Come What May E-Book

Larry Darter

• Herausgeber: Fedora Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

A tale of deceit, betrayal, dark choices, and murder that reviewers describe as "gripping," ”full of suspense and thrills," and "hard to put down." Inspired by a shocking true story, Come What May, the debut book in the new Ben Malone detective mystery series, is a high-stakes thrill ride through the gritty underbelly of the City of Angels and a look at the darker side of human nature. Ben Malone is a veteran Los Angeles Police detective with a bright future ahead of him. Or so he thought until he is caught up in a run of bad luck and his life starts falling apart. The worst of it, his unfortunate entanglement in a spate of fatal on-duty shootings at a time when activists are protesting the use of deadly force by police and rioting all over the country. On edge and questioning his judgment, Malone's LAPD superiors speculate that he may be too quick to use deadly force. Relieved from street duty, Malone is sequestered in Robbery-Homicide Division's Cold Case Homicide Section to keep him under wraps while he undergoes department-mandated psychiatric evaluation. His work-related problems compounded by a vindictive ex-wife intent on bleeding him dry financially sends Malone into a spiral of depression that soon has him drinking too much in the attempt to cope. Initially resentful over his reassignment to the cold case section, Malone's attitude starts to change when he and new partner, Detective Jaime Reyes, come across the files of a cold as ice, 23-year-old unsolved murder case. The more they study the case, the more certain they become that the theory pursued by the original investigators was completely wrong. Since the decades-old murder does not fit the unit's criteria for reopening a cold case for active investigation, Malone and Reyes embark on an "off-the-books" investigation. Predictably, that creates some problems, especially for Malone. It quickly becomes clear that there are powerful forces at work both inside and outside the LAPD determined to keep the truth behind the murder buried along with the corpse. The more resistance he encounters, the more unwavering Malone becomes in his unwillingness to let sleeping dogs lie, even when things start to get increasingly personal. His persistence in digging up bones from the past begins to threaten his very career with the LAPD. Even when the investigation sends him hurtling into more trouble than he ever dreamed possible, Malone is unrelenting. He is determined to solve the mystery and to uncover the truth behind the brutal 23-year-old unsolved murder, Come What May.

Leseprobe

COME WHAT MAY

A Malone Mystery Novel (Book 1)

LARRY DARTER

Published by Fedora Press at Smashwords

Copyright © 2017 by Larry Darter

Excerpt from Fair Is Foul and Foul is Fair by Larry Darter Copyright © 2017 by Larry Darter

All rights reserved.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the creative work of this author.

Come What May is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

Print editions of this book are available from most booksellers.

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair by Larry Darter. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

Click or visit the author's website:

LarryDarter.com

For Suzanne M

In acknowledgment of your faithful support and endless inspiration.

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

About the Author

Bonus Material

Chapter One

It was an unseasonably warm late-January morning, even by Los Angeles standards. Seated in the passenger seat of the nondescript gray Ford sedan parked at the curb a block west of the exit from the Vista del Lago Townhomes, the predator watched patiently. Finally, the red 1992 BMW sedan rolled through the gates and turned west towards Sherman Way. The distance and glare from the early morning sun made it impossible to identify the driver of the brand-new BMW. No matter. The predator knew who owned the car.

It was already twenty minutes after seven, almost an hour later than expected. The bitch was usually out of the house and on her way to work by six-thirty. The predator glanced at the driver of the Ford, nodded without speaking and then opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. After the predator had closed the passenger door, the driver started the car, pulled out into traffic, and drove away.

After walking briskly to the pedestrian entrance, the predator pushed on the wrought iron gate. It yielded easily. The lock had been disabled the night before. After entering the grounds, the predator walked quickly to the west side of townhouse #307 to the garage side door. The door was locked. That had been expected and planned for. A screwdriver was produced and pushed between the latch plate and striker plate. The predator applied leverage to the handle of the tool and a shoulder to the lock stile. The door popped open easily and soundlessly. The predator entered the garage and unlocked the door before closing it quietly. The focused beam from a small flashlight illuminated a black Audi 5000 parked inside and then swept to the door that opened from the garage into the townhouse. That door proved to be unlocked, and the screwdriver wasn't needed.

