Evelyn David - Sullivan Investigations 01 - Murder Off the Books

A Sullivan Investigations Mystery

Murder With a Whiskey Chaser

Murder Off the Books

Evelyn David

Book One

Third
Edition

Copyright ©2007 Marian Edelman Borden and Rhonda Dossett

Discover other titles by Evelyn David at
http://www.evelyndavid.com

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To John, with much love and heartfelt gratitude.

–Marian–

To my parents and brother, who didn’t laugh when I said I was writing a book! Thanks for your unconditional love and support.

–Rhonda–

Acknowledgements

Murder Off the Books
was a collaborative effort, and we don’t just mean by the two authors. If it were not for the encouragement, support, and generosity of family and friends, this book would still be an unfulfilled dream.

Thank you to the John J. Fox Funeral Home in Larchmont, New York, and Hart Funeral Homes in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The care they provide grieving families was evident from the moment we entered their premises.

Special thanks go to Kate Kelly, Linda Loew, Linda Dawson, Cathy Frank, Carole Johnson, Linda Landon, Stacy Barnett, Katrina McDonnell, and Mary Ann Pritchard for their unwavering support as we moved from concept to execution of this book.

And finally to our families: The Dossetts, David, Betty, and Terry; and The Bordens, John, Charles, Rebecca, Sam, Jessica, Dan, and Maggie, you made the path to this book that much easier to navigate and the satisfaction that much greater to enjoy. With love and thanks.

Prologue

Friday Night

The sound of a human head cracking against rock was surprisingly loud. As the man fell against the wall of the clock tower, the killer unscrewed the silencer from the gun, musing about the number of details involved in planning and executing a perfect murder. And this was certainly not a perfect murder. Several loose ends were going to need to be tied. Next time a list might come in handy.

***

Sunday Night

Murder victims shouldn’t have to wait. Discount store shoppers, people with broken dental crowns, drivers in the middle of rush hour. Those people deserved to wait. Expected to wait. But not….

She was tired of being last on everyone’s ‘to do’ list.

Ten minutes. Way too long to be hiding in a closet. Way too long to be in the dark.

She really couldn’t stand cowering in the dark. If she was going to cower, she’d do it in the light–just like always.

She clicked on the flashlight she’d grabbed in her frantic dash from the bed to the walk-in closet.

Much better.

The light was comforting. The light was… the light was…risky.

She hastily clicked off the beam and disappeared back into the shadows.

She left the closet door ajar. It was like everything else in her life–slightly warped. Once fully closed, it couldn’t be opened from the inside. She’d be stuck in there until…until what? Who’d rescue her?

She wished again that she hadn’t left her cordless phone downstairs.

Run.

She wasn’t going to be able to run.

Her right foot was numb.

Rachel Brenner shifted, stretching out one bare leg, quietly trying to move her foot, thinking that at some point she might need to slip down into the living room and search for her second cordless phone, the one that fit into the charger on the kitchen wall and had been missing for a couple of days. It was probably under the sofa or between the cushions. That’s where she’d look first–if she had time.

“Enough,” she whispered. “Concentrate on something besides the damn phones.”

Dust. The closet floor was cramped–and dusty. Stifling a sneeze, she decided she had some serious cleaning to do if she survived. If she didn’t, well it would be someone else’s problem.

She wiggled her toes until the feeling returned and then rose to her feet intending to open the closet door and listen.

Two steps. Her heart pounded so loud that she couldn’t think, much less hear.

Looking around, she grabbed a twenty-year-old trench coat that had belonged to her ex-husband and rolled it into a ball. She pressed the material against her chest to muffle the sound.

Stupid. No one else could hear her heart. No one else could hear her. The coat’s owner hadn’t.

Thoughts of Charlie cleared the noise from her head.

She peeked through the crack in the door. And listened.

Nothing but the furnace and the sound of her own ragged breathing.

She held her breath and opened the door a little wider.

Nothing. She didn’t hear….

No. There was something. Something…just…there. A shuffling sound–still downstairs.

Rachel carefully closed the closet door again and returned to her spot on the floor, this time sitting on the bunched trench coat, instead of hiding behind it.

She hugged her knees to her chest and stared at the bits and pieces surrounding her and wondered what would happen to all of her things when she was gone.

Sam would be the one to have to deal with selling or giving away her lifetime accumulation of clothes, costume jewelry, and mismatched china and silverware. Oh, he’d probably keep a few things. He might want some of the old family photographs she’d organized into albums. Thank goodness she’d gotten them labeled last year during one long, miserable night right after her divorce was final. At least Sam would be able to tell his children about her side of the family and put the correct name to the face.

