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

by John W. Mefford

  “Friday night, nine forty-five. He’s as predictable as—”

  “A postal delivery person,” Nancy said. The two ladies laughed while attending to their normal duties.

  Chirp-chirp.

  The familiar text tone of Rebecca’s smart phone. Nancy angled away from her co-worker, waiting for two lovebirds to drool over each other, virtually of course.

  “Ah,” Rebecca said to her phone. Followed by, “Uh, huh.” Then, “Ooh, yeah.”

  Unable to take anymore juvenile silliness—Rebecca had just turned thirty—Nancy pushed up from her chair, determined to find any other task to occupy her time in another part of the building, one that didn’t involve listening to Rebecca’s sexting session, or whatever it was.

  “Hey, Nancy,” Rebecca said before Nancy had disappeared into the maze of book aisles. “Do you mind if I go ahead and take off and let you close up? I think I saw two or three remaining folks, all on the second floor. I might have a surprise waiting for me once I open my apartment door, if you know what I mean.” Rebecca giggled.

  “Of course, get out of here. You deserve it,” Nancy said. Before she finished responding, Rebecca had already pulled her purse out of a drawer and wrangled her keys.

  “You’re the best, Nancy.” She pranced across the carpeted floor, placing a hand on Nancy’s back as she passed. “I’ll share all the details with you tomorrow.”

  Nancy tried to smile back, and said, “Enjoy it…I mean, yourself.” That came out a little awkward. Rebecca hadn’t noticed, flicking a wrist as she smacked the metal bar on the exit door.

  Releasing a lonely breath, Nancy caught her own reflection in the glass door, her vanilla pantsuit, the same vanilla cardigan sweater, and her timeless, vanilla haircut—straight out of the 1960s. Damn, she had nothing going on. Well, except for her six cats, who she knew would be clawing at the door once she got home.

  Pushing positive thoughts into her frontal lobe, the career librarian bounced up to the second floor ready to shoo the last visitors out the door. Maybe she could stop and pick up a gelato on the way home, then put on her flannel pajamas, cuddle up with her six cats, and watch a steamy Hallmark made-for-TV movie. What gelato flavor would she pick? What else…vanilla bean.

  Rounding the corner off the top of the stairs, Nancy passed the magazine and newspaper section, landing in the corner reading area where she and found a quiet, sharply dressed man sitting in one of the library’s cushiony, black leather chairs.

  “Hi, sir. We’re about to close. So if you’d like to check out any books I can meet you downstairs.”

  He tipped his hat and said, “Thank you for the warning. Just one more page.”

  Nancy continued her typical closing path—searching for any leftover books sitting out, and the last remaining visitors. Turning her head in both directions while stepping down a long aisle, the first three rows were clear on both sides. On the fourth row, east side, a random book sat on the floor.

  “Always cleaning up someone’s mess,” she said, accustomed to talking to herself. She leaned down and picked up the hardback. “Oh, my.” The title was Sloppy Firsts: A Jessica Darling Novel. She’d read this young-adult romance book about a year earlier in one of her guilty pleasure moods. A warm sensation washed across her face, leaving her with red cheeks.

  After placing the book back in the one open hole on the knee-high shelf, she continued her trek. Two rows later, again on the east side, a complete disaster.

  “Shit,” she said under her breath, her heels pounding the floor en route to a cluster of books sprayed everywhere. Picking up a couple of hardbacks, she tried to make sense of it all. A James Patterson novel, Burn, sat on top of a mess of historical fiction books, including two by Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth and The World Without End. Under another pile, she found the red cover of Shogun by James Clavell. A true classic.

  Shooting her eyes upward, the bookshelves looked like Swiss cheese, including a huge chunk of air at about waist level. Was a library terrorist on some type of destructive rampage, purposely creating anxiety for those who sought harmony through structure and organization?

  She had a mystery on her hands. Setting her jaw, she left the pile of books in disarray and marched back to the middle aisle, now on the hunt for the perpetrators who dared to mess with her library. Moving quicker with each step, she left the main area of books, angled right, heading for the room reserved for guest authors. In the distance, she saw the opening and the back of a couch, overstuffed black leather again.

