by Nora Kane
Shadow of Temptation
A Prequel To
Margot Harris Mystery Series
Nora Kane
Shadow of Temptation, A Prequel to Margot Harris Mystery Series by Nora Kane Copyright © 2020 by Nora Kane.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission. This book is a work of fiction. Any reference to real people or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Books by Nora Kane
1. Secrets of Woodcrest Manor
2. Wolverine Harbor Novellas Series
Book 1 - The Veil of Deceit
Book 2 -The Veil of Envy
Book 3 -The Veil of Vengeance
3. Emmy Grimm Series
Book 1 - Lured
Book 2 - Chased
Book 3 - Blindsided
4. Margot Harris Series
Book 1 - Shadow of Greed
Book 2 - Shadow of Pretense
Book 3 - Shadow of Suspicion
Book 4 - Shadow of Betrayal
Book 5 - Shadow of Misgivings
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When the Patriarch of the Woodcrest Family was found dead in the flowerbed under his bedroom window, the local police department called it suicide. His son hired Private Detective Emmy wanting to uncover the real truth behind his father's death. Surrounded by so many individuals who could benefit from his death, now the responsibility is on Emmy to figure out who was responsible. When Emmy starts to talk to the heirs the Woodcrest family's secrets begin to emerge.
Table of Content
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Summary
Books by Nora Kane
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“Dude, it’s an easy score. All that stuff is just sitting there.”
“I guess,” Steve said to Darin, “except what am I going to tell my mom when I hook up the new PlayStation to our old TV?”
“Old TV? Dude, we grab a TV too, maybe two, if we can get them in my car.”
“Uh, dude, the problem isn’t our TV is old, it’s how do I explain where I got it?”
“Who said we bring them to your house?”
“We take it to your place?”
“No, I figure we set one up at the shot house and then sell the other one. Boogie has been bitching about me staying there and this way he can never bitch again.”
Steve thought about it for a second. Darin wasn’t exactly a genius and he was even dumber when he was stoned, which was pretty much all the time these days, but he had a solid plan here. They’d stumbled on a bunch of guys unloading a truck into a storage unit and noticed they’d pretty much filled it with video game systems and televisions. The lock was just a basic padlock and Steve had stumbled on some primo bolt cutters someone had left in the back of their pickup truck.
The reason they were there in the first place is Darin knew the passcode on the gate. How he learned it was a long story Steve had mostly forgotten, but since they could get in, they decided they should. Even though there wasn’t really anything to do once they were. If the truck with the gaming systems and televisions hadn’t shown up or even just arrived five minutes later, they would have left and never come back.
Darin pulled his beat-to-hell Toyota Corolla to the gate and punched in the code. For a second, it seemed the code had been changed and the gate wasn’t going to rise, but it was just old, slow, and in need of oil.
They did a quick drive around and found they had the place to themselves. Darin backed up to the garage and Steve jumped out with the bolt cutters. Just like Darin predicted, the lock snapped when Steve put some pressure on it. While he was breaking the lock, Darin opened the trunk and pushed down the seats.
“Too bad I don’t have a truck,” he said as Steve tossed the lock aside and opened the door, “We could take it all.”
“Let’s just grab what we can and get out of here,” Steve said as he scooped up three boxes of gaming systems and hauled them to the car.
“We need to get at least one TV.”
They grabbed the nearest box—it took both of them to lift it—and wrangled it into the trunk.
“Do you think we can get one more?” Darin asked.
“Not this size. But we can grab some more PlayStations,” he said as he went back in.
They both had a handful of boxes when Darin spotted the pistol sitting on top of one of the television boxes. He put down the gaming systems and walked over to pick it up.
“Check it out bro,” he said as he lifted the weapon. “Is it a Glock?”
“Does it matter? Put it down.”
“No way, I’m keeping it. Maybe there’s one for you too.”
“I don’t want one.”
“Don’t be such a pussy. You know you want one.”
Steve had to admit having a gun did sound pretty cool.
“Whoa, what the hell is this?” Darin said as moved some boxes in an effort to find more guns.
Steve joined him at the back of the storage unit and saw the lumpy shape wrapped in an old throw rug.
“Something is in there,” Darin said as he moved closer.
“Maybe we should getting out of here,” Steve warned, “The longer we stay the more likely it is for somebody to see us.”
Darin ignored him and peaked down the top of the rolled up rug. He slipped on something wet and hit the ground, taking the rug with him. When he hit the floor, the rug unrolled and the body spilled out.
“Uh, dude, is that, like, a dead guy?” Darin asked.
Looking at the impossibly pale body missing a good chunk of the top of his head, Steve thought it was pretty obvious. It took all his willpower to keep from puking.
