by Lotta Smith
GHOSTLY MURDER
PI ASSISTANT EXTRAORDINAIRE MYSTERY BOOK 1
By LOTTA SMITH
GHOSTLY MURDER Copyright
© 2016 by Lotta Smith. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, incidents and places are the products of the author’s imagination, and are not to be construed as real. None of the characters in this book is based on an actual person. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and an unintentional.
Written by Lotta Smith
Edited by Hot Tree Editing
Cover created by Cheeky Covers
Table of Contents
GHOSTLY MURDER
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
EPILOGUE
IMMORTAL EYES
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
About the author
GHOSTLY MURDER
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CHAPTER 1
There’s a first time for everything.
I was walking in the forest all by myself. It was a sunny day in late March, but in the shadows of tall trees, it was dark, cold, and creepy. Also, having a group of crows—a.k.a. a murder of crows—squawking over my head did nothing to calm my nerves.
Don’t get me wrong. I was not an adventurer wannabe or a plant hunter wandering about some exotic forest in the middle of nowhere with a totally unpronounceable name, such as Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein in Africa. On the contrary, I was one of those so-called city workers. My job title was the personal assistant to a certain private investigator based in McLean, Virginia.
I was in Arlington, the ‘good’ suburb of Washington DC. Though there was a metro station in walking distance, this part of the town was very quiet, giving it the feel of a godforsaken land. I wasn’t exaggerating. Maybe the fact that a man’s dead body was found nearby had something to do with my perception. In addition, considering he was stabbed to death, this neighborhood might not be such a good area. Oh, did I mention there was some wacko serial rapist still running loose in the neighborhood? As a woman with no expertise in martial arts, I had a gazillion reasons to be spooked.
Walking in the forest wasn’t something I was doing by choice. Michael Archangel, my eccentric employer with a diva personality, made me do so. My mission was to look for either pantyhose, a ski mask, or big granny panties. Any of those items were supposed to help my employer with his most recent case, but I couldn’t figure out why or how. Anyway, I had never dreamed about going treasure-hunting for potentially used undergarments in the urban forest at the age of twenty-nine.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an alchemist or a doctor. But the reality wasn’t rosy enough to realize either of my childhood dreams. First of all, there was no alchemist school. In addition, my test score wasn’t good enough for premed programs. So my mom and fifth—or was it sixth?—faux-dad sent me to a finishing school in Switzerland where I mastered the art of eating an orange using a knife and a fork. After that, I became a housewife in London, obtained a bachelor’s degree in art, and then I got a divorce. People in Europe, especially rich people in London, still called me ‘the bitch who used to be married to that swindler’ a.k.a. the man who had committed the largest investment scam in the history of Great Britain.
Here’s my point: Education is so overrated.
My name is Kelly Kinki. Yes, it’s my real name as written on my birth certificate. No, my surname is not a joke. And no, I’m not into kinky sex. Kinky or otherwise, it had been a while since I had sex.
As I thought about sex, I realized how much I hated walking through the creepy woods. I could think of much better things to do—such as tackling crossword puzzles or building a robot vacuum cleaner from scratch—but sometimes, you had to do what you had to do.
All of the sudden, one of the crows let out an especially menacing squawk as something started chirping and vibrating at the same time, startling me.
“Holy crap!”
A second later, I realized it was coming from my purse and reached for my phone.
“Hello? What can I do for you, Mr. Archangel?” I said to the person on the other end, who happened to be the one responsible for my current situation.
There was no response.
“Hello? Mr. Archangel?”
Still nothing.
From the other end, I could hear muffled voices. I recalled a bunch of retired gentlemen, who resided in the neighborhood, gathering at the crime scene. When I left there, they were busy gossiping. In my mind’s eyes, I could almost see and hear them cracking jokes and laughing their as—I mean, laughing their pants off. A moment later, I finally got a whispered response from Archangel.
“Password.”
“What? Password? What are you talking about?” I said, puzzled.
“You need to provide the password of Michael Archangel Investigations.”
“Excuse me? I’ve got your name on my caller ID. And it’s my voice. You can recognize me from my voice, can’t you?”
“No. You sound different,” he said. “Actually, you sound pretty much annoyed.”
“Come on, so I’m pretty much annoyed right now, but still, it’s me. Besides that, you’re the one who’s calling my phone, so you should know—” I was tempted to go on with my rant, but I realized it was easier to just tell the password.
“All right! I’ll tell the password.” Then I stopped short. What was the password? I knitted my eyebrows. It was something about artists. Oh yeah—Matisse, Bonnard, and Rothko—that was it.
“Matisse, Bonnard,” I said my part and waited for him to say “Rothko” but—
“Okay, let’s get to the point.”
“Hey!” I protested. “You’re supposed to finish the password before getting to the point. I said ‘Matisse, Bonnard’ and you’re supposed to say ‘Rothko.’ Without your finishing, the password isn’t complete!”
“What are you babbling, Kelly? It’s me, Michael Archangel. You should be able to recognize me from my voice. Otherwise, you must be affected with an early-onset of Alzheimer’s.”
