Michael Bracken (www.CrimeFictionWriter.com) is the Edgar Award-nominated, Shamus Award-nominated, Derringer Award-winning author of more than twelve hundred short stories, including crime fiction published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Best American Mystery Stories of the Year, The Best Mystery Stories of the Year, and many other publications. Additionally, Bracken is the editor of Black Cat Mystery Magazine and several anthologies, including the Anthony Award-nominated The Eyes of Texas: Private Eyes from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods. He and his wife, Temple, reside in Central Texas.
Detective Robert Highlander had just settled into the rear pew of the Orkley Revival Baptist Church the first Sunday in November when his cell phone vibrated. He unclipped it from its holster, checked the number of the incoming call, and nudged his wife. “I have to take this.”
He slipped from the pew and answered the phone as he walked into the vestibule. As soon as he identified himself, he heard in response, “We got us a body.”
“Where?”
He noted the address, slipped back inside the nave to let his wife know she would need to find a ride home, and drove across town to the Dunnett residence. There, a dead man tentatively identified as Hugh Dunnett lay face down on the living room carpet, a single gunshot wound in his back, a broken key-wound mantle clock inches from the outstretched fingers of his left hand, the clock key still on the mantel. The clock had stopped at 1:55.
Billy Wentzman, the bearded crime scene photographer, snapped a few last photos and turned to Highlander. “I guess the old man’s time was up.”
Highlander didn’t react to the younger man’s joke because the dead man appeared near his own age and, despite what the mirror told him each morning, he didn’t like to think of himself as old.
He squatted next to the body. Gray hair, with a few remaining threads of black peppering it and, unlike his own hair, minimal signs of thinning. The right side of the dead man’s head lay upon the carpet, and lividity visible on his face revealed that the body had been in that position for more than six hours. Powder burns around the bullet hole in the white dress shirt indicated the shooter had stood close to the victim, and the lack of any blood on the carpet around the body—though some might be found under the body once it was moved—suggested that the bullet remained inside the torso. The edge of a bold red tie peeked from beneath the shirt collar. Blue pinstriped trousers matched the jacket tossed casually over the arm of the couch, and black wing tips over black socks completed what Highlander could see of the dead man’s apparel. There was no jewelry on the dead man’s right hand, but his left sported a simple gold band on his ring finger, and a gold-accented stainless-steel Bulova watch adorned his left wrist. It displayed the correct day, date, and time, the second hand continuing its relentless sweep around the watch face.
Highlander looked up when his new partner, a young, pear-shaped brunette recently promoted out of uniform and working her first homicide, led Dr. William Pritchard—the county coroner—into the living room. The doctor’s sartorial style was the near opposite of the dead man’s—a black T-shirt featuring Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album cover stretched tight over his abdomen, faded blue jeans belted low on barely there hips, and scuffed work boots encased in protective coverings—just as Highlander’s black brogues were—to protect the integrity of the crime scene.
Pritchard glanced at the body and the broken mantel clock and said, “Ten hours, give or take.”
“That’s my best guess too,” Highlander said.
“Cause of death is likely whatever made that hole in his back.”
Detective Jessica Mitchell’s gaze darted from one man to the other and then back. “You can’t—”
“No, we can’t know for certain,” Highlander told her, “but if you’ve seen enough bodies you start to get a feel for the obvious.”
Highlander walked the room, sniffed the whiskey residue in a tumbler on the end table next to the easy chair facing the fireplace, saw nothing else of interest, and released the body to the coroner.
Pritchard said, “I’ll get this guy on the table right away. I’ll have a preliminary report by the end of the day.”
Highlander turned to his partner. “Who found the body? Who called it in?”
“Agnes Quinn, the cook,” Mitchell said. Like Highlander, she’d dressed for Sunday services, but she hadn’t made it to church. She’d taken the call as she was leaving her apartment and hadn’t time to change from her floral-print A-line dress and taupe heels into something more comfortable. “She’s waiting in the kitchen.”
“She told you anything?”
“Not much,” Mitchell said. “I was waiting for you.”
Highlander followed the younger detective through the dining room and into the kitchen.
The skeletally thin gray-haired woman sitting at the kitchen table had poured herself a tumbler of Glenfiddich 21 Year from the bottle near her elbow while under the watchful eye of a uniformed officer who did not appear to have finished puberty. The tumbler in her hand matched the one in the living room. Likely the Glenfiddich in it did too. Highlander glared at the officer and nodded toward the bottle.
“She said she needed it to calm her nerves,” the officer explained.
Highlander turned to Quinn. “Did it?”
Her crooked smile and unfocused gaze indicated that she had calmed her nerves several times.
Highlander removed the tumbler from her hand and slid it and the open bottle across the table, out of her reach. Then he introduced himself. “You’ve already met Detective Mitchell and Officer”—he squinted to read the name badge on the young man’s uniform—“Calloway. We’d like to ask you a few questions about what happened this morning.”