Her brother wouldn’t be of much help. Dan had his own problems. He was settling into a new job and a new life. She sighed and stretched out her legs. Rachel nudged a shadow in the corner with her toe. It was a well-used hockey stick–another remnant of her ex-husband’s, something from his glory days.

She flicked on the flashlight again and played the wavering beam over the clothes, empty suitcases, and shoes. God, she had too many shoes. She glanced at the row upon row of neatly labeled shoeboxes lining the shelf above the clothes rod, and the additional stacks on the carpeted floor beneath. Setting down the flashlight, she picked up a nearby box and peeked inside.

Beautiful black leather pumps, $89 on sale. Never worn. She glanced in another box. All were purchased within the last two years and she’d never worn any of them. Her well-worn favorites were in a heap by her bed: Nikes, Reeboks, high-topped, brightly colored basketball shoes. The pumps, well, they were mostly just
….

Rachel set down the box. They were a mistake. They were her way of trying to be more like the women Charlie Brenner had been screwing the last three years of their marriage. She frowned and put the lid back on the box. Like the woman Charlie was living with now. Tina of the perky breasts and four-inch heels.

Tina would love all those shoes. Charlie would probably give them to her too, Rachel realized. Help out Sam by taking them off his hands. Her shoes on Tina’s feet. No way.

The spurt of anger and the loud sound of a closing door gave her the courage to act.

Rachel got up and grabbed a pair of sweat pants off a hanger and pulled them on. Picking up the hockey stick, she stalked out of the closet.

Tina could buy her own damn shoes.

Chapter
1

“Why does my ice cream truck smell like ham?” Jeff O’Herlihy asked as he finished tightening the lug nuts on the new tire.

A tall, well-toned man in his mid-fifties, with salt and pepper hair, replied. “About 3 A.M. Whiskey got tired of banana popsicles. Why does a funeral home director have an ice cream truck anyway?”

Jeff used the tire iron to lever himself up from his crouched position on the pavement. “I’m branching out.”

Mackenzie ‘Mac’ Sullivan looked at his old friend in amusement. “Right.” He’d known Jeff since high school. They had been in the Army together, had been together in the Iranian desert trying to pull pilots from burning rescue helicopters, and had, by some miracle, both returned in one piece, more or less. Through it all Jeff had some wild moneymaking scheme running, even in the middle of a firefight. Need a pair of canine flea collars to strap on your boots to keep the sand fleas at bay? Jeff could help you out for a reasonable fee. After college Jeff had stepped into his father’s shoes at O’Herlihy’s Funeral Home, doubling their gross in the first year, and Mac had joined the police force, working his way up to a gold shield. Twenty years later, Jeff was still happy at O’Herlihy’s, but Mac had started over in a new career.

“Believe it, old man. My youngest has informed me that he’s not coming into the family business. Sean claims it’s too depressing. So I’m adding a few branches to the O’Herlihy corporate tree. Even hired some extra help so I’d have more time out of the funeral home.”

“Right! Like you’re not going to supervise every burial. And I just can’t see Sean doling out ice cream to kids. Last I heard he was planning on being a professional fisherman. Tell me the truth: someone couldn’t pay their funeral bill?”

Jeff grinned, his graying red hair still giving him an impish charm. “I took it and two freezers full of Eskimo Pies in payment. My new office manager will have to figure out how to record that transaction in the funeral home ledgers and keep me legal with Uncle Sam. I’m thinking it’s a good test of her abilities. You should come by and meet her. I inherited her and a part-time cosmetologist in the Franklin buyout. I made a killing on that deal.”

“You’re all heart.”

“Hey, I’m not embalming bodies just for my health, you know.” Jeff wiped the grease from his hands on a rag. “Got to make a profit somehow. Besides, getting back to Sean…. He’s never going to make it as a fisherman. He gets out on the water and twenty minutes later he’s the same color as a lobster.”

Mac stared at the new tire, a rueful expression on his face. “It would have been nice if a spare tire for the truck had come with your latest trade. Last night was the first time Whiskey and I ever had to catch a bus to get home from a stakeout. She’s not comfortable on those little seats.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers. Buy your own car if you don’t like borrowing from my fleet.”

“Fleet is it now?”

“Six hearses and some miscellaneous vehicles–sounds like a fleet to me. Say, I didn’t know buses let dogs on board,” Jeff commented, giving the large Irish wolfhound a pat behind the ears. “She didn’t scare the hookers and drug dealers?”

“You’re a snob, Mr. O’Herlihy. Other people ride the bus at that hour. I sat next to a perfectly nice gang member and his protégé.” Mac put on a pair of dark glasses and pulled a leash from his pocket. “Hey, Whiskey pretends to lead me around. No one seems to have any problems with her.”

“Right. Since she’s the size of a small bear, I imagine they keep their opinions to themselves.”

