MOSTLY MURDER: Till Death: a mystery anthology Page 6

  Any works in progress?

  Absolutely. I’ve always got several projects on the go. Writing this shorter piece provided a welcome break in the editing cycle for my next novel. My agent and I are debating about the title. I call it The Farm. She calls it Dark Harvest. Whatever we end up calling the book, it will be the second in the Holt Foundation series. Seth, Marissa, and the cast of characters from the first book, In the Dark, investigate the disappearance of a pregnant woman who has gone missing. The police suspect the boyfriend is to blame, but the Holt Foundation fears there is a darker motive at play. With the missing woman’s due date only weeks away, there is no time to waste if they are to save her and her baby.

  Tell us where readers can find you and hear about your upcoming books.

  Readers can follow me on my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/authorchrispatchell/. They can also signup for my newsletter on my author website at http://www.chrispatchell.com/.

  Starter

  by Samuel Peralta

  “It’s a perfect starter,” he is saying to us.

  I step into the house first, after the realtor, and she steps in behind me, her small hot hand clutched in mine.

  ~

  A modest brick two-story on a thirty-five-foot lot frontage. Grass.

  A tidy porch, an asphalt driveway turning into a busy thoroughfare that was once a quiet street.

  On the right, one house away from a gaggle of shops—pharmacy, hairdresser, tanning salon, cafe.

  On the left, four houses from a clutch of tombstones, an old cemetery across from a new supermarket.

  ~

  I’d discovered a new Thai-Indonesian fusion restaurant in the west end, coaxed her to lunch a week ago. But all throughout, she’d dampened my triumph, pensive over nasi goreng and tea.

  Then, without warning: “It isn’t far from here, you know.”

  “What isn’t far?”

  “Where it all began.”

  ~

  Not far. Seeing the house stunned me, an apparition from her past, suddenly present. But the sign in front took us both aback—

  F O R S A L E

  For days our conversation wound its way in and out and around that house for sale, wavering around letting it go and going further—until one day she told me she’d rung up a realtor, that we’d go there after work.

  ~

  “Easy access, everything you need a short walk away,” the realtor is saying.

  I’m watching her. She’s silent.

  “The main floor refinished, fresh paint on the walls, the windows completely redone,” he continues. “Everything like new.”

  But the memories are still there. Under the whitewash, plaster and paint, revenants linger.

  I see it in her eyes, the way she circles around the perimeter of the empty room, now and again her right hand reaching up to brush the silent walls, as if they could speak.

  I am her memory’s accomplice. Each hesitant confession, all her Scheherazade stories, whispered to me nights over the years, coalescing into reality as we continue our ritual dance to the realtor’s vapid incantation—

  Living room… dining room… kitchen… bath…

  Through every doorway another tormented ghost, in every open room another stab wound in her heart.

  ~

  “Would you like to see upstairs?” the realtor asks.

  She stops him and asks if she and I could talk alone. It’s her first time to speak.

  Always accommodating, the man takes out cigarettes and retreats to the backyard.

  She takes my hand. As in a trance, she leads the way upstairs.

  I count the number of stairs, every step up a step back into the past, and skip a beat when we reach the top at fourteen.

  Our dance moves across the landing past two empty bedrooms and a bath before we reach the small, unremarkable room that was her own.

  ~

  “Are you afraid?” he asked her, that first night, fourteen years ago. He twisted her arm, and she whimpered. No use pretending, as before, that she was asleep.

  “No I’m not,” she whispered.

  “You should be,” he said, unsheathing his belt. “You should be.”

  ~

  She leads me to the back wall and kneels down, traces remembrance on its surface.

  Scuff marks where the bedposts scraped the wall.

  The outline of a nonexistent bedframe.

  The indentation of the legs still marring the floor.

  The ceiling light, and how she willed herself to stare at it, to think of nothing else but the burning in her eyes.

  ~

  She sifts the walls and floorboards as if through evidence, the archeology of her past, and here I am, belated witness to her truth.

  Eleven years old again, she whimpers, pulls me close, a coverlet against the night.

  ~

  And when she’s found it all, proven to herself that it was real, an unimagined life, when she’s sifted and catalogued the forensic minutiae of her innocence unravelling, she weeps—for who she was, for why she is, here in a whitewashed starter, where it all began.

  Q&A with Samuel Peralta

  This is an unusual and haunting story. Can you share how the idea came to you?

  “Starter” is based on a true story. I had a troubled friend who confided to me a story about something that happened to her in her aunt and uncle’s home. One day I found myself in her hometown, on business, and I happened to drive past the street she told me about, and there it was, just as she described in her story, but with a ‘For Sale’ sign in front. I never told her about it, and eventually we lost touch. I imagined this story as a way for her to face her ghosts.

  What brought you to writing?

