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

by John W. Mefford

  I handed her a tissue, and she dabbed her eyes and nose.

  “He’s a sick man, Maggie. You’d told us you could see that he had changed his ways, seen the light, so to speak. You said earlier that it’s possible this tumor has impacted his ability to think rationally. Do you still believe that?”

  She inhaled twice, her eyes blinking as if she was thinking through previous conversations. “The doctor said it was possible. I don’t know, Booker. To go to this much trouble, it took a great deal of thought and planning. Does that sound like someone who’s suffering from some type of mental disease?”

  “A lot of factors are involved, I’m sure. To a degree, I think our environments shape our lives, how we’re raised. But a lot plays into how we act, what drives us to take action versus just leaving it as a thought. And with your dad, he’s got cancer attached to his brain. No one is pure.”

  Pursing her lips, perhaps to suppress another round of tears, Maggie nodded, then looked into my eyes. “Thank you.” She took my hand and held it tight. “Thank you for helping. Thank you for listening to this crazy lady losing it on you.”

  “Put anyone in your shoes, we’d be all feeling the same way. I can tell you’re tough as nails.” I gave her a wink, and she squeezed my hand tighter.

  Walking across the Yates’ vast driveway I found the powder blue Bentley Flying Spur parked under the basketball goal, just as it was the last time I’d visited. Ever since we’d learned about Nancy’s death, in particular the method of how her neck had nearly been severed, I’d wondered how her life and that of a CEO multimillionaire of a supposed “green” energy company intersected, even tangentially.

  Our research on the Nancy/Albert connection had turned up nothing. But now that we’d all but confirmed Javier had killed Nancy the librarian, I had to quiz Darla one more time. There had to be something I missed during out initial conversations. Figuring out if and how Javier was connected to Albert Yates not only would help solve my paying gig, but could also bring to light evidence that could help us find Javier’s next target. If, I had to remind myself, there was a next target. Javier could just fade into the global melting pot and fall off the radar, never to be heard from again.

  But Maggie didn’t think so. She thought her dad wasn’t done. And I had to go with her instinct on this one.

  “Darla Yates hired me, and I’m sure she wouldn’t care where I went to find her husband’s killer. No offense.”

  “I want to find him worse than you, Booker. Believe me.”

  We cut through the gate and bounded down the winding path, as birds chirped nearby in trees with new growth.

  “You sure someone’s home, though? We rang the doorbell, and no one came to the door.”

  That wasn’t the first surprise. Not seeing any police protection anywhere on the property—as had been previously discussed—had initially caught my attention.

  “It was strange, I admit. I thought if nothing else, Helen would come to the door.”

  “Helen?”

  “Their maid, or nanny, or bartender for Darla, or peacekeeper with the kids. She serves a lot of roles. I don’t envy any of them.”

  “Damn. You make this place seem like it’s Downton Abbey. Where’s Mr. Carson when you need him?” Maggie asked with a pretty good Irish lilt.

  We both shared a quick chuckle, reducing the tension in the air.

  Continuing our trek through the back part of the estate, it seemed different. The white canopy that covered the crime scene wasn’t visible, and the recent rains seemed to have infused a growth spurt in the landscaping. The bright, overhead sun played against the leafy shadows and light breeze. If it didn’t seem like the weight of the world was hanging over our heads, and the city of Dallas, it would have been a beautiful day, a “Chamber of Commerce Day,” as my Momma would say.

  From a distance, the enormous pool came into vision, only a few scattered leaves sprinkled across the flowing water. I could hear the motorized hum of what sounded like a pool cleaner, as I arched my neck toward the back porch.

  We passed a row of bushes, a large cluster of trees, then could see the entire pool area.

  “Wait.” I put a hand out and stopped both of us. “Something is moving just through that landscaping.”

