Code of Deceit: A Mystery/Detective novel (David Mason series)

  Chapter 1

  With water dripping down his face from wet, plastered hair, he glared at his watch again. An hour had passed. Another fifteen minutes wouldn’t hurt. What were a few more minutes when he’d waited four years to kill him?

  Shadows darkened while the rain let up, and a gloom settled over the bars near downtown Houston. Streetlights emitted an eerie glow spreading through the dense air like a dull halo. He slid deeper into the darkness while people leaving the nightclub hurried to their vehicles, heads bowed, their only intent to get out of the rain. With his backside against an old wooden building, he wrinkled his nose at rotting timber odors.

  His t-shirt clung to his body, and his teeth chattered. He shivered.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d stalked his intended victim. He’d sworn years before he’d make the three police officers pay for his father’s death. He ground his teeth. They hadn’t pulled the trigger. His father had killed himself, but they destroyed his spirit, his will to live. In the stalker’s eyes, they’d killed him. His eyes narrowed like dart tips. He would get revenge or die trying.

  Again, he glanced at his watch. When he looked back to the bar’s entrance, a man and woman, laughing and clinging to each other, ran for a red Fiat parked close to the entrance. His face contorted in rage, eyes narrowed to slits, as he recognized his intended victim. His hand darted to the pistol sticking in his pants. Trembling, he gripped the wooden butt. That man didn’t have a right to laugh and have a good time. His father wasn’t able to, and the stalker couldn’t wait until he killed them all.

  With a poisonous smile creasing the corners of his mouth, he nodded, his jaw firm. He released the pistol butt. Let Mr. Detective David Mason have his fun. It won’t be long and I’ll make him wish he’d never been born. He looked around, but now wasn’t the time. People got caught by making rash decisions.

  As the Fiat sped away, he eased from the darkness and headed to his car. He needed to sleep. He’d planned this for four years and it was perfect. Three police officers were about to die, and he would get away with it.

  ***

  Whistling, David Mason strolled into his office at eight in the morning, and found Henry Carrington, his partner, waiting at David’s desk. They had become became partners in Houston’s homicide division a year before. Most people called them Mutt and Jeff. Rope slender, Henry towered to six-four and weighed one hundred and seventy pounds soaking wet. With a long, horsey face, Henry appeared ten years older than his age. His thin neck and wild black hair made him look like Ichabod Crane. David had nicknamed him Toothpick.

  David resembled a water barrel. His suits hid his bulging chest and rope-like veins in his biceps. His normal easygoing manner, childlike facial features with the boyish grin, and the professional way he dressed fooled people. Few would guess people in law enforcement considered him one of the nation’s best homicide detectives.

  They had other differences besides appearance. Henry loved his wife and children and spent his off time with them, but David enjoyed his single life. Policemen suffered through low pay and lousy hours, but David enjoyed some of the fringe benefits. Cindy, Carolyn, Rachelle, Susan…

  Both detectives glanced up. Lieutenant Spinks stood in the door. “You’ve got another one. West Davison. 317, to be exact.”

  Henry crossed his eyes and slurred his speech in his drunk act. “We’re up again?”

  “Yep.”

  David rubbed his face, sighed, and filed an open case report in the proper folder. They couldn’t even get the paperwork filed on one case before they got the next one. Tired of looking at dead bodies, he muttered, “We’re on our way.”

  West Davison lay on the east side near the Port of Houston, a heavy industrial area. This ethnically diverse location, unlike tidy, white Bellaire where David grew up, had small mom and pop stores lining the streets. Fish and food markets stretched along the sidewalks, and their aroma, combined with the sharp salt air from the channel, gave the area a unique flavor. Kids growing up in these neighborhoods learned to speak a multitude of languages, and most could cuss a person out in ten different tongues.

  Oil tanks dominated the scenery, and the round tanks with flat tops resembled giant tuna cans. Some had fresh paint, others revealed rust spots where water ran down the sides, and large aboveground pipes spider-webbed the area.

