Legacy of blood, p.1
Legacy of Blood, page 1
part #2 of A Zoey Callaway Mystery Series
Legacy of Blood
A Zoey Callaway Mystery
by Debi Chestnut
www.AuthorDebiChestnut.com
Copyright © 2021 by Debra Chestnut
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 coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below:
Cayélle Publishing/Monocle Imprint
Lancaster, California USA
www.CayellePublishing.com
Orders by U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers. Please contact Freadom Distribution:
Tel: (833) 229-3553 ext 813; Fax: (833) 229-3553 or email: Freadom@Cayelle.com
Categories: 1. Mystery 2. Detective 3. Suspense
Printed in the United States of America
Cover Art by Robin Ludwig Design, Inc.
Interior Design & Typesetting by Ampersand Book Interiors
ISBN: 111 [paperback]
ISBN: 111 [ebook]
Library of Congress Control Number 111
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
1
I laid in bed, pondering whether to go for a run or go back to sleep. My head was pounding from the bottle of wine I’d swilled last night in a moment of self-pity, but I opted for the run. No point in wasting a sunny March morning in Hope Harbor. We didn’t get many sunny days in the winter. It was normally dark, gray, and snowy.
After starting a pot of coffee, I checked my email. A few orders had come in from my clients—a credit check from Alba Insurance, a skip tracing order from one of the attorneys in town, and a request for a meeting from the FBI.
Hmm. Wonder what that’s about.
They can wait a couple hours.
I threw on a pair of black leggings and a sweatshirt before lacing up my running shoes and heading out the front door. The cold air slapped me in the face as I ran down the porch steps, and a brisk wind was blowing off the lake.
Damn it! Sunny doesn’t mean warm.
Halfway down the block, I realized I’d forgotten my cell phone, but decided not to turn back to get it. A five-mile run without music wouldn’t kill me.
I started out at a trot to warm up, and pretty soon I’d hit my stride and was flying down the boardwalk next to the waterfront. I waved to Father Alexander as I jogged past him. My neighbor, Bea Perkins, had introduced me to him one day when I’d stopped by the church offices where she worked. She’d gushed like a teenager. I think she liked him, but he was a young priest, and she a matronly woman. Nothing worse than unrequited love. The thought made me chuckle.
A flock of geese had come in off the partially frozen lake, and were waddling around the boardwalk to find a place to rest that had been warmed by the morning sun. They forced me to slow my stride to avoid them, and hissed at me as I tiptoed through them. I could have run around them, but my shoes would have gotten wet in the deep snow that lingered in the grassy areas of the park.
I headed up to the front of the park to cross the street. When I got to the corner, a delivery service van stopped to let me cross. I turned to wave at the driver, but he had his head down and didn’t see me.
I was going to go up Main Street, but today traffic was heavy as people shuffled for parking spaces in front of the bakery. Duke Stevens, the owner of the bakery, made fresh cinnamon rolls every morning, and people lined up down the block to get one as they came out of the oven. As I got closer, the aroma of the sweet confections wafted down the sidewalk, and the smell made my stomach growl.
I detoured and ran up a side street. I was in the middle of the block when I heard someone screaming. It wasn’t the normal, Oh, my God. There’s a spider, scream. This was a bloodcurdling scream.
I stopped in my tracks. Two houses up the sidewalk, I saw a young, attractive woman in a chic black dress, standing on a porch. Her large black purse slipped off her shoulder and dropped to the ground.
She raised her hands to her face. “Help!”
I crossed the distance in record time, and as I raced up the steps to her front porch, I saw something laying half-in, half-out of the house. It took me a second to realize it was a woman.
I walked over to the young woman. She’d stopped screaming, and was standing with her arms wrapped around her trembling body.
“Did she fall?”
“No. I don’t think so,” she said, after it registered that someone was there.
“Okay. Just take a deep breath and calm down.” I moved over to the woman who lay prone on the porch.
Maybe she’d been attacked or abused by a significant other, and ran here looking for safety. Maybe she’d crawled here, if she was injured.
No. There were no signs of that in the snow. In fact, the only marks in the snow were where I’d run across the lawn.
She wasn’t wearing any shoes. If she’d tried to escape from someone, she left in a hurry. Streaks of blood stained the front of her white sweater, and her black pants were undone and bunched up around her waist, as if she’d dressed in a hurry. Her dark, shoulder-length hair looked wet and was splayed around her head.
It hadn’t rained or snowed last night.
I crouched down by her head and realized her hair was soaked in blood. That’s when I noticed her throat had been slit with a cut so deep she’d nearly been decapitated.