Mac grinned. “Want to let a blind man and his bear drive your ice cream truck back to your place?”

Jeff tossed him a set of keys. “Nah. Take the hearse. I’m gonna drive this clunker home and unload what’s left of the ice cream before it melts. Plus, like I mentioned before–my new office manager starts today, I need to show her where the bodies are buried, so to speak.”

“Keep it up. I’m sure she’ll be charmed with your mortuary humor. And I wasn’t kidding about the banana popsicles. Whiskey went through quite a few. Put them on my account.”

“Your account’s too big as it is. I’ll send you a bill,” Jeff grumbled, hopping up into the ice cream truck and starting the engine. “I need the hearse back by 2 P.M. sharp. Got a gig.”

Mac nodded his agreement. He and Whiskey watched the truck drive off, then walked over to the nearby hearse, a flicker of a curtain in a nearby house his clue that they had an audience. “Come on girl. We’ve given the neighbors plenty to talk about.”

The dog gave a quick bark in agreement.

“And since Jeff just told us where the sister of our number one suspect is going to be today, we’ve got time for breakfast.”

***

“Are you writing this down?” Rachel inquired as the pudgy, baby-faced patrol officer asked her the same question again. “I’m forty-two. I’ve told you that three times. Don’t you believe me? I told the first cops who came what happened. Not that they were much help. Who are you?”

The young policeman ignored her, instead shaking his cheap ballpoint pen, hoping to get the ink flowing. His large fingers couldn’t seem to hold the pen tight enough to keep the print inside the form’s small boxes. “The first officers on the scene answered the 9-1-1 call and checked that the perps were gone. I’m investigating the case. How long have you lived at this address?”

“Ten years–no eleven. Sam was almost eight when we moved in. It used to belong to my Great Aunt Rose. I got to keep it in the divorce settlement. It was
….” Rachel stopped as she realized she’d given the man more information than he was interested in hearing.

“Height and weight?”

“I didn’t see anyone. I told you I was upstairs until I heard the kitchen door shut and then I ran to my neighbor’s house….”

His face expressionless, the cop just stared at her, his pen poised over the wrinkled form. Rachel’s face reddened as she realized his meaning. “You want to know my
…. You’ve got to be kidding!”

The rookie cop’s face suddenly became animated as he grinned, showing two rows of dazzling white teeth. “Yes, Ma’am.”

Rachel sighed, the anger that had been building to an explosion, rushing out with her breath. She brushed her curly brown hair back from her face, holding it in a ponytail for a few seconds, wishing she had a clip handy. Spying one on the windowsill, she reached past the policeman and snatched it up. She caught a whiff of the young man’s aftershave. She knew it instinctively. It was the tangy, crisp smell of Old Spice, her grandfather’s favorite, and now enjoying resurgence in popularity among young men. But it still reminded her of barbershops and burr haircuts. Suddenly she realized that the cop had said something to her.

“What did you say?”

“I asked how long you thought the intruder had been in your house.”

“I’m not sure. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes… I don’t know.” Rachel took a moment and looked at the young cop more closely.

“But I know you, don’t I?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Joe Bryant. My kid brother was in Sam’s class in elementary school. Sam made varsity my senior year. I remember you coming to all the basketball games.”

“You played on the basketball team?” Rachel narrowed her eyes in concentration. “I don’t….”

“I’ve put on a few pounds since then.” He gave her a rueful look. “But I’m gonna get back into shape. I’ve started running. How’s Sam?”

“Fine. In college.” Distracted, Rachel glanced around the mess in her once immaculate kitchen. “Are you going to be able to find out who broke in here?”

The cop shrugged and then answered truthfully. “Probably not. But since nothing much was taken, I don’t think you need to be too worried. I’m guessing it was just some kids. Some initiation thing maybe.”

“I heard that there had been several break-ins in this neighborhood over the past six months,” Rachel said. “What club are these kids joining?”

“This is D.C., Mrs. Brenner. Robbery is the most common crime in the District.”

“They broke the glass in my door,” she pointed out unnecessarily, since glass shards were scattered over the tile floor.

The young cop didn’t even look up. “Smash and grab. The most common mode of entry.”

“They also went through my desk in the den. Papers and bills are all mixed up.”

“And stole half a ham,” the cop added with a slight smile. “I’m sorry they scared you. I did write it all down, Mrs. Brenner, and I’ll file the report. But unless you know who might have done this, I don’t think I’ll get too far putting out an APB on half of a hickory smoked–”

“Fine,” she interrupted, walking over to a closet and pulling out a broom and dustpan. “You’ve made your point. I need to get this mess cleaned up, get Foley’s to put in a new windowpane, and then I still have to show up for my first day of a new job, a job I probably won’t keep since I’m late. Do you want me to sign something or do you want to grill me some more about my age?”