by Judy Alter
Deception in Strange Places
by
Judy Alter
A Kelly O’Connell Mystery
Copyright © 2014, Judy Alter
Alter, Judy
Deception in Strange Places
Media > Books > Fiction > Mystery Novels
Category/Tags: mystery, cozy, contemporary, female sleuth
Digital ISBN: 978-1-62237-323-9
Digital release: July 2014
Editing by Suzanne Barrett
Cover Design by Calliope-Designs.com
Stock art by shutterstock.com and thinkstockphotos.com
A woman’s search for her biological mother, a televangelist, and murder. Kelly O’Connell is in the midst of trouble again.
All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work, in whole or part, by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, is illegal and forbidden.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.
This edition is published by agreement with Turquoise Morning Press, a division of Turquoise Morning, LLC, PO Box 43958, Louisville, KY 40253-0958.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
To My Readers….
ABOUT JUDY ALTER
DEDICATION
For Peter Schroeder owner of the Old Neighborhood Grill who always welcomes me and
tells me I’m a famous author.
DECEPTION IN STRANGE PLACES
A woman desperately seeking her biological mother, a televangelist determined to thwart that search, a hired hit man, and in the midst of it all, a reclusive diva. Kelly has gotten herself involved in a dangerous emotional tangle this time, and Mike doesn’t tell her to back off, even when events take them from Fort Worth to San Antonio.
Chapter One
“Someone’s trying to kill Ms. Lorna,” Keisha said calmly, never lifting her eyes from the keyboard while she waited for my reaction.
I dropped my spoon and nearly spit out the swallow of coffee I’d just taken. It was not yet nine o’clock on an early September morning, and I arrived at the office, poured a cup of coffee and sat down with the newspaper. I was not prepared to talk about killing and possible murders. The idea someone was trying to kill our neighborhood diva/recluse seemed impossible, and I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to drink my coffee in peace. I muttered, “Really?” and went back to my paper. Maybe denial would work.
“Kelly O’Connell! You know darn good and well what I said. Someone’s trying to kill Ms. Lorna.” Now she raised her eyes and was staring at me, a bit defiantly.
I sighed. “And you know this how? Your sixth sense?” Keisha really did have the sixth sense—it’d saved my life a couple of times. But I got a bit weary of her parading that sixth sense for everything. I liked to tell myself I was grounded in reality. My husband, Mike, would scoff at that but I didn’t tell him. Still if this was a serious threat, I knew I’d be in the middle of it. Maybe that was why I was holding back to the extent I was physically grasping the arms of my desk chair.
She gave me a withering look. “Ms. Lorna told me, that’s how I know. She’s been seeing this man outside her house. Since she doesn’t ever step foot out the door unless I go get her, he doesn’t bother to disguise his interest. Been studying the house from all angles, day and night.”
“Maybe he’s like me and wants to restore it.” I promised Mike no more danger, and someone trying to kill Ms. Lorna sure meant danger.
Keisha shook her head. “I seen him. Renovation is clearly not on his agenda. He’s sort of seedy, rumpled, like Buck Conroy only short and skinny. Reminds me of a rat.”
Buck Conroy is my husband’s boss in the Narcotics Division of the Fort Worth Police Department. He and Mike work well together, and Mike likes him, but I’ve always been a bit hesitant. I find Buck crude, overbearing, not someone I’d take home to my mom. Not that I’m taking anyone but Mike home to Mom ever again. Buck thinks I’m always meddling in police business. It’s a longstanding, prickly relationship.
“Is Ms. Lorna upset about it? Why would anyone want to kill her?” My mind conjured up a picture of the former diva, with her penchant for drama. Since she rarely emerged from her crumbling but classic Craftsman two-story house, she lived in Oriental dressing gowns with brightly embroidered dragons. She kept Keisha spellbound with stories of her time in China, but I was a bit doubtful. Her dates and facts didn’t jibe with history. I could always hope the rat man was another of her dramatic interpretations.
Keisha got up and began pacing the office, her spike heels clicking on the tile floor and her hands flapping her long, flowing tunic in agitation. Keisha is nothing if not colorful. “Ms. Lorna apparently knows why, but she just clams up when I ask her. That’s why you have to talk to her.”
“Me talk to her?” I squeaked. Ms. Lorna and I hadn’t always had the most cordial of relationships, though I’ve found a softer side to her lately, and she sometimes abandons her Chinese dressing gowns in favor of slacks and a crisp shirt to venture outside her house with Keisha. Keisha always carries Ms. Lorna’s flask of single malt Scotch—it replaces the marijuana cigarettes she used to smoke until Mike made her tear up her patch of pot plants. She’s never quite forgiven Mike, though he promised her that as soon as Texas makes it legal, he personally will plant a new patch for her. But Keisha was almost her caretaker and was, to my mind, the logical one to talk to her.
Keisha was still pacing, so I forced myself to sit at my desk, though I really wanted to stand up and scream, “Why do I have to talk to her?” More calmly I asked, “Did you ask José to watch for this guy?” José, Keisha’s live-in boyfriend, was the evening patrolman for Fairmount.
