Star Spangled Killer Read online

  “And for the record…” Ringo’s voice stopped him at the door. “My food is real… life’s an illusion,” he grinned.

  At the moment, Spencer Bengal had no sense of humor, so he continued out into the hallway.

  ***

  “What are we working on?” Spencer heaved himself into one of the tasteful leather club chairs across the desk from Chas.

  Chas had recently left the Calgon PD’s homicide division to open his own private investigation service; however, because the small town wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity, the local police chief had turned over several boxes of cold cases for the two of them to work on. Although Chas charged clients who came in to solicit his services, he volunteered to look into the cold cases, so that the families of victims would have closure.

  “Nothing new at the moment, so we can hit those cold cases pretty hard.”

  “Gotcha,” Spencer stared into space, distracted.

  “You okay?” his boss asked, frowning.

  “Yeah,” was the unconvincing response. “Izzy is gone.”

  “Gone? What do you mean, gone?” Chas leaned forward.

  “I’ve been texting and calling, and she doesn’t answer. I went over to her house at lunch and she and Herc were both gone. It’s really weird of her just to take off, with no explanation,” he shook his head, baffled.

  “Is it?” Chas asked quietly.

  Spencer looked at him, puzzled.

  “She’s done similar things before, hasn’t she?” the PI probed.

  “Well, yeah, kind of… but at least when she did it before, I knew why. We had talked about it. This time I have no idea. Things have been going great. We recently started dating again, and it’s been really fun.”

  “Did you look into this at all?” Chas asked.

  “Yeah, I told Ringo to do a transportation search. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Yeah, it’s fine, otherwise we’d be paying him to sit in there and eat pizza all day.”

  “And doughnuts,” Spencer agreed, one corner of his mouth quirking up in a ghost of a smile.

  ***

  When Spencer Bengal left Chas’s office, he had to clear his head, or he’d be staring blankly at the police files, accomplishing nothing. He wandered out into the foyer and waiting room area of the office suite, where the new receptionist, Holly Meadows, was busily tapping at the computer.

  “Hey Spence, how’s your day going?” she asked brightly, her headset for the telephone only making her look even more efficient and adorable.

  He shook his head. “I can’t seem to get it together today. I need to clear my head. Maybe I’ll go down to the coffee shop on the corner,” he shrugged.

  “But… you don’t drink coffee,” Holly frowned, never having seen the young PI like this.

  “See? That’s what I mean. Oh well, the walk will do me good,” Spencer sighed.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” she offered, concerned.

  “Nah, I’ll be okay. Just shoot me a text if I’m needed back here right away,” he instructed, heading for the door.

  “Hey! Can I uh… ask you something?” Holly stopped him on his way to the door, a slow red blush creeping up her fair cheeks.

  “Of course,” Spencer turned around, his hand on the knob.

  “You aren’t like… feeling weird because we went to sushi last night, are you?” Holly asked, her words all coming out in an embarrassed rush.

  “Definitely not,” he gave her a reassuring smile. “It was great hanging out. No weirdness at all.”

  “Oh good,” she let out a relieved breath. “I’m so glad that whatever is going on with you isn’t my fault,” she giggled nervously.

  “Not at all. It’s always nice to get to know someone new. See ya in a few,” he lifted his hand in a friendly wave and exited.

  She stared after him, putting cool, moist palms against her cheeks and feeling the heat there.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  Angel Tucker smiled with satisfaction. The inhabitants of the Refuge had loved Missy’s cupcakes, and now that word had gotten out about them, more and more folks lined up at the door to get a meal and eat the first dessert that many of them had had in a very long time. So many of the homeless needed various kinds of help; medical attention, mental health assistance, basic hygiene needs, etc.… but they refused to come to the shelter. Once they signed in, they could be redirected to resources, and have a hot meal and a place to sleep. The mission of the Refuge was to help those who couldn’t help themselves, and now people were coming in in droves.

