Jon Michaelsen's Blog: Ramblings, Excerpts, WIPs, etc., page 16

Exclusive Excerpt: Edward Kendrick’s “The Elevator Murders”

Excerpt:

Tony debated going to the club that evening, then decided being with his friends, rather than staying home worrying about the murders, was the better option.
When he got there, and approached the table, Greg jumped to his feet to hug him.
“How are you holding up?” Greg asked as they sat.
“I’m still alive, which is what counts,” Tony replied, taking the bottle of beer Dan handed him. “You were that sure I’d be here?” he asked him.
“Yep. When trouble strikes, us four Musketeers always gather to deal with it.”
Tony took a drink, chuckling at his friend’s words. “Where are our floppy hats and swords?”
Greg snickered. “I know where my sword is.” He glanced down at his crotch.
“Bad one,” Pat said with a laugh. Then he asked Tony, “How are you doing?”
“I’m pretty shaken up. Like an older man I know who lives there pointed out, it’s guys my age who are being murdered. Okay, it’s only been two of them, but still…”

“Whoever heard of a serial killer confining himself to one building?”
“If that’s what’s happening,” Tony replied. “I keep telling myself it’s coincidence. The first time it could have been a robber who got caught in the act. This time, umm, a quarrel gone way bad?”
“And they were both killed, stabbed according to the news, in the elevator?” Pat said. “That’s kind of pushing the limits on coincidence, Tony.”
“Shush. You’re not helping things,” Dan told him, smacking his arm.
“He’s right,” Tony said. “As much as I hate admitting it, that is a stretch.”
Greg started to say something but paused, looking past Tony toward the bar. “Will you look at that?”
The others turned to see. Dan snorted. “Lover boy looks like he just came from work.”
Tony nodded. Kirk was dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt instead of his usual body-revealing jeans and T-shirt. He rolled his eyes, saying, “Maybe he’s turned over a new leaf.”
“This is Kirk we’re talking about. That is not happening,” Greg replied.
“Probably not,” Tony agreed. He should dress like that more often, though. It’s actually sexy without being blatant. Still… “A five says he picks someone up, even dressed like that, in…in twenty minutes, give or take.”
Greg laughed. “No bet.”
Tony finished his beer and offered to buy the next round, since Dan had bought his first beer for him. No one argued, so when he caught a waiter’s eye he held up the bottle and four fingers. When they came, he paid, accepting his friends’ thanks. They sat in silence for a minute, drinking, before Greg got up, heading to the edge of the dance floor. He said something to one of the men there and a moment later they were dancing.
“May I have the next dance?” Dan asked Pat, grinning. Pat nodded, so they took off as well.
Tony watched for a moment before his thoughts went back to the murders. He shivered, taking a long drink of his beer.
“Is this seat taken,” someone said from behind him. Without waiting for an answer, Kirk took Greg’s seat.
Tony scowled, trying to calm his racing pulse. “What do you want?”
“To say hello? To talk?” Kirk shrugged. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay,” Tony replied tightly.
“You didn’t look it, a moment ago. After they left you stopped smiling. The murders?”
“What do you think?”
“After seeing the story on the news, I think you should be terrified. Twice in a week, in your building, in the elevator? It sounds like someone’s got it in for people living there.”
“The young guys,” Tony replied without thinking.
“Like you.”
Tony shot him a look. “Is this your idea of how to cheer me up?”
“Yeah, that probably wasn’t the best thing to say, but it’s the truth. Right?”
Tony nodded. “It seems to be.”
“Do the cops have any suspects?”
“You watched the news, so you know they don’t.”
“That they’re talking about,” Kirk countered.
“Or that they’ve told me. But today was only the second one. They probably have to reevaluate things.”
“No shit.” Kirk took a sip of his drink then set the glass down. “Are they at least putting someone in there to protect everyone?”
“Again, not that they’ve told me,” Tony replied dryly.
“Well, they’d better.”
“Why do you…? Never mind. You’re being nosy, is all. Don’t you have something better to do than bother me?”
“No,” Kirk replied with a small smile. “Right now the only thing I want to do is make sure you’re really all right.”
“I am, so you’re free to go do what you usually do.” Tony pointed toward the bar where young men lined the stools.
“Not tonight.” Kirk took another drink. “Why were they home in the middle of the day?”
“You’re asking me?” When Kirk gave a short nod, Tony said, “Maybe they came home for lunch, or left work early, and caught a burglar in their apartments. The poor guy who was murdered today only worked a few blocks away, so that’s feasible.”
“Okay. That makes sense. But why kill them in the elevator?”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Think about it. You walk in on a burglary what would you do? Me? I’d make a run for it.” He paused, frowning. “Although, as slow as the elevator is…”
“Meaning?”
“It takes forever to get where it’s going, the door acts like it’s going to kill it to open, and its closing is just as bad, even when you push the Close Door button. Why didn’t they run for the stairs?”
“They didn’t get the chance? If it was a burglar, he’d have heard them at the door and hidden, or I would have, if it was me. Is it the kind of building where well-to-do people live?”
Tony snorted. “Not even. Half the tenants are elderly. The rest of us? I suspect they’re in the same boat I am. They’re there because the rent in reasonable and the heat is paid for, which is a bonus in the winter.”
“So, unless he was really stupid, a burglar wouldn’t hit it up. Right?”
“Not necessarily true. Everyone these days owns a computer or a laptop, and a TV. Maybe a gaming system, too. If he was desperate, and knew that all of us who are younger are working class, so we’re gone all day… Well, other than me, that is.”
“Why you?”
Tony shot him a hard look. “That’s right. You know nothing about me, which is the way I like it.”
“Come on, Tony.” Kirk sighed. “Give me a break. I’m trying to help out here. Do you work from home?”
“Yeah. I’m a writer.”
“Like books?”
“Ebooks, mainly. And magazine articles. And a couple of the ebooks went to print.”
“Interesting. So you’re home all day. Do you have decent security? If not, you should get something.”
Tony smiled sourly. “Let me guess. That’s what you do—install security systems.”
“No. I’m a marketing manager.”
Chuckling, Tony replied, “Marketing manager by day, roué by night.”
“I am not!” Kirk paused to take a drink, then smiled crookedly. “Okay, maybe—I suppose. I’m sort of giving my family the finger, though they don’t know it.”
“You are not going to tell me that, at your age, they still don’t know you’re gay.”
“I don’t have to. You just said it.”
“Wow. Why?”
“I’m their only kid and they have these high hopes for me. Use my looks.” Kirk grimaced. “Use them to make it big in the business world and then find the perfect wife and raise beautiful kids. That’s how I was brought up, and in spite of all their pushing for me to do that, I do love them in my own way.”
“So you don’t want to disappoint them. Honestly, that’s sad.”
“I know,” Kirk admitted, looking down at his half-empty glass. He started to pick it up, stopped, and shook his head. “I drink more than I should, screw every man who’ll let me, and I’m no happier than I would be if I sat at home watching TV or reading, or whatever.”
Tony was surprised to discover he felt sorry for Kirk. “So, do something about it.”
“It’s a bit late for that.”
“Why?” Tony looked long and hard at him. “You’re an adult. Act like one. They might be disappointed in you—”
“Might be? They’ll hate it. I’ll be destroying their dreams for me.”
“What about your own dreams? Do you want to go through life being something you hate? I mean, you do hate it, don’t you? Or am I misreading things?”
Kirk sighed. “I don’t particularly like the person I’ve become. I don’t like dating, and I use the term very loosely, the women my mother finds for me. The ones she thinks are excellent prospects. It’s a sham.”
“And you’re hurting those women, I suspect. They think you’re for real and that they have a chance, then you toss them aside…” Tony tapped Kirk’s arm to make certain he was paying attention. “Toss them aside the same way you do the guys you up pick up here.”
“I don’t sleep with the women,” Kirk protested.
“No kidding. But you make them think you might, or they wish you would. It’s the same difference. As far as the men go, you’re playing them because you’re afraid to commit. After all, if you did, your folks might find out.”
“You don’t believe in pulling your punches, do you?” Kirk said tightly.
“Not when it comes to someone…” Tony broke off what he was going to say, using the excuse that Dan and Pat were coming back to the table. “Let’s drop this.” He smiled at his friends, telling them, “We were talking about the murders. Kirk heard about the one today on the news and was being nosy.”
“Or trying to pick you up and using that as the excuse,” Dan said, his tone dripping with contempt.
“Not at all,” Kirk replied angrily, getting to his feet. “He’s not my type.” With that, he strode back to the bar.



‘Shared pain is lessened,shared joy is increased, thus do we refute entropy.’ Spider Robinson
http://edwardkendrick.blogspot.com/

Exclusive Excerpt: Black Irish by David Lennon – Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Horror

Exclusive Excerpt:

The upside down city shimmered on the surface of the Charles River. Doyle stared at it, musing whether the people who lived there would be any less miserable. It seemed to make some sense that in an upside down world, everything would be opposite.

A horn bleated and Dopplered as he jerked the wheel right, pulling the Camaro back across the center line. “Bastard,” he muttered. He rolled down the window and let the frigid air blast his face, gulping breaths to clear his head. There was only a slight taste of something unsavory.

The road dipped as it passed over the Esplanade into Back Bay.

Fucking Back Bay. The only part of downtown that wasn’t laid out with pick-up sticks. They even alphabetized the cross streets for the rich fucks. The rest of the city is a big “screw you” to anyone who didn’t grow up here. Typical parochial Boston bullshit.

He spit, but most of it blew back, freezing on the side of the car.

At least Southie was built on a proper grid, even if it’s bent in the middle. It might be all drunken loons now, but whoever designed it was sober enough at the time.

He turned left onto Commonwealth Avenue.

Hereford. Gloucester. Yeah, try pronouncing that one if you’re not local. Fairfield. Essex.

Snowflakes drifted down, melting as they hit the windshield. He turned on the wipers, rolled the window halfway up, and lit a cigarette.

Dartmouth. Clarendon. Brick, granite, brick, brick, granite. Colonial, Federal, Victorian. Berkeley. Arlington. Rich fucks.

He puffed impatiently on his cigarette and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited at the lights opposite the Public Garden. His chest felt tight and his brain was buzzing. The light changed and he popped the clutch, the tires squealing on the wet pavement as the car careened right onto Arlington. He tapped the brake twice and straightened it out.

