Deadly choice, p.1
Deadly Choice, page 1
Deadly
Choice
S. Lee Manning
Encircle Publications
Farmington, Maine, U.S.A.
Deadly Choice Copyright © 2024 S. Lee Manning
Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-64599-564-7
Paperback ISBN 13: 978-1-64599-563-0
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher, Encircle Publications, Farmington, ME.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Encircle editor: Cynthia Brackett-Vincent
Cover and book design by Deirdre Wait
Cover photograph © Getty Images
Published by:
Encircle Publications
PO Box 187
Farmington, ME 04938
info@encirclepub.com
http://encirclepub.com
To Dean, Jenny, and Mira,
who mean all the world to me.
CHAPTER 1
Patricia
Let me tell you about my daughter.
She could be a real pain. I mean, when she was two years old, she’d just walk up to me and start hitting me. She wouldn’t stop either. I’d tell her no. I’d tell her stop. She’d keep hitting me. It didn’t hurt, not really, but she’d pound at me with those little hands, and she’d look up at me with this smile of—what are you going to do about it? Finally, I’d smack her on the rear, and then she’d cry and stop. Then she’d fall into my arms and say Mommy sorry. And kiss me.
That was her. A lot of love, but she was difficult.
High maintenance is a nice way to put it.
Are you uncomfortable there? You keep squirming. Ropes too tight? I promise I won’t be too long.
My golden girl. All the teachers loved her in high school. She was so smart and well-behaved. At home, not so much. She had a lot of tantrums. It was probably my fault for spoiling her when she was young, but she took out all her anger and frustration on me.
Like I said, difficult.
Until she grew out of it.
This is the last time I’m going to tell you. STAY STILL! You’re making me angry. I told you not too much longer.
So where was I? Oh yes, I was telling you about high school.
She graduated at the top of her class. Got into several colleges around the country, but she decided to go to the University of Texas. To study journalism. She told me that it was an Ivy League school without the ivy.
Kind of funny, isn’t it?
I think the real reason was that her no-good bum of a boyfriend wanted to go to University of Texas for the parties. She claimed that she really liked the school and the town. It was intellectual, but it was fun. Not stiff, like some of the colleges back east. But I think it was the boyfriend.
We’re from Vermont, you know, and she wanted to get away from the cold. I think that might have been another reason. She was always cold, even in the summer, and she hated Vermont. That’s too strong. She didn’t really hate Vermont. She just didn’t want to live there. Besides the cold, it was dull. Nothing going on. We had a restaurant in town, but it wasn’t much, and the closest town with a choice of restaurants was half an hour away.
She liked animals. Horses. Cats. We had both. It just wasn’t enough.
We didn’t eat out much. Or go to the movies. We were homebodies. I knew she wasn’t a homebody; I knew she wanted some place with a lot of life: movies, music, restaurants, all that kind of stuff.
I hoped she’d go to Boston. Or at worst New York.
I didn’t expect her to go to Texas.
Still, I let her apply. It was a good school after all, with a respected program in journalism. And when she got in, I wasn’t happy about her going, but it was her decision. I had to accept that, even if I tried to argue her out of it.
I guess I should have just forbidden it. After all, I paid for part of the tuition, not all, because she got a scholarship, but enough that I should have been able to tell her no.
But I could never say no and stick to it. Not with Ashley. She was determined. And she wanted to go to University of Texas.
I still think she made the decision because of her high school boyfriend. Andrew. The bum. He was gone by her second year in college. Dropped out. Went to sell drugs or something. I never knew exactly what happened to him.
She graduated. I hoped she’d come back to Vermont, but I didn’t expect it. She liked Austin, and she got a job at a local television station.
Sometime in the first year out of college, she met David. She never told me how they met. I guess I never asked. So much I should have asked and never did.
Isn’t it funny how we think about what we should have done when it’s too late?
Do you ever think about what you should have done or could have done, Dr. Martin? I bet you don’t. Doctors don’t think that way. Doctors tend to think they’re gods.
They’re not gods.
But they do have life and death in their hands, don’t they, Dr. Martin?
A good-looking boy, David. And nice. Not exactly sure what he did, but it had something to do with technology. You might know, you met him. But it didn’t matter to me. He made a good living, and he loved Ashley.
He’d tell me about his job, but I’d just nod and pretend to listen.
Are YOU listening, Dr. Martin? Nod your head.
Very good. You need to listen. I bet you don’t listen to your patients all that much. You’re one of those I’m the doctor and I know best types, aren’t you?
So Ashley and David…
They dated for a while before he gave her the ring. I’m not sure how long. Maybe two years. Maybe three. She was so excited about the engagement, and we planned the wedding together.
I had a big garden. Usually I plant vegetables, but that summer, I planted flowers. Flowers everywhere.
