Murder Book (eBook)

Frank F. Weber (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
350 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-63625-311-4 (ISBN)

While investigating a case near his hometown, Jon quietly reopens the murder book on Mandy Baker and begins to see commonalities between Mandy's disappearance and his new case. Digging up the past raises intriguing possibilities with an old friend, Serena Bell-but also forces them to work through old betrayals. As the investigation intensifies, Jon realizes he has crossed paths with the killer before. Murder Book is the first book in the Jon Frederick series.

Jon Frederick spent his adolescence protecting his mentally ill brother and worrying about his parents' farm as it headed toward bankruptcy. So when Mandy Baker, the alluring new girl in town, pursued him, he was easily enamored. But on the day he ended their tryst, Mandy vanished. There is no doubt in the small Minnesota town of Pierz that the flirtatious girl is dead, and there is little doubt that Jon got away with murder. A decade later, Jon is made an investigator with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. While investigating a case near his hometown, Jon quietly reopens the murder book on Mandy Baker and begins to see commonalities between Mandy's disappearance and his new case. Digging up the past raises intriguing possibilities with an old friend, Serena Bell-but also forces them to work through old betrayals. As the investigation intensifies, Jon realizes he has crossed paths with the killer before. Murder Book is the first book in the Jon Frederick series. Murder Book was a 2018 Midwest Book Award Finalist in three categories (Best Mystery, Best Romance and Best Young Adult novel.

JON FREDERICK

1:30 P.M., SATURDAY, MARCH 29

HIGHWAY 10 HEADED NORTH TOWARD LITTLE FALLS

SATURDAY AT NOON, I RECEIVED a call for my first official case as an investigator. An eleven-year-old girl had gone missing in rural Minnesota. Unsure how long I’d be away from home, I quickly hauled all of the perishable items from my refrigerator out to the garbage, packed, and headed north. With two days in a row of temperatures hovering around forty degrees, the snow was departing fast. Late March and early April in Minnesota can be unforgiving, with cold, gloomy, overcast days. April is the purgatory ending the hell of winter, before the green of May brings everything to life once again. The trees were barren, and the color was drained from all the foliage by the bitter and exhausting winter. Patches of snow littered the burlap brown prairie.

As I drove through Little Falls, I adjusted the rearview mirror to double-check that my insulated, water-tight, boots were in the back seat. They were. I had packed in a hurry, and hoped I hadn’t forgotten anything I would need. Warm or not, I would be spending time outside.

I turned right onto Highway 27 from Main Street and headed east out of the city. Sean Reynolds, a BCA colleague, called and told me I’d be working with an investigator from Morrison County named Tony Shileto. I would be the liaison between the BCA and local investigators. I got the liaison assignment because I was the rookie. Sean gave me a brief description and historical rundown of Tony’s past, as he wanted me to be adequately prepared. Tony Shileto had a history of hostile relationships with others. The story was that Tony beat a citizen, after the individual was found not guilty of a sex crime. Tony had a friend in administration who helped him keep his job; however, local investigators had been reluctant to partner up with Tony, out of fear that the prosecution of their cases could be muddled up by his history. The Morrison County investigators used terms like “Shileto Justice,” when an officer overreacted to a situation.

Three miles east of Little Falls, toward Pierz, I approached a gravel road that had been recently named 210th Street. The city managers had elected to give the small roads street names, to make it easier for families to direct ambulance drivers when accidents occurred on the farms. Two police officers had blocked off the road, so I showed them my identification and was waved through. Gravel crunched beneath the weight of my tires for a half mile, before I reached three squad cars parked by the side of the dirt road. Based on Sean’s description, the man not in uniform standing among four sheriff ‘s deputies was Investigator Tony Shileto. Tony was in his late forties. He had thick, black hair streaked with gray, which he wore combed back. His face bore strong Italian features, despite Sean’s suggestion that he was Irish. Tony fiercely shouted directions to the deputies through the cold bitter wind.

I quickly stepped out of the car into the crisp spring air and swallowed hard as I studied Tony. His tan trench coat was open and waved with the wind, as he scurried about in scuffed brown hiking boots.

Attempting to portray an illusion of confidence, I approached him and held out my hand. “Jon Frederick.”

Tony Shileto eyed me with irritation, which I assumed to be frustration over having been assigned a rookie for a partner. He smirked as he registered my new black tennis shoes. In my haste to get to work, I had forgotten to change into my boots. “Brittany Brennan was last seen walking out of a driveway half a mile back,” he said in greeting. “She was headed to her folks’ farm another half mile down the road. She never made it home. We found this on the road, here.” Tony held up a dark brown leather jacket. “Any idea where it’s from?”