“Jesus fuck,” he exhaled, looking around apprehensively for flashing lights. “Stay in control. Don’t lose your shit.”

As he eased to a stop at the lights at Boylston, another car pulled alongside on the left, its radio blaring an anonymous disco tune. He reflexively shot a look of annoyance, then quickly looked straight ahead as he registered tank tops, feathered hair, and neatly trimmed mustaches. The windows of the car were all open, despite the intensifying snow.

“Guess she didn’t like what she saw.” The fey voice was so loud he knew it was a deliberate play for attention.

“Then I guess she must have seen you,” another replied as loudly.

“Fuck you, bitch,” said the first.

Doyle pretended not to hear them.

“She’s a butch one,” said the second voice.

“And cute, too,” added a third.

He felt heat traveling up his neck and focused hard on the stoplight, willing it to change.

“Excuse me! Excuse me!” the third voice called eagerly, and Doyle saw an arm waving in his peripheral vision. “Do you have a light?”

“Guess she’s the shy type, Felicia,” said the first.

“More likely the type with a humpty frumpty wifey and three little dumplings waiting at home,” said a new voice.

“Well, if you change your mind, we’ll be at 12 Carver,” called the third voice hopefully. “I’ll save you a seat.”

“On her face,” trilled the fourth, followed by raucous laughter.

The light changed and the car rocketed away, turning left onto Boylston. “Bye, girlfriend!” a voice carried back.

Doyle sat at the green light for almost a minute breathing hard, his heart pumping. Finally a horn beeped behind him and he crossed the intersection and continued up Arlington. He felt numb, dizzy. As he passed the old armory on the corner of St. James, he suddenly pulled to the curb, opened the door, and began dry heaving.

She? She? She?

The words echoed in his head.

Why would they call me that? Why would they assume I’m one of them?

His stomach convulsed again, but still nothing came up.

Or maybe it was just some dirty fag trick to make me feel insecure, trick me into thinking I am.

He stopped gasping and spit a phlegmy gob into the street.

I’m nothing like them. If I had my gun I’d have taught them not to fuck with me. I’d have taught them to show respect.

He sat up.

What did the one in the passenger seat look like? The one who waved?

He couldn’t remember any of their faces. He hadn’t looked at them that closely.

But I know where they’re going and what the car . . . .

He shook the thought out of his head.

As if I’d ever go to a fag bar. That’s all I need, one of the mobsters who owns them or some cop collecting a pay-off thinking I’m a fag. Besides, in a bar people want to talk. They want to know things about you or spend time with you after. Fuck that. I don’t want to spend time with fags. I just need to take the edge off.

He wiped his mouth with his hand and lit a fresh cigarette.

A few times around the block in the car that nobody knows.

But first, another bottle.

 

Sal Pesky pulled the dirty sheet up, but the cold had already seeped into his bones. He checked his watch. Another four hours.

Kansas. Over the rainbow. Or was it before the rainbow? That part of the movie always confused him. He knew Dorothy went over the rainbow to get to Oz, but since she ended up back in Kansas and the rest of it was probably just a dream anyway, did that mean Kansas was actually over the rainbow?

He began absently humming the song.

He knew he was getting squirrelly. Another day and he’d probably be babbling to the furniture. He wished he had someone else to talk with, but the phones in the motor lodge were dead, along with the electricity and heat, and the snow and wind were too strong to walk to the gas station up the highway to use the pay phone.

Besides, it wasn’t like anyone wanted to talk to him. So much for turning to family and friends in times of need. The nicest thing anyone had said to him was, “I’m going to do you a favor and pretend you never called me, you dumb sonofabitch.”

But he wasn’t a dumb sonofabitch. Even though he’d never killed anyone before, he was sure he’d done it right. He’d pressed the muzzle right against the side of Conti’s head and pulled the trigger twice. He hadn’t missed. He was sure of it, even though he’d had his eyes closed. He’d heard Conti’s brain splat on the wall and smelled the burnt hair and skin and blood. Yeah, maybe he should have stuck around long enough to check whether Conti was still breathing, but he needed to get outside before he puked.

His humming became more frantic.

It was all that little bitch’s fault. If it hadn’t been for her, he wouldn’t be here now. That fucking bitch. If she’d been home where she was supposed to be instead of out in the park in her little pink jammies, none of this would have happened.

As soon as he’d found out who she was, he’d gone to Jules and told him what had happened. Or at least enough so Jules would know it was all just a big misunderstanding, that he didn’t really do anything. Jules had understood and had promised to keep him safe.

He cradled the gun tighter to his chest.

Not that that had kept the nightmares away. Every night he’d had the same dream about The Gardener coming after him. He wasn’t even sure what The Gardener looked like, but he’d still dream about him and wake up screaming, soaked in sweat, and have to check to make sure he still had his tongue and all his fingers and toes.

He’d had to eat a lot of shit, but Jules had kept his word, and then suddenly he had the chance to make it right. Take care of Conti, and it would all be square. Now everyone wanted him dead instead. That fucking bitch. It was all her fault.

He checked his watch again. Only a minute had passed. Four more hours and he could leave for Portsmouth and catch a bus to Albany, then a train to Topeka.

They’d never look for him there because he had no connection. Just the movie, but he never talked about that with anyone because they might think it was strange he liked it so much.

And he’d been careful. After he took the bus to Springfield he’d hitched a ride to Providence, then stolen a car and driven it right back through Boston and up to Danvers. Even if they figured out the Springfield part, they wouldn’t be able to find him.

The old motor lodge had popped into his mind as soon as he knew he had to find a place to hole up. Just like that it had come to him. He’d driven past it probably a thousand times since it closed after the fire and he’d never thought twice about it, but then suddenly he knew it was where he should go.

The car was out back. No way anyone could see it from Route 1. He was cold and hungry as hell, but at least he was safe. Jimmy the Gardener would never be able to . . . .

He heard a faint rustle outside the door and froze. Cold sweat trickled down the small of his back as he strained to listen. Just the wind, he tried to reassure himself.

Another noise, just outside the door. A cough? He jerked the gun up, his arm shaking as he cocked it. His eyes stung, his vision blurred.

In the darkness he thought he heard the door knob twisting, though he was sure he’d locked it. A sliver of light appeared just inside the frame and his finger spasmed on the trigger. A dry click echoed in the room. He let out a small whimper and frantically pulled the trigger again and again.

When he heard the sharp metallic tick of the pruning shears snapping shut, he began to scream.

Exclusive Excerpt: Ghostly Investigations by Edward Kendrick

Excerpt:

“This is crazy,” Jon said. “How the hell many bars are there in the city?”

Brody laughed. “Too many, from a cop’s perspective. Let’s try this one and a couple more and call it a night.”

They took advantage of two men leaving Far Horizon to enter without having to go through the wall.

“I think… Yeah, I’ve been here before.”

“Last night?”

“You know I don’t remember yesterday. But…” Jon looked around. “This is the club I came to with Grant. Then a couple of times after, looking for him.” He smiled sourly. “I guess I was hoping to reconnect, since he hadn’t called me after the first time. Hope springs eternal and all that shit.”

Brody patted his back. “It happens. Is he here tonight?”

“Hard to tell from where we’re standing. Let’s wander.”

* * * *

Mike was halfway to the door when Sage grabbed his arm. “I saw the man in the picture,” he said excitedly. “But…”

“Not possible,” Mike replied shortly. “He’s dead. He was murdered last night.”

“You lied to me?” Sage said in dismay. “Not that it matters. I knew he was dead the second I saw him and his friend—who’s also dead. They’re here, and they’re ghosts.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “Look. I don’t know what you’re trying to pull…”

“I’m not lying,” Sage protested. “I can see—”

“Dead people? That worked in the movie, but not with me.” Mike looked pointedly at the drink Sage was holding. “Maybe it’s time to ease up on those.”

“Damn it! It’s the truth. I can see ghosts, and that’s what the guy is. A ghost.”

Figuring he’d play along to see what Sage would do next to try to convince him, Mike asked, “What’s he wearing?”

“Jeans, a blue work shirt, over a dark red T-shirt.”

Okay. He was here last night and saw Watts. But why the games?

“Am I right?” Sage asked.

“Yeah. Lucky guess. Half the guys here are in jeans and blue shirts.”

“Not work shirts.” Sage looked around, then pointed. “They’re right over there. Honest.”

* * * *

“The detective’s here,” Jon said, nodding toward him.

“Harris?” Brody looked. “Well, damn. I told you he was good.”

“Who’s he talking to?”

“You’re asking me?” Brody replied. “I never… What the hell?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Whoever the other guy is, he sees us. He’s looking right at us. I mean at us.”

“He can’t be.”

“Oh, yeah? Move away a bit, and watch his eyes.”

Jon did. The man’s gaze followed his movement. “Now what do we do? What if he tells Harris he sees us?”

“I think he already has, from the look of disbelief on Harris’ face.” Brody chortled. “I bet Harris is about to call the guys in the white coats. Come on.” He walked toward Harris and the other man.

“By all that’s holy, he’s here,” the man who’d seen them said to Harris. “In fact, he, they’re, coming over.”

“Sage…” Harris sighed. “I know you believe what you’re saying but it’s impossible. Dead people don’t come back, except in bad movies. If I were you, I’d go home and sleep it off. That’s what I’m going to do.” He smiled. “Well, not the sleeping off part. I haven’t been drinking.” He started toward the door, stopped, and asked Sage, “Were you here last night?”

Sage looked as if he wasn’t going to answer, then nodded. “I was. So was he. The guy in the picture. I was going to tell you that when you took off for the bar.”

“Alone?”

“He was when I saw him. Over there.” Sage pointed to a table in a dark corner of the room. “I didn’t stick around for very long so…” Sage shrugged.

“Okay. Thanks. That helps. Is there anyone else here now who was around last night?”

Sage looked around. “Him, I think, and that couple over there,” he replied, pointing out the men.

Harris thanked him before heading it their direction. As soon as he was gone, Sage looked directly at Jon. “He doesn’t believe me, but I do see you.”

“I know,” Jon replied. “What are you? I mean…”

“I think he’s a medium,” Brody said. “Right?”