I’m letting it go this year.
Am I boring you? You keep looking away. Or do you think someone is coming?
No one is coming. Your wife and son won’t be back for hours. The show doesn’t end until ten o’clock.
Funny how neither of them questioned getting free tickets to a sold-out concert that your son wrote about on Instagram. People should really be more careful about what they share on-line.
And about gifts.
But I guess you and your family are the type to accept a gift from people they don’t know and not question it. You take things for granted. Lovely home. Lovely life.
A wife. A son.
All the good things in life that you think you’re owed.
No reason to risk it, is there?
Are you trying to say something? No, I’m not taking the gag off. I don’t want to hear anything from you. I want YOU to listen to ME.
So, where was I? You made me lose my train of thought.
Oh yes, the wedding. You know, I said that my daughter was high maintenance, and she was. She was funny about food, you know. Very particular.
We must have visited two dozen bakeries before she settled on a cake. It was vanilla and chocolate with a raspberry filling. It was amazing.
Finding a caterer took forever too. We found someone we liked in Waterbury, or to be precise, someone Ashley liked. I would have been happy to grill hamburgers, but Ashley wanted her wedding to be perfect.
Have you ever heard of Waterbury? That’s where the Ben & Jerry’s factory is. Ashley loved Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
Ashley and David. We had that printed on napkins—their names with a little heart around them. It was a lovely wedding. Outdoors at our place in Vermont. We rented a tent, because you never know about the weather, not in Vermont, not even in August, and we didn’t have that many people. Maybe thirty. But it was lovely.
I was so happy that she chose to have her wedding in Vermont, at our home. You know, I have twenty acres, two of them open, and a view of the mountains. She did have an appreciation of Vermont’s beauty, even if she didn’t want to live there.
She liked Texas.
But she wanted to make me happy, even if she liked Texas. She decided to have the wedding in Vermont at least in part for me.
That was Ashley. Loving. Kind. Smart. Beautiful.
Oh damn. Look at the time. I’ve been talking and talking. Your wife and son will be back before you know it, so I need to hurry up.
I don’t know that I have much else to tell you anyway.
Don’t shake your head at me. It won’t do any good. It’ll be fast. Painless. Mostly. Which is more than you deserve, but it is what it is. Unless you move, so that I miss—which means I hit something that won’t be fatal immediately.
And that would make me angry.
If you make me miss, I’ll shoot you in a lot of places. You know what I’ll aim for, don’t you? Yes, there. That will hurt. A lot. I’ll still finish you off, but I might let you suffer for a while first.
If you stay still, you don’t have to worry. I’m not likely to miss.
Who do you think brought home all the turkeys for Thanksgiving?
And I know you may be wondering—why me? Why not someone else? Don’t feel like you’re alone. You’re the first. You won’t be the last.
CHAPTER 2
Lizzie
The sign over the door read Lizzie Vaughn Investigations. She advertised herself as an experienced investigator, which she was, but not in the type of investigations most clients wanted—or that she planned to do at this point in her life, which made it a bit of a lie. But then, most of what she presented to the public was a bit of a lie.
More than a bit.
And the fact that she managed to get a license to open a private detective agency in Austin, Texas was, given her past, ironic. But she fit the qualifications. Kind of. She hadn’t been convicted of any crimes. Wasn’t under investigation, as far as she knew. The authorities in Germany had politely declined to follow up on leads that might have led them to her.
Opening a detective agency in Texas required a BA, which she had, and at least six months experience working as an investigator for someone else—which she’d fudged thanks to a friend of her very wealthy stepfather, who’d given her a five-million-dollar trust fund, which she’d doubled through careful investing.
None of her clients knew that she was wealthy. None of her clients knew her real name, but none of them needed to know.
Lizzie was a good American name, and it went over much better in Texas than her real given name of Lisette. Her appearance went over well too. Blonde and pretty. She used her appearance to her advantage when necessary.
And being wealthy allowed her to take cases because they interested her rather than because she needed them to pay the bills — which was the whole point of opening up her own agency.
The question now was whether the expensively dressed middle-aged woman with the carefully coiffed hair and meticulously applied makeup whom Murphy Green—her assistant, fellow investigator, possible future partner—had ushered into Lizzie’s office would have an interesting case.
Or was she another wife looking for evidence of her husband’s adultery? Lizzie had already turned down three divorce cases that week.
“My name is Julia Martin. I suppose you’ve heard of me?”
Lizzie shrugged. “Not really. But go on.”
“Julia Martin. Dr. Thomas Martin’s wife. Tom was killed. It’s been in all the papers. You haven’t read about it?” Julia’s voice had a Midwestern accent.
Lizzie made the connection. A week earlier, Dr. Thomas Martin, a well-known physician, had been found shot in his home. “The media said it was suicide.”