Quinn glanced at the Glenfiddich. “I come to work like usual,” she said. “I call out for Mr. Dunnett to let him know I’m here, but I don’t get no answer, so I go looking for him. That’s when I found him on the living room floor, deader than a doornail.”
“You touch him? Check his pulse? Ensure that he wasn’t breathing?”
“I didn’t need to be touching him,” she said. “I know a dead man when I see one.”
“How’s that?”
“I seen a few in my time, boxed and unboxed,” she said. “You don’t get to be my age without suffering some loss.”
“You touch anything in the room? You move anything?”
She shook her head. Her eyes didn’t shake at the same speed as the rest of her face.
Highlander nodded toward the bottle. “The Glenfiddich?”
She blinked several times before answering. “Mr. Dunnett wasn’t going to be needing it, and I saw that hole in his back, so I know he didn’t drink himself to death.”
As Detective Mitchell took notes, they learned that Agnes Quinn had worked for the Dunnett family for nearly twenty years, preparing lunch and dinner Wednesday through Sunday. “Except the first Saturday of the month,” she said. “Ever since the missus’s passing, he’s been going to the Widowers’ Club on the first Saturday.”
“What’s that?”
“A bunch of old men who teach each other how to do things their wives used to do for them, like cook and grocery shop and iron shirts. I think mostly they just drink and tell each other how much they miss their missuses.”
“How long has Mrs. Dunnett been gone?”
“Near on a year. She and her sister died in a car wreck,” Quinn said. She shook her head. “Mr. Dunnett was supposed to go on that trip up to the lake house, but something happened and he couldn’t leave right away, so her sister went instead. He’s been grieving ever since, ain’t even taken off his wedding ring.”
“He have other family?”
“Three nephews,” she said. “Sons of his sister-in-law, the one died in the wreck that killed the missus.”
“He get along with them?”
She shook her head. “Leeches, all of ’em. The three of them always sucking up to Mr. Dunnett, trying to get his money.”
Pritchard took down their names—Andy, Gary, and Larry Royce—as Dunnett’s cook shared what she knew about the nephews. Andy, manager of a garden supply store, was the only married brother; Gary, owner of Royce’s Rods and Restorations, was single; and Larry, employed by a printing company, was recently divorced. She didn’t know much more than that, but she clearly didn’t like any of the three men.
After the cook answered his last question, Highlander slid the Glenfiddich and tumbler back to her and turned his attention to the uniformed officer. “See that Ms. Quinn gets home safely, Officer Calloway.”
*
A circumnavigation of the house, examining every door and window from the inside and from the outside, revealed no signs of forced entry. What it did reveal was a security system that required an entry code, with keypads located at the front, rear, and garage doors.
“Have the keypads dusted for prints,” Highlander told Mitchell.
While she returned to the living room to talk to the crime scene techs, he went to the two-car garage via the breezeway that connected it to the house. He found Billy Wentzman admiring a 1957 Chevrolet Nomad parked in the far bay. He stepped around the year-old Lexus parked in the first bay, stopped next to Wentzman, and said, “Doesn’t seem like his kind of ride.”
“I’m surprised I didn’t see it at the car show yesterday,” Wentzman said. He earned extra money taking photographs for various hot rod magazines, often using his wife as an accompanying model. “If it’s as clean inside as it is outside, it surely would have picked up an award or two.”
*
“Doc Pritchard wants to see us,” Highlander told his partner as he returned his cell phone to its holster. They had spent the afternoon canvassing the neighborhood around Dunnett’s home, had learned nothing, and had met at the station to begin assembling their murder book. “Says he’s ready with the preliminary.”
The coroner’s office, such as it was, operated out of the basement of the county’s only hospital, and Pritchard was waiting for the detectives when they arrived. He removed the sheet covering the nude body of Hugh Dunnett. “There’re no signs of a struggle, no defensive wounds of any kind, nothing that suggests the victim anticipated his death.”
“You think this was premeditated?” Mitchell asked.
“It certainly wasn’t a crime of passion,” Pritchard said. “He has a single gunshot wound to the lower back, and the entry wound is angled upward.”
Highlander glanced at his partner and winked. “He was shot by a midget?”
“Or someone holding the gun low,” suggested Mitchell.
Pritchard continued as if the two detectives had not spoken. “The bullet ricocheted off one of his ribs, perforated his heart, and lodged in his shoulder blade. Ballistics has the bullet and they tell me it’s a .38.”
“Time of death?”
“If you believe the broken mantel clock, one fifty-five,” Pritchard said. “Lividity, rigor, and other indications suggest that’s not far off. I’d say the window is sometime between one and two A.M.”
*
Highlander’s wife reheated meatloaf leftover from Saturday night’s dinner, put a slab of it between two slices of white bread slathered with mayonnaise, and put the resulting sandwich on a plate with a handful of barbecue-flavored potato chips. Linda slid the plate and a bottle of beer in front of her husband and, when he began wolfing it all down, asked, “You eat anything today?”