“Yes,” Sage replied. “That’s the term for it.” He grimaced. “Unfortunately, when people hear it, they think of some woman dressed like a gypsy, working out of a tent in a carnival, or a sleazy storefront shop. I’d rather die than do something like that.”

“Dying’s not all it’s cracked up to be, so I’d pass if I were you. By the way, I’m Brody and you know he’s Jon.”

Sage started to hold out his hand, stopping with an embarrassed wince. “Can we go somewhere less public? People are beginning to look at me funny.”

Brody laughed. “Sure. Where?”

“My office isn’t far from here.”

“Lead the way.”

“Why are we going with him?” Jon whispered as they followed Sage out of the club.

“Because you can talk to him and he can tell Harris what you know that might be relevant to why you were killed.”

“I don’t think Harris would believe him.”

“Then we’ll have Sage set up a meeting.”

“Riiiiight.” Jon looked at Brody as if he was crazy.

“I could,” Sage said, obviously having overheard them, now that they were out on the street. “He lives in the same townhouse complex I do, so I see him on and off.”

“We’ll see,” Jon replied doubtfully.

They stopped talking as they walked the few blocks to Sage’s office. The sign on the door said ‘Sage Crewe – Landscape Architect’.

When they were inside, Jon immediately went over to one wall which was covered with sketches and photos of what he presumed were yards and parks Sage had created. “I could happily live next door to this,” he said, tapping one of the park pictures. “But then,” he sighed, “I would happily live anywhere, just to be alive again.”

* * * *

Sage smiled slightly when Brody put his arm around Jon’s shoulders and said, “It could be worse. At least you’ve got me hanging around to keep you company.”

“I’d be crazy by now if you weren’t,” Jon murmured. “How you managed to survive on your own…”

“I have a mission. Not that it’s done me much good. Five years and all I have to show for it is zilch.”

“How did you die?” Sage asked.

“Shot by someone who didn’t like that I was an undercover cop. They never found out who did it, so I’m stuck here. Once in a while I meet someone like Jon, but they’ve all moved on.”

Sage sat in one of the chairs along the wall under the sketches and photos, gesturing for the ghosts to take the other ones, “If you can.”

Brody snorted. “Of course we can. You think we’ll sink through a chair?”

“You probably wouldn’t,” Sage retorted. “But I met a ghost a while back who was newly dead. He had trouble staying materialized, to say the least of in one place if he wasn’t standing on the ground. I learned then that it takes a lot of willpower to stay visible and interact with the real world.”

“Not for me,” Jon protested. “I was there, watching, sitting on a retaining wall when the…when my body was found and the cops showed up.” He shivered. “I think I’d have passed on that, given the choice.”

“I take it you don’t know who killed you,” Sage replied in sympathy mixed with, he realized, a bit of ghoulish interest.

“I wouldn’t be here if I did,” Jon said scathingly.

“Not true, from what I understand,” Sage retorted. “Even if you did, you won’t be free until he’s caught.” He glanced at Brody. “Right?”

“Sometimes,” Brody replied. “I think it’s… Well, honestly I don’t know what makes the difference between getting closure when you find out who killed you and not being able to move on until the killer’s caught.”

Sage tapped his lip. “Maybe, it depends on whether the killer’s dead?”

Brody nodded. “Possibly. It would be hard to bring them to justice in that case.”

“Well, my killer’s still around,” Jon said. “I mean, it’s only been a day. I’m betting no one’s offed him in the last twenty-four hours.”

“Probably not,” Sage agreed. “I take it you don’t know who it was. All right. Stupid question. You wouldn’t be here if you did.”

Brody held up a finger. “Not logical. He could know, but with no way to tell anyone, there’s no resolution.”

“Which is where I come in,” Sage replied. “If you can figure it out, I can tell Mike Harris.”

“Uh-huh.” Brody snorted. “I got the feeling from listening to the two of you that he thinks you’re a few cards short of a full deck.”

Sage’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. I’m afraid so.” His expression brightened. “But if we had proof, then he’d have to listen.”

“How are we going to get it?” Jon asked. “I don’t remember anything from yesterday. Zilch, to quote Brody.”

‘Shared pain is lessened,shared joy is increased, thus do we refute entropy.’ Spider Robinson

 

Exclusive Excerpt: Fever in the Dark: A Jane Lawless Mystery by Ellen Hart

In FEVER IN THE DARK by MWA Edgars Grand Master Ellen Hart, Fiona and Annie return home from their one year anniversary trip to discover that their poignant proposal video has been posted on YouTube and has garnered hundreds of thousands of hits. The video is on the verge of going viral, and there’s enormous media interest in Fiona and Annie, as their fame comes just on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage across the country. As some of the attention starts to turn vicious, Fiona pulls in an old friend, private investigator Jane Lawless, to help separate the harmless threats from the potentially harmful.

As the media storm continues to grow, Fiona revels in the attention, but Annie is furious. Fiona has always known that Annie has secrets, but her newfound notoriety threatens to bring Annie’s past straight to their door. And then, when a murder occurs and Annie and Fiona are both suspects, it’s up to Jane to prove their innocence…although the more she learns, the more she starts to wonder whether they actually are innocent.

Blurb:

Annie’s Notebook

Letter #2

Dearest Dirtbag:

A new year.  A new letter.  Lots to celebrate, right?  I’m sure Bridget and Noah are still the golden couple, and you still think I’m a despicable home-wrecker.  You’re glad I had to good sense to disappear.  Which means the new year changes nothing.

Wanna know a secret?  Bridget flew to Boston right after New Years.  I wondered when one of you would figure out where I was and come calling.  She came to Sharif’s apartment yesterday while I was here at the coffeeshop, demanded to know where I was.  Like a good soldier, he lied for me, said he had no idea what she was talking about.  But Bridget spotted my leather jacket tossed over one of the chairs in the living room, so he was busted and had to come clean.

You’re probably not interested, but I’ll give you the blow by blow.

Bridget found me sitting at “my” table in the coffeehouse.  At first, I couldn’t believe she was right there in front of me.  I was so excited I burst out of my chair and hugged her.  We held each other for a long time.  But then, she didn’t know I’m a home-wrecker.  She sat down, took off her gloves.  It was beastly cold and her clothes were way too Pasadena to keep her warm.  I offered to get her something hot to drink.  She seemed kind of nervous, so she got right to the point, like she always does.  (I’ll do this like I’m writing a novel.  Just so you know, it’s the complete truth.)

“Why did you leave school?” Bridget asked.  “Leave home?  Why did you run away and not tell anyone where you’d gone?  You never even said goodbye the night of the wedding.  I didn’t know you’d left until Noah and I got back from our honeymoon.”

I sidestepped the question.  “Did you have a wonderful time?  Santorini, right?  Are the sunsets as spectacular as they say?  Did you stay in one of those pristine, white-washed villas?”

Reluctantly, for it wasn’t what she’d come to discuss, she did give me a few details.  I could see she still glowed when she talked about her husband, her new life.  Eventually, she came back to her questions.

“I kind of got into it with Mom and Dad,” I said as an explanation.

“I figured as much.  But they wouldn’t tell me what it was about.”

“No?”

“And anyway, what’s that got to do with me?  I didn’t do anything to upset you, did I?  Why wouldn’t you let me know where you were?”

I gave her that tried-and-true cliche:  “It’s complicated.”

She took my hand.  “Please, Annie.  Tell me what’s wrong.”

It was such a broad question I almost laughed.  “I’m gay,” I said.  Her reaction was about what I had expected–like watching a rock hit a windshield in slow motion.

“Are you…sure?” she asked.

“Yup,” I said.  “I like to have sex with women, not men.  That’s pretty much the definition.”

Her lips formed an “O,” as if she might say something more, but she remained silent.  She began to fidget, releasing my hand and taking my napkin, wiping a coffee spill off the table.

“Are you surprised?” I asked.

“Well, yeah,” she said.  “You’d think I’d know if my sister was gay.”

“Not necessarily.  You have no idea how blind straight people can be.”

That caused a frown, a moment of deep indignation.  “You don’t look like a lesbian.”

“What’s a lesbian look like?”

“You know.  I don’t have to spell it out.”

“Ugly?  Mannish?  Sad?  Hostile?  I can think of a lot of straight people who fit that definition.”

“Don’t be obnoxious.”

We were off on a tangent which had nothing to do with why I’d actually left.  I felt sorry for her because she was so completely in the dark.  That’s when I wondered if I should tell her the truth.  But no, you’ll be relieved to hear that I didn’t.  I couldn’t.

At some point in the conversation, Bridget covered her stomach with her hand.

Realizing what the gesture might mean, I asked, “Are you pregnant?”

“Three months.  I’m not showing yet.”

“Are you…happy about it?  Is Noah?”

Her eyes shimmered.  “Over the moon.  Both of us.”

That was the end of the conversation, as far as I was concerned.  But she wasn’t done.

“Do you have…a girlfriend?”  Saying the last word seemed to cause her actual pain.

“Several.”  I wasn’t seeing anyone.  I sure wasn’t going to tell her that it had taken me a year to work up the nerve to leave the apartment and walk to a coffeehouse a block away.

“Nobody special?”

“I like to keep my options open.”  Such a load of bull.

“You know, Annie, there are people who can help you…change…who you think you are.”

“I’m perfectly happy with who I am.”

“Then why leave home?  Why change your life so radically?”

“Because nobody in my family shares that opinion.  I choose to be around people who support me.  Think about it.  Would you want to spend your life with people who hate your husband, who say he’s the scum of the earth and you were a fool for marrying him?”

“Now you’re being ridiculous,” she said.   She asked about school.

I told her I was rethinking my decision to become a doctor.  That’s true.  I’ve got another profession in mind.  And no, I’m not planning on taking up stripping.

Oddly, after a few more minutes, we didn’t seem to have much to say to each other.

I told her to go home.  To have a safe journey.  She asked if she could tell you where I was living.  I told her no.  If I wanted to get in touch, I would.  By the end of the conversation, I was shivering inside.  I don’t think she saw it, or if she did, she didn’t say anything.  There was no way she could understand and no way for me to explain it.  Certainly not that day.  Probably never.

And so she left.

Are you happy?  Do you consider me a grownup now?  Did I pass your test?

Fuck you.

