Breathless (A Corey Shaw mystery Book 1) by Alex Morgan

Excerpt:

Corey found the local
police chief and a forensic team from Hyannis on the sandy shore below the
wooden deck of the Boatslip, one of the most popular spots in Provincetown. The
size of the hotel meant that many guys were in one place and near the crime
scene. Not good. The Boat Slip’s afternoon tea dance brought even more people
crowding onto the outside deck, which also served as a dance floor. Even now,
several men peered over the railing at the activity on the beach below.  Soon, more would follow.

Police Chief Richard
Stewart greeted him as he checked in with the officer guarding the scene.

“Damn! You didn’t waste
any time getting here, Shaw,” Chief Stewart said, looking at his watch. “Where
were you when I called? Orleans?”

“Close enough,” Corey
winked at his friend.

“Are you ever going to
tell me how you move around the state so fast?”

“Perhaps.”

Chief Stewart shook his
head and led Corey to the corpse.

“John Doe. Strangled,” he
said. The grim look on his hard-lined face told Corey that something had
rattled the chief’s staunch reserve. “And he was tortured before being killed.”

Having had frequent
contact with the chief in the past, Corey had never seen him so shaken by a
crime.

As they knelt next to the
victim, the chief pulled back a tarp covering the naked body of a young man
lying face down in the sand.

He pointed out disturbing
aspects of the murder. “Rope burns on the ankles, wrists, knees, and across the
chest and upper arms where he was tied up. The deep cuts indicate that the
bonds were tight.”

He motioned toward the buttocks. The man had a narrow waist and a well-rounded ass, which had been slashed many times. Long gashes crossed the tanned cheeks, drawing blood that had long since dried.

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“Looks like he was caned
or severely whipped while he was tied up,” the chief continued. Similar slashes
covered his back and legs, but not as severe as those on the ass.

“This has been done to
him before, hasn’t it?” Corey asked.

“What do you mean?”
Stewart gave him a quizzical look. He glanced at one of the forensics agents
who knelt down on the opposite side of the body. “Corey, this is Carolyn Seger
from the Massachusetts State Bureau of Investigation.”

Corey shook hands with
her.

“You’ve got a good
eye,” she said, directing their attention to several old wounds concealed
and healing among the fresh ones.

Judging by the look on
the chief’s face, Corey surmised that he hadn’t experienced anything like this
in Provincetown before.

Carolyn picked up the
story where Stewart left off. “From the angle of the rope wound around the
neck, it appears that the victim was hung until dead. There are very few signs
of a struggle, which is strange.”

Hmmm…maybe
not so strange, Corey thought.

She pointed to the
bruising on the neck. “The visible side of the face appears purple, a gruesome
contrast to the white skin of his shaved head.” She frowned while mumbling the
latter under her breath. “Look at these.” The agent indicated to marks crisscrossing
his back. “It appears he was wearing a leather…” She hesitated, as if searching
for the right word.

“Harness,” Corey
finished. “I have one that’s almost the same as the one he wore. Do you think
it played a role in his death?”

Seger shook her head.
“Preliminary indications all point to strangulation by hanging.” She looked at
him. When his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, she asked, “What is it?”

He pointed to faint, red
markings on the back of the victim’s neck that resembled the ones on his back.
“It looks like he wore a leather collar, as well.” He shifted his position to
lean forward.

“We noticed that, too,
but I don’t think it contributed to his death, either.”

“Can we turn him over?”
The agent nodded and donned plastic gloves. With the help of another forensic
team member, they rolled the corpse on its back. The hideousness of the crime
became more apparent. The entire face, covered in purple blemishes, was
contorted into a grimace as he had struggled to breathe in his last few seconds
of life. His tongue protruded grotesquely from the mouth. Corey’s gaze shifted
lower. All the pubic hair was shaved away.

“Look at this.” Seger’s
eyes widened at the new discovery. “There’s scabbing just above the penis, and
it seems as though it goes all the way around the scrotum. Something’s
irritated his skin because it’s broken out and re-healed, like the marks on his
posterior.”

“He wore a cock ring,”
Corey said and added, “I have that same trouble if I wear mine too long.” Eager
to contribute to the investigation, he’d let out more personal information than
the chief or agents wanted to hear. To divert attention from his momentary lack
of discretion, he took another tack. “Are you sure this was murder?”

“What else could it be?”
The chief’s jaw clenched.

“I’m thinking it could be
an extreme BDSM session that went a bit too far.”

Chief Stewart and Carolyn
stared, jaws dropping.

“In all my years in
Provincetown, I’ve never heard of something like this, and I’ve heard and seen
some pretty weird shit.” The chief shook his head.

“Many guys have execution
fantasies, where the only way they can get off is to experience a near-death
situation. In such a case like this, execution by hanging,” Corey explained. “The
victim is hung to the point when he comes and then is released by the
‘executioner.’” He used his fingers to form quotation marks in the air. “This
might have been one time when the executioner didn’t move fast enough.” He
paused for a few seconds. “Or wouldn’t.”

“You mean this guy let
someone hang him to death?”

“No,” Corey replied.
“More than likely, he just wanted to experience a high similar to the choking
game that’s somehow gotten to be popular. But here, instead of doing it
himself, he got a bigger rush by having someone do it for him. The idea is to
release the rope or garrote before death. It’s an incredibly dangerous game.”

“So this could just be a
tragic accident?” Seger asked.

Corey held out his hands
in supplication. “Perhaps. Otherwise, we may have to look for a guy who has to
kill to get off. But there’s something odd here.”

“What?” The chief sounded
as though he didn’t think it could get any stranger.

“Whether or not his death
was accidental, where are his harness, collar and cock ring? If his executioner
didn’t kill him on purpose, why remove his accouterments? Or if it was
intentional, a murderer would’ve dumped the body and not worried about removing
everything, unless he left his DNA on everything.”

“Maybe the leather
belonged to the executioner and he took it back?” Chief Stewart said. “You
know, like a master/slave thing?”

Corey considered that
explanation for a minute. “Perhaps, but not likely, I would think. Cock rings
are more personal items, and since they’re relatively cheap, guys buy them for
themselves or someone they’re romantically involved with.”

“Could this be a lovers’
spat?” Carolyn asked.

“I hadn’t thought about
that, but you may be right. And the murderer removed everything to keep as
mementos, or because they had a sentimental value?”

“Some serial killers do
that, too,” Chief Stewart muttered. Corey and Carolyn looked at him. “They will
take something from each of their victims as a trophy.”

“Or the harness could
hold some concrete evidence to the identity of the murderer,” Corey mused.
“Something other than his body fluids.”

More about author, Alex Morgan:

Alan Scott
(aka Alex Morgan) was born and raised in western Oklahoma. He majored in
chemistry in college and moved to Dallas
to get his master’s degree. Later he received a PhD in analytical chemistry. He
now lives in the Baltimore area.

He has been
an avid reader, particularly mysteries, after being introduced to the Hardy
Boys in grade school. After reading his first Agatha Christie novel, Murder on the Orient Express, in junior
high, mysteries have been one of his biggest enjoyments. He has always enjoyed
reading comic books and loves the super-hero genre just as much.

Combining
these two concepts, he has written four mystery novels introducing gay,
paranormal sleuth Corey Shaw. Under the pen name Alan Scott, he has written a
novel continuing the paranormal detective series with “Inside Passage to
Murder” and the forthcoming “A Faire Day for Murder.”  He is also the author of several gay erotica
short stories.