“Not since breakfast,” Highlander said.
“Tough case?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know yet. We’ve had fingers pointed at three possible suspects.”
“How’s your new partner doing?”
“She didn’t say much,” he told his wife. “Mostly she just followed me around.”
“Smart girl,” Linda said. “She’s learning from the best.”
Highlander snorted. Orkley didn’t see many homicides in any given year, and for the previous fifteen years he had been the junior detective in every one of the cases. Only with his longtime partner’s recent retirement did he step into the role of senior detective.
“How’d Jessica react to the body?”
“Her first homicide,” he explained, “not her first body. She’s the one who rolled up first on that three-car pileup last summer where the meth head killed that university professor and the barbershop quartet.”
*
Monday morning, Highlander left his new partner at the station to gather background information on Dunnett and his three nephews while he tracked down Arnold Weatherby, the Widowers’ Club’s eighty-seven-year-old founder. Weatherby confirmed Agnes Quinn’s description of the club: a dozen elderly men who drank and told each other how much they missed their deceased wives.
“We began as a self-help group,” he explained when Highlander sat with him at his dining room table. “When we first began meeting, we were all of an age where domestic chores were divided by gender. When my wife passed on—heart attack, God rest her soul—I realized I’d never washed a load of laundry and never cooked anything except on the charcoal grill. Many of my friends were in the same boat, so we started meeting the first Saturday of each month to teach each other things we should have learned long ago.”
Highlander glanced around the room much as he had examined the rest of the rooms as he’d passed through them. Though not as large nor as well appointed as Dunnett’s home, Weatherby’s home suggested that he had done well for himself. The detective asked about that.
“We maintain a certain standard among our members,” Weatherby said. “We’ve a doctor, a couple of lawyers, and businessmen of all stripes. In fact, Dunnett’s attorney is a member, and he recommended Dunnett after his wife’s accident.”
“So, I’m not likely to ever be a member?”
“I don’t know, Detective Highlander,” he said. “What’s your stock portfolio look like?”
Highlander smiled and moved on. “What can you tell me about Dunnett?”
“We limit membership to twelve, and Hugh was our newest member,” Weatherby explained. “Joined us about a year ago, right after his wife’s tragic accident, replacing Jay Sommerfeld, who had passed a few months earlier.”
“What was he like?”
“A little better off than some of us,” he said. “Hugh has—had—a cook, and I’m fairly certain he had maid service as well, but not all that much different otherwise. Like most of us, he only ever had the one wife, and it was obvious he suffered her loss greatly.”
“How’s that?”
“Stoic,” he said, “but every time he spoke of her you could see tears glisten in his eyes.”
“How’d he get along with the other members?”
“We all get along, Detective. We would never accept a new member otherwise.”
“Other than his wife, what did Dunnett talk about?”
“The same as the rest of us: investments, politics, ungrateful family.”
“Ungrateful family?”
“There’s money to be had when one of our members die,” Weatherby said. “Sometimes, it’s a great deal of money, and some of us have family members circling like vultures waiting for that day to come.”
“And Dunnett did?”
“His nephews,” he said. “Always asking for money.”
Highlander asked, but Weatherby didn’t know much else about Dunnett’s nephews. So, he asked what the Widowers’ Club would do now that Dunnett had died.
“I’ve been running the club for thirty years, Detective Highlander,” Weatherby said, “and death is the primary reason we lose members. Unfortunately, death is also how we gain members. I have to admit, it’s a bit gruesome, but we have a few prospects.”
When Highlander left Weatherby a short time later, he carried a list of all the Widowers’ Club members, but he suspected the remaining ten men would have little to add to what the club’s president had already told him.
*
From Weatherby’s house, Highlander returned to the station and collected his partner. Mitchell carried a folder in which she had gathered printouts from her internet searches, and she gave him the work address of the youngest brother.
“The new Walmart is killing us.” Andy Royce, manager of Bloomin’ Newman’s Garden Emporium, had been stacking bags of compost when the two detectives found him. He glanced from Detective Highlander to Detective Mitchell, and then refocused on the senior detective. “So, what was I doing Saturday evening? Working a second job. We closed here at six. I went home, had dinner with my wife, took a brief nap, and then went out to Cumberland’s.”
Cumberland’s was a manufacturing plant on the outskirts of town.
“I work there part-time, Friday and Saturday nights, ten to six, as a watchman.” Broad-shouldered, with thick, muscular arms, Royce wore a green apron with his employer’s logo embroidered on it, and underneath wore a blue work shirt, blue jeans, and thick-soled brown work boots. He was clean-shaven, with a crew cut in need of a touch-up, and he had the leathering skin of a man who spent a great deal of time outdoors.
