The Cutie-Pie Murders by Don Travis

Author:Don Travis [Travis, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery/suspense
ISBN: 978-1-64405-900-5
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2021-02-21T06:00:00+00:00

I’D NO sooner walked through the back door to the house—we customarily entered through the kitchen, which almost got us killed by a bushwhacker hiding in the alley in the case I called the Voxlightner Scandal—than Paul braced me with a kiss and some news. He’d been rechecking all of Matt’s friends and learned something interesting. One of Burton Neville’s playmates and Matt Zapata knew each other. At least they’d met. And the circumstances of the meeting were interesting. We took seats in the den where he gave me details.

“This girl—woman—named Beth practically grew up with Matt. They were friends, dated some. You know, casual. She also knew Sonny Delaware and went out with him for a while. Again, nothing serious, according to her. But one night about a year ago, she was with Matt at a dive down on South Broadway. They only went there because the joint didn’t question false IDs. Anyway, they were in a booth minding their own business when Sonny came in and spotted them. He stalked over and staked a claim. Things went south from there.”

“A fight?” I asked.

He paused to take a sip of his Crown Royal. “Some pushing and shoving. They were headed for the parking lot to get it on when a cop showed up. After that, Matt and Beth left.”

“So Sonny lied to me. I showed him Matt’s picture, and he said he’d never seen him.”

Paul shrugged. “Ships passing in the night. Do you remember everyone you met in a bar?”

“Everyone I had a beef with, at any rate.”

Paul’s grin was devastating. “I suspect Sonny gets in a few more scrapes than you did.”

“Fair assumption.”

After a meal of Paul’s excellent cheese enchiladas and refried beans, we settled in the den for a peaceful evening of reading and cuddling. That bucolic mood lasted until ten o’clock, when the evening news program put an exclamation point on Monday, April 2, by reporting a man named One Goh, a former student at a Korean Christian school called Oikos University, had opened fire inside the university and killed seven people at random, wounding several others. Such an act of violence shocked the world, and properly so. But our homegrown cutie-pie killer had slain five healthy young men, and the world—at least the larger world outside of New Mexico—didn’t even know about it. Paul spoke what was on my mind.

“I hope we find our guy before he kills that many.”

“The way he’s escalating, we’d better hurry up.”

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