  She squinted. Were those two heads, almost so close they appeared to be one? Hitting fourth gear, she felt her cuffed pants pop against her ankles.

  Ten feet away, the heads rose above the couch, then disappeared again. A boy and girl, both younger.

  “I see you,” she said, over-enunciating. “You need to go pick up the mess you made and leave this facility.”

  No response. She stuck out her arm and noticed the Patterson novel, Burn, was still in her grip. She might use it to whack some sense into them.

  “I said…” Reaching the couch, all she saw was a white ass, the well-defined back end of a young male, quite athletic, it appeared. “What?” is all that came out, her eyes trying to look away, while at the same time noticing his perfectly shaped ass move up and down in a rhythmic pattern. Damn, he looked like a model, and she envisioned a sensuous scene from one of those Tracy Brogan romance novels, Crazy Little Thing, Sadie and her hunky neighbor Desmond.

  She got lightheaded and finally had to turn away, fanning herself. Lips smacked, and maybe something else, she couldn’t tell. This wasn’t exactly her area of expertise.

  Suddenly, muffled voices, then rustling against the leather. “Someone is actually here?” she heard a girl ask in a concerned tone.

  “Yes, I’m here,” Nancy said with surprising authority.

  “Oh, shit. You said no one would come here.” The girl spoke in a whisper, but she sounded stressed, and even pissed.

  “I…uh…” is all the boy could say in response.

  “I’m still here by the way.” Nancy touched her neck, and it felt on fire.

  Get it together, Nance. You’re twice their age, but you act like you’ve just watched your first PG-13 movie. Geez!

  After a few snaps and trouser pulls, Nancy finally spoke: “Are you appropriately dressed?”

  “Yes,” they said in monotone tandem.

  Turning around, she saw two good-looking youngsters, timid and embarrassed from the looks of it. The boy’s hands were stuffed in his front pockets, the girl’s arms clinched under her breasts, her flowing blond hair stuffed in her beige sweater.

  “Is this legal?” Nancy asked, realizing it was difficult to guess the exact age of kids these days.

  “We’re home for the weekend. We’re both freshmen at LSU,” the boy said, still not looking Nancy in the eyes. “Just not used to being back under the roof of our parents’ houses, if you know what I mean.”

  A single nod. “I know what you mean.” Not really, but she had to play the adult role. “Before you leave, I’d like for you to go clean up the mess of books on row six, plus anywhere else I haven’t spotted.”

  “Okay,” the girl said, looking at her nails.

  The two ambled off while Nancy made a quick inspection of the room, making sure they didn’t leave behind any clothes or, even worse, condom packages. Out of nowhere, Nancy heard quick steps. Moving back to the entrance, between the spotty shelves of books, she saw the two kids racing across the second floor, then disappearing down the stairs.

  “Really?” The college students were too lazy or rude to clean up their mess.

  Nancy huffed out a breath. To top it all off, she allowed herself to recognize she might be the only person in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex tonight that wasn’t getting any. Just like every other night.

  Walking at a slower pace, the Burn novel clutched to her chest, she ambled down the aisles looking for the rightful resting place for one of the
million Patterson books. Anything to keep her mind off you-know-what.

  “Thrillers,” she said to herself, running a finger across the titles on row seven.

  Suddenly, something razor-thin clamped against her neck, instantly cutting off her airflow. Gagging for oxygen, she twisted her head, but the wire sliced into her skin, firing off laser-hot spears of pain. Her eyes felt like they were popping out of their sockets, as she heard herself gasp for air. An arm fell to her side, and she felt something smooth, silk maybe. Somehow, dots connected. It must be the tailored blue and white shirt of the man sitting in the lounge area—the calm, pleasant man who was reading a book with a yellow cover, red title.

  Why…why is he doing this?

  Tiny flecks of light flickered all around her, the edges of her vision slowly closing in. Beyond the smell of blood, she picked up a leathery, tobacco scent, possibly a cigar.