“My wife has wet macular degeneration and our medical insurance is terrible. Stella’s had experimental surgery and multiple follow-up treatments. She can’t see well enough to drive or work, and it’s only getting worse. I used the life insurance money from my mother’s accident to pay off our medical bills. It’s been almost a year and they’re already piling up again.”
“How much do you stand to gain from your uncle’s death?”
“Best guess?” Royce said. “A couple of million.”
“Shared with your brothers?”
“No,” he said. “Each.”
“That’d pay a lot of medical bills.”
“We could certainly use the money,” Royce said, “but that’s not the way I’d want to get it.”
“Any witnesses? Can anyone confirm your presence at Cumberland’s?”
Royce named the watchman he had replaced Saturday night and the one who replaced him Sunday morning.
“And the hours in between?”
“Nobody,” he said. “But the company makes me punch a clock every hour on the hour.”
*
Other than the department-issued sedan in which Highlander and Mitchell had arrived, there were no vehicles on the Royce’s Rods & Restorations lot newer than 1966. As they headed toward the office, Highlander stopped to admire a customized 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air.
“She’s for sale.”
Highlander turned to the man approaching them. He had finger-length black hair oiled back and a full beard that brushed his thick chest. The short-sleeve black T-shirt stretched across his chest revealed tattoo sleeves on both arms. Tight-fitting black jeans and square-toe black cowboy boots completed the look.
“I can make you and your little lady a sweet deal on that beauty.”
Out of the corner of his eye Highlander saw his partner stiffen, and he wasn’t certain if Mitchell was more insulted by being called “little lady” or by the presumption that she was his “little lady.”
“We’re not here to shop,” Highlander said. “We’re here to see Gary Royce.”
“Well, you found him.”
Highlander flipped open a well-worn wallet to display his badge. “We’d like to talk to you about your uncle.”
“Come on inside,” Royce said.
He led them past three service bays, where a trio of vintage Chevrolets were in various stages of restoration, and into an office barely big enough for the overflowing desk in the center of the room, the three chairs surrounding it, and the six mismatched filing cabinets. Royce settled behind the desk. The detectives settled onto the two remaining chairs.
“I’ve been expecting you,” Royce said. “Andy called after you left his place, said you think one of us killed Uncle Hugh.”
“It’s certainly a possibility,” Highlander said. “So, where were you this weekend?”
“Saturday was the Rods & Broads show.” He pointed to a poster thumbtacked to the wall on his left that pictured a well-endowed blonde in a red thongkini draped over the front fender of a customized black 1929 Ford Model A. “I was there most of the day, and I went to the party that night.”
Highlander recognized Billy Wentzman’s wife on the poster but didn’t mention it. Instead, he asked, “Most of the day?”
“We had to transport our cars back to the shop after the show was over.”
“Anyone vouch for your presence?”
He named two employees who were the last to leave after securing Royce’s Rods & Restoration’s five vehicles. “Must have been midnight or so when they left, and I was here doing paperwork until I headed back to the party.”
“And you were alone the entire time?”
Royce nodded. “Yep.”
“What time did you arrive at the party?”
“One. One-fifteen. Around then. You might check with some of the people there,” he said. “I forgot my cell phone—left it here in the office—and had to ask someone for the time.”
Highlander asked for the names of the other people at the party and Mitchell wrote them in her notebook, along with contact information for a few of them.
“As we came in, I noticed that all the cars in the shop are Chevys.”
“That’s all we work on,” Royce said.
“So, the Nomad in your uncle’s garage, you rebuild that?”
“Yes, sir,” Royce said. “That’s our work.”
“What’s it doing at his place?”
“He was”—Royce hesitated—“storing it for me.”
Highlander didn’t have any more questions, so Royce walked them out. He stopped next to the Bel Air and patted the fender. He said, “I really can make you a sweet deal.”
Highland gave the car a wistful examination. “How much?”
“She’s been appraised for fifty, but I’ve been driving it lately. I could let her go for forty-five.”
“Too rich for my blood,” Highlander said.
*
“Saturday?” Larry Royce said. He was a customer service representative for a large printing company, and they caught him as he was arriving home. They introduced themselves in the parking lot as he climbed out of his brand new Corvette. He led them up to his second-floor apartment overlooking the pool in a complex of buildings that catered to singles and the recently divorced. He stripped off his jacket and tie while they talked. His dark hair had been styled, and his nose displayed early stages of a gin blossom. “I went out with a couple of the guys from work to take advantage of the extra hour of drinking, and I rolled in around three with a redhead named Lucy—Lucille—Lucinda—something like that. I knew her from somewhere, but I can’t remember from where. She was out of here before I woke up Sunday morning, and she took the fifty-seven dollars I had in my wallet. Can I report that?”
“Not our department,” Highlander said, “and not remembering her name isn’t likely to help.”
Royce shrugged.
“So, who were you out with, and where did you go?”