 

Exclusive Excerpt: The Mysteries of the Curiosities (Snow & Winter Book 2) by C.S. Poe

Excerpt:

I’m the first person to understand that murder isn’t great for business.

So the fact that, before I knew it, museum security had ushered patrons out, suspicious old me had been forbidden to leave, and the director had escorted Calvin and Quinn across the massive room, more or less imploring the NYPD to make it quick and get the hell out, was not any surprise to me.

No one wants a dead exotic dancer to outshine the newest dinosaur exhibit.

Bad for donations, I imagine.

Calvin stopped several feet away from me, put a hand on his hip, and ushered me over with one snap of his wrist.

I stepped away from the nearby display I had been planted at while waiting. “I only found her,” I said, reaching his side.

Calvin set both hands on his hips. “What did I tell you?” he whispered. “I told you to go to your father’s. This is not there. What the hell are you doing here?”

“I got another note after leaving the precinct,” I whispered back, rather loudly. “It had this address, so I decided to come. It’s a public place—what was going to happen to me?”

“The same thing that happened to this woman,” Calvin said.

“Well, it didn’t,” I answered stupidly, crossing my arms. “I’m fine.”

Calvin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sebastian, how did you not learn the first time? How many different ways to do I have to tell you how suspicious you look in these situations?”

“Oh, please,” I hissed. “She’s been dead at least twelve hours. I’ve got alibis for days.”

“And if you keep popping up every time a dead person does, sooner or later you will be seen as a convenient suspect.”

“I don’t even know these people. I have no motive,” I argued.

Calvin raised a finger to silence me. “Motive isn’t important. One person’s reason to kill may not be understood, but it was sound enough for them in the moment.”

I groaned and dropped my head down. “For fuck’s sake, Calvin. Fine. My bad, okay?”

“My bad?” he echoed, voice deep and very much not amused.

“Not the time or the place, gentlemen,” Quinn finally said. “Calvin caught me up on all this shit,” she continued, looking up at me. “What was this new note?”

I reached into my pocket and removed the paper. “I stopped on my street to see—everything. Someone threw a brick at me. And no, I didn’t see who.”

Quinn took the paper, and Calvin read it over her shoulder.

“With this address and the mention of the whale, I thought it must have been talking about that guy.” I motioned above us. “But obviously I got here and there was nothing. I almost left until I remembered this display here. It’s a sperm whale.”

“Yes, fascinating,” Quinn remarked.

“Sort of. Squids and sperm whales are—”

“Focus, Seb,” Calvin muttered.

I huffed and turned to point at the display. “So I came over here and found a newspaper clipping.” I held it up next. “It’s an original, I think. It’s one of P.T. Barnum’s ads for his Feejee Mermaid.”

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Barnum,” Quinn said.

“Uh, I guess that’s true,” I said when I recalled my mention of the bricks and the story of Barnum’s unique advertising. “There’s another note on the back.” I turned it around for both detectives to see. “That’s when I saw Meredith.”

Calvin glanced up from the note, narrowing his eyes. “Meredith?”

“She goes by Crystal. A dancer, I think. I called the number on the business card in her purse.”

Calvin took a breath and raised his hands, sort of like he wanted to strangle me, but Quinn took his jacket sleeve and tugged him away to look at the body.

I pulled my phone out once I was alone again. I was supposed to solve the murder. Not that I wanted to win a prize, but anything learned could bring us one step closer to catching a mistake this maniac made and taking them down before another person could be hurt. I pulled up the web browser and briefly checked out Ricky’s online presence. Lots of scantily clad ladies and dubious use of Photoshop. It didn’t look like anything particularly special—one gentlemen’s club is like all the others.

I tried searching for any news related to the club. Maybe there was some dirt on the owner, or bad blood between rival businesses. If I lived anywhere else, I’d say that was ridiculous, that this poor woman just got jumped and the tragedy was that there was no reason for her death, but I live in New York City and last Christmas I was stalked by a guy who planted a heart under the floorboards of my store.

Anything is possible.

Nothing of any particular interest was showing up in Google’s news feed for Ricky’s, other than some sizzling winter ball they’d had in January.

I looked over at the group of police and a few museum personnel. Calvin had climbed into the display and was looking down at Meredith. I squinted—it was hard to see his expression from where I was. But Calvin had certain ticks I had begun picking up on in his posture that helped me understand his mood when it was difficult to read his face. And I think he was surprised just then, because he had a hand over his mouth, rubbing his jaw.

That was interesting to me.

Did Calvin know her?

Not personally, of course. He may have been in the closet until recently, but I knew Calvin wasn’t one for lap dances from ladies either. Now I would certainly sit on his lap and show him a good time, but I drew the line at putting on glitter.

“Fuck,” I murmured to myself, because now I had the image in my head of me naked, riding Calvin’s cock, and having the greatest of times, and that was so not what I should be thinking about at a murder scene. “Get it together,” I muttered.

I caught a uniformed officer glancing at me in confusion.

I squared my shoulders and took an extra second to look at Calvin as a professional, and not my unbelievably gorgeous boyfriend, which was admittedly a little hard to do. He was saying something to Quinn, who appeared to agree with him. Maybe Meredith had been on the wrong side of the law before. But if Calvin knew her, it had definitely been serious. A suspect in a murder case?

I looked down at my phone again and tried a few keywords that included Meredith, Ricky’s, and murder. I found exactly what I was hoping for, third link down on the list. NYC Exotic Dancer Suspect in Daughter’s Death. That didn’t paint Meredith in a particularly good light. I clicked the link and expanded the page to better read the text. It was a case from two years ago, led by the recently promoted Detective Calvin Winter. DNA evidence had been incorrectly handled at the scene and was unusable in laboratory testing. Meredith’s alibis had apparently been suspicious, but her boss had backed her statement, and Calvin had ultimately ended up with no legal way to prove she had bludgeoned her teen daughter to death.

“Calvin!” I called out, and when a few officers looked at me, I followed up with, “I mean, Detective Winter. Could you come here?”

Calvin got out of the display and walked toward me. “What?” he asked in a low tone.

I held out my phone. “This is the same lady, isn’t it?”

He looked at the article. “Yes. How did you find this?”

I shrugged. “Seemed like she was familiar to you.”

Calvin’s mouth formed a tight line and he gave my phone back. “It’s a cold case. Not enough evidence to convict her, but everyone knew she did it.”

“The note said I had to prove the murder.”

Calvin raised a hand to stop me. “No.”

“But—”

“No. Stop right now, Seb.”

“But what if it leads us one step closer to who did this? You’re going to ignore that chance to stop this person?”

“I’m not, no. But you are.”

“Like hell.”

Calvin took a long breath. “We’re not having this argument again. Plant your ass on your father’s couch and stay out of trouble.”

“It seems pretty suspicious to me that one of your cold case suspects was murdered,” I said without regard to Calvin’s statement. “What about someone seeking revenge? The daughter’s father, maybe? A friend? Did the daughter have a boyfriend? Someone who would want to bring closure. Someone who clearly knew the mother was guilty.”

“I know how to do my job,” Calvin retorted.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t. I’m just trying to work this out.”

“Sebastian, what’s your degree in?” Calvin interrupted.

“My what?”

“Degree.”

“Uh… fine art.”

“Not criminal justice?”

“I get it,” I stated, crossing my arms.

“No, you don’t,” he said before taking another breath. “Baby, I know you’re smart. I know you’ve got a knack for figuring this shit out. You don’t have to prove it to me.”

“I’m not trying to—”

“This is dangerous. Do you not remember what happened last time?”

All too well, actually. And the guilt hit me like a truck out of control on a freeway. If Calvin ever got hurt again because of my own stupidity, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.

It was painful to swallow. I stared at my shoes. “Sorry,” I whispered.

“I only want you to be safe,” Calvin said after a beat. “If—If your expertise were ever required for me to solve a case, I’d call on them.”

That made me look up. “You would?”

“Yeah.”

“Not that you expect to ever need someone skilled in trinkets from Victorian America to solve a murder.”

“You helped with Tamerlane,” Calvin pointed out.

“I guess.”

“Seb, I don’t want anyone questioning your involvement in this. You understand that, right?”

I nodded. I was done arguing. I hated fighting with him. I really did. I loved Calvin too much to bicker, especially when he was right and I was wrong and I knew that from the start.

But the urge to put the mystery to bed myself was still overwhelming. Maybe I did subconsciously crave some sort of way to prove I was smart. That I was clever. Useful, even. That what I did with my life made a difference, like Calvin’s.

Jesus. I needed a hug or something.

“Can I wait at your place tonight?” I asked.

“I’m going to be working—”

“Come home,” I insisted. “Please?”

Someone from behind called my name, and we both turned.

“N-Neil?” I heard myself stutter.

Neil stood a few feet away, holding a forensic kit in one hand. “Why are you here?” he asked me.

“Uh… getting into trouble. Per usual.”

Neil looked at Calvin. “Detective Winter,” he said coolly.

“Millett,” Calvin said with a nod.

This wasn’t awkward at all.

What were the chances my ex would be the CSU detective assigned to collect evidence?

Someone roll the week back to Monday. I demand a do-over.

I cleared my throat. “Has it gotten sufficiently uncomfortable?”

“Yes,” Neil answered.

“Okay, good. I’m leaving now,” I answered.

“I’ll have an officer drive you,” Calvin said. “To my place.”

I caught the sour look that took over Neil’s face. “Thanks,” I answered.

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Exclusive Excerpt: Listening To The Dead by George Seaton

Blurb:

Jack Dolan has spent almost thirty years solving homicides in Denver, his uncanny ability to speak to the dead learned from his aged mentor whom other cops refer to as Old Grim because of his incredible solve rate. For almost as long, Jack has repressed his sexuality, fearing discovery and likely ostracism from his fellow cops…except for one with whom he long ago severed a loving relationship. When Jack retires to the mountains of Colorado, he discovers the bodies of two young men, naked and bludgeoned to death in a recess off a rutted horse path which he eventually refers to simply as The Place. All of his training, everything he learned from Old Grim is put to the test to find out what happened to the young men… including a call to the man he once loved.

Excerpt

 Late spring and through the first summer that Shy had taken up residence on Jack’s seven acres, the Pinecone Lodge horse wrangler named Tyler showed up at about four p.m. three days a week. During the first few visits, he made sure the geld had healed, and then he began to deal with the horse’s temperament, which wasn’t good. Tyler had already schooled Jack on feeding and basic care and had helped construct a metal round pen for training, cautioning Jack that the horse wasn’t a puppy dog and shouldn’t be treated like one.