  The beast wouldn’t let up, carving a deeper trench into her neck. Seconds away from her brain shutting down, her mind and heart fused together, searching for the anchors that had defined her life. But she had few, if any, memorable moments, and regret consumed her, what-ifs filling her oxygen-depraved mind. Her greatest regret? To have never felt love…true love, unbridled love, where it throbs in your core when your lover is in pain. Rebecca, the college kids, so many others she’d crossed paths with, had experienced the ultimate intimacy, but she had not. She’d never had the guts to put herself out there, to go for it. And now she’d die among a sea of books, one of the few things that evoked emotion in her vanilla life.

  One final jerk of her neck, and all she could feel was a thick, dry tongue. And for the woman who’d never felt true love, her heart thumped for the last time.

  11

  “Screw you, bitch. Screw you, bitch. Screw you, bitch.”

  “Did you say something, Booker?” Eva, my ex-fiancée, had just called to remind me to bring my high-end camera to our daughter’s first-ever soccer game.

  “It’s just Big Al. You know him,” I said, panting after just finishing my seventy-fifth push-up.

  “Yeah, I only know he repeats what he hears. Sounds like you’re being quite the example for Samantha.”

  While my pulse had begun to dip below a hundred after finishing an abbreviated version of my morning workout, it took a swift turn north upon hearing Eva’s jab. Knowing I’d never speak like that in front of my little girl, I attempted to take the high road.

  “Samantha only hears her dad saying nice things. No four-letter words thrown around here.”

  “Then where did your blue-feathered friend pick up that phrase?”

  I had no idea, but I’d recently asked a cleaning agency to give my condo the once-over. They could have said something…maybe directed at Big Al.

  “Who knows, but it wasn’t me. Trust me.”

  Without thinking, I’d just uttered a phrase that pushed Eva’s button, if taken in the wrong context. This one would be close.

  “Okay. I believe you.”

  Nice to see she’d learned to look beyond our checkered history. Maybe it had something to do with her rosy future with her new boyfriend, Sergeant Thom Bradford.

  We ended the call, and I took a quick shower and finished getting ready by pulling an old gray sweatshirt over my head—the one used normally for stakeouts, the type where I usually ended up face down in a muddy trench or a soupy puddle of oil and gas taking covert images of a secret tryst.

  A few months earlier, after watching Spencer Pittman and his former USC cheerleader/porn star girlfriend, Lola, engage in a stomach-turning fetish involving a sexy nurse outfit, pounds of peanut butter, a ping pong paddle, and the old man’s testicles in the sleaziest motel I’d ever stepped foot in, my belief that humankind was still evolving was put in serious doubt.

  I’d also seen the great lengths men and women alike took to humiliate their cheating spouses, or even significant others. Revenge consumed many of our clients, to the extent where they’d sacrifice their own reputation just to see their partners burn. The former Mrs. Pittman took tremendous pleasure in using one of my prized shots of Lola spanking Spencer and splashing it on a prominent billboard alongside Central Expressway. She added the caption: “Mr. Smooth at Work.”

  Slipping on an old pair of running shoes and a barn coat, I grabbed my keys and opened the door to my condo.

  “So long, Booker. So long, Booker,” he squawked.

  I glanced at Big Al’s cage, and he proceeded to defecate at that exact moment.

  “Thanks, Big Al. Just what I needed.”

  I locked up, took no more than a few steps down the hallway, and found myself in front of Cindy Valentino’s condo. Before a couple of months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to walk by her condo without being accosted. The boorish twenty-something girl with a knockout body and horse-like face had spent a better part of a year trying to spike our relationship, so to speak. Not only was she aggressive in her relentless pursuit of my junk, but she went about it in a way that redefined awkward behavior. While she’d shown to have a heart under her sizable chest, she had more moves than Walter White had excuses in Breaking Bad.

  But all of that had ended a couple of months earlier when she and my old college buddy, Henry Cho, had bonded over the hilarity of the Pittman peanut butter billboard. Cindy had actually been the one who had spotted it and taken a picture.

  The world hadn’t seen a couple any different than the braniac son to Chinese and Filipino parents who held the position of Dallas County assistant district attorney and the bubbleheaded niece to an organized crime boss who worked as…what? Actually, I had no clue about her employer, what mechanism funneled her money to live a pretty good life. Then again, Vincent Sciafini was her uncle.

