Charity Kills (A David Storm Mystery) Read online

  Charity Kills

  A David Storm Mystery

  By Jon Bridgewater

  Charity Kills

  A David Storm Mystery

  By Jon Bridgewater

  ©2012 All Rights Reserved

  Also available in print

  Published by Boot Hill

  Edited by Carolyn Goss,

  GoodEditors.com

  Art by Dehanna Bailee

  Design & Layout by

  EditWriteDesign.com

  This book is a work of fiction. While some of its locations are real, the plot and characters are works of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to persons either living or dead are purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Preface - Leslie Phillips, RIP

  Chapter One - Death at the Dome

  Chapter Two - A Slip of the Tongue

  Chapter Three - No Longer Jane Doe

  Chapter Four - Friendship Cost

  Chapter Five - Country Dog in the City

  Chapter Six - “I Know Nothing”

  Chapter Seven - Russell Finds an Ally

  Chapter Eight - Just the Facts

  Chapter Nine - Leslie was Not Alone

  Chapter Ten - The Model Employee

  Chapter Eleven - The Show Must Go On

  Chapter Twelve - One More Addition

  Chapter Thirteen - A Team Comes Together

  Chapter Fourteen - Joe’s Big Saturday Night

  Chapter Fifteen - A Little Sleuth in All of Us

  Chapter Sixteen - Method and Madness but No Motive

  Chapter Seventeen - Ellen’s Dilemma

  Chapter Eighteen - Joe’s Naughty Little Secrets

  Chapter Nineteen - Playing Hunches

  Chapter Twenty - The Mind of a Serial Killer

  Chapter Twenty-one - “Peggy Won’t Be in Today”

  Chapter Twenty-two - A Mentor’s Confidence

  Chapter Twenty-three - The Bomb Drops

  Chapter Twenty-four - The Big Reveal

  Chapter Twenty-five - Backseat Treasure

  Chapter Twenty-six - Peggy’s Notebook

  Chapter Twenty-seven - The Trophy Room

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  This story was written for my family. My mom and dad who, if they were still here, would be proud of me. Donnie, the little brother I miss dearly, and Jay and Roxanne, the brother and sister who remain supportive.

  My thanks goes out to all the those friends who encouraged me to write—Tim, Harry, Michelle, Linda, Mike and Connie—thank you so much, and most importantly Anne Hill. A special thanks to Julie Richardson who without your help I would not have finished.

  Preface

  Leslie Phillips, RIP

  Leslie Phillips felt her world collapsing as the life drained from her body. The struggle to remain conscious was surrendering to the grip and pressure of her attacker, an attacker with a vise-like grip that prevented her from twisting or turning to free herself. Only her mind remained alert, filled with questions of why and how this had come to happen to her? She was fully aware that her attacker was someone she had come to know and occupied a position that would evoke trust.

  The proceeding day and evening had been no different than many of her days or evenings during this time of year. It had been a day of flitting from one private party to another on the last day of one of the largest barbecue competitions in the world. The parking lot of the massive Dome complex had been transformed from parking squares to avenues and promenades with names and number separating the placement of large tented structures housing the three hundred-plus teams who participated in the competition. Each team had brought high-tech barbecue pits so large they were carried on wheeled trailers. Elaborate faux fronts lined the avenues reflecting the name of each team and many of their corporate sponsors. Each tent was strictly for team participants and guests; wooden and wire fences constructed on the outer edges of their assigned spaces discouraged the casual passerby or the uninvited from entering.

  Leslie had spent the day in the company of some of the rich and infamous members of the largest charity rodeo and livestock show in the world. She had parlayed her companions and the inescapable fact that she was an attractive young woman into assuring her entrance into even the most selective of venues. As the evening wore on she and the entourage she followed had retired to the VIP club, housed in the new stadium, to complete their day with a final couple of nightcaps. One of the men had been very attentive to her all night and, in her state of inebriation, she had let her morals slide and had sex with the man in the bathroom. It had been only a momentray tryst, but it was way outside her normal upright character. A liaison that left her both unsatisfied and regretful of her slip in morals and decency, but nevertheless it had been part of the role she played as a Badge Bunny.

  “Badge Bunnies” or “Buckle Bunnies” were the local slang terms for girls who hung around outside the contestant facilities at rodeos seeking to meet the daring young men who rode the rough stock in the bull and horse events. The term had morphed into “Badge Bunnies” as a phrase to characterize those girls who hung around and offered themselves to generally older and married men who made up the hierarchy of this particular charity soiree.

  Subsequent to her sexual adventure in the bathroom with her quick-firing admirer, she had returned to the club only to find that he and his accomplices in debauchery were fixin’ to leave for another of their frequented watering holes. The young ladies were not to be included in their company. Leslie had passed tipsy a long time ago, but she didn’t think she was too impaired to find her car and drive herself home. An offer of a ride home was made by a staff member of the club and politely turned down; after all, she reasoned, I’m a capable young woman and home is close.