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Steve said.
Darin worked his way to his feet. “Yeah, I think your right. Do you think this is the gun that killed him?”
“Either way you should leave it here.”
Darin thought about it but decided he still wanted to keep it.
They closed the garage and got in the car.
“What do we do now?” Steve asked as Darin drove toward the gate. “We just ripped off some dudes that kill people and shit. That can’t be good.”
“Stick with the plan and do our best to forget we ever saw anything. Nobody will ever know we were here.”
“So we go to the shot house?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Steve nodded: the plan was still good. The dead body in the storage unit didn’t change that. They drove out without either one ever noticing the security cameras mounted on the gate and every building.
Chapter 1
“You don’t look like a detective. I thought there was a dress code.”
The man rubbed his goatee with one hand while he twisted one of his earrings with the other as he said, “What do you mean?”
Margot looked him over again. Besides t
he facial hair and the jewelry, his hair was longer than the average homicide detective and his short-sleeve shirt revealed a sleeve of tattoos. The badge hanging on a lanyard around his neck, however, looked completely legitimate.
Margot smiled. The long-haired detective smiled back before he told her, “Up until a couple of days ago, I was working undercover in narcotics. I kind of liked the look so until someone tells me to shave and cut my hair, I figured I’d go with it.”
Margot nodded; she had to admit it worked for him.
“What do you got, Harris?” a voice said from behind the tattooed detective.
Margot looked around the tattooed detective to see Shaw coming up the sidewalk. Unlike the man in front of her, he was dressed like a homicide detective, wearing a suit nice enough to look professional but cheap enough he wouldn’t get upset if, in the course of an arrest, it got some blood on it.
“I thought you retired,” Margot said to him as he got closer. He didn’t bother showing her a badge. Everyone knew Shaw.
“One more week,” he told her. “It’d be nice if you guys could let me relax.”
“Sorry, I could go in and ask the victim if someone could shoot him next week,” Margot quipped as she stepped aside to let the two detectives inside the little bungalow.
Before they went in, Shaw looked at a door someone had clearly kicked in and asked, “Is there going to be warrant problems with this one?”
“Unlikely,” Flynn replied. “This is a known hangout for drug users. It might as well have been a neon sign out front saying ‘probable cause’.”
“He’s not wrong, kids call it the ‘shot house’. Even if they didn’t, the door was like this when I got here, which I would say constitutes probable cause, especially after I called out and identified myself. I’m not sure who would complain, all things considered. Pretty sure the bank owns this one anyway.”
“Makes sense,” Shaw said, “How’d you come to find yourself at the door?”
“I was looking for a kid. His older brother crashed here sometimes so I thought I’d see if the little brother was hanging out.”
“Is one of them our victim?”
“Not the kid, he’s only ten. The victim is too old.”
“The older brother?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“You’ll see. He’s not exactly easy to identify right now. Even if he was, I was looking for the kid, so I didn’t get much of a description of his brother.”
“Could he be the shooter?” Shaw asked.
“I want to say no, but...”
“What did little brother do to get you looking for him?” Flynn asked.
“As far as I know, he just ran away from home.”
“Is that a crime now?”
“Just trying to do some of that community policing thing they’re always talking about. I met mom on a domestic disturbance call and gave her my number. She called when the kid went missing.”
“And you didn’t have anything better to do?”
“Depends on what you mean by better. I’d told her to call if she ever needed anything and she called. It didn’t seem right to tell her I was busy.”
Shaw smiled; Margot has a reputation for getting involved personally in certain types of cases. “You didn’t figure she’d be calling you about a runaway, did you?”
“Honestly, I didn’t figure she’d be calling at all. I figured the next time I saw her, it’d be a crime scene.”
“You make it a habit to give out your number like that?” Flynn asked.
“In certain situations.”
Before Flynn could ask a follow-up Shaw said to Margot, “You know, I know a lady who runs a place women in trouble can go. It’s free to stay; the lady who runs it is something of an activist when it comes to that kind of thing.”
“Sounds like my kind of gal. If you have her number, I’d be glad to take it.”
Shaw handed her one of his cards. “Call me. She doesn’t know you and she doesn’t deal with people she doesn’t know, but I can arrange things if need be.”
“Awesome, thanks.”
“Can you write down all the information on this kid and his brother for me?” Shaw asked. “I think I might want to talk to them too.”
“Can I text it to you?”
“I’d rather you’d write it down.”
“My partner is kind of old school,” Flynn said, “text it to me.”
Margot did so.
“Got it,” Flynn told her.
“Okay,” Shaw said to Flynn, “now you write it down for me, on paper, with a pen.”