“‘Course I did.” She gave me one of her long looks that told me she was way ahead of me on this and was going to make me take it seriously. “He kind of brushed it off. He thinks Ms. Lorna is loony and probably imagining it. Besides, she wants you to talk to her, that’s why you have to. She specifically asked me, and I told her you would.”
“Thanks a lot. Can I have coffee before I go? And make no mistake, you’re going with me.”
Keisha played innocent. “Somebody’s got to watch the office.”
“People can leave a message. We won’t be gone that long.” Keisha really wanted to go, and I knew it.
Of course I never got to read the morning paper, scan my messages and e-mails, because Keisha tapping impatiently away at her computer, and I could feel my own anxiety rising, as I began to suspect this was reality and not Ms. Lorna’s imagination. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else, so I stood up abruptly and said, “Let’s go.” Keisha jumped up without hesitation.
On the way, Keisha said, “Uh, Kelly, one thing I didn’t tell you. Ms. Lorna doesn’t know the part about this guy wanting to kill her. She just thinks he’s stalking her. I’m the one who knows about the killing part.”
“Sixth sense, huh?”
&
nbsp; “Now that you mention it….”
We parked across the street from Ms. Lorna’s house. I longed to get my hands on that house because it was such a wonderful example of style and because it was in terrible disrepair. A two-story, it was what they call a four-square—a square box with a small horizontal attic window, banked windows on the second floor, and a long verandah across the front. It was also called a “shirtwaist” because of its horizontal siding on the first floor and shingles covering the upper half. It was a classic, and I hated to see it fall apart. Now, though, the paint, once a lovely taupe with maroon trim, was faded and peeling. Wood rot was evident in some windowsills and the wooden banister across the front porch. Overgrown bushes bordered a patchy bit of grass with a straggly border of monkey grass. Two huge fountains of Pampas grass flourished on either side of the walkway, in spite of their lack of care.
Anthony says he could fix it up if I get it soon, but in a couple of years it will be beyond repair. And I know my gardener, Joe Green, could do something with the front yard while preserving the great Pampas grass. But Ms. Lorna, now well along in years, would have nothing to do with renovation. She intends to stay there as long as she lives, and after that she doesn’t care if the place falls down. I always wondered how and why she landed in Fairmount when she left Hollywood. Someday I’ll get up the nerve to ask, but it doesn’t seem right to be pushy. Ms. Lorna is sensitive so such things.
Her Queenship, as Keisha often calls her privately, greeted us imperiously, a manner she can’t seem to get over. As usual, she wore a flowing Chinese silk dressing gown, this one turquoise with a gold dragon on the back. Wordlessly, she indicated with a gesture that we should sit in the front room, but she offered no refreshments—I guess southern manners weren’t prevalent in Hollywood. But Keisha jumped up and said, “Let me get us all some ice tea.” She hurried to the kitchen at the back of the house.
I’m not sure what I expected, but it was not the words that came out of Ms. Lorna’s mouth.
“I want you to find my daughter.”
Nothing about the man stalking her. “Your daughter?” I stammered, so startled I wondered that I didn’t fall out of my chair. Somehow I couldn’t combine my picture of Ms. Lorna with motherhood.
“That’s what I said.” Lorna did not waste words.
“Can you tell me a bit about her?” I was fishing for time to comprehend this.
She stared into space so long I thought she’d gone somewhere else, but then she turned and looked at me. “She would be forty this July. Her father was a movie producer, and we had a fling. I couldn’t…didn’t want to…whatever…raise a child, and he took her. We made an agreement that I would stay out of her life, an agreement I’ve regretted many times since.”
She said all this in an unemotional tone, but I was seeing a side of Lorna McDavid that I’d never seen before. I kept silent and waited, though curiosity almost made me fidget, which Ms. Lorna would have frowned on.
“Her father died several years ago—I saw his obituary in a professional publication I still keep up with. I know she married, but I don’t know her married name, and I doubt she goes by her father’s name anymore. It’s an unfinished chapter in my life that I want to finish. She may not want to see me, and I’ll understand that. But I want you to find her and tell her I have regrets and would like to meet her, maybe ever get to know her.” Having said her piece, she looked away, still sitting ramrod straight.
Meanwhile, I shifted nervously on the straight chair where I sat. My mind told me I hadn’t heard correctly. “Me? I’m not a private investigator. You can hire people who do this for a living.” This was a simple misunderstanding.
“If money is the problem, I’m willing to pay.” She looked almost scornful when she twisted to look me in the eyes, and I knew it was no misunderstanding.
Keisha arrived just then with the tea, finding me staring at Ms. Lorna who sat prim, proper, and composed in her chair. Keisha distributed the tea, while I considered what to say next.
“Ms. Lorna, I don’t want money. I wouldn’t want you ever to think that. But I just don’t think I’m the one to do this. It might require trips to California and who knows where else. I can’t do that—I have a family to care for and a business to run.”
“I’ll pay your expenses.”
