wooziness had faded, but the point of impact from the bottle bit into my skull like a shark’s fang.

  Then again, I was about to visit the so-called Chicago Shark, the man who’d built his fortune off shady loans insured by nothing more than heavy metals—brass knuckles and lead bullets.

  The rickety-bridge sensation ceased, but before I moved another step, my mind snapped a mental picture I’d have to share with Britney: set on the north bank, I peered east down the Chicago River, iconic, distinctive buildings lining both sides, including the Hyatt Regency and another modern condo building. Three river tour boats dotted white-capped, green water, one boat chugging east under Lake Shore Drive, setting its course for the Chicago Harbor, a painted blue sky arched across the backdrop.

  Thick-soled shoes pounded thin carpet. Swinging my vision right, two men in similar gray pinstripe suits plodded in my direction, shoulder to shoulder with matching mirrored sunglasses, each carrying soft leather briefcases. The pair whizzed by, neither looking at me, from what I could tell. They smelled like dense cologne and hair gel. Compelled to watch them until they left my sight, one opened the far door and a vacuum of wind swept through the tunnel. I think I noticed a stray hair or two flying around. If I had to guess, they were Feds, FBI, Department of Justice, possibly IRS.

  Scratching around the sensitive wound on my head, I strode the remaining distance across the walkway. Just on the other side of glass doors, I spotted paneled walls, sconces, sculptures, a high-end foyer, a couple of folks milling about, once again in suit and tie. My stomach twisting into knots, the last steps felt like I was walking the plank. Beyond the awe-inspiring view and high-end office space was nothing more than people whose minds were just as warped and twisted as Donny Pickles’ drugged-out brain. They’d evolved over the years, their operation more sophisticated and at times purposely confusing. The Sciafini outfit, and many like it, had used technology as a tool to propel its enterprise into the twenty-first century, which usually just made it more difficult for authorities to associate them with specific crimes. They’d learned to resemble large corporations, hiring cunning lawyers to find any and all loopholes in any national and international law to avoid any tax or penalty or obligation that might siphon a penny off the profit margin, whether it was public or under the table.

  “I’m here to see Vincent Sciafini.”

  An attractive woman who must have been in her late fifties lowered her bifocals and spoke with a husky voice. “All guests of Mr. Sciafini need to wait in the adjoining room, then you’ll be escorted from there.” She extended a soft hand to a red leather padded door.

  Very James Bond.

  Once inside the eight-by-ten space, I sat on one of two leather benches lining either side of the wall, a single portrait of the original Mayor Daley hanging over the doorway I hadn’t been through. Moving my torso, it appeared his eyes followed mine. Quite odd, and a bit unsettling. Soft elevator music played a watered-down version of the theme to the Rockford Files, an ancient 1970s show about a former felon turned private investigator. Yes, I watched YouTube and even appreciated cultural classics.

  In one blink, the far door opened, and two men standing my height but easily outweighing me by fifty pounds entered the small space. One popped me on the shoulder, pointing to the wall.

  “Gotta frisk you if you’re meeting with Mr. Sciafini.”

  While I’d gone to the trouble of overnighting my Sig Sauer to Chicago, I’d left it at the FedEx two blocks over when I finally convinced myself I’d likely be searched prior to meeting with Sciafini. Why give away over a thousand bucks? If he wanted to kill me, my one handgun wouldn’t stop him.

  “You may proceed.” The Neanderthal man sounded like Jaws from the Roger Moore-era Bond movies. His teeth had more metal than the grill of Britney’s Mercedes. But the pair of bodyguards appeared to have the intellect of Beavis and Butthead.

  “Booker Thomas Adams.” The man on the other side of a desk the size of a ping pong table tapped the ends of his fingers together, his accent unable to hide its New York roots. I could see he did manicures.

  “My friends call me Booker. But I’ll let you call me Booker, too.” I crossed my legs, stuck an elbow on the cushioned arm of a Queen Anne chair, eyeing the placement of Beavis and Butthead, one standing by the door, the other just to Sciafini’s right behind a laptop perched on a small desk.

  Seeing Butthead function as nothing more than muscle and paperweight, I wondered if he understood what the funny symbols meant on the plastic silver rectangle, known as a laptop.

  “Not many people who request a meeting with me actually get this opportunity.” Opening his hands, he sounded like he was about to sell me a timeshare in Atlantic City.

  “Should I say I’m honored?”

  “If I were you, I’d be respectful. That’s all a man can ask for. Respect. Maybe I’m a little different, though. I demand it.”

  Sciafini swiveled back and forth in his chair, a rich plum leather, curved high back, exposed wood scroll arms, and nailhead accents. He looked like a caricature, and I was trying to figure out why. His blue suit fit like it had been made yesterday, and while his fingernails were well-manicured, on his hands I noticed too much hair, age spots,
and a root system of blue veins. It was as if I was viewing the Florida swamps through Google maps.

  “Where I come from, respect isn’t given unless it’s earned.”

  “Ha.” He smacked both hands on his desk, then raised an arm toward a stoic Butthead. “Can you believe this guy?” It appeared he was waiting on commentary from one of his two drones. Or maybe Butthead had learned the art of not responding to a rhetorical question.

  Sciafini shook his head, wiped a speck of dust off the veneer, then lifted his eyes toward me.

  “Booker Adams, graduate of James Madison High School, DFW All-Area quarterback, scholarship to University of Texas.” Sciafini pushed back his sleeve, tapped his watch, then pulled open a drawer. Tossing pills into his mouth, he chased it with a glass of something green, then turned and nodded at Butthead, who leaned over and used one finger to type something into the laptop.

  Holding up a finger, Sciafini continued with my bio. “Kicked off the Longhorns football team and almost lost your scholarship until a little Asian kid befriended you and won it back. First in your family to graduate college, then you went to the police academy and became a DPD cop. You did okay, loved your job, what you were doing for the community, but grew frustrated with the lack of opportunities to move into a detective role. How am I doing so far?”

  Some guy I’d never met had all the facts on me, and more. It was unsettling, but I couldn’t let him know that.

  “Are you volunteering to write my biography? Or, given your business methods, perhaps you’re more comfortable keeping a low profile. You could be my ghost writer?”