The Note (Unsolved Mysteries Book 1)

by Kim Knight

  The Note

  Unsolved Mysteries Series

  Kim Knight

  Also by Kim Knight

  Unsolved Mysteries Series

  The Note

  The Red Light Girls

  ’Til Death Do Us Part

  Standalone Books by Kim

  Sacrifices

  Blurb

  Everyone has a motive for murder when there's money on the table. But whose story is more plausible?

  In seventy-two hours, Detectives Idris Dunne and Josh McDonald close in on an unsolved murder case with the help of mysterious notes.

  One of London’s wealthy entrepreneurs was diagnosed with cancer, and became estranged from his wife of thirty years Manisha. Unknown to her, his mistress Chelsea Jackson was slowly sinking her claws into her husband. But that’s not all his mistress was up to. Unexpectedly Tony’s mutilated body is found dumped in a park. Everyone has a motive especially when money is on the table, and his wife Manisha, and their adult children were cut out of his will and replaced by his mistress Chelsea.

  Was this an act of kindness from Tony, toward his carer and mistress? Or was there foul play and pressure to change his will by Chelsea? What about his murderer? The case was left unsolved, with lack of evidence.

  Mystery notes are sent by an anonymous tip off, Detective Dunne and McDonald re-investigate and piece together the mystery surrounding the entrepreneur’s death, and what led him to change his Last Will in Testament. The question is, from all suspects whose story is more plausible?

  THE NOTE

  UNSOLVED MYSTERIES SERIES

  COPYRIGHT©2021

  KIM KNIGHT

  Cover Design by Wren Taylor

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Published in the United States of America by:

  DLG Publishing Partners

  San Antonio, TX 78217

  www.DLGPublishingPartners.com

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Author’s Dedication

  For Viv, my supportive, strong, and beautiful mum. Thanks for being mum and dad to me. You always told me to keep going with writing and believed in me, by the time this goes to print you may have crossed over already. I love you. And as promised, I won't stop writing for you—I will continue, always. Thank you for supporting me.

  And to all readers who love a good mystery with a touch of diversity, enjoy every story and buckle up.

  Author Acknowledgement

  What can I say? I was inspired by personal real-life experience and reality! Everything that happens in life, can make a great story whether good or bad. —Kim Knight

  Contents

  1. Sleeping Dogs, Wake

  2. Money Talks

  3. What’s Done In The Dark

  4. De ja Vu

  5. One Step Ahead

  6. I Spy

  7. I.O.U’s

  8. The Loving Wife

  9. Doubt Sets In

  10. Gut Feelings

  11. Two Sides to Every Coin

  12. Role Play

  13. Blood Money

  14. Confessions

  15. Back Tracking

  16. Old Tricks

  17. No Fury Like a Woman Scorned

  18. How Did You Get Here?

  19. He Said. She Said.

  20. The Eyes Don’t Lie

  21. Bitter Feelings

  22. Tables Turn

  23. Process of Elimination

  24. Theories

  25. The Alibi

  26. Off The Hook

  27. Conspiracy Theories

  28. Crunch Time

  29. Break Through

  30. The Widow

  31. Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

  32. The Note

  33. Just Dessert

  A Note for the Author

  Sneak Peek of The Red Light Girls

  1. Damsel in Distress

  2. One Woman Down

  About the Author

  1

  Sleeping Dogs, Wake

  Detective Dunne

  Early Monday morning, Detective Idris Dunne ran a hand over his stubble, adjusted his chair, and watched the computer screen in anticipation. After several seconds, he paused the homemade video tape. He glanced at the plain brown envelope it had come in—left in his mail slot overnight.

  He grinned, then shook his head.

  Snatching up the phone, he hit redial, then waited impatiently for an answer.

  “Yeah,” his partner’s voice boomed down the line.

  “McDonald, you need to get in here and take a look at this.” Dunne moved his eyes back over to the screen.

  “What’s up? Sounds serious.”

  “It is. That case we thought was closed—looks like there’s more to it.” Dunne leaned forward in his chair and narrowed his eyes at the screen. He noted the date stamp on the video.

  “Which one?”

  “The old guy with the stab wounds, missing both eyes, he was found on the common. He left all his money to the young girl. You must remember?”

  A beat of silence fell over the line. “Ah, yeah, how could I ever forget.” McDonald chuckled. “The whole family contested the hell out of his will, that’s him, right?”

  “That’s the one. Get in here, something’s come up.”

  Dunne dropped the phone on the receiver, then sat upright in his chair. He glanced at his Rolex. The dial showed 9.30 a.m., and he had work to do.

