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The Solution, Murder

by R. Harold Boswell

244 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0458; ISBN 1-55369-645-X; US$22.50, C$25.95, EUR18.50, £13.00

Bill Abbott is found dead in his workshop. Murdered. There are more than a handful of suspects, but, no motive.

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About the Book For those of you that enjoy 'who done-it' detective novels, this one will keep you on your toes. Our detective Brad Michaels' closest friend has been murdered shortly after their phone conversation. The topic was not discussed, only that it was important and needed Brad's attention immediately. He was too late. Strange as it may seem, there is no discernable motive for Bill Abbott's demise, that is until our detective uncovers information leading to the existence of some Columbian White. He weaves himself through this maze of oddball suspects, and through sheer genius is on the verge of cracking this case wide open. Not so fast, the FBI wants a piece of the action if for no other reason than to clean their faces of eggs. Brad Michaels doesn't let the Feds intimidate him, backs them into a corner and strikes a bargain. They have no choice. Brad Michaels shows why his reputation is beyond reproach and solves two cases for the price of one.

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About the Author I've been around the block more times than I care to admit . Starting with receiving my SS number in 1936. I cashed my first paycheck when I was twelve. I joined the Army Air Corp in the Second World War. I have been a member of the VFW for 50 years and a life member for 30. Of all the businesses I've had my fingers in, none were failures. Failure has no place in my vocabulary. After I retired I got serious about writing. There isn't anything I'd rather do. I self-published once, but the book never got off the ground. I'm not entertaining any idea that my writing is a failure. I'm taking a different approach. I'm older, wiser, and I enjoy what I'm doing.

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Chapter 2

Abbott had a computer programming business around the corner from the Cameron Hills Times, Cameron Hill's only newspaper. The cab pulled up in front of the two-story building. Brad got out, paid the driver including the toke.

He murmured, "That's peculiar, no lights." Michaels thumbed the bell push. Before the last of the night buzzer went silent, the lights went on in the back of the building.

A blood-curdling scream penetrated the four walls shattering what was left of the noiseless surroundings. It tore at Michaels' eardrums, shocking him into frozen immobility. Then -- silence.

For a split second, Michaels thought his imagination was playing tricks on him. The silence was short lived though, as his ears were again assaulted by another bone chilling scream. This time, louder, longer and in sheer terror.

Michaels' hand grabbed at the brass handle, pushed down on the thumb latch. The door was locked. He pounded on it desperately trying to draw attention. No response. He moved to the right and started hammering the plate glass. The noise should have awakened everyone in the neighborhood. Still nothing.

He turned, swung his head back and forth looking for something, anything that would break the glass. He had to get in. Suddenly the door between the shop and the office swung open knocking one hinge off and leaving the door in shambles. A man barreled through the doorway, hesitated at the street door long enough to unlatch it, throw it open and charged blindly out of the building. Michaels threw out a hand, caught a fist full of shoulder cloth, spun him around and yelled,

"Hold it Mr." He recognized him instantly, "Delk, Alfred Delk! What in the hell is going on in there?"

Delk was a short thick-bodied man with a pasty face, and it was showing signs of turning into jowls at the edges of the jawbone. His mouth was open, his wide lidded eyes glistened, and he was suffering from an acute case of panic.

Michaels shook him, his head bobbed back and forth like a wobble headed toy. Delk was still out of it. Michaels kept shaking; he had to force Delk back to reality. Still no effect. Finally, as a last resort, Michaels slapped him.

"Snap out of it damn it! What happened in there?"

Delk rolled his eyes, trying to focus on Michaels and stuttered around words that made no sense. He drew a deep breath, shuddered and finally managed to speak.

"It's Bill. Bill Abbott is dead. I didn't do it. So help me, I didn't do it!"

Michaels was stunned, he couldn't believe what Delk just said. He repeated it, "Bill Abbott dead? How can that be? I just talked to him a few minutes ago." Brad's voice was gaining in volume, "Damn it! I should have been here earlier." Michaels could've easily sat down and hung his head, but he knew that was out of the question.

Michaels wasn't getting any answers from Delk. It was as if he was baying at the moon. Brad lowered his voice and tried to bring Delk down to earth. After vigorous coaxing, Delk began to get a grip on himself. Michaels tried questioning Delk again, making sure he had his undivided attention.