The predator placed an ear to the door and after listening intently and hearing nothing beyond it, opened the door and stepped inside a utility room that opened onto the dining room and kitchen. To the left was the living room. At the far end of the living room, across from the front door was the stairway leading to the second floor. After treading quietly up the stairs, the predator arrived on the second-floor landing and crept carefully to the open door of the master bedroom.

Mary Beth Anderson was lying on her right side on the king-size bed, facing the doorway. She had planned to sleep in, but it hadn't worked out. She was a habitual early riser, usually at work at her orthodontic practice this time of morning on weekdays. But she had a stomach bug and had decided to stay home for the day. Her husband had awakened her before leaving for work, and she hadn't been able to fall back asleep. She had asked him to drive her car so that he could drop it off for the scheduled oil change appointment she had booked the previous week. She was debating about getting up and calling her dental assistant to have her appointments for the day canceled before the patients started arriving. She had asked her husband to do it, but sometimes he forgot such things. Just as she decided and was swinging her legs off the bed to get up, a figure appeared in the open doorway.

Recognition was instantaneous for both. It would have been difficult to say which was more surprised to see the other under the circumstances. In an instant, the predator revised the plan, pulled a snub nose Model 36 Smith & Wesson .38 revolver and fired two hastily aimed shots at Mary Beth.

The hypothalamus portion of Mary Beth's brain immediately kicked into overdrive, activating the sympathetic nervous system and the adrenal-cortical system, producing the classic fight or flight response. Instinctively knowing there was nowhere to run when she saw the gun, Mary Beth was already in motion springing up and off the bed and charging her assailant.

Both bullets missed their intended target. Instead, they struck the bedroom window beyond the bed, blowing out the glass which then fell and crashed in jagged shards to the driveway below.

Mary Beth managed to reach the doorway before the gun discharged again. She slapped the gun aside, simultaneously aiming a shoulder at the predator's chest with her momentum propelling her forward. Caught off guard by the suddenness and ferocity of Mary Beth's counter-attack, the predator was slammed back against the wall and the revolver thudded to the floor. Having never been in a fight in her life and seeing the gun on the floor, Mary Beth immediately pivoted from fight to flight and ran down the hallway toward the stairs. The predator paused only long enough to scoop up the dropped pistol and then gave chase.

Mary Beth stumbled down the stairs and headed straight for the front door. She frantically turned the lock and tried to release the deadbolt. She almost made it.

Arriving at the bottom of the stairs only steps behind her, the predator spied a heavy silver vase on a wooden stand positioned beside the landing, grabbed it up on the way to the door and bashed Mary Beth in the head with it. The blow stunned her, but she didn't go down. She turned to face her attacker and tried to get her hands up to protect herself. But the vase was already coming down again, and the predator smashed it into the left side of her face causing a laceration above her left eye. Faint and dizzy, Mary Beth did the only the thing that came to mind. She wrapped both arms around her attacker's neck, twisted, and used her weight to pull them both to the floor on the tiled entryway. The predator again lost hold of the gun and the vase skittered away across the tile.

Fueled by pure terror and adrenaline, Mary Beth maintained a death grip with her arms wrapped tightly around the predator's neck as they rolled and struggled on the floor for several minutes. In desperation, the predator viciously bit Mary Beth's exposed upper left upper arm and feeling the arm relax slightly, followed up by driving an elbow under Mary Beth's chin breaking her grip.

The predator rolled away, got to a crouch, and stumbled to the lost pistol. Grabbing up the weapon, the predator spun and aimed just as Mary Beth got shakily to her feet. Time seemed to move in slow motion. Just as she started to turn to run towards the dining room, the predator fired. The bullet struck Mary Beth in the chest just above her left breast. While she wasn't completely aware she had just been shot; her legs lost feeling and her knees buckled. The room started to go dark. She collapsed to the floor on her left side. The bullet had punched through the skin and underlying subcutaneous tissue before entering the chest cavity. It then passed catastrophically through the descending thoracic aorta before lodging in Mary Beth's spine. Her last conscious thought was a feeling of regret that she hadn't gone to work that morning as usual.

