Murder book, p.1
Murder Book, page 1
Murder Book
Alan Lee
Murder Book
Book Three
of
The Girl Who Would Be Sheriff
by Alan Lee
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2024 Alan Janney
First Edition
Printed in USA
Cover by Damonza
Formatting by Vellum
Sparkle Press
Created with Vellum
Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Chapter One, of August Origins
Chapter Two, of August Origins
Prologue
Dr. Raymond Pierce was guided by an asthmatic prison guard to a visitation room inside the Virginia Correctional Center for Women, an hour northwest of the state’s capital.
“You’re a doctor?” said the asthmatic guard.
“I am.”
“What kind of doctor?”
Dr. Pierce forced through a polite smile. “A neurosurgeon.”
“What does—”
“I operate on brains,” he said.
A rattling breath. “I got only about a dozen kin that could use some of that. Haha.”
The linoleum was cracked like a desert floor, and the chair Dr. Pierce lowered onto protested enough that he stood and found another. The prisoner he was visiting would be kept behind the glass, deemed too great a danger to be set free in a general meeting hall. He wasn’t an attorney, which meant the conversation wasn’t confidential and they weren’t afforded a private room.
“Cute, ain’t she,” said the prison guard, intruding again into the doctor’s absorption. “She’s everyone’s favorite. Too pretty for this place, I tell you that much right now. I can’t hardly think straight when she’s eating.” The woman lingered for more from the doctor, but when none came she hobbled back to her desk in the corner, continuing a game of spider solitaire. Dr. Pierce and the guard were the only two souls in the stark room, and her rasping breathing echoed as if in a canyon.
Research indicated that an all-female staff reduced abuse and inappropriate relationships at an all-female prison, but not by much.
In the glass’s reflection. Dr. Pierce considered himself. Always a thin man, he’d put on ten pounds of gristle. Always a meticulous man, his hair was a month late for a trim. He touched his chapped lips and wondered when that’d happened, and if he’d brought any balm. This was the first he’d considered himself in a week. As he did, a tremor welled in his chin and he clamped his teeth to subdue it.
His shirt was buttoned incorrectly, the mistake visible between the lapels of his rain jacket.
What did that matter.
A door opened beyond the glass, a hard sound, hinges desperate for oil. He heard slow shuffling and the clink of restraints. A moment later, the woman he’d come to see appeared.
Like her confines, she looked pale and spare. Unlike her confines, she looked lovely. A flower that bloomed wherever planted. You can’t hide perfect features, he thought. She brushed her blonde hair often, and she ate as well as she could, and she smiled more than the correctional facility gave her reason to, and he saw no trace of self-pity or bitterness in her faint wrinkles. She wore the handcuffs and ankle restraints like homemade adornments.
She sat. The guard who’d brought her left but didn’t close the door.
Dr. Pierce and the lovely woman regarded each other silently, meeting for the first time, and much was said without words. Each waited for the other to speak, and in the lengthening span they realized a common bond.
No one sane waited that long.
Not in a desperate place like this.
In that recognition was recognition itself, inward and outward; with it came a calm comfort.
She tilted her head, like a mother would do, a concerned, loving mother, and he found himself unexpectedly moved. Emotion welled in his chest and sadness weighed down the corners of his mouth but he refused to cry. He was a respected neurosurgeon. He would not weep at the interest of a prison inmate.
The advantage was his. He knew her, not the other way around. At last he cleared this throat, a sound she heard through the metallic grating in the glass. She leaned forward.
“You and I have something in common, Ms. Newton,” he said.
“Yes? What is that?”
“We have the same complicated relationship with an individual who—”
Jane Newton released a small gasp and she pressed a palm against the glass, necessarily dragging the other hand along.
“Andrea. You know Andrea,” said Jane.
Jane Newton had been an active serial murderer in Roanoke City for years, until she took an obsessive interest in patrol officer Andrea Stackhouse. That had been her undoing, deep inside an underground water vault. Andie Stackhouse was too strong to tangle with.
For most people.
Jane asked, “How is she?”
Again a long silence. The emotion welled up in him once more. In his periphery, the prison guard watched them, her video game forgotten, her phlegmatic breathing accelerated.
“She won’t write,” said Jane Newton. “She won’t visit, she won’t call.”
The common lament of all mothers.
“I know the feeling.” Dr. Pierce’s words were soft enough, the guard couldn’t hear.
“She hurt you,” said Jane.
“As I said, it’s complicated.”
Jane Newton’s palm remained pressed against the barrier, and he saw no callouses or cuts or bruises on her hand. Her palmar crease looked soft. “I won’t help you hurt her.”
“Ms. Newton. I read about you. We both know that pain is an instrument. We see things others do not and our purpose is to nurture growth. We don’t have much time so let’s be honest.”