There it was—money again. How could I make her understand? “If money is no object, I can find an investigator for you. Mike will know someone.” Mike would not be pleased, but I brushed that thought aside.
Ms. Lorna was not going to be distracted. “You’re one of the few people I trust, and you’ve been involved in a lot of…shall we say, unfortunate instances. You’ll know how to do this.”
I could sense that statement, in her mind, closed the discussion.
Blandly, Keisha asked, “Well, ladies, what did I miss?”
“Only the fact that Ms. Lorna has a daughter and wants me to find her.”
Lorna’s expression never changed, but Keisha smiled and said, “Ms. Lorna, you never told me that. How old is that poor child?”
“Almost forty,” I said drily. Poor child, indeed!
“Ms. Lorna, are you going to tell us the background story?”
“Is it necessary?” she asked.
I wanted to shout, “Of course it is, if you expect me to do anything,” but I kept my cool. “Yes, if you want me to find her.” I knew only too well that with those words I was committing myself.
“I think I’ve told you most of it. Her father’s name was Stephen O’Gara, a true Irishman with all the charm that implies. I was old enough to know better, but I fell and fell hard. We had a wonderful six months, and then I found I was pregnant. I was distraught but he persuaded me to carry the baby, told me everything would be all right. At the time, he was having modest success but enough that I thought he could support me and the baby.
“Turns out that’s not what he had in mind. He wanted the baby but not me. I was confused and had no one to turn to, so I agreed to a monetary deal and dropped out of sight—at least as far as I could—that’s when I went to China….”
There it was again—the story I didn’t believe.
“Stephen never had much success after his first big deal, but he loved our daughter. He raised her in Malibu, not the ritzy part, and I used to go and watch for them in the park, at the grocery. Sometimes I followed them, but I made sure he never saw me.
“He named her Sheila—the Irish in him coming out again. She was a pretty child—never chubby like some babies, always lean, tall, and as she grew, athletic. I lost track of them when she was ten. They moved, left no forwarding address. I could have traced them, I suppose, but I didn’t think it was wise.”
“So we’re looking for Sheila nee O’Gara now called we don’t know what. Right?”
“Right.”
Her clipped words and tone told me she didn’t realize she was asking the impossible. I was stymied. I had no idea where to look, and I was quite sure asking Mike was not the answer. Adoption registries were out. Apparently Stephen O’Gara had never been famous enough that his obituary would be on Google. I was stumped.
Not Keisha. “Ms. Lorna, I’ll do some exploring on the computer this afternoon.”
She favored Keisha with a hint of a smile, her own expression of gratitude I suppose.
Keisha bustled around, carrying tea glasses to the kitchen, and I could hear the clink as she washed them. Ms. Lorna undoubtedly had no dishwasher.
So the two of us sat in silence in the living room, my mind whirling, mostly thinking about what an impossible woman I was dealing with. And yet, I was a mother, and her story of missing motherhood spoke loudly to me. We had all forgotten about the rat man and any threats of death.
Suddenly, she spoke, calling me by my first name, which was, I think, a first for her. “Kelly, I am grateful to you. I realize I may have given you a difficult assignment.”
I smiled, because I remembered that old TV program—was it I Spy?—and the wor
ds, “Should you accept this assignment…” No one had offered me a chance to turn down the assignment as they did on that program, and difficult was an understatement.
“But I will be forever grateful if you can find Sheila. My conscience has bothered me all these forty years…and maybe whatever hidden motherly feelings I have. I don’t want to die without seeing my child.”
It was an emotional admission from her, and I held back a tear or two. “I understand. I’ll do the best I can.”
“With those two adorable daughters of yours, I knew you’d understand.”
The girls had taken a shine to Ms. Lorna, deciding she was not as scary as they originally thought. And she, in turn, had softened her imperious ways around them, holding them fascinated with stories of Hollywood and China—but leaving out the opium stories, thank goodness. For adults, she liked to trace her fondness for marijuana to opium smoking in China. Another story I wasn’t sure held water.
After Keisha cleaned up the kitchen, we left amid suitable goodbyes. I was still pondering that one emotional moment from Ms. Lorna.
“You missed it,” I told Keisha. “While you were in the kitchen, I found out that woman has a soft spot.”
Keisha just smiled with a Cheshire cat look and said, “Where we goin’ for lunch?”
We went to Shaw’s for hamburgers and sat on the patio. Neither of us had much to say, except I said, “She never mentioned the man stalking her.”
Keisha just shrugged.
Did she know the twist this meeting would take all along?
One question bothered me, and I put it to Keisha. “If Ms. Lorna is as old as I think, how can she have a forty-year-old daughter? It’s a biological impossibility.”
Keisha shrugged again. “You sure she’s that old? I’m not.”
By now, I wasn’t sure of anything.
****
I had an appointment that afternoon I nearly forgot about. A young-sounding woman named Elisabeth Smedley had called and politely asked if she could come interview me. Flabbergasted, I asked what she wanted to interview me about, and she said Craftsman homes. It was, she explained, for a graduate paper at TCU.