  The Saab 9-3 started on the first try. I drove about eight blocks east, over to a park behind Samantha’s school, Ignacio Zaragosa Elementary. With my newish digital camera stashed away in my oversized coat, I stood next to my car, my eyes hidden behind my Ray-Bans, searching the sprawling park for a sea of pink. Samantha’s team was called the Pink Ladies.

  “Hey, Booker. We’re over here.”

  Veering my sight about forty-five degrees, I saw the waving arm of Eva, Thom at her side, next to a miniature soccer field with goals about the size of my living room chair.

  A brisk wind filled my ears, the temperature hovering in the low fifties, a few cotton ball clouds drifting across a vivid blue sky. After the previous night’s downpour, I knew today would be a mudfest, both for the fans and the actual players.

  “Hey, Eva, Thom. Good to see you.” I stepped around a mud pit, then Thom and I shook hands.

  “Booker. How’s it going?” Most of Thom’s red face had withdrawn inside clinched shoulders and an oversized, pea green coat. He looked like a turtle.

  “We need to talk, during a break or after the game,” I said.

  He nodded, but held his glare as if I’d crossed some imaginary line between personal and professional lives. As a self-employed owner of a little startup business, I couldn’t afford not to take advantage of our chance encounter. My paying clients wouldn’t let me hide behind bureaucratic excuses like those who received a regular government paycheck.

  “This is so exciting. Samantha’s first soccer game.” Bouncing up and down with little mini claps, Eva was showing more girlish excitement than I could recall.

  “Two college scouts were in the parking lot looking for the Pink Ladies game.” I smiled, then moved toward the sideline to gain a better position for taking pictures with my Cyber-Shot DSC-RX10 digital camera. Smaller than the palm of my hand, the camera somehow still fit into my oversized mitts like it was a mold. It had set me back over a thousand bucks, but had proven to be my most effective PI tool. Just through the Pittman case alone, I’d easily recouped my investment.

  “Don’t touch my new Cole Haans with your muddy work boots. I was here first,” said a man to my right.

  I’d been playing with the settings on my camera, but lifted my head
once I heard those terse words. Before I could assess the level of conflict, my eyes stopped blinking for a second, taking in the nut-to-butt procession of dads down the entire length of the soccer field sideline. Well, almost. I glanced left to ensure no one was within nut range of any part of my body, then tried to comprehend the lunacy of these helicopter parents.

  Wait. Should I be included in that category?

  “Don’t cause a scene, you little jerk. Just because you’re dumb enough to wear fancy leather shoes to a muddy soccer game doesn’t mean you have the right to own the ground you’re standing on. I got here first; this is my spot. Take a hike.” A large man wearing a red flannel shirt over another T-shirt jerked his thumb backward, then held his stare on the shorter man who had a yellow sweater draped around his shoulders, tied in front.

  The preppy guy swatted at the thumb and missed, then took a half-step toward the larger man, and within seconds, they appeared to fuse at their chests, each one daring the other to raise arms, throw a punch, or even shove the other one.

  I shook my head, amazed at the ease in which these two dads were ready to throw down just before our five-year-old daughters were about to play in their first soccer game.

  “You want a piece of me?” The larger guy’s lips moved, but his teeth didn’t budge, like he had lockjaw.

  “Ooh. If I wanted to, I could take you down right here and now, you big oaf. I’ll call you Shrek.” The preppy guy turned around and laughed, trying to drum up support for his stupid cause.

  “Ha. If I’m Shrek, then you’re Donkey. Nothing but an ass.” The larger man spoke with an Irish lilt.

  Comical, if it wasn’t so damn annoying…and embarrassing for every other dad. Hell, anyone over the age of thirteen was probably rolling their eyes.

  “Gentleman, I need to ask both you to separate, move away from the sideline.”

  I heard the authoritative, but composed voice, then twisted my neck around to see who finally couldn’t take any more.

  It was a kid. Well, a tall, athletic teenager who wore a referee uniform.