  “This is some bullshit.” He rubbed his tired, bloodshot eyes. “Already, this day smells and feels like some shit’s heading my way.”

  He glanced around his office, crammed with filing cabinets, paperwork, endless coffee mugs, and boxes of energy snack cereal bars.

  With gloved hands, he picked up the brown envelope, slid out a piece of paper from inside, then sat back in his chair. He frowned, cursed again, and raised his eyes to the ceiling in disbelief. Glancing back at the note on his desk, he took in the carefully placed letter cuttings from a newspaper. The new evidence brought more questions to mind than it answered.

  A quick inspection of the envelope didn’t shine any new information on the case—no return address, no time or location to indicate where it was sent from stamp, nothing. And if he were a gambling man, he’d bet a year’s salary, he wouldn’t find prints, either.

  Dunne scoffed, dropped the note on his desk, then removed his gloves. As one of London Metropolitan Police’s top detectives, he had his fair share of hate mail. But this was different.

  “Damn. We closed this case,” he protested to no one in particular, “it was a family feud, bitterness over a dead man’s last Will in Testament.”

  Rising, he got up from behind his desk and made his way over to the windo
w in his office that overlooked the financial heart of London. Outside, the grey sky was about to cave in and give way to a downpour. The morning’s hustle and bustle played out below him.

  City workers moved back and forth across his vision, scurrying around on the street below.

  A quick glance behind him, and his gaze locked on the note. He contemplated the firm push the note had given him to check out the case again. With his back to the view of London, he faced the filing cabinet filled with cases he thought he had closed.

  “What did I miss?”

  He questioned, as if in doubt over his own investigative skills, which pissed him off even more.

  Nah, I don’t miss a beat, never, been doin’ this too long, he mused. But this ain’t right.

  He made his way over to the cabinet and thumbed through the dusty, thick, paper files. Once he found what he was looking for, he shook his head, dug out the bulky envelope, and then approached his desk, dropping it on the surface.

  His fingers latched onto the fabric covering his thighs, and he hitched the legs of his smart trousers up, then took a seat.

  “The wife”—he sighed—“always suspect number one.”

  He pulled out the transcripts of the interviews he and McDonald had carried out with Manisha Patel, the dead man’s estranged wife. His eyes roamed over dates, times, locations, and her alibi for the twenty-four hours before Tony Patel was found dead.

  “Airtight.” He tapped the page that confirmed her alibi that night. “It checked out.”

  Hands clasped in a prayer position, he inhaled deeply. After a beat, he picked up the remote control, then rewound the tape to the start.

  The door creaked open, and McDonald entered, closing the door behind him.

  “Where’s the fire?”

  McDonald’s six-foot-two frame leaned against the door, arms folded across his muscular chest.

  Without a word, Dunne nodded to the chair next to his desk.

  McDonald strode over to the worn, leather chair, then sat.

  Speechless, Dunne slid on his gloves, then held up the note to his partner.

  Without touching it, McDonald’s eyes trailed back and forth, reading the contents of the page. The corners of his lips curled, and his ice blue eyes met Dunne’s gaze.

  “What’s this?” McDonald’s cocked eyebrow protruded in Dunne’s direction.

  Dunne shook his head, he hit play, and then let the video speak for itself.

  On screen, were a couple sat in a car, sharing an intimate moment—fogging the windows with the increased heat of their combined bodies. To an outsider, it appeared as if they were doing no harm.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” McDonald’s voice boomed around the small office. “She was having an affair?”

  He watched the video recording eagle-eyed. The girlfriend, and heir to a substantial estate, romped around in the back of a car with an unknown man.

  “Yep, looks like it. Maybe the family were right after all,” Dunne dryly responded, then pulled off his gloves and paused the tape.

  “What was her name?”

  “Chelsea Jackson,” replied Dunne.

  “That’s right.” McDonald leaned his head to one side. “Is this really enough to open up a can of worms?”

  He had worked with Dunne long enough to read his mind—or damn near close. He knew where his partner was headed with this line of talk already.

  “Think about it, this could’ve been after he died.”

  Dunne shook his head. “Nope, look at the date stamp on the video.”

  McDonald narrowed his eyes at the screen and let out a low whistle. “The same month his body turned up.”

  “Bingo, exactly. I checked over the records. It was three days before to be exact.”

  “Jesus.” McDonald ran a hand over his face. “We got bigger fish to fry right now.”

  “Tell me about it. But it’s worth looking into.” Dunne tapped the paused screen, “Someone went out of their way to get this tape and note to me.”