Royce named three coworkers and four bars. “We got separated at Smiling Jack’s Bar & Grill.”
“That where you met the redhead?”
He nodded. “You guys want something to drink?”
The two detectives declined his offer, so Royce poured himself three fingers from a bottle of Glenfiddich 21 Year. “My uncle’s favorite,” he said as he lifted the glass. “Couldn’t drink this when I was married. The ex was always on my ass about the cost.”
“How long have you been divorced?”
“Six months.”
“Seems like you’re making up for lost time.”
“Trying my damnedest,” Royce said.
“Did you have your phone with you Saturday night?”
“I did, but I left it at Smiling Jack’s when I hooked up with the redhead. Good thing one of my coworkers picked it up and returned it to me this morning. I was going crazy without it.”
“This redhead, you remember anything else about her?”
“Nothing much, really—” He suddenly stood and led the two detectives into his bedroom and pulled back the covers of his unmade bed.
“Here,” he said as he picked up an eight-inch-long hair and held it out to them. “Red. I told you she was a redhead.”
“What do you want us to do with that, run a DNA test?”
“Sure, why not, maybe you can find the woman who took my money.”
Mitchell retrieved an evidence bag from her pocket and let Royce drop the hair into it. Then she waited as he plucked several more of various lengths and added them to the bag.
A few minutes later, after they left Royce’s apartment, Highlander nodded toward the evidence bag in Mitchell’s hand. “Why’d you do that?”
“She’s his alibi.”
“You take a good look at that bedroom? I don’t think he’s washed the sheets in weeks, we’ve no idea how long that hair’s been there, and at least two of them are blond with dark roots.”
*
On the return trip to the office, Highlander asked Mitchell what kind of car Andy Royce drove. She thumbed through her notes and replied, “A three-year-old Equinox.”
He didn’t ask anything else, and when they were back at their desks, Highlander and Mitchell split the list of Widowers’ Club members, calling each in turn and learning little more than what Highlander had already learned from the club president. Dunnett had been well-liked by his fellow members, had suffered his wife’s loss with stoicism, and had not often had good things to say about his nephews.
Highlander’s last call was to Joseph Ford, Esq., senior partner at Ford, Ford, Cowley, and Smith, LLC, the attorney who recommended Dunnett for membership in the Widowers’ Club. When Highlander finally worked his way through the labyrinth of underlings and actually had Ford on the other end of the line, the attorney said, “I’d rather not discuss this on the phone.”
They agreed to meet later that day. As soon as Highlander arrived at the law firm, he was escorted by Ford’s personal assistant past several open areas populated mostly by women of various sizes, shapes, and hair colors, and then through her office to Ford’s corner office. The office was large enough that Highlander could envision playing half-court basketball if the furniture and bookshelves were removed.
Ford had a full head of gray hair and wore a bespoke blue pinstripe suit over a crisp white shirt and a black bow tie decorated with images of classic cars. He rose from behind his desk and met Highlander halfway, offering a warm greeting and a firm handshake.
At the end of the office opposite Ford’s desk were a leather couch and two easy chairs arranged around a coffee table. Ford offered Highlander the couch and then settled onto one of the chairs. Though the two men were of similar height, Highlander found himself sinking into the couch and looking up at the attorney. They shared a few pleasantries before the conversation shifted to the dead man.
“Hugh was more than a client,” Ford explained. “He was also a friend. We met more than thirty years ago, at a charity event our wives helped organize. He and Daisy were quite supportive after Tina passed away, and so I felt it only appropriate to reach out to Hugh when the Widowers’ Club had an opening.”
“What was his reaction when she died?”
“Devastated. He was devastated when his wife passed—his wife and his sister-in-law—and blamed himself for Daisy’s death. More than once he said the accident never would have happened if he’d been driving.”
“Why’s that?” Highlander asked.
“Their car’s accelerator stuck,” Ford said. “He thought he could have handled the problem if he’d been driving.”
Highlander considered that for a moment and then said, “I have a few more questions.”
“You realize much of what you might want to ask is covered by attorney-client confidentiality.”
“I do,” Highlander said. “I just want to ask about his relationship with his nephews.”
“You think one of the Royce boys killed him?” Ford asked. He considered that for a moment. “I suppose it’s possible, but that would be like killing the chicken to eat one meal rather than eating the eggs every day.”
“Why’s that?”
“He was helping all of them in one way or another. The firm handled Larry’s divorce, and Hugh paid the attorney fees. He’s been helping with Andy’s wife’s medical bills, and he loaned Gary a tidy sum to keep his shop afloat. You may have seen the old station wagon in Hugh’s garage—”
“The Nomad?”
Ford nodded. “That’s collateral for the loan.”
“And who handled his sister-in-law’s estate?”
“We did. Rose died intestate and her sons stripped her place of everything of value before we had a chance to do an inventory and appraisal.”
“So what happens now?”