“That’s what the police said.” Julia leaned forward. “I don’t believe it. Tom would not have done that to me. To our son. That’s why I’m here.”
“To prove that he didn’t die by suicide?”
“And to find who killed him. Although…” She surveyed Lizzie with an air of doubt. “You are very young.”
Lizzie was young, at least in years, only twenty-five. But her life had aged her—mentally, not physically. Physically, she was in damn good shape.
“Can I ask—why come to me? There are other detective agencies in Austin. With older detectives.”
“No one else was interested. They said it was a police matter. And then someone mentioned—that you take difficult cases.”
“I’m expensive.” Lizzie also did pro bono work, but not for rich people. She didn’t have anything against rich people, being one herself, but she also knew that some rich people didn’t value anything offered for free. And, while she might not need the money, it was good to have the office self-sufficient. The money from richer clients helped the poorer clients. And paid Murphy’s salary.
“I can pay. I’m willing to pay as much as it takes to prove my husband was murdered.”
Murder could be disguised as suicide if the murderer were clever enough. Lizzie should know. “What makes you think he was murdered?”
The woman unzipped her purse and brought out an envelope. “Two weeks before Tom died, I received a letter congratulating me on winning concert tickets—two of them—for a band that my son loves. Only I don’t recall entering any contest.”
“But you went.”
She shrugged. “We went. Then we found Tom dead when we got home. He was not depressed. And whatever Tom’s faults, he loved us. I don’t care what the police or the hospital say.”
“How old is your son?”
“Twelve. After we found Tom, my son couldn’t stop screaming. He has nightmares every night. I think it would help him to know what happened. And why.”
The mention of the twelve-year-old son helped Lizzie make up her mind. The child of a murdered parent needed closure, although closure wasn’t the right word. No one ever really got closure. But knowing what had happened and that the person responsible would be held to account could make a difference in that child’s life.
Lizzie could attest to that fact.
After collecting a retainer and a computer bag with Dr. Martin’s electronics, Lizzie walked Julia from her personal office through the cavernous space that was the main office, which consisted of a kitchen counter with a coffee pot and microwave, several mugs, a sink, cabinets, a long table with four card chairs under a window, a filing cabinet, and Murphy’s desk, decorated with figurines and stickers of unicorns, cats, butterflies and squirrels, and a lavender-scented candle. That left a lot of empty space in a room designed for a dozen desks and workers.
Maybe in time, Lizzie would hire more people. For now, Murphy and she were enough.
Julia glanced around the premises. “You moved into this office recently?” It wasn’t so much a tone of disapproval as it was questioning. Was she worried that Lizzie couldn’t do the job?
“Relatively. Only open a few months.” Still, since starting her agency, she’d handled a kidnapping, stopped a con artist from fleecing an elderly woman, and located two missing people.
“I suppose that explains it. A little bare.”
“It’s functional. I get results. That’s what matters. Not my furniture.” Lizzie glanced over at Murphy—who was scrolling on her computer but that didn’t fool Lizzie. Murphy was paying attention to every word.
“That’s all I want. Results. To find out what happened. You will get results, won’t you?”
“I’ll do my best.” Lizzie gave what she intended to be an encouraging smile and then held the door open, shutting it firmly after Julia’s departure.
She turned to see Murphy regarding her with an expression that was a mix of excitement and amusement. “You finally took a case. You turned three down this week. I was starting to worry about my salary.”
“Our last job paid enough to fund several years of turning down divorce cases. This one will pay well, and it’s a possible murder.”
“Doesn’t that sound like fun? Why don’t we both get coffee, and you tell me all about it?” Six feet tall, black hair hanging to her shoulders, Murphy preferred to wear dresses that emphasized her curves while managing to conceal the gun that she always carried. She also insisted on wearing stilettos that Lizzie thought would make good weapons.
If one thought that way.
Which of course—she didn’t.
Most of the time.
Lizzie wandered to the small kitchen area and waited while Murphy poured out two cups, the aroma of coffee inviting and invigorating, competing with the scent of the lavender candle on Murphy’s desk. Lizzie liked the smell of fresh brewed coffee, although she preferred pouring hot water over grounds in a cup for her morning brew. It was the German way.
But she wasn’t in Germany anymore.
Still, she liked the coffee mug, a “Lord of the Rings” design that revealed secret writing when heated. It had been a gift from Murphy to celebrate their first month in business.
Coffee in hand, she led the way back to her office. Murphy set her coffee mug on a coaster on the far side of the desk, seated herself across from Lizzie, set a notebook down, and looked inquiringly.
Lizzie read from her notes. “Dr. Thomas Martin. He died last week from what police are calling a suicide. Get the police report. Then find out everything you can about Dr Martin. Social media. You know the drill.”