  Reaching into my jacket, I gripped my X-5, bent my knees, and began walking, my thoughts replaying the scene at Campisi’s—Javier trying to pick off the mobster from the tower across the street. Then I thought about Nancy’s brutal murder. I had to be ready for anything. Hair stood at attention on my arms, and I could feel an icy patch on the back of my neck as I hunkered down, slowly padding toward the movement between plants and shrubs. Maggie had a hand on my back.

  Part of me wanted to call out, to clarify if it was friend or foe, but I had to assume the worst. Motion caught my eye, and I glanced left, the pool cleaner swirling through the aqua blue water. The incessant drone of the machine muted any sound from our shoes. Suddenly, the cleaner skimmed across the surface, creating a slurping noise. I shot a look at our target area. No change in the pattern of activity.

  Studying closer, I saw white next to shades of orange and blue. I wanted to get Maggie’s opinion, but we didn’t have time to hold a discussion. Suddenly, she grabbed a fistful of my shirt and pulled back. I looked over my shoulder at her. She pointed down, and I saw a pool lounge chair just in front of my right shin.

  I mouthed a “thank you” and continued plodding along. Now less than forty feet away, I could see something moving up and down, but no eyes and no obvious weapon. We banked left to get a better angle and moved beyond three more lounge chairs and a green chair float with a cup holder. I was sure Darla had used that on more than one occasion.

  My thighs burned, but I wasn’t about to alter my position of readiness. This was why I stayed in shape. Shuffling left, my eyes never left our target. I knew Maggie had my back and was surveying our surroundings to ensure all was clear as far as she could see across the property. But I was almost certain there was no one else, except for who or whatever was on the other side of those bushes. Was it Javier? Were Darla and the kids okay? What about Helen? For whatever reason, my mind quickly spiraled into anxious mode. Inching closer, I still had no idea what we were dealing with.

  I tried to swallow, but it felt like I was forcing a jar full of cut glass down my throat. I was as curious as I was on edge. Bringing my left arm back, I touched Maggie’s jacket, ready to pull or push, knowing we’d have to move quickly. Moving away from the pool, I could actually hear my steps. My shoe hit a ridge, and I looked down and noticed I’d stepped on a small branch that had fallen from one of the enormous red oaks surrounding the area. Clenching my jaw, I shifted my weight, hoping the branch wouldn’t snap. My shoe rolled safely off, and I took a breath.

  I eyed two trees to my left, believing if we could make it to the farthest, we’d have the target in our sights and could force him or her to come out with hands up.

  “Booker,” Maggie whispered.

  What was she doing? I held up a hand, giving her the signal to put a lid on it.

  “Booker, don’t you—” she attempted in another whisper.

  I held up another hand, this one more agitated in her break of protocol. She knew how this was supposed to go down. She had the training and the experience.

  A poke at my shoulder blade. Maggie again.

  I held up another hand, trying to ignore her just as we passed behind the first of the two trees. The leaves of two bushes now hid our target.

  She squeezed my side, digging strong fingers in between two ribs. “Bookerrrrr,” she said in a loud whisper.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  I laid a hand on the trunk of the last tree, my eyes fixated on the bushes in front of me. I felt Maggie’s hand drop off my back, then suddenly she walked right around me, casually walking toward the bushes.

  “Wait!” I implored. “Dammit.” I shuffled up next to her and was just about ready to extend my handgun while moving
Maggie behind me when I saw it. A white ass bopping up and down.

  “Oh, gross!” Maggie said, moving her hand to her eyes.

  A high-pitched shriek. The white ass was connected to a naked man, who fell off a lounge chair, exposing the full frontal of Darla Yates, an orange and blue beach towel bunched around her. She grabbed a corner and yanked it over her body, her face a strange combination of sheer fright and disheveled ecstasy. I’d never seen her in this condition, the nudity notwithstanding.

  “Hold on a second,” Darla grunted out.

  Swatting chestnut hair with blue-gray roots away from her face, Darla attempted to sit or stand, but the massive towel was mostly under her weight and she played tug-of-war. Meanwhile, the man covered his man parts while moving backward, but he tripped over a chair and everything went flying.

