Closure: An Eli Quinn Mystery Read online

  CLOSURE

  An Eli Quinn Mystery

  By Robert Roy Britt

  Copyright © 2016 by Robert Roy Britt

  RobertRoyBritt.com

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion of it may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review, which is highly encouraged. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Published by Ink • Spot

  P.O. Box 74693

  Phoenix, Arizona 85087

  InkSpotBooks.com

  Published in the United States of America

  Cover by Trent Design

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are imaginary or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, places, companies or events is totally coincidental.

  Praise for the Eli Quinn Mystery Series

  FIRST KILL (Book 3)

  ★★★★★ “Jam-packed with thrilling fight scenes, witty banter, and well-worn characters, FIRST KILL is an excellent addition to the private detective genre with a likeable hero and a lovable sidekick.”

  — IndieReader

  ★★★★★ “Methodical, yet fast-paced thriller… FIRST KILL solidifies Quinn as a deeply developed hero with great potential for future installations.”

  — Self-Publishing Review

  “Britt offers a sharp, hearty narrative… Another worthy outing for the quick-witted, ever evolving private eye.”

  — Kirkus Reviews

  “An exciting thriller … full of intrigue, sex, and even some humor.”

  — Bestsellersworld.com

  “A well-plotted story full of twists and turns with a cast of attention-grabbing characters and dialogue that throws sparks all over the place.”

  — Silvia Villalobos, author of Stranger or Friend

  DRONE (Book 2)

  “A brisk detective novel sequel that packs a punch.”

  — Kirkus Reviews

  ★★★★★ “Quinn’s second case reads as if it were written by a master reaching the height of his craft. With its witty banter, cast of colorful secondary characters, and promising detective agency, DRONE sidles into the genre with aplomb. … Characterizations are top notch, the plot is believably paced with ratcheting tension, and the prose is highly polished. … Quinn’s personality gives him an everyman feel that makes him easy to connect with. Unlike more intellectual literary detectives, Quinn is relatable and fun to root for.”

  — Foreword Clarion Reviews

  ★★★★★ “Fast-paced with a few thought-provoking twists, DRONE is reminiscent of a noir detective story with a 21st century flair.”

  — IndieReader

  “Immediately absorbing and thoroughly entertaining.”

  — Bestsellerworld.com

  “Robert Roy Britt’s writing is engaging and captivating—written both with a mature slant and just a little camp. Britt takes on a well-trod genre and introduces a distinct yet fitting addition to its hall of fame. Both brilliant and humble, hard-nosed and gentle, Eli Quinn’s mettle is thoroughly tested in curious and entertaining ways. It’s hard to make an original detective, but Britt is more than up to the challenge. He does a wonderful job of telling this twisting tale with excellent pace.”

  — Self-Publishing Review

  “A delightful read, a page turner.”

  “You will not be able to put it down.”

  “Britt has a keen feel for dialogue.”

  — Amazon Readers

  CLOSURE (Book 1)

  “Quinn’s narrative often sports the hardened cynicism of a seasoned veteran … Solo nearly steals the story; he can intimidate with a single bark and a follow-up growl.”

  — Kirkus Reviews

  “Fascinating plot.”

  “Great characters.”

  “A great read.”

  — Amazon Readers

  MURDER MOUNTAIN (Short Prequel)

  “An excellent quick mystery.”

  “An engaging tale of pursuit.”

  “Britt writes tight prose.”

  — Amazon Readers

  For Mom, who has always known there was more to the story.

  Chapter 1

  I got out of the red Jeep Wrangler pissed at the world. Unlocked the front door of our modest, one-story, three-bed, two-bath. Correction: my one-story, three-bed, two-bath.

  Solo was just inside the door, his tail slapping the wall, tongue wagging like a counterbalance out front. Every inch of Solo wanted to jump on me, but he waited until I said “Up!” then put his paws on my belt, got a quick pat on the head and a two-handed scratch behind the ears. Solo put his paws back on the floor and was at my side.

  I got a Sierra Nevada from the fridge, popped the top, went through the living room, opened the sliding glass doors and went into the back yard. It was in the high eighties, climbing to the mid nineties, a dry and comfortable Arizona spring day.

  Sitting on a wrought-iron chair Jess had picked out, half the beer went down in one go. I scratched Solo behind the ears, said “Fuck” too loudly, and wondered what the hell I would do now.

  I pulled my iPhone out of its holster, thought about calling the managing editor at The Arizona Republic. Nick Zee had been great when Jess was killed, telling me to take off as much time as needed. Days turned to weeks and then months as I chased down her killer. Now with the trial done, and her killer going to jail for a long, long time, I had no clue what was next.

  I set the iPhone down on the arm of the chair, not ready to go back to work. Zee had been trying to get me to return for several weeks. “For your own good, Quinn,” he said.

  But back in the office there’d be the daily routine of reporting on things that used to seem so important but now just felt somehow trivial. Then again, I couldn’t just sit around the house. Didn’t have anything else in mind.