“I’m not looking forward to the reading of the will,” Ford said. “I don’t think any of Hugh’s nephews will be happy with what they hear.”
“How’s that?”
“It all goes into a trust with annual disbursements to each of them.”
*
After Highlander returned to the station, he and his new partner discussed Dunnett’s three nephews.
“They all have financial problems,” Mitchell said.
“We suspected as much from what Agnes Quinn and Arnold Weatherby told us.”
“Their mother’s death postponed the inevitable,” Mitchell said. “Between her life insurance and the proceeds from her estate, they each cleared about a hundred grand. Andy paid off medical bills and Gary kept his business open for another year. Larry lost half of his to his ex-wife, and he’s drinking and screwing his way through the rest.”
“You think any of those is a good reason to kill their uncle?”
Mitchell shrugged.
“So, what do we know about his wife’s death?”
Michell told Highlander what she had learned about the traffic accident that killed Daisy Dunnett and her sister, Rose. “Daisy drove an older model Toyota—well maintained, low mileage—and it appears the accelerator stuck. She lost control and drove into a bridge abutment. Both women died at the scene.”
“I thought Toyota had issued a recall to fix that problem.”
“They had,” Mitchell said, “and there were maintenance records that indicated the Dunnetts’ vehicle had the recall work done. Still, maybe the repair work was sloppy.”
“Anything in the report to suggest that?”
Mitchell shook her head, and Highlander only caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. “The accident happened over in Skittlebrough County, the investigating officer chalked it up as an accident, and the insurance companies paid the life insurance policies without raising a fuss.”
“How much?”
“Dunnett collected a million for his wife. The Royce brothers split a hundred and fifty thousand between them.”
*
Detective Mitchell was already at her desk when Highlander arrived Tuesday morning. Before he could sit down, she said, “You won’t believe what came in last night.”
“A confession?”
“A thirty-eight,” she said. “A couple of kids found it below the Finster Creek Bridge, about seven miles from the Dunnett place. It looks like the killer tried to throw it into the water and missed. The kids found it on one of the bridge’s concrete piers. Forensics has had it overnight.”
“And?”
“The only prints they were able to lift belonged to the boys who found it, and they plan to test fire it later this morning to see if the bullet striations match the bullet pulled out of Mr. Dunnett,” she said with a smile. “But here’s the kicker: the gun is registered to Rose Royce, Mr. Dunnett’s deceased sister-in-law.”
They spent the rest of the morning on the phone tracking down everything they could about the three brothers’ whereabouts early Sunday morning.
*
“I asked Doc Pritchard about Stella Royce’s medical condition,” Mitchell said. “Wet macular degeneration can be quite serious. It apparently struck her at a younger age than usual, but she’s female with light skin and light-colored eyes, all of which put her at high risk.”
“That explains his need for a second job,” Highlander said. “What else did you learn about him?”
“I talked to the payroll supervisor over at Cumberland,” Mitchell said. “They say Andy Royce clocked in at 1:04, 1:59, and 3:02, but the system is old and never properly accounts for the time change.”
*
Highlander tracked down several classic-car customizers, all of whom claimed they knew Gary Royce and all of whom attested to his presence at the after-party. While Highlander was on the phone with one of them, Billy Wentzman stepped up to his cubicle and listened in.
After Highlander completed his conversation and disconnected, Wentzman said, “One of the dead guy’s nephews is Gary Royce?” He shook his head. “Small world.”
“Do you remember seeing him at the car show?”
“Several times. He’d entered two complete restorations and three custom jobs. He didn’t win a thing.”
“What about the after-party?”
“Not right away. He came in late.”
“What time?”
Wentzman unconsciously glanced at his Fitbit. “About one fifteen,” he said. “I remember because he asked me for the time. He said he left his cell phone at his office.”
“And you’re certain he never left the party?”
“Well, not until three. That’s when everything wrapped up and we all headed out.”
After Wentzman walked away, Highlander called some of the party attendees he had already spoken to and asked what kind of watches they wore.
*
Highlander visited the printing company that employed Larry Royce and spoke with the three coworkers who had accompanied him for a night of drinking. They all told the same story. They went barhopping Saturday night, and they lost track of Larry at Smiling Jack’s. None of them remembered him leaving with a redhead, but they said they wouldn’t put it past him.
“I turned around and Larry was gone,” one said. “I realized he’d forgotten his phone, and I couldn’t just leave it on the bar when we moved on, so I took it with me. I gave it back to him Monday morning.”
A redhead entered the printing plant as Highlander was leaving, and he watched her for a moment. He realized he’d noticed more redheads than usual—at the printing plant, at the law firm, and even at the grocery store the previous evening when he stopped for milk and Frosted Flakes.
*
Highlander and Mitchell took over one of the station’s conference rooms, spread out everything from the Dunnett murder book, and began tying the pieces together. They started with the crime scene and the report from the forensics team that had gone over it.