Jane Newton didn’t respond immediately. Her posture was remarkably upright, unbowed by prison.
Finally she nodded. “Tell me everything.”
1
Andie Stackhouse, the newest member of the valley’s inter-agency Fugitive Task Force, clung to the back of a UPS truck at dawn. Despite the early hour, her nerves were on fire, her mind on high alert.
Standing on the thin metal landing next to her was an agent at the FBI’s Roanoke field office, and a TFO (task force officer) from Roanoke County Police. No one spoke. They were spotlighted in the headlights of the trailing vehicle, another UPS truck.
Stackhouse’s hands shook, fear and thrill and adrenaline, and she hoped the FBI agent couldn’t tell.
The trucks decelerated at a house on Lefty’s Ridge, deep inside the hills of south county. The nearest neighbor was a mile removed across the thistle fields and land ugly from deforestation.
A whisper in her ear piece, “All teams, go go go.”
The trucks didn’t stop, but they slowed to five miles per hour. Stackhouse and the others hopped off, shocks squeaking with the release. The FBI agent staggered and Stackhouse grabbed him to keep the man upright. Four more figures detached from the trailing truck, and silently the seven figures infiltrated the overgrown lawn of the dilapidated house. The two UPS trucks accelerated and trundled out of sight.
Today’s mission objective was not fugitive apprehension. It was not negotiation. It was hostage rescue, fast and hard, weapons hot. They knew from infrared intel, two tangos lounged in the front room. Their target was guarded in the kitchen. Two more tangos sat on chairs at the rear, and another slept upstairs.
“Bravo team in position.”
“Alpha team in position.”
“Perimeter secure.”
“Alpha team breaching.”
“Bravo team breaching.”
This was happening so fast.
Roanoke County’s TFO McBride silently withdrew a thirty-five-pound battering ram from the satchel he’d tossed off the truck. Squad leader Davis gave a nod and signaled forward with his left hand. Holding the ram with two hands, McBride stepped onto the squeaky porch, using his momentum to create an exaggerated backswing, and he crushed the door just above the knob. The impact bruised his wrists. He swung out of the way and dropped the ram, withdrawing the Springfield 1911 from his hip holster.
FBI agent Gordon pulled the pin on a grenade, a metallic snap, and tossed it underhand through the doorway.
“Flashbang in.”
“Flashbang in.”
Stackhouse closed her eyes and turned her face away, and still nearly fell over at the twin eruptions. No shrapnel, just disorientation.
“Go go go.” Squad leader Davis entered the house first, wielding a Heckler & Koch HK416D, an assault rifle she wouldn’t feel comfortable carrying without months of training. The FBI agent followed with an identical weapon. Then McBride, and finally Stackhouse, the newest member of the squad at the rear. She carried her service Glock, her most comfortable firearm, the granular grip digging into her fingers.
Inside the house, Davis’s weapon burped loud, his HK set to burst. “Tango down!”
To catch the house asleep, the task force had assaulted before dawn. They wore image intensifying goggles to see in the dark, and Stackhouse had only three hours training with them. She felt like she moved on the moon, heartbeat out of control.
Hot laser dots sweeping the walls.
More assault rifle chatter.
“Tango down!”
“Clear!”
Checking corners, she followed her squad leader into the next compartment of the house, a long dining room, once grand. Her at the back, missing the action and grateful for it, this her first—
Movement in her periphery. A man emerging from behind the door.
“Tango spotted, dining room doorway!” she shouted. She spun and closed.
The man grabbed her arm, pointing her gun to the ceiling, and he hefted her up and over his shoulder like she weighed nothing. The world turned upside down and her goggles jarred loose.
She landed hard, her shoulder wrenched, and her attacker placed a knife at her throat. Hot breath against her cheek.
“Bad news, Stack. You’re dead.”
More assault rifle bursts, and the man was kicked off her with a boot. “Dining room, officer down! Tango down!”
She lay on the rough wood without moving, staring upward at the rotten ceiling, her chest rising painfully against her tactical vest. Her gun lay on the floor nearby but she didn’t reach for it, nor her goggles.
Crud.
Crud crud crud.
Her first mission, already dead.
Thirty minutes later, debriefing at the UPS trucks on the street, the sun had risen but not enough for warmth. Stackhouse worked her shoulder, watching the footage on the monitors with the others—two teams of four, and their instructors, as well as the hostage team of eight.
On the mounted screen, Stackhouse watched her blunder.
“Stack’s toast. What’d she do wrong?”
“She got too close,” said Carpenter, the man who’d flipped and killed her.
I was already too near.
“Bingo, too close. She should’ve backed and fired, not closed. She screwed up and she died and now we all attend her funeral because she was a dumbass.”
Stackhouse nodded without comment. She felt the criticism as though her father uttered it, an odd, painful sensation.