  David and Henry pulled up to the little grey frame house on West Davison.

  David stuffed his hands in his pockets as they approached the patrol sergeant standing at the door. “What do we have, Hal?”

  “Not much. All we know is we have a dead, older female. Naked and shot once in the head. Maybe with a small caliber gun.”

  David reached into his pocket for his spiral notebook. “Who called it in?”

  “Neighbor. Called in for a welfare check.” Hal pulled out his pocket spiral notebook and flipped through pages. People who lived in the neighborhood stood outside their houses. Many gathered in small groups, whispering, although no one could overhear them.

  “Called in by Mr. Homer Reese. He lives two houses down at 321. Phoned that he’d heard a gunshot. Reese went outside and expected to see the victim. She walked every morning.”

  David nodded. This was going to be a bad one. Been there a while and the morning had turned hot. He adjusted his suit coat, scanning the area while Hal briefed them. Made up of older homes, the neighborhood didn’t appear run down like many in this area. Most maintained well-kept lawns, and rose fragrances wafted through the heavy air. Two prominent pecan trees occupied the front yard with green foliage replacing dead leaves.

  Henry slumped, biting on a fingernail. “That’s when he called?”

  “No. He waited about an hour. Reese still hadn’t seen the victim. He called her on the phone, and started getting worried when she didn’t answer. He banged on her door several times without any luck. Reese called us. Officer Tayloe answered the call and checked around. He peeked in the back window and saw a foot extending out the door. He entered by the front door and found the woman lying on the bathroom floor.”

  Writing the information in the spiral, David glanced up. “Forced entry?”

  “Nope. Kitchen window without a screen is open about four inches, but not forced. Tayloe entered through the unlocked front door.”

  “Anything taken?” Henry asked.

  “Doesn’t give the impression anything’s missing.”

  David let out a deep sigh. “We’d better go in.” He stopped on the way into the house, thinking about the care this old woman, or someone, put into her yard. Well-cared-for flowerbeds with cedar mulch extended to the front entrance on both sides. White and pink impatiens grew on the right, and four red rose bushes blossomed on the left side. Rose blooms bunched into little bouquets on the stem.

  Fragrance from flowers and mulch disappeared when they floundered into the house. Swarming flies whirred around the room. Stomach-churning stench made David gag, and he turned and ran back to his police vehicle, taking a handkerchief from the glove compartment.

  When he returned, voided bowels almost overpowered the coppery blood odor from the mature woman’s body on the tiled floor. She lay with her hands under her, right leg drawn up, left leg outstretched, her left foot stuck out the door.

  Clamping both hands across his mouth to stop from expelling his breakfast on the crime scene, Henry rushed outside.

  Bile grabbed David by the throat and he tried to hold it back while he snatched the handkerchief from his pocket. He always took this special handkerchief saturated in garlic into houses where homicides occurred. He hated the odoro
us garlic fumes, but detested the overwhelming bowel stench, more. His gaze riveted on the old woman lying on the floor, nude. His mother’s face flashed in his mind, and he closed his eyes tight. His heart hammered.

  He despised looking at this, but had to. A ragged bullet hole tore open her left temple and dried blood matted her hair. He forced himself to totter forward to check her pulse. It appeared she’d been dead for several hours. Rigor mortis was setting in.

  “Why are you checking her pulse?” Henry asked, coming back in. “It’s obvious she’s dead.”

  “I’ll tell you when we get out of here.” David dashed from the house. He threw up beside a rose bush, and then trudged into the house again, forcing himself to enter the small bathroom.

  The commode faced the door, and a counter on the right held cosmetics and toiletries. To the left, a long metal rod and shower curtain lay in the empty tub.

  He shook his head. House didn’t appear as if anyone took anything. Only thing wrong was the dead woman. This didn’t make sense. David rubbed his face. “Okay, let’s wait outside for the crime scene boys.”