All right, he had a point. The password was pretty much worthless since I knew I was talking to Archangel. His voice was deep, husky, and somewhat seductive, per usual. In addition, I knew no one else as fuc—I mean, freaking annoying as him.
“So, what’s up, Mr. Archangel? Any progress?”
“Yeah. The cops found the item I was looking for. I knew it was somewhere in the ground. Anyway, you can come back to the tennis court.”
“What? So you sent me to this creepy forest fully knowing I wouldn’t be the one to find the granny panties?”
“Actually, the discovered item turned out to be a ghost mask.”
“That’s not the point. You sent me, of all people, to go into this deep, spooky, and potentially dangerous forest for a wild goose chase of a ghost mask you didn’t even bother to mention in the first place. On top of it all, I’m talking about these woods located near the site where a twenty-four-year-old female office worker was nearly raped last night for Pete’s sake!” I spat.
I knew about her because, this morning, local news was all about this serial rapist in Arlington. In the past month, at least five women had been brutally raped. I was more than concerned about my own safety.
“Good thing you’re much older than twenty-four years old,” was Archangel’s reply.
“Excuse me? That’s not the point.” I continued. “This rapist has not yet been ID’d, much less arrested. Has it ever come to your mind that the rapist is still hiding in the darkness of these woods, determined to assault another young, innocent, and defenseless woman, such as your assistant? Imagine it. I might become his next prey. Aren’t you worried about me?”
Without responding to my bullets of questions, he said, “Come back to the tennis court pronto. If you don’t come back before I finish wrapping up the case, I’ll leave without you.”
And the line went dead.
Words like manners and protocol must be missing from my employer’s dictionary.
Man, I really, really hated this job.
CHAPTER 2
Here’s the thing about brilliant detectives: They’re all nuts. Michael Archangel happens to be one of them. He’s a former FBI Special Agent turned a private investigator, and he’s known as the “go-to” guy when it comes to difficult, complex, or even the most impossible cases.
About an hour ago, I was tagging along with him at the crime scene he was summoned to.
I was standing in front of a tennis court located at the dead end of a public park in Arlington. A chain-link fence surrounded the tennis court from all quarters like an animal cage. Perhaps the purpose of setting up the cage was to spare players the trouble of fetching home run balls.
Not that I was sure if using ‘home run’ as tennis terminology was appropriate. Speaking of home runs, according to the people gathering around this caged tennis court, the fence did little to prevent balls from flying far away, as it consisted of four sides with the height of approximately fifteen feet.
Anyway, this public park came with grounds big enough to accommodate a baseball game, and this caged tennis court was located in the east corner. One of the four sides of this cage had a door on one of the shorter sides. It shut and secured with a cylinder lock.
The most striking part of this installment was that this tennis court came with a fiftyish guy lying in the middle of one side, across the center service line. He was on the artificial turf. What made him appear more striking was that he wasn’t a drunken idiot who decided to fall asleep in an outside tennis court in the middle of a still-chilly, early spring night. I felt a little bit sorry for him. For one thing, a huge military knife was sticking out of his chubby stomach, looking totally painful.
Maybe painful was an understatement. Even from a distance, I could see he was dead. He was lying very still, as still as a heap of frozen tuna fish.
In addition, he was Thomas Weitzman, a.k.a. the Sushi Czar, the beloved owner of a large chain restaurant called Fish Republic. Actually, Fish Republic was one of the biggest restaurant chains in the DC area, and he had been using his own face as the Sushi Czar for marketing purposes, including the flyers and billboards. Nobody dared to dig in deep for the reason why this “republic” was represented by a czar, or why a German-Russian American with no Japanese heritage represented himself as the Sushi Czar. These were sensitive and untouchable topics.
After building a successful sushi empire with his signature Republic Cakes—sushi shaped like a cake, containing peanut butter, crispy bacon, raw tuna, and pineapple topped with chocolate sauce—he acquired more and more wealth through M&A, stock trading, options trading, and real estate trading. People used to call him the perfect game of Arlington, for he was known as the guy who never had a loss. Recently, he’d declared he was running for the upcoming Senate election, which was rumored to be his first potential loss since self-publishing his biography.
Weitzman was wearing a black sweat shirt and a pair of black sweat pants—perhaps he was in the middle of jogging—so he didn’t look all that bloody, but as I studied the scene carefully, I realized the artificial green turf around him looked a shade or two darker than the rest of the green. I caught the forensics guys saying something like “huge loss of blood” as the cause of death and estimating time of death to be around 10:30 PM.
“When I was taking a morning walk around the park, I noticed someone was lying on the ground,” said the guy who first reported the incidence. He introduced himself as a retired civil engineer residing in the neighborhood, and a walk in the park was his daily chore.
He continued. “At first, I thought someone had too much beer and blacked out in the middle of the tennis court. I tried to go inside, but the door was locked, so I tried yelling at the fella. Of course, he didn’t respond or react to my voice. That’s when I noticed the knife sticking out of his gut. That was about 7:30 this morning.”