  I’ve always been a storyteller, ever since I can remember. I remember keeping my younger brothers entertained for hours with stories I made up on the spot. Since then I’ve explored a variety of forms, from poetry to songs, from essays to short stories—and am now beginning a novel—but the thrill of telling a new story remains the same.

  Do you have new works in progress?

  I have a couple of speculative fiction pieces destined for magazines and anthologies. The titles may change, but Sonata Vampirica is a dialogue between a vampire and his lover; A Love Song for the Apocalypse explores one way the world could end; and The Illustrated Robot is a tribute to Ray Bradbury.

  My biggest effort now is a novel destined for the box set Dominion Rising, a collection of original novels by a group of authors I’m proud to be associated with, coming out in 2017. I can’t really say what my novel will be about, but I’m really excited about it, because it will be my debut novel.

  Your background is quite varied. Please give us a short description of what you do, and how you manage to juggle work in so many different fields.

  Many of my creative projects I view as missions to encourage other creatives and pioneers—whether in art or technology—and to spotlight them to a broader audience. That mission is what keeps me going.

  Most people know me as a business development executive for a nuclear engineering company, or as a member of the Board of Directors of a Canadian nuclear industry association. But I also sit on the Boards of several resource firms pivoting to the high-technology area—in augmented reality, the Internet of Things, and in hybrid semiconductors.

  I’ve had several successful start-ups in the past, in handheld computing and in III-V semiconductors, which have given me the experience to do this—as well as some freedom to write and independently publish books, including my Future Chronicles anthology series—www.smarturl.it/get-free-book —which has about 17 titles to date. I also support visual artists, particularly in independent film, having been involved in nearly 100 feature and short films so far.

  Where can we find you?

  For my literary projects - www.amazon.com/author/samuelperalta

  For my film projects - www.imdb.com/name/nm6182058/

  For my business projects - www.li
nkedin.com/in/samperalta

  Pride

  by Eric J. Gates

  There were no sirens.

  A lazy Sunday afternoon, sitting on the deck, watching the waves, people playing on the beach, sipping lemon tea, talking about the future.

  “I think we should hand everything over to the kids and go find that house in the Caribbean we keep talking about.” Todd McGee chuckled as his hands rubbed his knees. “At least it might help with this damned arthritis.”

  “What? The house in the Caribbean or the kids running the business?” replied his wife, Mary, refilling Todd’s empty glass.

  “Both, probably. We’re getting too old for this, Mary, and we know it. It’s a young person’s game; well, young as in less than sixty.”

  “You feeling old again?”

  “Mentally, no. It’s just this body of mine is starting to protest all the abuse of the last forty years. I’m afraid one day I’m going to screw things up because I can’t hack it anymore. No, my darling Mary, it’s time we retired. The kids are more than capable of carrying on. Let’s go spend some of the money we’ve got squirreled away.”

  “Sounds good. They’ll both be back in a couple of weeks, so that’s a great time to tell them.”

  “FBI! FREEZE!”

  Green-garbed men swarmed onto the deck, automatic weapons pointed. Mary screamed. Todd started to rise.

  “GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES! DO IT NOW! ON YOUR KNEES! HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD!”

  Todd glanced at his wife, then at the man in the dark suit emerging through the terrace door. He recognized the man. Knew of his obsession.

  “GET ON YOUR KNEES NOW!”

  The agent in the green fatigues and flak jacket shouting orders did not wait for Todd to comply. Mary could see the FBI SWAT team members were on edge. She was unaware their adrenaline had peaked as they breached the beachside house in Malibu, fueled in part by the pre-operation briefing two hours earlier.

  * * *

  “Make no mistake, this is the deadliest professional assassin on the planet. They call him the Lion. He’s been responsible for over fifty kills, that we know of, in the last twenty years. He won’t be taken easily. Do not be fooled by his appearance. If he has to kill you to escape, he won’t hesitate. I want him alive, though. ALIVE, people. Remember that!”

  The SWAT team commander looked at his men, a stern expression fixed on his face.

  “You heard Senior Special Agent Thompson. Take no chances with the target. Use less-lethal unless no alternative is available. Got that?” There was a halfhearted grumble of assent from the other team members.

  The team commander turned to the man in charge.

  “SSA Thompson, just how dangerous is this guy? I mean, without the hype.”

  “Let me put it this way, I’ve been tracking him for the last fifteen years. Not once have I come this close. I’m not willing to allow the bastard to go free. If it looks like he might escape, I will be the one to put a bullet in him.” Thompson grunted as he finished the last sentence.

  * * *

  The team commander had the target in his sights. The two-dimensional image of the photographs they had studied a couple of hours before was now replaced with three-dimensional reality.