  ***

  The doorbell rang. Solo jumped to attention and barked the deep, commanding bark of a German shepherd, just once, as was his habit. If it had been a stranger, he’d be growling now. Instead, he stuck his tongue out and made the happy smile dogs do. He knew who was at the door. I didn’t know whether it was sounds or smells that told this 110-pound attack dog who was out front, but he always seemed to know. His enthusiastic trot toward the door, with a constant look back that said, “are you not going to run and open this door really quickly?” gave me a good idea who it was.

  I walked in through the slider, through the house, and opened the front door.

  Sam Marcos pushed past, letting herself in as she sometimes did lately, like a fresh breeze in slim jeans and a light blue t-shirt. She slapped a thigh and Solo raised up on his hind legs and gave her his paws. She nuzzled him, spoke a little girl-to-dog talk that only the two of them could possibly understand. Solo licked her face enthusiastically. Some attack dog.

  I’d known Samantha Marcos for years. We worked several stories together at the paper, respected each other’s talents, and had become good friends the past year while I looked for Jess’ killer. Sam was full of determination, had a Mediterranean temper and a surprising bravado, all accented perfectly by long, straight black hair, olive skin and dark brown eyes that I had tried hard not to get lost in many times. I usually succeeded. It was never easy.

  See, there were two problems.

  Before Jess was killed, our marriage had been going downhill. We were trying to fix it, then suddenly she was gone. Violently gone. I was buried under remorse and sadness and guilt. Most of it was still there. The second problem was that Sam and I were easy together
, comfortable. With Jess gone, Sam became an even closer friend. She helped me find Jess’ killer.

  All this was confusing to me. Sometimes I hated myself for even thinking about it. Sometimes I tried to be less judgmental of me, and to explain myself to myself. Mostly I stayed confused.

  Whatever, I always felt better when Sam was around than when she wasn’t, and sometimes I just had to not think about why. This was a skill I was honing, but very, very slowly.

  “I saw the verdict on the wire,” Sam said. “Sorry I couldn’t be there. Deadlines, you know. Figured you’d be home now.”

  I closed the door, looked down, pushed a swirl of dog hair around with my shoe.

  “So,” Sam said. “It’s done. I’m glad for you, and I’m sorry. You OK?”

  “Don’t know if I’ll ever be OK. You know that.”

  “Listen, Quinn. You did everything you could.”

  “Sam …”

  “Sorry. But … I just don’t want to see you mope around now. It’s been a year. I know it still hurts. I know you’ll never get over it. That’s fine, but …” She shut her mouth, looked embarrassed. Quieter: “Oh God, Quinn. Are you all right?”

  “You don’t know a damn thing, Sam.” I turned away, shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans, headed for the fridge.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry that all this happened to you. Sorry I can’t understand it the way you do. But we’re friends, and you’re important to me. I have a job to do now. And my job is to make you get back on your feet, even if you don’t want to. It’s time.” Her voice had become stern.

  I opened the fridge, got another beer. “You want one?”

  “No, thanks. I don’t drink in the middle of the day.”

  “Me neither.” I opened it and took a long pull.

  “He was a nutjob,” Sam said. “You have to stop blaming yourself.”

  “That your professional opinion?”

  “It is.”

  I stared off into empty space for a moment. It was hard sometimes to look at Sam Marcos. She always seemed to know where my mind was going. I didn’t know how much of it owed to her degree in psychology, how much was simply a connection between the two of us, but it felt like she knew me better even than Jess had. Sam was smart, insightful and tenacious. And her dark eyes could cast a spell. The truth was, Sam stirred feelings I didn’t want stirred. The guilt again. I shook my head to try and clear it. It all stayed murky up there.

  “We’ve been through this, Sam.”

  “He would’ve killed someone else if it hadn’t been …”

  I threw the half-full beer bottle at a kitchen cabinet, where it hit with a thud, fell to the granite counter and shattered. I didn’t mean to. Sometimes my hands just did things that needed to be done. And doing this didn’t feel bad. It was like letting a little steam out of a pressure relief valve so the whole thing wouldn’t blow. My face was hot. My chin quivered slightly.

  She stepped back, but didn’t freak out. I felt like a steel bar pulled back and ready to fly forward, or snap. My jaw flexed and I heard my teeth grind.

  “I’m sorry,” Sam said. “I didn’t mean to say it like that. I just meant that it’s not your fault. That idiot was on a mission, an evil mission, and you know his victim was random.”

  “The random victim was my wife!” I stared at Sam as though it was her fault. She didn’t flinch. It wasn’t the first time I’d yelled at her. Not really at her, but at life, with her the only one there to take it. She went to the pantry and pulled out the dustpan, started to scoop the broken glass from the counter into it.

  “Don’t do that,” I said.

  Sam didn’t say anything.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Then why do you?”

  “I don’t know. It’s no big deal. Maybe because I know you need some help, even if you won’t admit it.” She paused. Then quieter: “Maybe because I worry about you being in the proximity of broken glass.” The glass clinked as she poured it into the wastebasket.