  They strode out to the front yard where David hoped the fresh air would revive his senses, but fly-encrusted death lined his nostrils. Plant and flower aromas vanished. Several people had tried to get him to describe homicide odors, but no matter how he tried, he couldn’t. Dead bodies had to be experienced to get the full impact.

  Henry straightened his windbreaker. “Crime scene boys are late this morning. Hey, what’s the deal with checking the old woman’s pulse?”

  David laughed. “We went on a call once in the third precinct. When we arrived, we found a male who shot himself in the head with a .357. Blood splattered all over the room. Bullet hit him in the right side, above the ear.” David pointed his index finger gun at his head to show them where the bullet struck. “It exited the left side, right behind the ear.” He again pointed.

  Hal’s mouth twitched in a sour frown. “Sounds like a mess.”

  David nodded. “Yep. We called it in and everyone arrived, and the homicide detectives examined the place.” He smiled, remembering the story. “The medical examiner got there about thirty minutes later, and we hung around like most patrolmen to see what happened.”

  They both nodded.

  “M.E. bent to explore the body, and when he touched it, the man rose and asked what was going on.”

  They stared at David, and Henry put his hands on his hips and cocked his head. “You’re pulling our leg.”

  Lieutenant Spinks pulled up, opened his door and stood, arms crossed over his chest, gawking at the neighbors.

  David thought how Spinks resembled a king surveying his dominion. He held up his right hand as if taking an oath in court. “Nope. It’s the absolute truth.”

  Hal raised one eyebrow. “The dead body rose and spoke?”

  “Yep. Except the body wasn’t dead.”

  Hal’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “He shot himself in the head and the bullet exited on the other side, and he didn’t die?”

  David shrugged. “I guess the guy’s alive and well today.”

  “Okay,” Hal said. “There has to be a catch.”

  “No, bullet struck his head at an angle. It traveled between the skin and the skull over the contour and exited the skin on the other side. The bullet never penetrated the skull. He had a huge headache for a while, but no permanent damage.”

  Spinks strode toward them, and in a tired, strained voice asked, “What you got, David?”

  David filled him in on what they knew. “We’re waiting on the crime scene boys.”

  Spinks rubbed his face. “They’re on the way. We had a bad night. This is the seventh body that has turned up.”

  Two white crime scene vans pulled up along the sidewalk, and the officers exited and trudged into the house.

  David gave Henry a smile. “Let’s talk to the neighbors.”

  They canvassed the old neighborhood in a four-block radius but found no one who witnessed anything unusual or heard the gunshot. Numerous neighbors told them they heard a backfire, not a shot.

  David stood, tapping his mouth with his index finger. Strange no one saw anything in this neighborhood. The older residents observed people in their neighborhoods more than other people did. It didn’t surprise him they hadn’t heard the shot. A small caliber pistol would sound like a car’s backfire when fired from inside a house.

  David and Henry returned to the residence and met the medical examiner leaving. He stopped with hands on hips. “Where have you two been?”

  David raised an eyebrow at his abruptness. “Checking the neighbors. Find anything unusual?”

  “No.”

  “Any signs of rape?” Henry asked in his syrupy Texas drawl.

  Doc dropped his chin, glaring at Henry over his glasses. “No. Dang sure not checking here.” He strode off, but stopped. “Report will take a few days. Might be longer if people in this town don’t stop killing each other.”

  David took a deep breath, running his hand through his hair. Nothing taken. People don’t go around shooting old women for no reason. He doubted she had a jealous lover running around. That left one thing, money. Close relative killed this woman. Probably for insurance. He shook his head. Don’t make that mistake. Investigators can’t assume and guess what happened.

  As David looked around, he failed to notice a car parked two blocks away. Even if he’d seen the car, he wouldn’t have been able to see the driver watching him through binoculars.