I straightened and spun my head away to find a stretch of glistening snow to clear my mind of the horrible image. But even then, I knew I had to look again, because I’d glimpsed something odd. A patch of white on her neck.
Eventually I forced my gaze back to the face with the glazed eyes. Yes, the body came with a note. The neat square of paper had been attached to the woman’s neck with a large safety pin, the pin woven in and out of the tender skin of her neck. Cruel? Well, it had probably been attached after she’d died, but the callousness, the dismissiveness of this act seemed almost worse than the murder itself.
It was written in elaborate calligraphy: Adrianna Martinelli, sometimes your past catches up with you.
I recoiled and clamped my hand over my mouth. My stomach churned. I raced down the porch steps and vomited in the snow.
After wiping my mouth on the sleeve of my sweatshirt, I went back onto the porch to talk to the woman who’d found the body. She was quiet now, but trembling. I couldn’t blame her.
I stood in front of her, blocking her view of the body.
“Are you Adrianna?”
She stared at me blankly, my question not registering for a moment.
“Yes.” Her voice was shaky.
“I’m Zoey. Did you call 911?”
“No, I just…” She threw her arms around me sobbed on my shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay.” I extricated myself from her grasp. “Where’s your phone?”
She handed me her purse. I turned one of the porch chairs to face away from the body, and gently lowered her into it. Then I opened her purse, took out her cell phone and dialed 911.
Nothing else to do but wait.
Within seconds, sirens pierced the quiet morning air.
I walked over to the chair and kneeled in front of Adrianna.
“Do you know this woman?”
She lifted her head and looked at me. “No. I’ve never seen her before.”
“Did you see the note?”
The sirens were getting closer.
“Yes.” Tears ran down her cheeks.
“Do you know what it’s talking about?”
“No.” She started to sob again. “Why would someone do this to me?”
No one had done anything to her. Well, except put a body on her porch. It was the poor woman lying dead that’d had something done to her.
My mind shifted into overdrive. So she claims the body of a woman she doesn’t know is dumped on her porch with a note addressed to her, and she doesn’t have a clue who would do something like that, or what it’s about? Yeah, right. Oh, well. Not my problem. The police will find out the truth.
“Okay. The police are almost here. They’re going to have a lot of questions. Just tel l them the truth, okay?” I took her shaking hands in mine.
Before she could answer, three police cars, an ambulance, and Jason Brock’s truck screeched to a halt in front of the house.
Why is Jason here?
He was an FBI agent. They normally don’t get involved in local crime.
After the witch cemetery murders last fall, we’d started to date. Everything was hot and heavy for a while, but both of us had built walls around our hearts from previous relationships. Not to mention, Jason had become possessive and a bit too controlling for my liking. So the last time we went out, I told him I thought we should cool it down for a bit. Take things slower. He became enraged and stormed out of my house. That was the last time I’d spoken to him. Until now.
Jason and a man I didn’t recognize walked up the porch steps, and I rose to greet them.
“What are you doing here?” Jason set his jaw—a clear sign he wasn’t happy.
“I was jogging, and heard someone scream,” I said.
“You know her?” the other man said to Jason, and nodded toward me.
“Yes,” Jason sighed. “She’s Zoey Callaway. Zoey, meet Nate Emerson, the new Hope Harbor homicide detective.”
I extended my hand. “Nice to meet you.”
He shook my hand with a firm grip. His touch sent tingles through my body, and I pulled my hand away.
“You, too,” he said. “Do you live here?”
“She doesn’t.” Jason scowled. “She lives across the street from me. Just has a nasty habit of turning up anywhere there’s a dead body.”
Nate gave Jason a quizzical look, and I felt my face redden.
“I-it’s not like that,” I said. “Can I go now?”
“I may have more questions.” Detective Emerson brushed past me and knelt down to examine the body.
His face clouded over when he saw the note.
He got to his feet and walked over to Adrianna. I tried to see what was going on, but the police officers were blocking my view.
The crime scene personnel shooed us off the porch so they could start processing the area. I stepped down the stairs to the front yard. Jason followed me, and we watched the coroner’s van pull up behind his truck.
I turned to face him, crossing my arms. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
He met my glare with one of his own. “Just go home and stay out of this. If Nate has any more questions, he can come to you!”
Before I could answer, TV news trucks began to show up in front of the house.
“Go! Now!” Jason said.
I didn’t need to be told twice. The last thing I wanted was to get caught by the reporters who’d started to circle around like sharks in a feeding frenzy.
As much as I wanted to take off like a shot to get out of there, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. So I forced myself to stroll down the sidewalk until I was a few houses away, and then broke into a sprint.