  “Angel!” Maria Rossman, the Center Director, barked from across the room, intruding into the woman’s thoughts. “Ricky Thompson is still asleep. It’s well past time to wash linens and put the cots away. Can you go get him up and out the door so that we can actually get something accomplished today?” the frazzle-haired woman complained.

  “Sure, yeah. I’ll go wake him up,” Angel agreed.

  She approached the sleeping fifty-year-old, making sure that her shoes made sounds on the cement floor as she walked. Many of the homeless were accustomed to sleeping out in the rough streets, and would awaken in a manner that was dangerous for the person who dared wake them. She kept her distance, both for her safety, in case he woke up fighting, as the men often did, and to preserve her sense of smell. As Ricky was one of the men who refused to go to the communal showers, his odor emanated from him like a sickly green cloud.

  “Ricky… time to get up,” she called out, making her voice firm. Ricky didn’t like to be told what to do, and could be belligerent when challenged.

  “Ricky, it’s time to go,” she tried again, louder this time. Still no response.

  She grabbed a yardstick from a nearby storage closet, and approached the sleeping homeless man again.

  “Ricky, c’mon now, it’s time to get up,” she ordered, prodding at him with the stick.

  Edging a little closer, she took a small sniff, wondering if perhaps he’d managed to sneak a flask into the shelter and was currently passed out from drinking. While he smelled far worse than usual, she didn’t detect a whiff of alcohol in with all the congealed filth.

  Backing off again, she sighed and poked him with the stick, hard, in the ribs. That should’ve woken the dead, but Ricky didn’t move, and Angel had a horrible thought. What if Ricky had died in his sleep? Maybe he wasn’t just ignoring her. Maybe he was dead.

  “Mariaaa!” she called out, alarmed.

  When the director came out of her office, she did not look happy.

  “Really, Tucker? I gave you one task,” she grumbled, her brow furrowed in an angry frown. “What’s his problem now? Is he faking sick again?” Maria stood, hands on hips, staring at the unmoving homeless man.

  “I think he may be dead,” Angel whispered, backing away a bit.

  “Oh don’t be ridiculous,” the director made a face. “We can’t be that lucky,” she joked, heading to Ricky’s bedside.

  “Alright, Richard. Get your lazy bones up now, or we’ll take you off the roster for dinner. Don’t think I won’t,” the strapping woman bellowed, standing about twelve inches away from the bed.

  “Holy cow, do you think he could smell any worse?” she turned to Angel and waved a hand in front of her face.

  Angel just continued to stare at the man, mute.

  “Okay, if you’re gonna play it like that, I’m gonna have to remove you myself,” Maria hitched up her pants and took off her hoodie. “Well come on, little Miss Thing. This is going to take more than just my two hands.”

  Angel was rooted to the spot.

  “Get over here. You can take his feet and I’ll grab the dangerous end,” Maria pointed to a spot by the bed and made a face.

  Angel walked over to the spot and stood with her arms crossed. Maria flung Ricky’s feet off the bed, and the rest of him just tumbled right after them. He landed with a dull thud and a loud expulsion of gas. When the homeless man still didn’t move, real
ization finally struck Maria.

  With an exasperated sigh, the director shook her head. “Great, looks like we’ve got a stiff. I hate the paperwork on this stuff.”

  Angel stood staring at the man on the floor, not saying a word. Maria had to snap her fingers in front of the woman’s face to get her attention.

  “I’m sorry… what?”

  “I said, call Feldman’s Funeral Home rather than Memorial Mortuary. Their paperwork is much less comprehensive. Get ’em over here ASAP. We can’t serve dinner tonight with a body on the floor,” Maria shook her head in disgust and wandered back to her office, coming out later with a spray bottle of disinfecting air freshener.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  “I know you don’t like public appearances, but when you run for public office, it comes with the job,” Mayor Archibald Greenbaum insisted, when his second in command, Vice Mayor Dallas Puxton III protested having to go on a “charitable endeavors” tour.