“He’s fearful, is all,” Tyler had said after the first time he’d managed to get a rope halter on Shy and dealt with the nervous squeals, stomps, rearing, and tugging on the lead rope. Tyler dug his heels into the ground while calmly saying, “Whoa now. Whoa…”

Jack watched it all, and during subsequent sessions, Tyler patiently and without a word raised in anger, dealt with Shy’s left and right side fears and anxiousness to the point, by the dog days of August, Shy was walking, trotting, cantering on cue, and coming to Tyler when he pursed his lips and kissed.

“You got to work both sides of him separately,” Tyler told Jack when he brought him into the round pen with him and Shy for the first time. “Horse brain works that way. They kinda won’t put two and two together ’til they see it from both sides.”

And so, as the summer passed into fall, as the aspens shivered their leaves to reds, oranges, and golds, and as the land whispered of the freeze to come, Shy’s coat began to thicken until later when the first snowfall arrived, he appeared shaggy and stout. Tyler had yet to allow Jack to sit the horse, saying that would come in the spring.

“Get through the winter, exercise him in the round pen and walk him on the trails when you can. You’ll be on him by July.”

And by July, Jack was atop him, just walks at first in the round pen, and then walks along the flat trail that led to Piney Lake. By mid-July, Tyler had Jack trot Shy for the first time with Jack on his back. He was able to stay on, and Shy seemed comfortable with him. And thereafter, every day, Shy and Jack would leave early in the morning and pass the nearby campgrounds spotted here and there with campers in tents who had yet to rouse themselves from the prior night’s campfire nightmare stories and drinking binges. They’d ride past Piney Lake and along the trails headed east toward the slopes of the Gore Range that peaked with Mount Powell, jagged as a saw’s edge.

Heading home one day at not yet nine in the morning, they came down the trail from a meager summit where Jack halted Shy to look at the scenery below. Piney Lake shone as a blue-green jewel surrounded by the upsweep of purely green pine intertwined with the brown decay of beetle destruction. As they passed a small clearing to their left, half-hidden by the overlap of pine boughs, Shy sidestepped off the trail, then stopped and stood dead still, raised his head, curled his lip, and tasted the air about him. Jack tried to rein him back onto the path, but Shy was determined to keep his distance from the shrouded entrance to the clearing and had turned his head away from it.

Jack had come to respect Shy’s judgment when it came to going one way or the other on trails they’d never explored. A horse’s sense of things in the natural world seemed to Jack to be a reflection of what God had given to the horse: a discernment of sorts that Jack possessed only when laying his hands upon the dead. Shy had saved them from stepping into waist-deep muck within the valley, unstable rocks on the hillsides, and the presences of critters not likely to look kindly upon their passing.

Now, as Jack swung his leg off Shy and tied the reins to the limb of a felled tree, he knew caution was what Shy had shared with him. He stepped to the clearing and looked in. The sun shined directly overhead and lit the interior of the place as though a spotlight beamed a circle upon it. Jack thought he saw something not human, perhaps rag-stuffed dummies both facedown—the legs bent wrong, and the arms unnaturally splayed. The blood, though, spoke its own truth, as it lathered the bodies’ backs and buttocks, the arms, legs, and heads. The blackness of the ground near one’s head and the other’s chest were witness that the bodies had bled mostly from those places. But there wasn’t enough blood to determine if this had actually been the killing ground. The shapes of the bodies, the small hips, the broad shoulders, even the blood-encrusted hair, told Jack these were young men, maybe even teenagers.

Jack stepped into the clearing, taking care to keep to the periphery of the five-foot circle he’d mentally drawn beyond the immediate area where the bodies lay. The urge to touch them was nearly overwhelming, but he knew he could not disturb the scene. He would touch them later. He would speak to them and hope they spoke back. But for now, he kept to the edge of the circle he’d established and slowly stepped around it, a full three-sixty, his eyes focused on anything that might prove helpful in answering the questions he, and he was sure the Eagle County sheriff’s crew as well, would have when he later led them up here. Jack could see signs of blunt force and skin-piercing trauma. But it was the way the limbs spread anywise that he knew this would be an image like no other he would forever hold on to.

Jack sat on his haunches at the end of his three-sixty, looked up at the circle of sky and sun above, then looked back down at the bodies. “We’ll figure this out,” he whispered. “Bless you, boys. I’ll be coming back.” He then stood up, stretched out the kink in his back, and stepped from the place. He knew a search of the hillside, maybe even a search of the valley as well. One hundred yards in all directions was critical, but his call to the sheriff was more critical, and that is what he had to do.

The Boys

Brian Hill and Mark Harris were both twenty-two, and as they danced upon a floor bathed in the colors of the rainbow, the other revelers moved about them while the music boomed with heavy bass and wild treble, the diva’s voice pleading for a never-ending love to come their way. For Brian and Mark, it had, or so they thought. The strobes flashed, and both boys watched the other’s robotic movements with wonderment and smiles. It had been Friday night, and the world had shriveled to this moment, this place of fantasy.

They had met almost a year before, both emigrants from Midwest flatlands to the mile-high promise of Denver and the call of the mountains to the west. They knew their degrees from obscure schools were as marketable as water in a deluge, so they opted instead to move into a Colfax Avenue two-room walkup where the bed folded down from the wall, and the bathroom was the second room. They waited tables at an upscale Denver Lodo eatery where they wore white shirts, black vests and pants, and red bowties. In midautumn, they packed their 2000 Mazda and headed west to Vail where their credentials saw them placed in an even more exclusive restaurant that specialized in red-runny steaks, crispy shrimp, fine wines, and luscious desserts served on crystal plates. Their mornings free until eleven, they skied the slopes of Vail, and their late nights were often spent among other gay boys and girls in the few bars and bistros that welcomed them. They had moved into a single-wide trailer in Avon, only fifteen minutes from Vail. After experiencing their first taste of the mountains, their decision was easy. They would stay there and not return to Denver or anywhere else when the ski season was over. They had what they wanted at this time in their lives—an uncomplicated existence that was more or less a fantasy come true.

One Friday night in late spring, Brian and Mark sat at a table in a bar in Vail, sipped beer, and watched two other boys do the same at a table across the room. They were clearly cowboys or something akin to that, and Brian and Mark were intrigued. The other boys were watching them, too. Pretty soon they were all sitting at the same table, getting to know one another and trading tidbits of their histories. The other boys worked about an hour and a half north of Vail, one at the Pinecone Lodge as a wrangler of horses, the other as a fishing and hunting guide, and they both lived at the Whisper River Ranch a few miles west of the lodge. One thing led to another that night, and all the boys ended up at the single-wide where they got to know each other even better. Intimately, in fact.

But by July, after three more encounters with the wrangler and the guide in Vail, Brian and Mark decided they’d drive up to the lodge on their day off and ride the horse the wrangler had offered them. As they were leaving the lodge’s compound after their ride, the wrangler took them aside and discussed the proposition he had for them. It would be worth two hundred and fifty dollars each if they’d do it. “Just kind of a hide and seek kinda thing,” the wrangler said them, and he mentioned to them, too, that he’d be there to make sure nothing got out of hand.

“We’re not really into that,” Mark told the wrangler.

“Don’t worry,” the wrangler said. “I’ve got their promise nothing heavy will go down. We’ll get you set up at a campsite and, other than the hour or two you’ll be…playin’ the game, you can just take it easy—camping, hiking, anything you want to do.”

Brian and Mark thought about that and decided it might be fun. They’d have to take a couple days off work, but that was no problem. Besides they’d be making money while having some time off.

“Okay, we’ll do it,” Brian said after discussing it with Mark.

“Good. You’ll enjoy it,” the wrangler said. He told them he’d pick them up and take them back so they wouldn’t have to worry about driving.

***

The evening, a Sunday, of Brian’s and Mark’s great adventure was spent in a gray domed tent with the wrangler, Tyler, and the guide, Ben. They drank some, fooled around some, and then shortly after midnight, Tyler and Ben took Brian and Mark to where the game would commence. Tyler told the boys to be aware of where the trail was at all times, and Ben gave them some flashlights so they could see where they were going.

“But the idea is not to be seen,” Tyler told them. And they all agreed Brian and Mark would not turn on their flashlights unless they absolutely needed to and were sure nobody was around at the time.

“You’re sure you’ll be out there somewhere if we need you?” Brian asked.

“A course,” Tyler said. “Just give us a shout, and we’ll hear you.”

And Tyler and Ben stood at the foot of the trail and watched the boys disappear up the hill on a half-moon night.

 

Exclusive Excerpt: Hacked Up: A Thriller by Ethan Stone

Blurb:

Seattle is being plagued by a string of gruesome murders. For Detective Peter Tao, it’s a career-making case, but he’s struggling to find a lead. How is the killer choosing his victims? What is he trying to prove?

With a long list of suspects and nothing to connect them, Peter is more determined than ever to apprehend the murderer. Then Peter gets the one vital piece of evidence that ties everything together. Now he’ll have to look beyond the obvious to identify the killer before anyone else is murdered.

Solve the mystery in this fast-moving crime thriller by Ethan Stone.

Excerpt:

Chapter 1

Another day, another dead body.

I flashed my badge to the uniformed officer standing guard and stepped under the crime scene tape. The wind from nearby Elliot Bay had me pulling the collar up on my coat as goosebumps raced over my flesh. The rising sun did little to alleviate the chill.

“Hey, Detective Tao.” Dr. Jill Trencher, King County Medical Examiner, glanced up. The corpse lay on its back, jeans pulled halfway down, arms and legs tucked alongside the body, and eyes wide open. It appeared to be male, but I wasn’t sure. The lack of breasts pointed to one fact but there wasn’t any male genitalia either. No male or female parts. Just dried blood where something should’ve been.

“What do we have, Jill?”

She stood. “White male. Mid-twenties.”

I kneeled, eyeballing the body and mentally cataloging the young man’s features. Short, light brown hair, eyes the shade of a dull penny. Squat, muscular body. “Time and cause of death?”