A report from the security company indicated that someone had entered Dunnett’s home through the garage at 1:30. Someone else entered through the kitchen door at 1:50, and no one else entered until the cook’s arrival at 10:17 A.M. Forensics found Dunnett’s fingerprints on the front and garage keypads. The only identifiable prints on the kitchen keypad belonged to the cook.
“I don’t think anyone staged the clock,” Mitchell said. “The only prints on it belong to the deceased, so it must have broken when he fell.”
“So the killer comes in, shoots Dunnett, and leaves. Why?”
“Simple,” Mitchell said. “Money. What if it wasn’t the killer’s first attempt? What if the accident that killed Daisy Dunnett and Rose Royce wasn’t an accident?”
“Meaning?”
“What if the accident was intended to kill Hugh Dunnett?” Mitchell said. “All three of his nephews needed the money just as much then as now. What they received after their mother’s death only postponed things. It bought them a little time, and when they cleaned out their mother’s house after her death, one of them found her revolver.”
*
The next morning, Highlander phoned Joseph Ford, Esq., and asked when he planned to hold the reading of the will. After hearing Ford’s response, Highlander asked if he and his partner could be present.
“You think this will help you identify Hugh’s killer?”
“I’m betting on it,” the detective said. “We’ll join you this afternoon.”
After Highlander ended the call, Mitchell asked, “You feel confident with your conclusion?”
“If I’m right, we’ll be eating a steak dinner tonight.”
“Why’s that?”
“Tradition,” Highlander explained. “Every time Wilcox and I wrapped up a homicide, we took our wives out for a steak dinner.”
“I don’t have a wife.”
“Boyfriend?” Highlander asked. “Girlfriend?”
Mitchell shook her head.
“Then it’ll just be the three of us. I suspect my wife is eager to meet you. She likes to know who has my back.”
They cleared off the conference table, reassembled the murder book, and had just enough time to stop for a quick lunch at Smiling Jack’s Bar & Grill. When they reached the law offices of Ford, Ford, Cowley, and Smith, LLC, Joseph Ford’s assistant met them at the front desk and led them back to his office. Seated on the leather couch and the easy chairs surrounding the coffee table were the attorney, the three Royce brothers, and Andy Royce’s wife.
“This is who we were waiting for?” Larry asked.
“I’m afraid it is,” Ford answered.
“Who is it?” Andy’s wife asked.
“The two detectives investigating Uncle Hugh’s murder.”
“So, what do you want?” Gary asked.
Highlander looked at each of the brothers in turn before he began. “Your uncle was likely killed for his money and the three of you have been the primary suspects almost from the moment we found the body. You all need the money—or want it. Andy’s wife’s medical bills are bleeding him dry. Gary’s business is floundering. And Larry is trying to live the high life despite losing half his assets when he divorced.”
“Tell us something we don’t know,” Gary said.
“Each of you had means, motive, and opportunity,” Highlander said. “Your uncle was shot with your mother’s gun.”
“Mom had a gun?” Andy sat up straight and turned to his brothers. “Did you know that?”
Highlander continued as if Andy hadn’t spoken. “Any one of you could have taken it at any time before or after her death. And each of you had an opportunity, but that’s what had us stumped.”
Larry snorted.
“Here’s what I think,” Highlander said. “Your uncle came home from his meeting of the Widowers’ Club. He fixed himself a drink and settled into the easy chair. It was the first Sunday of November and shortly before two o’clock he realized daylight saving time was about to end. He reset his watch and then walked to the fireplace. What we don’t know is if he turned the clock back or not. Either way, someone entered the house and shot him in the back.”
“Who?” Andy asked.
“Someone who knew the security system’s access code—but you all did, didn’t you?”
Highlander looked at Andy. “Let’s start with you,” he said. “You work overnight at Cumberland’s, and you punch a clock each hour. We checked with your employer, and you punched in at 1:04, 1:59, and 3:02, but the system doesn’t account for the time change. So, one minute after you punched in at 1:59, the clock jumped back to 1:00 and you didn’t have to punch in again until 3:00. You had a two-hour window in which you could have driven to your uncle’s home, shot him, and returned to the plant.”
His wife clutched his arm. “Andy?”
“And Larry,” Highlander continued. “We haven’t seen hide nor hair of Lucy, Lucille, Lucinda—well, actually, I guess we have seen the hair of the redhead you claimed you were with that night.”
“She cost me fifty-seven dollars.”
“If she actually exists, she might have made a good alibi,” Highlander said, “but she might also have been created out of thin air.”
“No,” Larry protested. “I know her from somewhere. I just can’t remember where. If I could remember, I’d tell you.”
Ford stood, walked to the office door, and whispered something to his assistant sitting just outside the door.