  “That’s not something you need to worry about.”

  “I know. I know. But dammit, Quinn, today has to bring a little closure. You deserve that.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I care. That’s all. I care.” Her eyes narrowed. Anger flashed. “It’s what friends do,” she said. “Jesus, Quinn. I’ve spent more time with you the past year than anyone. I know you pretty damn well. I think you know me. Maybe all that doesn’t mean much to you, but I care.”

  I sighed. My shoulders slumped. I flexed my fingers to relax my hands. I walked around the breakfast bar and over to the open slider. I put my hands up on the jamb, stared at Pinnacle Peak. I didn’t talk for a minute.

  Sam waited. Sam was good at waiting.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Thank you for coming over. You know I appreciate it. But I don’t know what I’m going to do. I really don’t. Finding Jess’ killer and waiting to see him convicted kept me busy. It gave me something important to do.” My head swiveled slowly side-to-side. “Now I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  Sam let me stand there with my thoughts a moment.

  “Listen, I came for a reason,” she finally said.

  “Oh, good. Not just to see my smiling face?”

  I turned toward her and tried to smile, but I just didn’t have it in me.

  “You won’t go back, will you?”

  “To the paper?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “I don’t see how. It used to be fun. I loved the challenge. I did good things. We did good things. Now the place will just be a constant reminder of everything that went wrong. And what good did I do, really? Ferreting out corporate greed and political malfeasance when there are killers on the loose.”

  “You don’t have to go back.”

  She was right. My savings and investments would carry me for a good long time.

  “No, I don’t have to work. At least not for a few years. I can just drink and enjoy the sun.”

  “Quinn, I know you better than that. You need something to do, some purpose.”

  “What the hell is worth doing? I can continue to investigate small-time crime in Arizona business and politics, rat out the sheriff for backward, discriminatory policies that Arizona voters don’t care about, report on the Corporation Commission’s cozy relationship with the power company …” I slumped into the leather club chair, put my head in my hands, and finally the tears came. I’d held them off for a year, told myself I couldn’t afford any more of them after the funeral.

  Sam waited until I was done. It took a while. But it felt like I’d gotten rid of something. I couldn’t say what, but something that had rotted inside me felt flushed out. I leaned back, rested my head on the back of the chair. Eyes closed. Arms on the chair arms, fingers gripping.

  “You have to do something,” she said again.

  “Like?”

  “Detective.”

  I tipped my head forward slightly, closed my eyes even tighter. “What?”

  “Detective.” She spoke quickly. “You know. Private investigator. Amateur detective. Whatever. You’re good at it. You have the mind for it. You have the drive for it. Once you start to zero in on a problem, nothing stops you. You know how you did it as a reporter, poking this way and that, circling closer and closer until the truth is flushed out like a pheasant. And there will always be people who need help. You don’t need a lot of income, so you can pick and choose your cases, do good things.”

  I opened my eyes, then narrowed them.

  “I don’t know the first thing about being a detective. Finding Jess’ killer was something I couldn’t not do.”

  “You’ll learn. Meanwhile, you’re smart, you’re inquisitive, and you’re like a fucking bloodhound once you get on a trail.”

  “Where did this idea come from?”

  “Delores Bernstein needs someone like you.”

  “Who?”

&
nbsp; “Delores Bernstein. The woman whose husband was killed last week up in country club, three nights after they’d been broken into and had a computer stolen.”

  “Oh, yeah, I read your story. They haven’t found the guy.”

  “Nope. Sheriff Otto is saying it was maybe a random break-in attempt by a druggie or an illegal.” She affected a sheriff-like deep voice: “Arizona is a dangerous place and Tinker Bernstein was home alone at the wrong time.”

  “But?”

  “The case is too weird. First off, there’s never been a shooting in country club. Ten years. And there’ve been only a handful of burglaries.”

  “Because it’s gated,” I said.

  “Right. Now the Bernsteins suffer both in a three-day span? The wife, Delores, doesn’t have an alibi, so the sheriff still suspects her. But I’ve gotten to know her, and I think this whole thing is killing her. A random murder. Life seems pointless. Delores loved her husband—married thirty years, and from what I knew they were as in love as ever. Now she’s alone in a big empty house and she’s scared. She needs somebody to give her some hope. Help her find closure. I figure that’s something you know a thing or two about.”

  “Sounds more like a job for a therapist.”

  “Delores thinks it was more than just a break-in gone bad,” Sam said. “And she insists she didn’t do it. She needs somebody to dig deeper than the sheriff’s office seems willing to do.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Apparently he was killed in his chair in his garage-turned-office. Delores thinks the garage door might have been open at the time. And she feels like they knew he’d be there, and they knew she wasn’t there.”

  I looked at random things around the room, not registering them. It’s what I do sometimes when I’m thinking, kind of block out sight and sound, focus all energy on thought. I don’t even think about it. Thinking, that is. I asked, “These people are rich, yes?”