“I’d say around midnight for the time of death. As for the how, there’s a wound on the back of the neck,” she replied. “I suspect the killer severed the spinal cord. Would’ve been fairly quick and fairly painless.”

“Even the castration?”

“From the looks of it, that occurred postmortem. I’ll be able to tell you more when he’s on the table. The crime scene unit has already been and gone. We’re just waiting on you. Took you a little longer than normal to get here.”

I stood and scowled. ­“I was home, in bed, where I still should be.” No need to tell her I hadn’t been alone, or who had been in my bed. “I’m not the detective on call.”

“That would be his fault.” Jill pointed behind me.

Turning, I faced my partner, Detective Jamey Nolan.

“Why aren’t you at home with Chelsea?”

He rolled his eyes and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I happened to be at the station when the call came in from Harbor Patrol. Sounded like an interesting case so I took it.”

“Am I supposed to thank you?”

“Guess you’ll just have to deal with it, huh?”

I snorted, unable to argue. Not that I was all that upset. A man murdered and castrated could indeed be a fascinating case and a fresh change from the gang killings Jamey and I had been investigating lately.

“Are you guys done?” Jill asked. “Can I get the body out of here?”

I took out my phone and snapped a picture of the victim’s face.

“Yeah, are you finished whining, Tao?” Jamey asked.

Smirking, I replied, “Not even close, but I’ll save it until we’re alone.”

Jamey and I stepped away and watched as Jill and her assistants removed the corpse.

“So, why were you at the station before the ass crack of dawn?”

Jamey didn’t answer. Instead, he turned away and stared out at the bay. I stepped next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “You and Chelsea having problems again?”

Jamey glared at me, but it wasn’t like I was wrong.

“You know us. It’s always something.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

He glanced over and shook his head. “Not right now.”

“Well, if you do, just let me know.”

Jamey waggled his eyebrows and flashed a cheesy grin. “I wouldn’t want to interfere with your plans.”

I elbowed him in the gut, and he pretended I’d hurt him. As far as I knew, Jamey was the only one of my co-workers who knew I was gay. I hadn’t told him. He’d figured it out shortly after we began working together five years ago. Not surprising, really, not with his twenty-six years of experience as a detective. It hadn’t bothered him a bit. In fact, he liked, no, he loved ribbing me about it.

“If you’d been worried about messing with my plans, you wouldn’t have taken this case.”

His eyes got large, and he put a hand to his mouth. “Did you have what’s his name over again?”

“If you mean Haro, then yes, he stayed last night. We were both asleep when the call came in.”

“That’s like, what, the fourth time he’s slept at your place?”

“Sixth, actually,” I said. When Jamey winked, I added, “And don’t get any ideas. This is strictly no-strings-attached.” Haro and I had a lot in common-namely, conservative, old-school parents who wouldn’t handle having a gay son well.

“Yeah, but I know sometimes those types of relationships can turn into more.”

I side-eyed him. “Even if settling down with a guy was in the cards for me, what makes you think I’m in any kind of hurry to do that?”

He patted my cheek. “I just want my best friend to be happy. Figure one of us should be.” Sadness took over his face again, and I wished I could do something to help him out. “I need coffee. What about you?”

“Definitely. I didn’t have time since I was so rudely woken up this morning.”

“Quit your whining.”

We strolled toward the nearest Starbucks. Living in Seattle meant there was basically one on every corner.

“I’ll whine if I want to, jackass. I was hoping for a morning BJ.”

“Shut up, Peter. You know I don’t want to hear about your sex life.”

“That’s because you’re jealous. It’s probably been months since you got any.”

Normally, that would’ve brought on a retort from Jamey, but instead, he fell silent. This wasn’t the time or place to push it, otherwise, I would’ve demanded he tell me what was bothering him. Instead, we waited in silence to cross the street.

Readers can find Ethan online.

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His books: http://www.ethanjstone.com/my-books

Exclusive Excerpt: The Iniquitous Investigator (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 8) by Frank W Butterfield

Blurb:

Monday, July 5, 1954

Mildred’s Diner just isn’t the welcoming place it once was. Looking forward to a nice breakfast, including that chewy bacon that Nick and Carter both love, they’re asked to leave. Mildred has gone back to Texas and word is they “ain’t welcome.”

But it’s a sunny July day, so Nick puts the top down on the Roadmaster and they head across the Golden Gate to Sausalito for eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee. But it seems like trouble follows them along the way and, before they know it, Nick and Carter are sitting in jail for vagrancy.

After making bail, the whole team is on the job figuring what the heck is going on in sleepy Sausalito while also chasing down the missing Mildred, who may have been kidnapped or worse!

Excerpt:

I stretched out on the cot and thought about the day. It had been rough, there was no doubt about it. As the sheriff’s deputies were leading us out of the courtroom, I saw my father looking shocked and upset. Lettie was holding his arm and whispering something. But, for the first time that I could remember, I felt an affection for the old man. I smiled and hoped he saw it.

I knew the worst that could happen is that we would do three months. I’d been in the Navy. I knew what it was like to be confined to small spaces. And the Marin County jail wasn’t San Quentin. It was smaller than the Dougherty County jail in Georgia had been. I’d been a guest of theirs for a couple of nights the year before.

I turned on my side and looked at the brick wall. It was faintly illuminated by a streetlight outside. There was a small window, covered with simple horizontal bars, that was about two feet square and that let me see the street outside. The cell was slightly above ground level. There was a warehouse across the street with a loading dock that had been busy at the end of the work day.

The clothes I’d been given included a thick cotton undershirt, a button-down denim shirt, and a pair of dungarees. I was allowed to keep my BVDs. The shoes I was wearing had obviously belonged to someone else. They didn’t have my size, so these were too big. They smelled. I had taken them off when I was led to my cell and had only put them back on when dinner was called.

All of Carter’s clothes were too small and that included his shoes. When we were walked into the small mess hall, or whatever they called it, he came in line with the men from his row of cells. I got a momentary glance at his feet and saw that he was walking on the heel of the shoe and that his feet stuck out about an inch.

My row was seated on a long bench in front of a long table. We sat in the order we were marched in. I was at one end of my side, since I was in the last cell of my row. The man next to me didn’t speak and neither did I.

Carter was on the other side of the table in the middle. I counted twelve men on his side. I tried to look down my row to count, but was called out to keep my head down when I did so. So, I followed instructions.

The man across from me looked like he was recovering from a bender. He was having a hard time eating anything but the soup.

The food was basic. There was a bowl of vegetable soup, a piece of bread with a small pat of butter, a surprisingly tender piece of boiled beef, and a pile of mushy boiled carrots. There was no salt or pepper to be tasted or to be had. The butter was the only flavoring of any sort. The food wasn’t horrible. It would do.

As I ate my soup, I managed a couple of glances at Carter. He smiled and I replied in kind. After dinner, I’d stayed in my cell stretched out on my cot, not sure what to do. At some point, Carter had walked up to the door and asked how I was doing. I sat up, he walked in, and sat down next to me. We sat there for a long time talking about childhood antics again, like we had in the Sausalito jail. At one point, he’d leaned into me. Even though there was no one around, I leaned back for a moment and then mentioned how we ought to be careful. He’d sighed and leaned away.

An officer came by and told Carter to get back to his cell for the nightly check and light’s out. As he left, I whispered, “I love you, Chief.” He smiled and only nodded in reply as the officer was standing outside waiting for him.

As I began to drift off, I could hear someone singing. I couldn’t quite catch the tune, but it continued until several voices began to protest. There was a sharp metal rap somewhere and suddenly everything was quiet.

. . .

At some point in the night, I woke up and relieved myself in the uncovered toilet. A roll of brown toilet paper sat on the floor next to the white porcelain base. The toilet was in the corner next to a small sink. There was a cake of rough soap on the sink’s small lip. I turned on the cold water tap, the only one available, and washed my hands. The soap stank of lye. It reminded me of the kind we’d made ourselves in New Guinea. I knew there was a county farm somewhere. I wondered if the prisoners made their own soap out there.

I sat back down on the bed and wished I had a cigarette. Everything had been taken from me when we were processed, including my beat-up old Zippo. For some reason, I was missing that more than anything.

My cot was pushed up against the wall. I pulled my feet up off floor and sat with my legs crossed. As I’d been doing since the hearing ended, I played the events in the courtroom in my head over and over again.

Obviously, O’Connor had been coached. His and Wildman’s testimony had been designed to match, point by point. O’Connor was just a good cop, doing a good job, according to the psychiatrist. Wildman was helping good cops do their best to deal with the intolerable problem of the male homosexual on the prowl. It was a situation that had to be dealt with. All reasonable men and women could see that was the case.

The judge was a piece of work. From his question about Uncle Paul, he’d made it clear where things was going. The stunt of making Kenneth ask to approach while Weissech just wandered around at will was one piece. The ridiculousness of the way he handled Weissech’s objections was another piece. I wondered, however, at the objections that Weissech didn’t make. I thought there might be a glimmer of hope there.

I was convinced that O’Connor had perjured himself. I had no proof, but he had to know who we were.

As he’d testified, I kept thinking about what Dawson had said. There was something wrong there. He’d been on the force for nineteen years and yet this Mountanos, this kid, was a shoe-in for police chief. I wondered what the real story was.

Wildman was definitely one of us. He might not have been in the life, but he was the very definition of a male homosexual. His idea about “cop as daddy” seemed to me to say more about him than anything else. What was the real nature of his relationship with O’Connor? The sergeant had something odd going on somewhere but I didn’t think he was one of us. Was O’Connor aware of this thing and trying to help the man, while also fixating on the man as his own kind of daddy? I didn’t think that made any sense. I was sure the doctor was the older man.

I wondered how I would fit into his analysis. I sure as hell had a disaffected relationship with my father. But I didn’t have time to form an unnatural attachment to my mother, since she left when I was only 7 years old. Of course, as had been pointed out to me, I tended to like other people’s mothers more than their own children did.

I was grateful for Lettie’s presence in my life. I’d known the woman just about a year and I considered her my mother, even if I still couldn’t bring myself to say that word. I had been deeply touched by the fact that Mrs. Jones had come back to San Francisco. I was captivated by Mrs. Kopek, who was a mother to not just Ike but just about any chickadee she might come across. She would have rescued half of Eastern Europe, given the chance.