  McDonald met Dunne’s eyes and locked gazes with him. “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly that,” Dunne snorted. “I walked in this morning, and Shelly told me it was in my mailbox with the rest of the incoming mail. Someone mailed it.”

  “Hmm, whoever it was doesn’t want you to know who they are.”

  McDonald reached inside a desk drawer, extracted a pair of gloves, then picked up the note. He looked over it in silence, then placed it together with the envelope.

  “Right. That’s what I figured too.”

  Dunne sighed, then dragged a hand through his beard. He got up and went over to the coffee machine, that looked like a museum relic, in the corner of the room.

  “This damn thing needs replacing.” He fiddled around with the buttons.

  The machine hiccupped to life and started to warm the liquid inside.

  “First thing’s first,” he called over his shoulder, “the guy, what was his name . . . Patel, Tony Patel?”

  “That’s it, yeah.”

  “Eyes gauged out, stab wounds to the face, neck, and chest, dumped on the common, no weapons found, no suspects nailed, nothing—a complete dead end.”

  He recalled the images of the case, reassigning them to current memory.

  From the middle shelf of the cabinet, he pulled out two mugs with deep coffee stains ingrained in the ceramic. No matter how much he scrubbed them, they never disappeared.

  Dunne pinched his face up. Ignoring the rings, he poured the hot, dark liquid into the cups.

  “Right, exactly. It’s been months, so why now? That’s what I don’t understand.” McDonald turned his attention to the paused video. “Why has this person taken so long to hand this evidence over?”

  Dunne slowly placed the coffee mug on the corner of the counter, glanced over his shoulder at McDonald and the note on his desk.

  “That’s what we need to find out.” He focused on the second empty mug, void of the bitter-tasting, department cheap coffee he had grown to appreciate.

  Glancing at the half empty container in the cabinet, containing the emergency supply he used only when he ran out of his own special blend, he let out a heavy sigh. It would have to do for now.

  McDonald got to his feet and picked up the mystery note. “All right, let’s pay a visit to his girlfriend, that’s if she’s not skipped the country by now.”

  Dunne chuckled. “Hmmm, could you blame her? I’d swap London’s pollution for a beach any day.”

  “Yeah, right.” McDonald let out a deep laugh. “You’re chained to the shackles of this place just like me. You love it. Don’t lie.”

  Dunne joined in with his partner’s laughter. “Whatever, man.”

  2

  Money Talks

  Lance

  Lance glanced from under the bonnet of the old Ford he was working on. Through the engine’s smoke fumes, he noticed a shadow and sighed. “What now?”

  He moved from under the hood of the car, turned around, and reached for the dirty rag on the ground, then wiped his grease-stained hands.

  “Lance, it’s been a while,” a scratchy voice, with tell-tale signs it belonged to a heavy smoker, crept up from behind. “Where ya been hidin’?”

  Lance rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth.

  “All right, John, yeah . . . I’ve just, well, been a bit busy, that’s all.”

  He lied and wrapped the dirty rag around his fingers. His anxiety shot through the smoke-stained tin roof of the crammed garage he owned.

  John let out a low whistle and took slow steps towards him from the entrance of the garage.

  Lance eyed him with suspicion. A visit from the local loan shark always brought trouble along for the ride.

  “Busy?” John walked around the side of the car, so he was toe-to-toe with Lance.

  Of similar height, John looked him dead in the eye, then lowered his voice. “You must have my money then, aye?”

  Lance stepped back and tripped over the to
olbox on the floor. The screwdrivers flew out the box and scattered along the grease-spotted floor.

  “Well . . . I, no. John, not yet just give—”

  “No more time, Lance, the clock is ticking, son.” John tapped his Rolex. “Like I said last week, I ain’t gonna wait patiently for that money to be returned to me. You’re lucky you’re still alive.”

  He spat food from between his teeth, then swept his hands around the garage. “And this here . . . your business—if that’s what you wanna call it—if ya wanna see it still standin’ an’ not burned to the fuckin’ ground, you’ll get that money to me quick.”

  “John, please I—”

  “No, Lance, we had a fuckin’ deal, son.”

  John held out his hand as if ticking off a list, “I lent you the money you needed to get yourself out of the shit,” he ticked off one of his stumpy nicotine-stained fingers, “and you repay me.”

  John ticked of his second finger, then raised it toward Lance, “if you can’t keep your side of the deal, we all know where you’ll end up, got it?”

  “Yeah, yeah, chill out, John. I’ll make a payment as soon as I can. Promise.”

  “You fuckin’ better, or else.”