  “But you’re higher profile; it’ll have more impact if you go,” Dallas refused to back down.

  There were those around Calgon who swore that Dal Puxton had only run for office in order to influence the city council so that laws and ordinances would continue to favor his family’s multimillion-dollar businesses, but he swore up and down that he held the best interests of the people in his heart.

  “There is real work to be done here, Dal, and I’m the one whose signature goes on the dotted line. You have the time, and it’s in your job description, so you’re going to do it. You’re going to get out there and meet and greet the wonderful citizens of Calgon or you can step down and I’ll appoint someone who will,” Archie gave his vice mayor a pointed look over the top of his reading glasses.

  “Wow, that escalated quickly,” Dal’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Is that how you want to play this? Threats? I thought you were better than that, but whatever. I’ll go catch the plague by kissing babies and shaking hands and giving hugs,” Puxton grimaced.

  “There’s some aspirin in my secretary’s desk drawer. Just see that you replace whatever you use,” the mayor replied mildly, his interest captured by the report in front of him.

  Dal left the office in a huff and tapped his watch to call for a driver.

  ***

  Dallas Puxton was in a sour mood, and had a stomach to match. In one day, he’d managed to squeeze in visits to a local orphanage, the county nursing home, a homeless shelter, an afterschool program for junior high kids, and a rehabilitation center. He was exhausted and needed a shower. Every place he’d visited had been teeming with strange sights, smells, and food, and every single one of them had held a reception in his honor. He’d never had so much sticky, red, fake-fruit punch in his life, and it was currently rumbling in his stomach in a most alarming way.

  Dal managed to last until the ride back to the city offices was over, but once the nondescript sedan pulled up to the curve in front of the mayor’s office building, he flew from the car and headed straight for the manicured gardens out front, where he lost every nasty little germ-infested morsel of the awful food he’d been forced to eat. He waved off his driver when the kindly man came over to offer assistance, and eventually stood, wiping his mouth with a silk tie, then tossing the ruined accessory in the nearest trash can. He was dizzy when he stood up, but considering the forcefulness of the primitive event that he’d just endured, that was more than understandable. The driver stood uncertainly by the car.

  “Take me home,” Dallas muttered, practically tumbling into the back seat.

  ***

  Detective Art Solinsky hated it when crime happened after five o’clock. He’d accepted the homicide position in Calgon when golden-boy Chas Beckett had stepped down because he’d thought that the slow-paced beach town would be too ridiculously boring to have any real crime, and it upset him when that didn’t seem to be the case.

  No matter what time of day, Solinsky’s out-of-style suits were rumpled and hung askew on his somewhat squishy frame, so when he was summoned to Dallas Puxton’s lavish home at two o’clock in the morning, he didn’t look much different than he had that afternoon, except that his comb-over hung off to one side.

  “Great, a crying widow,” he muttered, when he saw an EMT consoling a woman who sat sobbing in a chair.

  The vice mayor had died in his sleep after a night of stomach flu, and given his enormous size and poor health to begin with, it wasn’t exactly a surprise, though he was only in his late fifties.

  “What do we got?” Solinsky demanded of the first uniformed cop that he encountered.

  “Deceased is a fifty-nine-year-old male, who…” the officer began, only to be rudely interrupted by the detective.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s the middle of the night, so cut to the chase. Do we know if it was natural causes? Is there any reason at all for me to be here?” Solinsky sighed, thinking of his nice warm bed, waiting at home.

  “Uh, no, actually,” the cop maintained his cool, his jaw muscles flexing. “Looks like natural causes, and the wife doesn’t want an autopsy. Coroner said he died around one-thirty. His wife woke up and realized he wasn’t moving, then called us.”

  “Good. Looks like you’ve got things under control, so I’m going home.”

  “Don’t you want to check out the scene… talk to the widow?” the officer was astonished.

  “Give her my condolences,” Solinsky smirked on the way out.