Were these unnatural attachments? Or were they lines of affection, formed by circumstance and proximity? Was I disaffected from my father because I preferred the men in my life to be strong, kind, and loving and he was none of those? Or was it because there was something wrong with me? Or him? Or both?

I tended to take any psychological theory with a heave dose of salt. It never seemed to me that anything was just black or white.

 

Exclusive Excerpt: Genuine Gold (Cantor Gold Crime Series Book 3) by Ann Aptaker

Blurb:

New York, 1952. From the shadowy docks of Athens, Greece, to the elegance of a Fifth Avenue penthouse, to the neon glare of Coney Island, art smuggler Cantor Gold must track down an ancient artifact, elude thugs and killers, protect a beautiful woman who caters to Cantor’s deepest desires, and confront the honky-tonk past which formed her. Memories, murder, passion, and the terrible longing for her stolen love tangle in Cantor’s soul, threatening to tear her apart.

Excerpt:

I find a parking spot in front of Sig’s building on Fortieth Street, a classy black brick Art Deco office tower crowned with Gothic-style gilt work, and where Sig maintains a penthouse residence. The building is across the street from Bryant Park and the main branch of the New York Public Library, the famous one with the two lions out front facing Fifth Avenue. I’m sure Sig’s enjoyed a stroll through the park. Not sure he’s ever been in the library.

Inside his building, the black marble lobby is filling up with nine-to-fivers shivering after their walk from the subway down the block. Businessmen in wool overcoats and gray fedoras, women in colorful coats, some in the new princess style pinched at the waist, walk briskly to the elevators. I like the princess style. I like any style that accentuates a woman’s body.

I don’t join the crowd at the bank of public elevators. I keep walking to the end of the row, to the private elevator to Sig’s penthouse, guarded by a thug the nine-to-fivers pointedly ignore. They know who lives in the penthouse. Their fear of the crime boss upstairs is greater than their thrill at occasionally being in the presence of the most powerful man in New York when they see him walking through the lobby. Maybe the businessmen tip their hats when they pass him, maybe the women give him a polite smile. None of them know he doesn’t give a damn.

I don’t know the thug guarding the private elevator, but then again, I haven’t been to see Sig in quite a while. So the galoot doesn’t know me, either. He eyes me up and down. It takes him a minute to figure me, then looks at me like he’s examining me for germs. “What’s your business here?”

“Tell Sig that Cantor Gold wants to see him.”

I have to wait while the lobby galoot calls on the intercom beside the elevator and gives the upstairs galoot my message, and that galoot in turn gives the message to Sig’s personal galoot. I use the time to enjoy the lovely sight of an especially pretty office girl reading the front page of her newspaper while she waits for an elevator. But as much as I’d like to linger along her angelic face, have a little fun imagining what’s under her coat, my attention’s diverted when she opens the paper and I can see the whole front page. I’m grabbed by a particular story—down below all the headlines about President Truman and the Red Scare, the shoot-’em-up in Korea, and the never ending bedlam of city politics—printed way down at the bottom of the page, like a cockroach that slipped under the door: judge acquits guzik.

So Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, the Chicago Mob’s payoff man, a confidante of Capone during Al’s heyday, beat another rap. It was Guzik who peeled off the bills that went into the palms of Chicago’s cops and politicians, a job which earned him the Greasy Thumb moniker. I met the guy a coupla times on his trips here after Al bit the dust back in ’47, and gangster power coalesced in New York.

The pretty office girl catches me smiling, which makes her cringe, and she turns away. That might hurt my feelings except I’m not smiling at her. Nope, I’m smiling because my chances of not being killed today by Sig Loreale just went up. He’ll be in a good mood.

#

Or in as good a mood as a killer can be. By the time the elevator reaches the penthouse floor, I’m asking myself whether coming here was such a hot idea after all. Probing Sig for his secrets is a dangerous play, whether he’s in a good mood or not.

But there’s no turning back. Sig wouldn’t let me, anyway. He knows I’m here and he’ll want to know why. I’d never make it out of the building.

One of his galoots greets me at the apartment door, tells me Sig is waiting for me in his den. “Through the livin’ room and to the left. And I gotta hold your piece.” The guy has all the charm of a shark chewing a leg.

I’m not crazy about handing over my gun, but Sig demands all visitors check any hardware at the door. He likes his guests defenseless. Resistance would only get me a fist in the gut, and frankly I’m just not in the mood. I give the galoot my gun and walk in.

The last time I was in this living room was a night in March of ’49. Crammed among the fine furnishings, English landscape paintings on the walls, and various antiquities here and there—a number of them supplied by me for hefty sums of Sig’s cash—were bushels of flowers for a wedding that was abruptly cancelled: Opal died that night, her wedding night. Sig took his revenge the next morning, soothed his broken heart with murder. I was there. I saw the woman Sig blamed for Opal’s death fall at my feet, a bullet in her skull. I saw Sig and his gunman drive away.

But before he drove away, Sig made a promise, the same promise he made again a year and a half ago when I handed over a Dürer watercolor that should’ve gone to a dead client’s heirs, or at least a museum. It was his promise to look into what happened to Sophie, a promise he hasn’t kept. Sig prides himself on his word, so either he really has no information, or his fabled square dealing is just that: a fable, a storyline to calm unsuspecting marks before he cleans them out, runs them outta town, or kills them.

If it turns out Sig sees me as one of the marks, or even just a pest, then Mom’s right; he’ll kill me. Maybe not today, but when a moment comes up that suits him.

Bringing these thoughts into a meeting with Sig is a bad idea. Worrying over my own demise will blunt my energy, and any encounter with Sig Loreale requires operating at full spark. A deep breath and a swallow are the only weapons I have to squelch my dangerous thoughts. They do the trick, because they have to.

I knock on the door of the den.

“Come in, Cantor,” comes through the door in Sig’s terrifyingly quiet, scratchy voice, like claws scraping the wood, and each word slow and precise, nothing sloppy, the same scalpel-sharp way Sig does business. Sig’s cultivated his manner of speech and his method of business to obliterate the messy, immigrant Coney Island background we both came from. I wonder, if I look hard enough, if I’ll see any of the same honky-tonk remnants in Sig that still lurk inside me. I doubt it. Sig’s too disciplined, his soul too cold to cozy up to any nostalgia, a soul grown only colder since Opal’s death.

He’s at his desk, a large burled maple affair in a burled maple paneled room that’s as much about power as taste, though the taste, I think, isn’t entirely Sig’s. Like the elegantly furnished living room, the den appears to be the work of the dearly departed Opal, whose mother, Mom Sheinbaum, bred Opal to marry into the American dream. Mom sent her to all the right schools to acquire the culture and taste that come with them, rid Opal of the salami taint of the Lower East Side. To Mom’s disappointment, Sig Loreale, the up-from-the-gutter crime lord and killer, was the beneficiary of all that culture, instead of the square-jawed, blue-eyed American dreamboat Mom wanted for her precious Opal.

Sig, in shirtsleeves, a half-finished cup of coffee on the desk, is reading a newspaper when I come in. What for other people would be an otherwise benign activity is, in Sig’s hands, a tableau of his ruthlessly efficient control of life: his, and while I’m here, mine. His white shirt, crisp in the light from the windows and the glass-paned door to the terrace, doesn’t have a single wrinkle, and wouldn’t dare. The gray-and-white houndstooth pattern of his tie is precisely aligned with the knot. The pinstripes on his charcoal suit-vest, fully buttoned, are in military straight lines. And though the cigar smoke curling around his face softens his jowly cheeks and the baggy pouches under his eyes, the smoke can’t hide the predatory menace in those eyes, despite his smile. It’s not a big smile, just a small sneer of satisfaction as he reads the same article about Greasy Thumb Guzik beating the rap that the pretty office girl read downstairs; only the office girl has no connection to Guzik or the judge who dismissed the charges against him. Sig, no doubt, does. Sig, no doubt, owns both Guzik and the judge. The judge, having done what he was told to do, will continue to live his plush, well-paid-for life for the foreseeable future. Jake Guzik will owe Sig his freedom. Both men will keep their mouths shut about anything they know regarding what goes on in the underworld. And Sig, to my relief, is in his ice-cold version of a good mood.

Exclusive Excerpt: Boystown 9: Lucky Days (The Boystown Series) by Marshall Thornton

Blurb:

In the ninth book of the bestselling mystery series, a young man wakes up covered in blood and no memory of the previous night. When hypnotism doesn’t help, he turns to private investigator Nick Nowak. Meanwhile, the trial of Outfit kingpin Jimmy English begins. Quickly the case begins to unravel when an important witness goes missing and Nick must put his other cases, and his home life, on hold while he goes to Las Vegas to find him.

 

Excerpt:

Jimmy’s trial was held in one of the larger courtrooms on the sixth floor of Cook County Courthouse. The room was lined in a light, polished stone, which might have matched the outside of the building if they managed to sandblast off the few decades of grime that clung to the building. There were four very large windows to the right as you walked in. The ceiling was made up of painted wooden beams with flat fluorescent lights in each of the boxes the beams formed. The jury sat opposite the windows in sixteen leather armchairs that swiveled but were bolted to the floor—they could see everything, but were denied the right to pick up their seat and throw it. An aisle separated the twelve jurors from the four alternates.

The judge’s bench was raised and looked down at the rest of the room. Next to it was a witness box on one side, and a recorder’s station on the other. Almost in the center of the room was a long table where the prosecution would sit while they presented their case; the defense would sit at another long table along the side of the room, looking straight at the jury. Mid-trial, when it was the defense’s turn to present their case, we would change positions. There were flags hanging from tall poles behind the judge, and brass embellishments running around the room near the ceiling—my bet was they had something to do with justice and that no one ever really looked at them.

The spectators would be sitting in sixteen oak pews, eight rows deep, and one pew on each side of the courtroom with an aisle in the center. The first pew on each side was designated for the defense and the state’s attorney. I wouldn’t be sitting there, though. I would be sitting in one of four chairs that lined the wall behind the defense table.