  “Damn,” Maggie said.

  I looked at my Latin partner, whose eyebrows were arched as if she’d seen the eighth wonder of the world. Maybe that was why Darla looked liked she’d just taken a trip to the moon and back. Although in watching her trying to coordinate the act of standing while keeping herself properly covered, I’m not sure the landing had completely settled on planet Earth.

  Finally covered and upright, Darla inched in our direction, the towel locked under her armpits. The man had found a white cloth robe and took small steps to move near Darla, but he stopped about two awkward feet from reaching her.

  Feeling the grip of the Sig in my hand, I finally holstered my gun. I had my theories on the name of Darla’s houseguest, but it wasn’t the time to play guessing games.

  “Hi, Darla. We just dropped to see if you had some time to talk,” I said.

  She laid a flat hand against both sides of her face, as if she was still in la la land—I wasn’t sure if that was booze induced or a more natural state of delirium—and then took in a deep breath.

  “Ha. I wish I was twenty years old and could hide behind my youthful naiveté, but that’s simply not possible.” She glanced at her partner and gave him a straight-lipped smile. “I suppose it doesn’t matter much at this point. Greg Harris, please meet my private investigator, Booker, and …”

  “I’m Maggie. Nice to meet you.”

  Lean, like one of those weekend athletes who biked about a hundred miles every weekend, Greg paused, then took a step forward and shook my hand. I instantly wished I had some hand sanitizer in my pocket.

  “I’m sorry if we interrupted—”

  “My daughter was right. I am a slut.”

  “Darla, please don’t say that about yourself.” Greg touched her shoulder, but she ignored it.

  “It’s true. I’ve been having an affair with Greg for what, two, three years?”

  He pressed his lips together, lowering his head like a shamed little boy, his hands still pressed against his man parts over his robe.

  “I simply couldn’t take Albert’s bullshit any longer.”

  That brought more questions, but why did it feel like every time I stepped foot on this property, I felt forced to recall the key points in my college psychology class? I just wanted to get past this immature girlfriend/boyfriend crap and ask our questions and get the hell out of there to find Javier.

  “Darla, it’s not my position to judge. Maggie and I have been—”

  “Don’t tell me, you’re a couple too?”

  “What?” Maggie exclaimed, as I shook my hands. “No. I don’t think so.”

  Taking in a deep breath, I think I caught a waft of tequila. “Maggie is my partner on another case that could connect to Albert’s murder. You do want me to find out who killed your husband?”

  “I sure as hell do. Albert might have been screwing everything that walked by. What? Don’t look so shocked. It comes with the territory of being the wife of a CEO. The ego as big as Mount Everest and a dick the size of a worm.”

  “Whoa,” I said.

  “No visuals, please.” Maggie gave me the eye, with a smirk behind it.

  “Don’t get me wrong. Part of me still loved that furry ball of lard,” Darla said while looking at Greg.

  He held out his arms, acting surprised. Again, this was something straight out of the Dr. Phil show. And Darla had to let it all out. “I just couldn’t get too excited when I knew he was a man whore, screwing college-age girls like he was twenty-one and single. Well, guess what, asshole? You’re not fucking single, and if you’ve looked in the mirror, you should be able to notice you ain’t fucking twenty-one either.” She poked a bitter finger at the pool, possibly seeing his reflection in the shimmering water. Who knew?

  Hearing Darla talk like she lived in a double-wide instead of a ten-thousand-square-foot mansion was disturbing. It seemed liked she was teetering, again, on the edge of falling into one of her moods.

  “So how are the kids?” I just blurted it out. Anything to avoid a downhill crash.

  Everyone paused and looked around. My question appeared to serve as a neutralizer.

  “They’re actually doing okay, all things considered. They’re at school, then spending some time with their aunt and uncle, from their dad’s side. I think they’re going to visit the Sixth Floor Museum, then—”

  “Wait. Why the Sixth Floor Museum?”