  CHAPTER SIX

  * * *

  Timothy Eckels, Calgon County Coroner and owner of Memorial Mortuary, was glad to have a body to process. Business had been slow, and while he would have preferred to have been tasked with performing an autopsy on the late Dallas Puxton, he’d have to settle for merely preparing the deceased for burial. Tim might have horn-rimmed glasses as thick as Coke bottles, but he’d known that something was wrong the moment that he and his spunky assistant Fiona had shown up to collect the body. The vice mayor’s wife didn’t want an autopsy done on her husband, because clearly the strain put on his heart, caused by the stomach flu, had killed him; she didn’t want his unhealthy habits broadcasted to all of Calgon.

  When the coroner tried to call into question the wisdom of the widow’s decision, based upon the appearance of the body, he was soundly rebuffed by Calgon’s newest homicide detective, Art Solinsky.

  Fiona McCamish held her tongue as long as she could, which was roughly three minutes after they left the Puxton residence with their cold passenger.

  “Okay, there’s something wrong with the body, right?” she demanded. “He didn’t die of a heart attack, did he?”

  Fiona had begged long and hard to work for the reclusive Timothy Eckels. The man was a genius in his field, and like her, death fascinated him. He firmly believed that each corpse had a story to tell. He’d hired her finally, with the condition that she remove multiple piercings, turn her mohawk into a more modest hair style that wouldn’t scare the customers, and transform her all-black wardrobe and goth makeup into something less off-putting to the general public. Echo had been Tim’s neighbor at the time, and she and Missy had taken Fiona under their wing for a makeover. The results were splendid and the duo had been working side by side ever since.

  “Your assumption is most likely correct. I don’t believe that Mr. Puxton died from a heart attack,” Tim admitted, lost in thought.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “What color is the skin of a heart attack victim typically?” he answered her question with a question, as he often did. He was introverted, but knew that his assistant wanted him to mentor her, so he usually obliged.

  “Pale, often with a bluish tinge,” she recited.

  “And what color was Mr. Puxton?”

  She pursed her lips and thought for a moment. “He seemed kind of… grey.”

  “But where did you see bluish coloring?”

  “In his lips and fingernails, but there are tons of ways to die that leave those blue,” Fiona frowned.

  �
��Precisely,” Tim made a face. “Which is why I wanted to conduct an autopsy.”

  “I’m not a huge fan of the new detective.”

  “Men like Art Solinsky are the reason why I keep meticulous notes of my findings when I prep bodies. Even if I’m not authorized to do a full autopsy, I still have to prepare the body for burial; if I happen to notice something that might become important after the fact, I make certain to write it down.”

  “You are a sneaky one,” Fiona grinned at her boss, who never ceased to surprise her. He had a reverence for his work that was unparalleled.

  “I am no such thing,” he retorted, not taking his eyes from the road. “I’m just meticulously observant. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  She poked him in the arm, knowing full well that he typically avoided all forms of human contact, with the living at least.

  “Geez, it was just a joke. Learn how to take a compliment,” she teased, knowing exactly what buttons to push.

  “A joke? Death is a…” he began, with his standard reply.

  “…very serious business,” Fiona finished the sentence, lowering her voice in an attempt to sound like her boss.

  He turned his head to the side, very briefly, to shoot his impudent assistant a scathing glance, then returned his gaze to the road with an exasperated sigh, as she chuckled beside him, pleased with herself.

  They were silent for a few minutes, Tim looking troubled.

  “Hey look,” Fiona began. “Don’t be mad, I was just having fun,” she said softly, wondering at why something so simple would upset him. She teased him all the time, it was their typical manner of interacting.

  “I’m not angry. I don’t get angry, generally,” he stared straight ahead, his mind seemingly miles away.

  “Then what’s up with you? You’re acting really weird… even for you,” one corner of her mouth turned up slightly, but her half-smile faded when he didn’t respond right away. He seemed to be thinking, and that sort of freaked her out.