On the way home, I replayed the grotesque scene in my head, over and over. I didn’t want to forget anything.
I let myself in, ran down the hall to my office, and turned on the TV mounted above my desk. So far, the reporters were still milling around. The cameramen were panning the scene, and I watched closely. Didn’t see any sign of Jason, Adrianna, or Detective Emerson. They must have gone into the house.
A white sheet was covering the body of the poor young woman. Who was she? More importantly, why was there a note addressed to Adrianna with the body? Adrianna had to know, or at least have a suspicion. Maybe it had to do with an ex-boyfriend or ex-husband. It could have been that she’d had a lesbian affair, and the boyfriend or husband murdered her.
At any rate, a killer is not going to leave a note about someone’s past catching up to them if they’ve done nothing to them.
I opened a blank word-processing document and started to type in everything I’d witnessed at Adrianna’s house. After a half-hour, I sat back, satisfied with my progress.
As much as I wanted to ponder the events of the morning, I had work to do. I kept my attention on the TV as I processed my work orders and completed a few background checks for Alba Insurance. I answered the email from the FBI agreeing to a meeting, and asked for details.
I sat back in my chair to stretch, and glanced up the TV just in time to see Detective Emerson coming down the porch steps, toward the reporters. Jason accompanied him and stood in stoic silence at his side.
“I am Detective Nate Emerson of the Hope Harbor Police Department. Next to me is Special Agent Jason Brock, with the FBI. He has offered the assistance of the Bureau, if needed. I have a short statement, and I will not be taking questions at this time.
“At approximately seven-thirty this morning, we received a 911 call about a body being found on the front porch of a residence. As of right now, we don’t have the identity of the victim. This is a very fluid situation. More details will be released when we have them. I caution you against harassing the homeowner. Please respect their privacy. That’s all I have for you at this time. Thank you.”
Wow, that was impressive. He said a lot without saying anything. They must teach classes in that at the police academy.
While I’d been watching the news, Karma had jumped off my desk and wandered out of my office. I heard her start to meow, and got up to see what had offended her kitty constitution this morning.
As I headed into the kitchen to get more coffee, through the living room window I saw Bea Perkins, my neighbor, walking up the front steps, holding a bakery box.
How does Karma always seem to know when someone is bringing her a treat?
I detoured into the living room and opened the front door for Bea. We exchanged greetings, and she limped past me, into the kitchen. Her knee must have been bothering her again.
While she was dishing out cinnamon rolls from the bakery and getting herself a cup of coffee, I filled her in on the morning’s activities. She listened politely, but seemed distracted.
“That’s nice, dear.” She poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Nice! But it was a murder, Bea.” I plopped down in a chair at the table.
“Yes, you said that. I’m sure the police will figure it out.” She tapped her nails against the side of her coffee cup.
I sat back in my chair. “What do you think about the note the killer left? I mean, it was safety-pinned to the poor woman’s skin.”
“That’s dreadful!” She shook her head. “What’s this world coming to?”
Something wasn’t right. Normally, Bea would be eating up all the details and asking a ton of questions. Perhaps a gruesome murder isn’t the best choice for breakfast conversation.
No, that hasn’t bothered her before. Something’s not right in her world.
“Are you okay? Is something wrong, Bea?”
She stabbed a piece of roll with her fork. “Oh, it’s that damn Mary Watkins.”
“Who’s she?”
“She’s in the Mavens of Mayhem. You know, my mahjong group,” she said, between chews. “She had her genealogy done, and found out she’s descended from some earl, I think she said. From England.”
I hid a smile. “Okay, and?”
Bea dropped her fork onto her empty plate. “And she’s lording it over everyone! Claiming to be a royal. As if. The only thing she’s being is a royal pain in the ass. I need you to help me.”
“Help you do what?” I got up to pour us more coffee.
I need you to trace my ancestors and find someone who can trump her earl.” She put her elbows on the table and stared at me. “I remember my grandmother telling me we descended from someone important, but I can’t, for the life of me, remember the details. It was years ago. I’m planning to go to a genealogy seminar at the college given by one of the history professors. Rodger Frost is his name.
“That sounds like a good idea. Maybe he’ll trace someone down for you. Of course, if he can’t, I’ll help you. We can do it together. It’ll be fun.”
“Oh, poo.” Bea slumped in her chair like a deflated balloon. “I don’t have a computer, and I can barely operate the one at the church. Please, Zoey?” She looked at me with pleading eyes.
“Okay, I’ll go with you. But only after you attend the seminar. You’ll have to write down everything you know. Parents, grandparents, dates, places, and so on. At least give me some place to start,” I sighed.