  At the moment of the attack she had tried to scream, but her pleading had been choked off and the only sound she could hear was the gurgling and the gush of air from her lungs. Her once shining eyes were growing dim, like someone was using a candle snuffer to extinguish the flickering flames, one by one. Her body weakened and she slumped against her attacker—a person she had once thought of as an ally.

  Just as Leslie gasped to breathe her last breath, she realized her world was ending. Images of lost family flooded her mind and her face took on a mask of serenity. I’ll soon be joining Mom and Dad....

  It was in this moment the killer always found the intrigue of a victim’s death both surreal and satisfying. Still holding the victim tightly, the killer could feel the calm wash over her and the prevailing silence that accompanied the beautiful young woman’s last moments of life. These last seconds sent shivers of ecstasy through the killer’s mind and body like the afterglow of passionate lovemaking. This final surrender of the victim and the killer’s acknowledgement of total control of this lovely person’s death brought back to mind the memory of the first kill. That wondrous adventure and the reasons for starting down this path oh, so many years ago. Not a one of the killer’s victims had any idea why this was happening to them or how they had been selected. That was a secret only the killer could answer and didn’t share with the innocent; only the diary the killer kept would chronicle the passion.

  Teetering on the brink of darkness, sinking into unconsciousness, Leslie was spared the knowledge of what the killer had in mind for the climax of the demented act. Her final seconds of life were filled with the smell of honeysuckle and the caress of soft lips on hers. Then she heard her nemesis whisper, “My sweet darling, you are going to join your sisters of sin where you belong.”

  Chapter One

  Death at the Dome

  Storm r
olled over, hoping it was a dream, but he soon knew it wasn’t. It was his mandatory office cell phone playing that god-awful “Stormy Weather” ring tone the guys at work had programmed into it just to annoy him. Done as a bad joke and play on his name, Storm was not technically savvy enough to change it, so over time he had come to accept and hate that maddening electronic version of a tune he had once liked. Sundays were the only days he could sleep in—although sleeping was rarely what he did; rather, tossing and turning was usually how he spent those extra morning hours. A few hours rest here and a few hours there were all he had been able to get since Angie, his wife, had been murdered. Her memory and the fact that no one had ever been caught for the crime gave him dreams, nightmares really, that had awakened him in the middle of almost every night since he had found her lying across the threshold of the door to the home they shared. He would find himself kicking off the blankets and sweating as if he was back in college persevering through the miserably hot two-a-days at Texas Tech fall football camp. He had tried to ignore the dreams and train his conscious mind to forget them, but the unconscious emotions they left behind were quite another matter.

  He picked up the ever-present cell phone from the nightstand, quickly looking at the clock display illuminated on its face. It was 6:30 AM, way earlier than he normally arose on Sunday. As he had feared, the office was calling him. His office was not your normal Houstonian’s office. Storm was a Houston Police homicide detective and if they were calling him it meant someone had died the night before and he had to go look for a bad guy.

  Though Houston had been like a small town when Storm became a cop, a town struggling with its growth and population expansion, now it had become a metropolis like any other large city, where someone always dies on a Saturday night. Death could find anyone but not all of the homicides are cases that require the expertise of a detective, especially one on his only day off. Most Saturday night fracases fell into the category of gang hits or they involved some incorrigibles in a bar fight that ended in a death. These murders were usually easily solved and seldom required a detective’s expertise.

  Storm shook his head trying to clear the cobwebs and hoping to sound a little more awake when he called the number back.

  “Dispatch.”

  “This is Storm. What’s up?”

  ”Hey, Detective; Lt. Flynn passed this one to you. A body’s been found at the Dome.”

  Storm knew immediately where he needed to go. Many Houstonians still called the area “the Dome” even though the old domed stadium itself had become dormant since being replaced with a new stadium and convention center complex that now almost blocked it’s view from the street.

  “Got any details?”

  “Nope. Only you’re to see Sergeant Hebert when you get there. The officers at the gate will tell you where to find him.”

  Storm groaned. “Thanks.” He hung up the phone, rolled over, and put his feet on the old wood floor of his bedroom. The highly polished oak surface was cold in late February and it sent a shiver up his legs that ended in the base of his neck. Storm’s six-foot-three two-hundred-forty pound frame struggled to free itself of the bed. The years of physical abuse he had put his body through had left its toll. Years of sports in high school and college and years of pick-up games in the park had weakened the knees and caused his lower back to spasm as if held in a vice. Add the last few years of wallowing in self-imposed depression and alcohol, he knew he would never again be the same man he had once been. He hesitated to look in the mirror, because when he did, he saw the refection of his father looking back at him. The once black hair had grey flecks throughout the temples. The once bright brown eyes now appeared somewhat duller, and even his mustache had wild unruly whiskers of gray running through it.

  As children, Storm and his little brother had always been told how much they looked like their mother. Her native American heritage and perpetually tanned skin and dark black hair repeated itself in the boys’ complexions and hair. What people often failed to notice was that their features were more angular and Anglo, more reflective of their father’s western European linage. As Angie had always said; he was a contrast in nature, a true American mutt.