Instructor Kendra Burns from SWVA SWAT tapped the big monitor. “Keep your distance, Officer Stackhouse. Use your firearm. Call for help.”
Call for help! It happened so fast!
The other instructor, an older evaluator she didn’t know, said, “Tell me why you didn’t fire, Stackhouse.”
“I’m not sure,” she said.
“You closed instead of firing. Why?”
“I screwed up.”
“I know that. We know that. We see that. Why?” he said.
“I don’t know.”
“I do. You’re new. It’s damn hard to fire at another human being. This is why we drill,” said the man.
Stackhouse nodded again. She was nodding too much.
“She thought she could kick my ass,” joked Carpenter and the group laughed. She detected her father laughing, a hallucination. Only Kendra Burns didn’t laugh, the other woman.
“She brought a gun to a knife fight but she didn’t even use it,” said Agent Gordon, and they all laughed again.
Alpha leader Davis said, “She saved your ass, didn’t she, FBI?”
“Yeah she did.”
“That’s right,” called the evaluator. “Let’s talk about why this corner didn’t get cleared, the primary reason we lost a man today.”
Afterward, her ears still burning, loading into cars, Kendra caught up with Stackhouse. “I died my first exercise, too.”
“It won’t happen again.”
“It’s clear to me why you were invited onto the fugitive apprehension team,” said Kendra.
“To check a box?”
“Hell yes. It’s 2008, so of course to check a box. But why you. Because you’re a fighter. A brawler. To get your reputation, you have to be. In there, though, you’re part of a team. It’s hard for girls like us to wait for backup.”
Stackhouse felt punchy and bruised and her shoulder hurt, and she was tired of talking. “What if I’m alone?”
“You might go the rest of your career without being asked to subdue a bigger man by yourself. Even if that happens, and you’re alone against a bigger man? Use your weapons. Little guys always lose to big guys in fights. But not if she uses her weapons and waits for backup.”
Stackhouse pushed the vest up over her head. She’d been in several fights without weapons or backup. Too many, but she didn’t want to push the point. “I hear you, ma’am.”
Over Kendra’s shoulder, she saw the guys exchanging money and laughing. There’d been a bounty on the new girl’s head. Carpenter was collecting.
Stackhouse dropped into the Roanoke County car and rubbed her face. Her day was only beginning.
2
Sergeant Detective Val Farmer was leaning against her unmarked Chevy Impala. “You missed roll call, lady.”
“I know.” Stackhouse shouldered her satchel, slammed the trunk of her Nissan, and ran for the Barn.
“It’s your first day, and you’re late.”
Stackhouse shouted over her shoulder, “Ease up! It’s not my fault.” She hustled into the station’s changing room. Her shoulder ached from Carpenter’s body slam, and she watched herself wince in the mirror over the sinks as she changed out of her tactical fatigues and into the business casual outfit of a plainclothes detective.
The cop shop simmered with cleanup—the dayshift was combing through paperwork left on their desks from the nightshift’s arrests. The cells were stuffed with new faces, and attorneys were waiting to speak with clients. The gears of justice churned evermore with processing.
Stackhouse emerged blinking back into the sunlight, and Val said, “How was SWAT?”
“It’s not SWAT. Those guys are maniacs. It was the Fugitive Task Force, and it hurt.”
“You’re crazy buff, lady. Look at those muscles.”
“Not buff enough,” said Stackhouse.
Val was tall and her hands were shoved into her pockets, and she bounced with energy. A transfer from New Jersey, Val had been promoted to Sergeant Detective and her first trainee was Stackhouse. “What shoes are you wearing?”
“Pumas.”
“They look nice.”
“Thank you,” said Stackhouse.
“You can’t run in those.”
“Yes I can. They’re sneakers.”
“Those are dressy,” said Val.
“They’re dressy sneakers.”
“What kinda pants you got on?”
“Khakis. What gives, Val?”
“Look at me, kiddo. Then look at you. We’re dressed the same, right? But it’s like we’re different species. Your clothes fit better.” Val flapped her sports jacket. “I’m wearing a tent over here.”
“What are your measurements?”
“Up yours, lady, I don’t know. Why’s your ass look so good?”
“Do you run?” asked Stackhouse. “Lift weights? Squat? Deadlift?”
“Hell no. I’m married, I don’t have to. I haven’t broken a sweat since Clinton was president. What kinda jacket is that?”
“It’s a fitted performance sports jacket by—”
“A fitted performance… I swear to God, Andie.”
“What is your problem?”
“I hope someone throws up on you,” said Val. “You have no business looking that cute. You’re a gosh darn detective now. Take up drinking and get a divorce like the rest of us.”
“You’re not divorced. This jacket only cost a hundred dollars. Are we gonna stand here talking? You said I was late.”