  Chapter 2

  With nothing to go on at the crime scene, the partners returned to David’s office. When David opened the door, he inhaled a vanilla scent from an air freshener, and then sat at his organized desk. Any other detective’s office in the entire city would have a cluttered desk with papers hanging from drawers, but not David’s.

  David kidded his partner about needing a search warrant to find Henry’s stapler, but David’s stapler sat on the right hand side of his top desk drawer. Someone had messed with his desk. Things weren’t where he kept them. Blindfolded, he could find anything without any trouble.

  As Henry and David discussed the murder, Lieutenant Spinks poked his head in the door. “They incarcerated your boy, Simpson, in North Carolina.”

  Henry crossed his eyes. “So he did run to his sister’s house.”

  “Yep, they apprehended him this morning.”

  Henry’s expression changed to a huge grin. “Do we take off to retrieve him?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. We aren’t about to send you two on a free vacation all the way to North Carolina. Not to change the subject, how many open cases do you have?”

  With his index finger, David tapped the file sheet on his desk. “Five, if you count the one this morning.”

  “Does that include Simpson?”

  “Yep.”

  “I need to give Inspector Patterson an update this afternoon.” He slogged from the office.

  A knock on the door made them glance up. Lieutenant Joe Hughes, who supervised the crime scene unit, stood grinning, holding a large cardboard box in his hands. “I brought a gift for you.”

  Henry leaned back and put his feet on the corner of the desk, ignoring David’s glare. “That’s all the documents from the house?”

  David glanced up with a frown, slapped Henry’s feet off his desk, and took a cloth out and wiped where his partner’s shoes had rested. As Henry grinned, David continued to rifle through the charge sheet on Simpson. They needed to arraign him when he arrived from North Carolina.

  Joe gave Henry a wink. “Yep. Hope you have fun with them.”

  David glanced up from the paperwork. “Thanks a lot. You get anything from the house?”

  “Not much. This one’s going to be a who-done-it they have in the books.”

  “You think so?” Henry asked.

  Joe laughed. “This one's as spotless as David's desk.”

  Straightening, David glanced up. “Joe, murders are committed by fr
iends or relatives. This who-done-it stuff doesn’t happen in real life.”

  Joe laughed. “It’ll be fun to watch Dick Tracy on this one.”

  “Who?” Henry asked.

  Joe laughed. “Media’s calling David, Dick Tracy.”

  David dropped head and shook it. He needed another nickname like he needed more dead bodies. He sighed. “Okay, thanks, Joe. We need to get to work.” He turned to Henry. “What’d you get from the neighbor who called this mess in?”

  Henry took out his spiral and flipped it open. “Victim’s named Kathleen Harris. Sixty-eight. Her husband died three years ago. She has a son and a daughter who live in Houston. Neighbor didn’t know their names. Daughter comes over every occasionally, but he has never met her, and he’s never seen the son. He doesn’t think she has any other close relatives who live here.”

  David leaned back in his chair, wishing he had a cigarette, but he’d quit a month before. He wondered if this was a random murder. No close relatives in the city except son and daughter. He had to find out where they were. He didn’t think a burglar took anything from the house and there was no forced entry. Smelled like family.

  Leaning back, Henry crossed his knee. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Find out who owns the house and get any information you can. One of the neighbors said she thought Mrs. Harris rented.”

  “Okay, where’re you going to be?”

  “I’m going to go through these papers and try to track down the son and daughter.”

  When the phone rang, David answered, “Mason.”

  “Hey egghead.” David recognized Terry Burleson’s familiar voice, and he smiled. “Hey, man, how are you?” He held his hand over the phone and told Henry it was a personal call.

  “I’m doing great. I’m in town for a few days on business and thought I’d see what you’re up to. Looks like you’re moving up the ladder. Big time homicide detective, from what I hear.”

  David laughed. “Now how can I be big at anything?”

  Terry chuckled. “You have a point there. Let’s get together tomorrow night for supper and drinks. I brought Pamela and the boys with me, and I need to talk to you.”