The predator approached Mary Beth warily, ready to fire again. Mary Beth's eyes were open. Her bruised and bloody face frozen in a look of surprise. There was no movement, but the predator wanted to be sure and fired two more bullets into Mary Beth's chest from point blank range. Mary Beth Anderson didn't feel a thing. Her heart had already stopped. She was already dead.

The predator couldn't believe how fast things had spun completely out of control. Mary Beth's quick reaction and decision to fight back upstairs had been completely unexpected. Neighbors might have heard the gunshots. The police might already be responding. But the predator fought the nearly irresistible urge to get out of the house immediately and flee. Some damage control was necessary first. The scene had to be staged to camouflage what had happened.

After glancing about the room a quick plan was formed. The predator moved quickly to the entertainment center against the far wall. After ripping out the electrical cords, the VCR and DVD player were swept off the shelves, stacked, and placed beside the door to the garage. On the way, a set of car keys hanging from one of the wall hooks beside the door was noticed and grabbed. The getaway plan was greatly simplified.

After stepping out the door into the garage, the predator punched the button on the wall beside the door. While the garage door was going up the predator hustled into the Audi, put the key in the ignition, and started the engine. There was no need to take the electronics. Leaving them stacked beside an exit door should be enough.

Nothing had gone according to plan that morning, but the predator was satisfied with the result. There certainly were no feelings of remorse. The bitch had got what she deserved. Reversing the Audi out of the garage and down the driveway, the predator spun the wheel, shifted the gear selector, and drove away.

For several reasons, long years would pass before anyone came even remotely close to solving the murder of Mary Beth Anderson.

Chapter Two

Twenty-three yearslater

In morning traffic, the 7.9-mile drive from Malone's apartment on Hollywood Boulevard to LAPD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles took a little over fifty minutes.

The Robbery-Homicide Division (RHD), located since January 2013 on the fifth floor of the Police Administration Building (PAB) on West First Street, occupied a modern, large, open floor plan that provided the cubicle-dwelling LAPD detectives access to natural light from the unevenly spaced windows. Offices, interview rooms, and a conference room lined the perimeter of the floor.

The office of Lieutenant James Turner, currently Malone's immediate supervisor, was at the far end of the floor. The office door was closed which was not unusual given the noise level in the open detective workspace. But the blinds on the windows facing out on the floor were also closed which was unusual. Malone smiled. Someone else must have moved up on the old man's shit list. Maybe the boss wouldn't notice he was twenty-five minutes late to work, thanks in part to the morning traffic. The anotherreason he got a late start was that he was nursing the mother of all hangovers. He hadn't even had time for the coffee shop drive-through on his way into work. He would have to make do this morning with the less than spectacular break room blend. He detoured to the break room and filled a white Styrofoam cup from the coffeemaker before heading to his desk.

While regarded as an exceptional investigator with an exemplary case clearance record, Malone’s assignment wasn’t to the distinguished and prestigious Homicide Special Section made famous by the many high profile crimes the section had investigated over the years. The section had investigated such notable cases as the Tate-LaBianca murders, the Hillside Strangler murders, and the Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ron Goldman murders. Instead of assignment to the section immortalized in countless fictionalized movies, novels, and television shows, Malone found himself temporarily assigned to the Cold Case Homicide Special Section, one of the peripheral sections of RHD.

The temporary assignment was just the most recent example of why 2015 thus far had not been exactly a banner year for Detective Ben Malone. Another example was the fact that his two-year marriage had ended in March with a final divorce decree. It wasn't that he was unhappy about the divorce. Relieved would be a much better characterization of his feelings on that subject. However, his bitch of an ex-wife was slowly bleeding him to death, financially speaking, through the monthly alimony payments.