  Darla pulled a hair band from around her wrist and attempted to corral her mess into something that didn’t make it look like she just rolled off a pile of hay. Not possible at this point. “They’ve never been there before. I think they want to spend some time with their dad’s family, learn more about their history. Something to connect with. Those poor kids have been to hell and back. And I’m at least partially to blame.”

  Maggie took a step forward. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, Mrs. Yates.”

  “Darla, please. I’m not sure how long I’m going to hold on to that last name.”

  “Your husband was killed, and from what Booker has told me, he was a pretty good father anyway.”

  “Thank you. He was.”

  I saw an opening that Maggie hadn’t picked up. “Darla, your…I mean Albert’s family history. Are their aunt and uncle historians? I’m just wondering how the kids will get all of that after school in one afternoon.”

  “Oh, the Sixth Floor Museum. It mentions their grandfather.”

  My skin tingled like my limbs had fallen asleep. “What part of the museum exactly?”

  “At one time, it brought tremendous anxiety over the family, but now they accept it and embrace being part of history.”

  “What? Please tell us,” Maggie said, her voice demanding and desperate.

  “I figured you knew. Albert’s father, Sam Yates, was in charge of the Secret Service detail in Dallas the day of JFK’s assassination.”

  Air rushed from my lungs, and I could see Maggie look down.

  “What did I say?”

  “Thank you for the information, Darla. Maggie and I need to continue our investigation. We’ll be in touch.”

  We walked briskly back to our car, shut the doors, and stared at each other.

  “What does this mean? My father killed Albert Yates too?” Maggie rocked back slightly, her eyes unable to focus.

  I put a hand on her leg. “I’m sorry, but I think he did, Maggie. But I need you to work this with me if we’re going to save your father from killing anyone else.”

  She nodded, then wiped her face.

  “Let’s look at the pattern. He kills the son of the Secret Service agent in charge the day of the assassination. Then, he kills Nancy Fitzwater, whose dad was an aide to LBJ. Although Hank Fitzwater was never mentioned specifically, books had been written about Johnson and his Texas clan possibly being involved in the assassination, one of the noted conspiracies. Then, he tries to take out Dominic Ferrigamo, one of the names floating around in the mob world who could have been involved in the JFK assassination.”

  “Whatever drove him, it’s just senseless brutality. I hate him. But I still love him.”

  “I get it, Maggie.”

  Licking
my lips, I let everything settle and then tried to think like Javier.

  “I think I have it.”

  Recalling something I’d seen earlier, I started the car and pulled out of the driveway.

  “Where now?”

  “I have a hunch. We’re going to the museum.”

  22

  A piercing eye encircled by a smoky blue ring locked onto me, even if I leaned three feet one way or the other. Some sort of checkerboard structure protruded from his nose—I’d assumed it was male—while a wooden ring clamped down on red lips. Enormous rectangular earrings half the size of his head were rimmed in a faint burgundy, and he wore a crown in the same color scheme. With a neck that looked like a clay bell hanging outside of a monastery in southern Italy, this piece of ceramic art created by the Mixtec people in 1521, positioned on the fourth floor landing at the Dallas Museum of Art, might haunt me for nights to come.

  “It did the same thing to me.” Maggie gave me a soft elbow to my ribs, then put a finger to the information card hanging in front of the glass case exhibit. “Says here this was a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Marcus.”

  She looked up at me as people shuffled around us. “Marcus, as in Neiman Marcus?”

  “The one and only. I try to tell people that the center of the shopping universe is Dallas.”

  For some reason, an image of her shot in my mind—the conniving murderer formerly known as my pseudo-girlfriend. Ever since she used my own handgun to knock me out, I had yet to mention her name and only occasionally allowed myself to think of it. If she wasn’t known as the blond, pretty version of a black widow, then she’d probably have her mug shot on the Wikipedia page dedicated to shopaholics. She was a pro’s pro.

  Someone plowed into me, knocking that thought into its rightful place in my mind. Two kids horsing around. One tripped over the other, then bounced off my shoulder, falling to the carpet.