A New Mystery to Solve!
Is this your next read?
Good news for Aubrey Greigh Mystery fans:
Rogue’s Gallery—is now available!
By the way, authors live and die by reviews. So, if you read any of my books, please consider leaving a line or three of what you thought, and don’t forget to give it a star rating (preferably 5 stars!).
I’m celebrating! This is my third book this year. I should say “our” third book. I wrote two of those books (Sam Travis Adventures) with my writing partner, Tom Kasprzak. Plus, you can get Lethal Game as an audiobook (more to come). Still, three books in one year is a personal best. What’s amazing is that they just get better and better (so my pre-publication readers tell me).
Below, I offer you a sample of Rogue’s Gallery: Beyond All Reason. This scene takes place more than a few years in the future in a high-security apartment inside Chicago’s near southwest loop—the scene of a heinous murder:
Detective Chance McQuillan—Q—once more questioned the wisdom of asking her captain for the lead in this case. Was it because of her pathological hatred of anything that smelled like that fake paranormal shit? When she was twelve, a carnival fortune teller scared her so badly, she still remembered that awful feeling. She was an emotional dumpster fire back then looking for… well, she had no idea what she was looking for. Who does, at that age? But that… gypsy, that… man! It was like he made love to his beliefs and tried his damned level-best to seduce her to do so, too. That total creep show had stained her. Forever. And her own bastard of a father dismissed it all. Q hated gypsies and carnies, and knew that to be irrational. That’s where she thought all paranormal shit came from. Only when they’re around. And now this bullshit. It was all crap, anyway.
* * *
Halfway through his second shift the night before, Jerry Hannafin had received an S.O.S. signal from Ms. Schift in 2613. Mac, Q’s partner, kept his mouth shut. She now grilled this oaf at Wolf Point East’s combination front desk and security station. This rent-a-cop desk clerk seemed nice enough, even capable. But he showed obvious signs of discomfort around real cops. Not too surprising. She stared at the summary of this hump’s record on her WristPad. Nothing major. Still, it surprised her they even let this guy carry a weapon. But Wolf Point’s ‘brand’ was security and discretion. They talked as he led the way to the scene on twenty-six.
“All I got, detective. I got the automated call at 10:16 PM. When Ms. Schift mashes that button on her remote, her system also calls you guys. I got up there fast as I could. Pounded and pounded on her door, see. But she don’t answer. And my master electronic key don’t work, either. I get real worried. Then I get a call from Mr. Leibowitz in 2720. Says he heard what sounded like a gunshot. Now, I’m real worried. So I calls the fire department thinkin’… well, I dunno. Ain’t no kickin’ down that door.” He nodded off to his left.
Q looked him up and down as they stood in the wide hallway outside of Jolina Schift’s apartment. The door was now damaged beyond repair. “Mr. Hannafin, is it unusual for you not to have master key access to apartments in the building?” They entered the apartment as they talked.
“Supposed to work. It’s in the H.O.A. bylaws, see. For situations just like this, ya know? Ms. Schift, she was a real piece a work. Din’t trust nobody. Who’s got three honest-ta-God deadbolts? And the C.F.D. guys find this.” He nodded toward blood pools, spray, and spatters extending from one side of the kitchen to the other, ending with the outline of a corpse near a black luncheon bar. The M.E. had long-since removed the body. A bright yellow numbered card labeled ‘bloody weapon: knife’ lay near the white outline. Jerry muttered, “Hey, I’m not in trouble here, am I?”
Q sauntered from room to room. Stopped in the master bedroom and Mac followed. Tapped her on the shoulder while reading the crime scene report, and pointed at the twelve-foot ceiling. Neither Mac nor Q had spotted a single bullet hole at the joint between the ceiling and fancy crown molding. But the Crime Scene Mapper—the C.S.M. device—had spotted it.
“Does she ever have visitors?”
Jerry said, “Hey, dunno, ‘kay? We monitor the lobby and the desk. Nobody what don’t have no pass key gets in. And nobody gets by me what I don’t recognize ‘em, see? They come to visit somebody in the building, I call up and get the high sign or send ‘em packin’, ‘kay? Nobody ever come to see Ms. Schift. At least so’s I know. Not on my shifts, anyways. And I’m here six nights a week.”
“You got a record, Jerry?”
“Look, I din’t do nothin’ wrong here. Are we done?”
“Yes, sir. For now. We appreciate your time.”
* * *
Mac continued to study the crime scene team’s analysis on his WristPad with Q looking on. He scratched his head and said, “The report says no prints or D.N.A. other than the victim’s. No echoes of any other presence detected by the C.S.M. for the six hours prior, either. But from footprint trace energy, it appeared she first went from room to room. Like she was searching. And then she scrambled on her hands and knees from the bedroom to the kitchen after firing a single shot, but she left her pistol in the bedroom. The bloody knife near the body?” He nodded toward the empty slot in the knife block on the counter. “Looks like she grabbed a big-ass knife, from the width of the slot it came from, and defended herself. Then, she cuts out her own tongue with that same knife? What the fuck, Q?”
That was the C.S.M. device’s analysis during the six-hour window preceding the time the crime scene team deployed their machine. Its sensors picked up and recorded any presence or motion anywhere in or around the scene, including D.N.A., fingerprints and footprint motion tracers with timestamps. The C.S.M.’s technology still baffled Q, but it was reliable. She said, “And the report also pinpoints time of death at 10:30 PM, plus or minus five. So Ms. Schift was the only person in her entire apartment during that time. Fires a shot in desperation at her bedroom ceiling, apparently at some invisible presence before fleeing to the kitchen?”
Mac squinted his eyes and looked at Q slantwise while they strolled through the sumptuous living room. He expected to get his nose tweaked for his next words. “At least she was the only human presence in this well-fortified kill box.”
“Oh, not you too, Mac.” She hated that kind of trash talk. Brought back those ugly childhood memories.
“Hey, just sayin’. What now?” She smirked. He muttered, “A seance?” He ducked away from her. Didn’t want to get slugged.
Q snorted. “Yeah, let’s go report that plan to the captain. Guess we call this a suicide, time being, ’til we get some more evidence. Gotta be about the evidence.”
“I don’t believe she didn’t have help, either, Q. For now, the answer is beyond any reasonable explanation we got in hand.”
“We’re done here. You know the drill, Mac: background, known associates, personal habits, vices, enemies…. Head back to the nine-nine and dig in. Gotta be something. Let’s start by connecting the Rune case to this one. Too frickin’ similar to be a any kind of coincidence. Suicide victims cutting out their own tongues is odd enough. But when two do that within three days of each other? And with no rational explanation?”
Mac registered a surprised expression. “Where are you headed?”
“I need to run an errand.” Q was conflicted. One person who had researched and debunked at least some of this paranormal shit was the eccentric man she shared a bed with. Another perplexing case almost eight years ago involved voodoo, and Greigh’s research was fundamental in solving that case. Smelled a lot like this one. Now, as much as she hated to admit it, she shared Mac’s frustration. They were no closer to solving this mystery than before this second body had dropped. Yeah, she’d ask Greigh’s opinion on this clusterfuck. Her husband always had an opinion. He called them theories or hypotheses. Opinions. Plus, she worried about her objectivity anywhere near this paranormal crap. But first, she’d talked to an old friend who had also helped out on that damn voodoo case.
Check out Rogue’s Gallery: Beyond All Reason, especially if you’re already an Aubrey Greigh and Chance McQuillan fan!
So, until later, and wherever…
Gene
