Murder For Lease E-Book

Jim Riley

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Leasing is a cheap way to get the use of land... Until the checks get too high. Then, murder becomes a negotiating tactic.

When farmers get murdered, Wade looks at the money trail. One is the lease of the hunting rights to the farms soon after the murders. When he digs further, he finds another kind of lease: oil rights.

There is a connection between the deaths and the families who hold rights to the land. But can Wade find it?

Leseprobe

MURDER FOR LEASE

WADE DALTON AND SAM CATES SHORT STORIES BOOK 3

JIM RILEY

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Notes

Next in the Series

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2021 Jim Riley

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

To the Most Beautiful

You Always Were and Always Will Be

1

“Why don’t they make things simple anymore?” Wilbur muttered to himself. The engine in his new tractor looked more like a computer than the engines he was used to working on in his dilapidated barn. He peered at the part in his hand and couldn’t find a place for it to go even though he took it off the engine less than an hour before.

Wilbur never heard the blow coming. He felt the tire iron strike his skull just above the temple. Blood gushed from the open wound. He tried to cry out, but the words wouldn’t transmit from his addled brain to his mouth. When he rolled over, he recognized his assailant.

“You sorry—” No more words would form.

The assailant struck him once again. This time the blow indented Wilbur’s forehead, knocking him flat on his back. The assailant sprinted out of the barn.

Wilbur tried to reach out to an item lying on the ground beside him. In his last seconds on the earth, he circled his fingers around an old familiar can of oil.

2

“Who in the world would want to kill Mr. Wilbur?” Sam asked to no one in particular. Several of her county deputies were milling around Wilbur Barrow’s old barn. Her fiancée, Wade Dalton, assisted her in the search for clues. He answered the rhetorical question.

“Somebody that didn’t like him, I reckon.”

“Wow. You went to the FBI Academy to reach those sorts of conclusions? What else did they teach you?”

“I haven’t been with the Agency for a while now.”

“Maybe you should take a refresher course.”

“Nah. I’d rather watch Evergreen’s finest work the crime scene. I’ll go over in the shade and stay out of the way.”

“Wade, we need all the help we can get. I don’t know anyone in the county who had anything against Mr. Wilbur. He was one of the sweetest men I’ve ever met.”

“I’m gonna help. I just like to rile you now and then.”

“A murder riles me enough. You don’t have to add to it.”

“Have you spoken to Mrs. Barrow yet?”

“Not yet. Want to go with me?”

“Sure.”

The couple followed the twisting trail from the barn to the wooden house. Several neighbors were already there, comforting Martha Barrow. Sam didn’t bother to knock. She went directly to the recent widow seated on the soft couch.

“Miss Martha, is there anything I can get you?”

The elderly lady stared at Sam with blank eyes. She did not respond to the question.

“Perhaps you should try a little later, Dear.” One lady standing next to the grieving lady suggested.

“Okay. Tell her I’ll be back again tomorrow.”

“That went over well.” Wade said on the way back down the trail.

“She just lost everything near and dear to her. I understand how shocking it must be to find your husband of more than forty years lying in a pool of blood in your barn. I hope I never find you in a similar circumstance—unless I put you in it.” She started laughing, breaking the tension of the afternoon.

Wade was glad to see her relax a little. The seemingly random killing was unsettling for the entire community, especially for Sam, the county Sheriff. After a quick survey of the scene and watching the Medical Examiner load the body into his van, Wade and Sam left in his pickup truck.

“Want to get something to eat?”

“Sure. How about the Evergreen Café?”

Wade grinned. “No problem. We haven’t been there since yesterday.”

“Was it yesterday? I must be getting old.”

“Yeah. Losing it all at twenty-three. Almost a quarter of a century. I don’t know how you get around anymore without your walking cane. Want me to carry you into the restaurant?”

Sam picked up a bottle cap from the truck seat and threw it at Wade.

“I’ll manage somehow.”

3

Wade stared at the menu.

“What do you know about Wilbur?”

Sam didn’t bother looking at her menu.

“Not much. He’s older than the dirt he plows. He’s always been able to make a living with his chicken farm and raising pigs.”

Wade nodded. “I imagine so with the demand for both right now. I heard pigs were going for more than a dollar a pound at the auction house.”

“I remember Dad buying them for around twenty cents a pound not too long ago.” Sam smiled. “I guess we’ll have to quit putting bacon on our cheeseburgers.”

Wade set his menu down. “And less chicken wings. There are so many restaurants specializing in chicken wings these days. When we can order something as simple as a chicken wing forty-seven different ways at the same restaurant, we might be going a tad too far.”

“You think?” Sam laughed. “When I was a kid, we had fried chicken and chicken on the grill. Those were the only choices we had.”

Wade arched his eyebrows. “When you were a kid? You’re still a kid.”

She threw her napkin at him.

Wade laughed. “As Sheriff, you should know violence is not the answer to your problems. Quit throwing things at me.”

“You are my problem. As soon as you quit being a jackass—Oops. I forgot. A jackass can’t turn into a thoroughbred no matter how hard a woman tries to make it happen.”

“You’re right. We’re always gonna be a woman’s plow mule.”

Sam made the motion of playing a small fiddle. “Let me get my harp out and play a sad song for you.”

Wade picked up his straw and threw it at Sam. “Maybe violence is the answer.”

The waitress set a platter of fried catfish, fried oysters and crawfish tails on the table between them. Sam speared an oyster, dipped it in the hot ketchup sauce and popped it into her mouth. Wade started with the crawfish tails.

“Other than selling pigs, chickens and eggs, I’m not sure what Mr. Wilbur did.” She tried the catfish filets. “The deputies got a list of his friends. Most of them go to church with him. One of them mentioned Mr. Wilbur leased out the hunting rights for his land to a club.”

“How much land is in the parcel?”

“A little over six hundred acres.”