“I’ll do it when we get back to the station.”
Shaw seemed to find that satisfactory. He and the other homicide detective went into the bungalow style house. Margot followed.
“Detective Flynn,” Shaw said as he stepped inside and realized he hadn’t made any introductions, “this is Officer Harris. Rumor has it she might be trading in that uniform to be a detective sooner rather than later.”
“That makes sense. She was asking me about the dress code. She was glad to hear long hair and tattoos were allowed once you make detective.”
“I have both of those now,” she told him as she pointed to the bedroom. “Shall we do some police work?”
“I’d rather hang out and talk to you.”
“I’m sure you would,” Margot replied, thinking she might enjoy hanging out and talking to him as well. Sadly, it was common for her fellow cops to hit on her, but he either wasn’t really hitting on her or was being so casual about it she could hardly tell. Either way, she found herself liking it. She added, “It’s not pretty in there,” just in case he wasn’t.
Shaw stepped in first and saw the body. It was a male who was about six feet tall—when he had a head attached to his neck, anyway. His brains were splattered against the wall beside the body. A bullet hole revealed how he came to lose his head. Beside the body was a snub nose thirty-eight revolver. On the nightstand was a used syringe and bent up spoon that’d been heated up with a disposable lighter one too many times.
“You’re right, he’s probably not going to complain about your lack of a search warrant. I’m guessing when the kids called this the shot house, this wasn’t what they had in mind,” Shaw remarked as he surveyed the scene.
“I see what you mean about the I.D., though I don’t think many ten-year-olds have that many jailhouse tats,” Flynn said. “Did older brother have a record?”
“Not that I know of, but he hangs out here, so it’s not impossible.”
“Suicide?” Detective Flynn said as he pointed at the gun on the floor.
“You ever see a thirty-eight disintegrate somebody’s face like that?” Shaw replied.
Flynn shrugged. “I’m not an expert, didn’t see a lot of headshots working major crimes and even fewer working narcotics, not near enough for me to be determining bullet size by the damage. I take it in your experience the answer is no.”
“You are correct. As much as I wish he did shoot himself, he’d have to do it like three times to do that much damage,” Shaw explained.
Margot pointed to the opposite wall where a smaller hole than the one by the dead man’s brains was visible and then to the ceiling at another hole about the same size.
“I’m just a uniform, but it looks like he was shooting at something other than himself. Plus there’s more to see in the other room.”
Shaw nodded. “I bet we dig a couple of thirty-eight caliber slugs out of the wall. What’s in the other room? Another body?”
“Nothing that bad,” Margot said as she led them out of the bedroom. They went through a small living room that was mostly decorated with empty take-out containers and beer cans, though there was a decent looking couch, a gaming system, and a large flatscreen on the wall.
“I’m guessing we can find all this stuff on a theft report somewhere,” Shaw said.
“Even the couch?” Flynn asked.
“Kids these days will st
eal anything not nailed down.”
“Probably took it from a Goodwill drop-off,” Margot told him.
She pointed to the wall behind them.
“More bullet holes,” Shaw said.
“Bigger,” Flynn added.
“I’d say they emptied the whole clip,” Shaw said as he counted at least a dozen.
“There are a couple more on the other side of the room,” Margot said as she pointed that way.
“Either someone fired back, or somebody was just shooting up the whole room,” Shaw commented.
The sliding glass door leading to the backyard was open. Margot pointed to the bloody handprint on the window.
“I’m not expert, as I said before, but I don’t think the guy in the bedroom had the kind of wound that would have him wandering around the house,” Flynn said.
“Someone bled on the porch as well,” Margot added as they stepped outside.
The porch she referred to was a square slab of cement that seemed to be there mostly to keep the weeds away from the door. She pointed down and both detectives saw what she was talking about.
“There’s another handprint on the fence,” Margot told them.
“So, with all the shooting, somebody hit somebody,” Flynn said. “This should make it a little bit easier.”
“I just hope it’s not my missing kid or his older brother,” Margot remarked.
“Chances are, it’s whoever was doing the shooting since it looks like somebody was shooting back and not just the dead guy,” Flynn told her.
“It might not be the shooter who got hit,” Shaw replied. “We can’t say for sure how many people were in the house or if all the shooting took place on the same day. At worst, it’s a witness though. I’ll put out a B.O.L.O. for anybody showing up at the ER with a bullet hole or two. You got anything else to show us, Harris?”
“I think that’s it.”
Shaw nodded. “I think Flynn and I can secure the scene. The crime scene crew should be on their way.”
“Do you need me for anything else?” Margot asked. “If not, I’ve still got a kid to look for.”
“Nah,” Shaw replied, “we can handle this one.”