  The house where he now lived in lonely silence had been a celebratory purchase after Angie had gotten her promotion. Angela Storm had been the love of his life, his wife and his best friend. She had been named the vice president of sales for a large oil field supply company. Although her income dwarfed Storm’s, she never gloated or was the least bit flagrant with her earning power; they were partners so the total always outweighed their individuality. With their combination of incomes and Angie’s desire to own a home, they could now afford to buy a house in the neighborhood she wanted, and that was the old historic Houston Heights. Always the eternal optimist, Angie convinced him that the close-in neighborhood would rebound and their investment would grow. Storm thought of her as a Mary Poppins, who always saw the future ahead as brighter than he did and in spite of his hesitation, he agreed and went along for the ride.

  The Heights is an old community adjacent to downtown Houston, with classical wood Victorian houses built in the 1920s and ‘30s. Constructed before Houston’s meteoric expansion, the Heights had been the part of town where the working class had lived. They rode trolley cars and horse drawn carriages downtown to work and in the evening families sat on the porches hoping to catch any cooling breeze that might blow down the tree-lined streets. They waved and greeted their neighbors. Children played in the front yards, as was the custom in early Houston, before retiring to bedrooms with screened windows and oscillating ceiling fans.

  The neighborhood had been idyllic in the ’20s and ‘30s, but as the city began its development to the suburbs west, east, south and north, it had lost its appeal to most Houston natives. Houston became a boomtown attracting people from around the world seeking their fortunes, but in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Houstonians seemed to all want new homes with big yards and with nice new schools built nearby. Even the oil companies were moving out of downtown to the upscale Galleria area and modern developments further north and west. With the addition of the new interstates and four lane highways the commute downtown became easily accessible for the newly rich and growing middle class. Many of these Houstonians worked in the growing oil patch or the growing medical field and wanted to stake their claim to a piece of the American dream.

  Following these Houstonians’ exodus to the suburbs, the Heights became a low cost housing area, which meant it was an area where oppressed immigrants coming across the border to seek a better way of life could find cheap places to live. Four or five families would move in together and they could save their money to send home to the families they had left behind.

  In the 1980s the yuppie movement started in Houston, and the Heights began to make a resurgence. Oil companies, engineering firms, and banking institutions built giant skyscrapers as paeans to their success and more people were again working downtown. The super highways of the 1950s were becoming congested and could not keep up with the growing traffic. Some of the advantages the suburbs had offered in the early days were now gone, replaced with hour-long commutes or trips on the express buses, which meant leaving the Houstonian’s ever valued personal car at home. In Houston the idea of leaving your car at home was akin to not being able to drink a cold “tall boy” on the drive home—it was just not done in Texas. Eager young couples began to buy up the dilapidated Heights properties and remodel them or replace them with updated three-thousand-square-feet contemporary two and three story homes; most were replicas of the original homes with the advantages of modern innovations.

  Angie had always been the one who had the solid judgment for investments—even her ventures into the stock market had paid dividends. She had seen this trend coming and had pushed Storm to buy a stately two-story three-bedroom, pier and beam house, built circa 1930s with shuttered windows and porches that ran the length of the house.

  Although he put up a good fight, Storm�
�s plea to buy a new house in the west part of town had fallen on deaf ears. Shortly after college when he was still single, he had lived in the Galleria area of town and loved it. It was a great place to see and be seen, with country dance clubs, upscale restaurants, and other frequented haunts, life was good. But Angie stuck to her guns about the Heights, as she always did, and like she always did, she got Storm to accept her plan. It was always a war he couldn’t win and mostly didn’t care to. She would giggle and smile at him and he knew his goose was cooked. When it came to Angie, he had always been out of his league; that was another thought that always made him smile. Storm had been a college football player when they met. He had never had a problem meeting cute girls, but not the type of girl you would marry or take home to Mom. When he met Angie he knew that intrigue was over. She was not only beautiful, but she was smart. She used to tell him she was smart enough to marry him.

  They had fixed up the house, turning it into a three-bedroom home with two-and-one-half baths and a large family/party room, which opened onto the kitchen. Over the years the house had been a great place for their friends to gather and have fall-down, party-your-butt-off barbecues.

  Angie, though, had always wanted children. She was of Italian descent, tall and slender with those magazine model good looks. Blended with Storm’s rugged athletic features, a bright gorgeous child would have been a natural outcome. Storm continually wanted to give Angie everything she required. Unfortunately, the extra bedroom went unfinished along with their hopes of picking the paint colors for a son or a daughter. Children seemed not be something he could give her, and as yet, adoption had not been a consideration.

  * * * *

  Sunday was usually Storm’s day to rest; it was also the day that left him with unfilled time to dwell on memories. While flooded with thoughts of the past, he also knew he had things to do and a place to be. Storm dragged himself to the shower and began his routine. He was out of the house in less than twenty minutes, not that the body was going anywhere, but time is always critical when you investigate a murder.