I shrugged, “No.”

Tony said, “It’s an Express leather men’s jacket. My guess is it’s about a decade old.”

That was a lot of information to have on a jacket that was just discovered. I wasn’t sure what to say, other than, “Okay.”

“Did you ever own one?”

“I don’t think so.” I couldn’t help wondering where he was going with that question.

Tony scowled at me, and said, “Think hard.”

“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t afford a leather jacket when I was younger, and I don’t own one now. Is my attire relevant to this case?”

After glaring at me for a beat, Tony nodded, “Tell me what you were thinking on your way here.”

“Okay … If she was abducted on this dirt road,” I speculated, “She is probably with someone from around here. This isn’t a road that tourists would be traveling. That doesn’t necessarily make her safe, but it may mean she’s still close by. I also thought I want to find her alive, and prove I can do this job. People don’t realize how hard it is to find a child, until it becomes your job to find one.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Tony rolled his shoulders. “The only guaranteed way to find her is to bring everyone in the world to Morrison County, and ask the person standing on her to raise his hand.”

The problem with giving me hypothetical proposals was that they started a series of numbers tumbling through my head. I felt compelled to respond, “Actually, if everyone in the world was in Morrison County, it’s possible that nobody would be standing on her.”

Annoyed by my response, Tony growled, “What?”

“There are eleven hundred, twenty-five square miles in Morrison County. There are twenty-seven million square feet in a square mile, and about thirty billion square feet total in Morrison County. Assuming each person took up three square feet while standing, you could fit ten billion people into Morrison County. There are only seven and a half billion people on earth, so it’s possible no one would be standing on Brittany.” I wasn’t sure how Tony was taking my oration, so I added, “But we could ask them to look around.”

He furrowed his eyebrows and said, “No shit. Everyone in the world could fit in this county, with room to spare?”

“Yes.”

“What, are you some sort of savant?”

“No, I just have a thing with remembering numbers.”

He gave a couple of quick head shakes, as if he was trying to clear the conversation out of his mind, and switching gears, pointed toward the ditch. “Brittany’s parents organized a search when she didn’t come home. They feared she was hit by a vehicle and was lying in the ditch somewhere. So, we have a mess. If we have a crime scene, it’s contaminated. This jacket could have come off the man who abducted Brittany, or it could’ve come off one of the searchers.” Tony turned in a slow circle and said, “Walk a little down the road with me, as Brittany did, and tell me what you think.”

As we strolled, Tony told me, “Brittany Brennan is an eleven-year-old white girl, with dark brown hair. She was wearing a pink jacket and pink sweatpants. The Downings gave Brittney a pair of pink and white tennis shoes that no longer fit their niece, and Brittany was excited to show them to her mom. Her parents are Al and Mary Brennan, and she has a brother, Jason.”

The gravel road was lined by ditches with long strands of dead, brown grass haphazardly twisted at various angles by the winter storms. Beyond the ditches stretched long fields so dark and muddy they looked like they could have been composed of finely ground coal. The frigid air bit at my ears. The local farmers were waiting for the water from the melted snow to completely run off the fields so they could start planting. About a hundred yards from the road sat a row of poplar trees jutting from the muddy ground like dried sticks. I looked down the gravel road and thought out loud, “That’s a long walk to the next farm for an eleven-year-old girl.”

“They said she did it all the time.” Tony looked at me curiously, “Any visions or premonitions?”

I finally realized what he was getting at, so I explained, “I’m not psychic. I just have an obsession with numbers. It’s not anything special. Anyone could find out what I know with an iPhone.”

“The square footage of Morrison County?”

“I grew up on a farm near here.”

Tony smirked, “For a moment I thought you were going to make it easy for us. That’s too bad.” He looked out at the muddy fields, and said, “I have lived here for two decades now, and no one can explain to me why everyone plants corn. So, farm boy, tell me. Why does everyone plant corn?”

Tony apparently had done his research on me, too. I looked out at the field and with a half-smile, said, “They just do. But it hasn’t been planted, yet. It’s too wet.”

He stared at me for a few seconds, and with histrionics, waved his arms as he said, “Now I get it—they just do! Next time I put a criminal in front of the judge, I’ll tell the judge, ‘He did it.’ When the judge asks how I know,...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	18.1.2021
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
ISBN-10	1-63625-311-3 / 1636253113
ISBN-13	978-1-63625-311-4 / 9781636253114

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