  He was an elderly man, greying hair, tanned face, an outdoors type. He looked to be in shape, sinews moving in strong arms as he levered himself from the deck lounger. He did not move quickly, as if about to make a break for it, but Thompson had insisted they not underestimate the man. The commander dropped his hand to the X26 Taser holstered at his waist. He extracted the Taser with his left hand, his right still pointing the MP5 submachine gun at their target. His thumb flicked the safety switch up, and raised the less-lethal weapon to eye level. Unknown to him, two of his colleagues were performing the very same actions. All three fired at once.

  * * *

  The barbs from the Tasers embedded themselves in Todd McGee’s chest and back. His body went rigid as three, five-second electrical discharges ripped into his torso. A strangled cry escaped from taut lips. McGee fell forward onto the deck, thudding solidly against the wooden floor. Another scream from the woman alongside. Green-garbed figures rushed toward the fallen man. A SWAT officer roughly pushed the woman to the deck, holding her down with his knee as handcuffs were applied.

  The SWAT team commander leaned over McGee and dragged his arms behind his back. He trapped one in place with his leg then applied the cuffs to the other. A final ratcheted click. Target secured.

  Senior Special Agent Thompson approached and knelt beside the prone form of the man he had been chasing for most of his career with the FBI. He pulled the man’s shoulder up to stare into his face.

  Something was not right.

  Thompson released the target’s shoulder and placed his fingers on the fallen man’s neck.

  “MEDIC! Get a paramedic here now! I can’t feel a pulse.”

  * * *

  It had been one of the longest weeks in Mary McGee’s life. In part, it was the shock of seeing her husband die so suddenly in front of her; her absolute helplessness as she stood handcuffed watching the paramedics trying to revive him on their Malibu deck. In part, it was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  The Coroner’s report was a farce. Massive heart failure. No mention of any potential effect of the Tasers. It read as if it was the first salvo in an operation to cover the asses of all involved, especially the SWAT team.

  The Memorial service, following the cremation of Todd’s remains after they had been released by the Los Angeles County Coroner, had been a well-attended affair. Both their children had flown back in time. Todd and Mary’s many friends, private and work-related, turned out in force.

  There was one unwelcome attendee. Senior Special Agent Thompson from the FBI stood apart from the throng, his eyes moving over the faces in the crowd as though searching for a lost relative amongst the mourners. After the service finished, he was also the last one to approach Mary and her family to offer his condolences. Mary’s response had been a slap that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet crematory at Valley Oaks. Thompson would probably book her now for assaulting a Federal Agent, she thought. He was that sort of bastard.

  Friday she had a date at the FBI offices on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Thompson had called earlier in the week saying they needed to interview her, part of the investigation he was heading, he said. He stated a date and time. Mary hung up without uttering a word.

  The tall, whitish-gray building imposed its solidity as they exited the cab. Mary’s daughter had accompanied her. An anonymous agent met them in the foyer and escorted them to the bank of elevators. Mary watched as the numbers flashed by and the car whisked them upward to a meeting with the person she now considered her personal nemesis.

  They were shown to a small conference room, not the bleak interview room she was expecting. Thompson made them wait over ten minutes during which time the escort tried to cover his embarrassment by bringing coffee and even a plate of cookies. He must have known what the meeting was about. As he left, he placed a new box of tissues on the table near the two women.

  Thompson eventually showed up looking as though he had run up the stairs from the ground floor.

  “Mrs. McGee, I’m sorry I’m late…”

  “I’m sorry I’m here,” she responded with caustic cynicism.

  This brought a cough from the FBI man. He looked at the other, younger woman.

  “You are the daughter, Tessa, right? I remember you from the cemetery.” He held out a hand in greeting, a tight smile showing yellowed teeth. The hand was ignored.

  “I’m here as my parent’s legal representative. As you probably already know, we have filed complaints with the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the Criminal Courts. I’m not even sure we should be meeting today…”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, ladies, but there is an ongoing investigation. Until I hear otherwise, I intend to—”

  Mary McGee slapped her palm do
wn hard on the wooden tabletop, causing the coffee cups to rattle, the box of tissues to jump.

  “Listen up, you bastard,” she began in a low, menacing tone. “Have you no feelings, no remorse for what you’ve done? You and your men barge into my house and murder my husband in front of me. You didn’t even formally arrest him. You electrocuted him; stopped his heart. No attempt to explain why you were there. The last time thugs like you walked the planet was in Nazi Germany. Your career is over, Thompson. If it’s the last thing I do, I will see you locked away for this.”

  Tessa patted her mother’s arm and embraced her as deep sobs filled the room. Thompson pushed the box of tissues closer. His action went unheeded by both women. Minutes dragged by. Mary controlled her grief and stared at the agent through red-rimmed eyes, wordlessly cursing the man.

  Her daughter broke the mute tension in the room.

  “We still don’t know why you and the SWAT agents were there at my folks’ house.” It sounded like a statement, but was clearly a question. Any answer would be breaking protocol for an open investigation, but the piercing green eyes of the younger woman defeated Thompson’s resolve.