When I arrived that morning Jimmy was already there, seated at the defense table but pushed back a few feet, resting his hands on his cane. He’d aged quite a bit in the few years I’d known him. I can’t imagine the stress of a criminal investigation is good for the skin; his was pale and thin as plastic wrap. Standing near him were Nathan Babcock—fiftyish, tall, patrician, neatly groomed—and Owen Lovejoy, Esquire—shortish, stocky wearing an expensive suit and over-large tortoiseshell glasses. We’d been friends for a couple of years and I was fairly certain he was a better lawyer than Babcock. It was unlikely he’d ever be put in front of a jury, though, since he had a tendency to flutter his hands about, overemphasize his S’s, and call other men ‘darling.’ Jurors who took against a defense attorney were likely to convict regardless of guilt or innocence.

I took my seat against the wall, placing the two boxes of documents I had at the ready on the seat next to me. On the other side of the boxes was a woman in her early sixties, Nathan Babcock’s secretary. She, too, was there in case of emergency. She didn’t bother to say hello to me, so I didn’t bother to say hello to her.

Mrs. Barnes, as I later learned she was called, probably judged me as insignificant based on what I wore. I had on my old corduroy jacket. I’d had it dry-cleaned, but it still looked like it had been run over by a semi. Beneath the jacket I had on a white Oxford shirt, a plaid woolen tie, 501s and brown, Florsheim penny loafers. I should have upgraded my wardrobe. I certainly had enough money to, it’s just that every time I went into Marshall Field’s or Carson, Pirie, Scott all the clothes seemed designed for either East Coast bankers with a penchant for weekend golf or some costumer’s idea of which pastel an undercover cop might wear in Miami.

At the State’s table, Linda Sanchez stood with two other ASAs. She was raven-haired and dark-eyed. She wore a blue pin-striped suit over a cream-colored blouse that boasted a big floppy bow around her neck. On her feet, she wore a pair of Nikes, which she eventually traded for a pair of conservative, two-inch heels she carried in her briefcase. The two other ASAs were men. One was forty and doughy, and even from twenty feet away I could see he resented Sanchez, who was clearly in charge. The other ASA was Tony Stork.

Tony was around thirty, tall, lanky, with an upper crust North Shore look to him. He had sand-colored hair and dark eyes rimmed with thick lashes. I was surprised to see him on their team. A few years before, he’d prosecuted a guy named Campbell Wayne, who tried to throw me in front of a CTA train. He’d also given me a memorable blow job in an empty interview room. Since I’d also dallied with Owen Lovejoy, Esquire, that meant I’d had sex with lawyers on each side of the aisle. I decided it might not be good to spread that information around.

 

As it neared ten, the pews filled. A good number of the spectators seemed to be press, but there were also a few other people I recognized. Lydia Agnotti was there sitting in a pew near the back. She was Jimmy’s granddaughter. We’d met when she’d tricked her brother into killing their stepfather. Her brother was now in prison, while she roamed the streets.

Sliding into the front pew were Beverly Harlington and Rose Hansen. Beverly was Lydia’s mother, whose first husband was Jimmy’s deceased son—Lydia didn’t happen to have anything to do with his death. Rose was Jimmy’s daughter. She and Beverly were more appropriately dressed for afternoon tea than court. On the other side of the room, looking somber and determined, was Deanna Hanson with her much older boyfriend, Turi Bova. I have to say, with all of Jimmy’s family there it looked more like a custody case than a mob trial.

Aside from the press and the family, there were a couple of other middle-aged men who looked like they might be members of the Outfit: their dark polyester slacks, golf shirts, windbreakers and Italian shoes were dead giveaways. At the top of Jimmy’s food chain was a man called Doves. My guess was that these guys would be bringing Doves the news of the day.

I didn’t understand why Rose and Deanna were there. They were both going to be witnesses and I doubted they’d be testifying on the first day, so I wondered what made them think they’d be able to remain in the courtroom. When I was on the job I’d had to testify about a dozen times. Each time I’d had to wait in the hallway until I was called. I didn’t know why Rose and Deanna thought they’d be entitled to watch the trial, other than the fact that they felt entitled in general.

A bailiff walked into the court from the back; a red-haired woman wearing a khaki and green uniform. In her late forties, she had very large breasts jutting out, making me wonder if she even knew there was a walkie-talkie and gun on her belt.

“Please rise.”

We did.

“Cook County Criminal Court is now in session. The Honorable Judge Martin Corbin presiding.”

Next came a meek looking court reporter in a brown dress with a white lace collar. Behind her, Judge Corbin in his black robes. He was in his late fifties, with thinning white hair and a puffy face. Once he got situated behind the bench he said, “Please be seated.”

We sat.

The judge looked around and then said, “This is State of Illinois v. Giovanni Agnotti. Is that correct?”

ASA Sanchez and Nathan Babcock each stood and said, “Yes, your honor.”

“I like to make sure. Cousin of mine went into the hospital to have a testicle removed. They took the wrong one. Now he has none. I wouldn’t like to come to work in the morning and hear the wrong case.”

It was a crazy thing to say. Most of the people in the room didn’t know whether to laugh or not. Certainly, Jimmy’s team was confused. The ASAs, though, they knew to laugh and were putting on a show of it. Judge Corbin looked pleased with the response he got. I wondered if he began every trial with this same joke.

“Before we begin jury selection, are there motions?”

ASA Sanchez stood up and motioned that witnesses be excluded from the courtroom. “With the exception of Mr. Agnotti’s family members, of course.”

Since Rose and Deanna were witnesses for the state’s attorney, I fully expected Nathan Babcock to object and ask that they be excluded. Instead, he stayed seated and said, “No objections, your honor.”

I was surprised by that, but from the look on her face not as much as ASA Sanchez. For a moment, I thought she might jump up and say, “Oh no, your honor, never mind.”

The judge announced that jury selection was going to begin. The bailiff went to get the first round of sixteen jurors to be questioned. Owen looked over his shoulder then pushed his chair back to me.

“Have you spent much time in a courtroom?” he asked.

“A bit.”

“We’re not expecting this to go more than two weeks. Maybe less.”

“What about Devlin? Will you be able to talk about him?” In my opinion, the best defense for Jimmy would be to focus on Devlin and his creative ways of gathering confessions. Beating the crap out of witnesses tends to make their testimony inadmissible.

“There was a motion to suppress two weeks ago. I guess we’d call it a draw. We can’t bring him up, but it’s impossible to keep him completely out since he interviewed most of their witnesses.”

“So you won’t be calling me?” Devlin was responsible for pretty much all of my recent injuries. I would have loved to testify about him.

“No,” Owen said. “We can’t put you on the stand or present testimony about Devlin’s prosecution.”

“Will they be calling him to testify?”

“No. The first question is always name and address. If he didn’t say Cook County Jail he’d be perjuring himself and if he tells the court where he currently lives we get to ask why.”

“So this is going to boil down to how much you can get in about Devlin without asking questions about Devlin.”

He gave me a devilish smile. “Darling, you should have been a lawyer.”

When the prospective jurors got settled, the judge told the attorneys they could begin. Sanchez and Babcock took turns asking bland questions like, “Do you think you can be impartial?” Occasionally, Sanchez would ask a juror how they felt about police officers. If she didn’t like the answer she’d dismiss the juror. Babcock asked a similar question about the restaurant business and let go of a couple of jurors who’d once been waitresses. It was all pretty obvious stuff.

While I sat there, I wondered exactly what was going on. The most damning evidence against Jimmy would come from his granddaughter, Deanna. She’d been informing on him for more than a year, providing Operation Tea and Crumpets—the task force investigating Jimmy—with a journal that detailed Jimmy’s activities for nearly thirty years. Keeping something like a journal was a stupid idea, but Jimmy admitted to me that he’d done just that. Then, when I finally got to look at a much-copied Xerox in discovery, I’d realized there was no way Jimmy had written the journal. The handwriting was wrong. So, he’d lied to me. What I hadn’t figured out was, why?

The case began to crumble when it became obvious that Devlin was a bad cop. The Feds dropped it like a hot potato, but ASA Sanchez persisted. I had an inkling she thought the publicity could only be good for her career. What I didn’t understand was the defense. Why hadn’t they insisted the handwriting in the journal be compared to Deanna’s? At this point, given the weakness of the prosecution’s case, just suggesting that Deanna had written the journal herself might have been enough to get them to drop the charges.

Of course, Jimmy could simply be protecting Deanna. Providing false evidence was a crime, as was lying to federal agents. Conceivably, she could spend half a decade in prison. Was Jimmy counting on his expensive lawyers to get him off without exposing his granddaughter’s lies? I’d known Jimmy for a while. That seemed like something he’d do. I knew family was important to him. His grandson was in prison; I doubted he wanted any more of his grandchildren to end up there.

Jury selection took a bit more than two hours. Once the jury was empanelled, Judge Corbin gave them a little speech.

“This is my courtroom. I make the rules here and what I say goes. You’ll note that the state attorneys or the defense attorneys will often object to my decisions. In fact, they will likely try to influence you by the objections they make. Don’t let them.”

He stopped to give both sides in the case a dirty look.

“This is an important trial that has garnered interest from the local press. You are not to read any of the articles written about the trial or watch any news programs that include stories about the trial. If at any time I think any one of you has ignored these instructions I will sequester you all.”

Now he gave the jurors a dirty look.

“There’s something I want to make very clear to all twelve of you jurors and also the four alternates. At this moment in time, Giovanni Agnotti is innocent.” I watched ASA Sanchez flinch when he said it. “He’s innocent because in the American system we are all innocent until proven guilty. The fact that Ms. Sanchez believes she can prove that Mr. Agnotti is guilty does not make it so. He is innocent until the state proves to you he is not. And on that note, we should break for lunch. We will reconvene at two-thirty.”

It wasn’t quite one. We had nearly two hours before court began again. Not enough time to go back to the office, but enough time to get really bored. Rose and Beverly were already hovering around Jimmy—from the comments they made it seemed as though Jimmy’s driver was going to drive them somewhere “decent” for lunch. Babcock seemed to be tagging along, though I wasn’t sure I had an invitation. When the party began to walk out of the courtroom, I noticed Lydia Agnotti hovering nearby. She was pointedly ignored by her mother and her aunt; Jimmy may have nodded at her, but I couldn’t be sure.

When they’d walked completely out of the courtroom, Lydia turned and glared at me. My exposing her as the one truly responsible for her stepfather’s death had caused the estrangement with her family, so we weren’t exactly friends.

I’m not sure, but she may have hissed at me.