The Ruthless Realtor Murders by David A. Kaufelt

The Ruthless Realtor Murders by David A. Kaufelt

Author:David A. Kaufelt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2021-11-16T00:00:00+00:00


16

On Tuesday morning Waggs Neck Harbor Police Chief Homer Price, starched and resolute, marched across Main Street to the New Federal to interview the hotel’s food and beverage manager, Michael Bell.

He ostentatiously used the pedestrian zone though there wasn’t a car in sight. Despite Homer’s fine example, swarms of citizens were crossing Main Street wherever they damn well felt they could.

“You want to arrest me, Captain, be my guest” A pink-garbed Lucy Littlefield was deliberately jaywalking, pushing her grandnephew in his elaborate stroller across the street. “And arrest this child whilst you’re at it. Arrest the whole damn town if you got a mind to. We’re all victims of the fascist government in this village, as if you didn’t know.”

Homer, thinking Lucy Littlefield was arrested enough, ignored her and concentrated on his forthcoming interview. He was hip to the fact that he was going to have to squeeze every last drop out of his self-control tube to be fair and square with Mike Bell.

It wasn’t only Mike. It was all the Bells who rang his chimes, swarming around Waggs Neck Harbor like the rats of Hamelin, getting into all kinds of heavy mischief.

Precisely because he longed to chop them up and feed them to the fish, Homer was extra careful to treat them with scrupulous courtesy, with unfailing if remote respect. They, in turn, complained that Captain Midnight singled them out for every infraction; that he had it in for them.

He regretted that he had been so definite in telling Wyn and Tommy that he knew who the murderer was. But she had seemed relieved and Homer had felt somewhat confident. Not that he had much proof. Mike Bell was his candidate for several solid reasons but also because Mike didn’t have a grain of compassion in his beefy being. He told himself that he would start slowly with the incendiary Mike. If Mike did do it, Homer didn’t want to muddy the prosecution’s case with claims of police brutality. All Homer wanted to find out, for the moment, was where Mike had been when Petronella St. Cloud and Kathy Carruthers were killed.

A belated flash sent on from the West Sea medical examiner’s office via Pasko stated that Kathy Carruthers had been strangled late on Friday afternoon, not on Saturday morning, as had been supposed.

It would have been a snap—Homer regretted the phrasing—for Mike Bell, with his hard-earned benchpress muscles, to have killed the two women. “Like strangling not only takes balls, Captain, you got to have muscle, too,” Pasko had informed him patronizingly.

Homer turned his thoughts back to Mike Bell. He had a nice motive. He was the least forgiving of the Bells, most of whom took their lumps with a lot of noise and quickly got over them with breezy nonchalance.

And, contrary to popular opinion, Homer believed Mike had the brains for it. Both occasions had called for a more than average intelligence. Leaving behind no prints, no fibers, no personal liquid or hair strands or bits of



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.