Highlander turned to Gary Royce. “You have the best alibi of all,” he said. “Several people recall seeing you or talking with you at the Rods & Broads show and at the after-party. There’s a gap of several hours between when you returned to your shop and when you arrived at the after-party. Still, based on the timeline we put together talking to the other people at the party, there’s no way you could have established your presence at the party at one fifteen, then left the party, killed your uncle, and returned, unless—”
The door opened and everyone turned to look at the redhead who stepped through the open doorway. Larry sat up straight. “Lucy?”
“Lucille,” she corrected.
“I knew I knew you from somewhere.”
Highlander looked at Ford.
“Lucille is one of our paralegals,” he said. “She worked on Mr. Royce’s divorce.”
“Were you with Larry Royce last Saturday night?”
She looked at Ford for guidance.
“Tell the truth, Lucille,” he said. “This is a murder investigation.”
Lucille’s eyes grew wide. “A murder—? We met at Smiling Jack’s, had a drink, and went back to his place around one. I left at six.
“Why’d you take money from my wallet?”
“Cab fare,” Lucille said. “I don’t have an Uber account.”
“Cabs take credit cards.”
Highlander interrupted them. “I’ll let you two sort things out later. Right now we have something more important to deal with.”
Everyone returned their attention to Highlander. “This wasn’t the first attempt on your uncle’s life,” he said. “That was a year ago. The accident that killed your mother and your aunt was intended to kill your aunt and your uncle. Your uncle’s car was tampered with, but he couldn’t make the trip and your mother was a last-minute substitution.”
The three brothers sat silently, at least two of them pondering which of the other two might have killed their mother.
“That’s why we looked for anything that tied the two events together, other than the use of your mother’s revolver. That connection was automobiles. We could go through the effort to get subpoenas to see where all of your cars were that night, but that would only help us with the two that have OnStar—Andy’s Equinox and Larry’s Corvette.” Highlander turned to Gary. “It doesn’t help us with your car, Gary. That Bel Air you tried to sell me is beautiful—and too old for a built-in tracking system. Though any of you might have the skill to tamper with the accelerator on your aunt and uncle’s car, you’re the only one who modifies cars for a living.”
Andy and Larry turned to look at Gary.
“And one other thing, Gary,” Highlander added. “You were the only one who worked hard to establish an alibi. When you asked the time at the Rods & Broads show after-party, you only asked people with digital watches—Fitbits and Apple watches that automatically update when the time changes. You killed your uncle before the time changed, and then you drove to the party, arriving after the time changed and seemingly before his murder occurred. That fact that your uncle’s mantel clock broke when he dropped it was just good fortune. Or so it seemed.”
Gary Royce pushed himself off the couch as if he were about to protest, but Detective Mitchell stepped up and snapped handcuffs on his wrists before he could.
*
“Gary Royce thought he could beat the clock.”
Highlander, his wife, and his new partner were finishing dinner at the steak house where he and his former partner always celebrated the successful conclusion of a homicide case.
“Turns out the note was due on Dunnett’s loan to Gary. Gary couldn’t make the payment, and Dunnett had told him he wasn’t going to extend it again. He was about to lose everything. Gary had taken his mother’s revolver when he and his brothers were cleaning out their mother’s home, and Sunday morning, he drove to his uncle’s house. He hadn’t expected Dunnett to still be awake, but that didn’t stop him.”
“He’s as tall as you. So, why did the bullet enter so low?”
“Gary carried the revolver hanging at the end of his arm, hidden behind his thigh. As he was raising it, he pulled the trigger.”
Linda looked at her husband’s new partner. “So, how’d Jessica do?”
“She did fine,” Highlander said.
Jessica smiled at her partner’s wife. “I still have a lot to learn.”
Highlander’s cell phone rang and he unclipped it from its holster. He checked the number of the incoming call before answering. After identifying himself, he heard, “We got us a body.”
He noted the address, returned his cell phone to its holster, and pointed to Mitchell’s half-eaten sirloin. “Finish quick. It’s time for another lesson.”
*Much of my crime fiction falls into the subgenres of hardboiled, noir, and private eye, but for the past handful of years I’ve been branching out into other subgenres. A while back, my occasional cowriter, Sandra Murphy, and I were batting around ideas for a locked-room mystery in response to a call for submissions from anthologist Maxim Jakubowski. I wanted to play with time but we could not find a way to make the concept work within the structure of a locked-room mystery. Instead, we wrote a story that involved a peanut allergy and an HVAC system.
Still, the concept behind “Beat the Clock” continued to nag at me until I realized it was ideal for a subgenre I’d never previously written: a traditional murder mystery in which the detective gathers evidence by interviewing all the suspects and then brings them together at the end to describe his investigation and to reveal the killer. I tossed in a bit of modern technology—without which the story doesn’t work—gave Detective Robert Highlander a spouse and a new partner, and put him to work solving the murder of Hugh Dunnett.
Because expanding my writing into previously unfamiliar crime fiction subgenres has worked out so well, I hope to continue. Now, let’s see, which subgenres haven’t I tried … ?