“Thank you,” Richard Henderson, FBI Supervisory Special Agent, said.
Henderson was in his forties. Dark suits, Ivy League haircut, and his signature scowl were his default style. He used to be Archangel’s superior at the FBI, but he’d become one of the PI’s regular clients.
Henderson continued. “According to his wife, Weitzman went out at about 10:00 PM. In the last couple of months, he had taken to jogging as his nightly routine.”
“Uh-huh.” Archangel nodded. “I’ve been telling you that jogging is hazardous for your health.”
Shrugging off the PI’s remark, Henderson continued. “After Weitzman left, the wife went to bed. She says she fell asleep shortly after the hubby left, and didn’t wake up until the police came to notify her about his death. And it was only then she realized her spouse didn’t return home last night.”
“Okay.” Archangel crossed his arms. “By the way, the Sushi Czar’s running for the coming Senate election. That’s why you’re involved with this case, right?”
“I suppose so,” Henderson agreed. “In addition, we’re dealing with a death in a locked room. When Weitzman was found dead, the cage door was locked from inside.”
“A locked room? Seriously?” Uncrossing his arms, Archangel glanced at the caged tennis court. “Look at the roof, or the lack thereof. I’d rather call it a halfway-locked room. The fence cage is only about fifteen feet in height. It’s easy to climb up the cage.”
“Archangel, why don’t we spare the discussion for later, such as after cracking this case?” Henderson furrowed his bushy eyebrows.
“Don’t worry, I’m almost there,” Archangel said nonchalantly.
“What? Who killed him? How did the killer make the locked room?” Henderson peppered the PI with questions.
But instead of answering them, Archangel wiggled the index finger of his right hand, which sported silver lamé glitter on top of fire engine red nail polish. “One more piece. I need one more piece for confirmation.”
“What do you need?” Henderson asked, frowning.
“Some supporting evidence.” Archangel shrugged. As he did that, his long auburn hair in a loose ponytail danced and shined, reflecting the sun. “Tell the guys processing the scene to look for something like pantyhose, granny panties, or a ski mask near the tennis court.”
“Okay. You’ve got it.” Henderson nodded.
Then Archangel turned to me. “Kelly.”
“Yes?” I said, expectantly. As a personal assistant to a PI, I was keen on participating with investigations.
“Go into the forest and look for the items I’ve previously mentioned,” he said, pointing at the deep forest spreading over the far side of the tennis court.
“Why? I’m not with the forensics,” I said, puzzled.
“I know. Don’t waste your time pointing out the obvious.” He snorted. “I’m sending you there because you’re the only woman here. Think of pantyhose and granny panties. They are feminine goods. Generally speaking, women know more about women’s stuffs. That’s where you come handy.”
“But if I recall it right, the forest is not safe,” I protested. “It’s been just hours after the latest victim was assaulted last night.”
According to the news, it turned out that the woman was attacked, but she had escaped before she got raped. Howeve
r, it must have been a horrible experience for her. She was obviously in shock. During our ride to the park, the local news talk show on the radio was all about this topic, saying she had developed agnosia, the loss of words. I could imagine how traumatic it was that she had to run from the creep until she literally dropped.
Still, according to some specialist who was guest-appearing in the show, this poor girl was considered lucky. At about 2:00 AM, she was discovered by the homeowner’s son who was about to go for a midnight snack run. She might have died of hypothermia if she were left until morning. Everyone was praying for her fast recovery.
Anyway, my employer wasn’t taking my safety seriously.
Following my objections, he said, “Ha. That’s merely a shrub, not a forest. And if I recall it right,” he continued, mimicking the way I commented, “you’re the one who said ‘Excuse me, but cooking omelets and killer pancakes aren’t my only skills, you know. I can do more investigative things. I can be a female version of Archie Goodwin.’ Isn’t that right? Oh, did I mention no one’s going to rape you?”
“Excuse me? How could you say no one will rape me? What’s the reason for that?” I shot back.
“Oh, I have a ton of reasons for that.” Flashing his perfect set of pearly whites, he said, “For starter, even the most evil rapist has the right to choose. Considering you can be such a pain in the ass, even Hannibal Lecter would think twice about assaulting you if you kept peppering him with questions as he tried to have his way with you.”
“Thank you very much for the reassurance. By the way, isn’t it a better idea if you went into that forest and looked for whatever you’re seeking? You’re the expert of these items, aren’t you? Not to mention, you’re by far more familiar with women’s undergarments than me,” I pointed out. “I bet you have way more sexier undergarments than I’d ever seen in my entire life.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m looking for unsexy women’s undergarments, not sexy ones. And you’re the one who’s more familiar with unsexy underwear.” He dismissed my suggestion immediately. “In addition, generally speaking, forests tend to come with rough and uneven surface, and I don’t want to risk twisting my ankle. On the contrary, you’re wearing low-heeled wedges that are perfect for a walk in the wilderness.”