"Where in the hell were you going crashing out of the door like that?" Delk was simply out of touch with the present. Michaels grabbed Delk by the front of his collar and pulled him up close. Delk moved his lips but nothing came out. He cleared his throat then mumbled,

"I don't know. I just didn't want to get caught in that room." He squinted at Brad, "I didn't kill him." Delk continued to proclaim his innocence. His voice reached discordant overtones. Michaels muscled him back inside, and closed the door.

Shoving the gibbering Delk ahead of him, they went through the back of the office and into the shop. The air reeked with the odor of flux and acid, used in soldering. The long, narrow room was stuffed with an assorted array of florescent lights, benches and cubbyholes filled with printed circuit boards.

A plump blonde woman in a plain dressing gown occupied a seat beside a bench upon which a man was slumped with his head in his arm, as if he were sleeping.

Sleeping, he was not. Michaels glanced at the motionless man, an intense shocked expression appeared on his face, he said to Delk,

"Is there any whiskey around?"

Delk apparently didn't hear Michaels; he seemed to be under a trance. He stared at the corpse, oblivious to his surroundings.

"Whiskey!" Michaels repeated sharply.

Delk's head wobbled around as he pointed a trembling finger and muttered, "In the desk I -- eh -- think."

Michaels went into the front office. An ancient and cluttered roll top desk stood against the wall. He opened a drawer, found a bottle half full buried under a flock of papers. Returning to the shop he extended the bottle to Delk.

"Here, have a shot of this before you pass out." Delk accepted it, unscrewed the cap and raised it to his lips. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, then he wheezed and gasped for air. It served its purpose, bringing him back to a sudden awareness.

Michaels took a swallow, capped it and set the bottle down on the closest bench.

The woman was beginning to move a little and making low, moaning sounds. Michaels said,

"Take care of her will you?" and bent over to examine Bill Abbott's body. He was slight and Somewhere in his middle fifties, with fraying gray hair. Below the hair line at the back of the neck, the polished hour glass shaped hilt was protruding from a wound seeping blood down past the collar of his shirt. Bill Abbott was working on some circuit boards and a Pistol type soldering gun lay at his finger tips.

Michaels' eyes turned hard, cold, forbidding. He shook his head trying to dislodge the existence of a golf ball sized knot in his throat. Abbott had sounded the alarm, Michaels was not quick enough with his response.

The woman was Bill Abbott's wife Mary. She was sitting up and leaning on Delk's shoulder. She couldn't control her sobbing; the tears ran down her cheeks wearing crevices in her makeup.

Delk was trying to console her, but he was having trouble containing his own emotions. The sight of the body caused a trembling sensation and he continually blinked his eyes as if they were sprinkled with sand.

Michaels asked compassionately, "What happened Mary?"

She pressed her quivering lips together, wiped her finger under her tear brimming eyes. Michaels offered his handkerchief. She accepted it, blotted her face, and pinched her nose. Then she stared twisting it in both hands,

"I don't know," she moaned. "Bill always came upstairs to the apartment for coffee when he worked late like this and I'd usually sit up and wait for him. When it got past his time, I came downstairs and found, -- found --" Her words melted into another paroxysm of weeping. She buried her face in the handkerchief, and began rocking back and forth.

Michaels nodded he understood, patted her gently on the shoulder. He went into the front office, picked up the phone and stabbed 911. This job he could do without. It rang once and before the person on the other end of the line could identify herself, Michaels said,

"This is the Abbott Computer Service and Supply Co., on the corner of Cambridge and Fairway. We have an emergency. The existing situation suggests murder. Did you get that? Murder!"

Brad couldn't help feeling his hand shaking and it appeared Abbott's death had finally sunk in and shock was beginning to sift through Brad's body. He settled himself down, took a deep breath and waited for the operator's response. The 911 operator, realizing the extent of the emergency, informed him she would contact the appropriate authorities and please do not touch anything. She also requested he stay at the scene in order to assist the Sheriff's Department with the preliminary investigation. Michaels assured her he would and cradled the receiver.

He looked around, and saw Delk carrying Mary Abbott into the office. Her face was snow white and her eyes were rolling in their sockets.

"She fainted again," Delk said as if he wasn't doing enough. Michaels pointed to a settee in the corner of the office and assisted Delk in making her comfortable. He said, "Run upstairs, see if there's some smelling salts in the medicine cabinet."

Delk went through a side door while Brad gently massaged the woman's wrists. Delk returned, handed Brad the bottle of ammonia. He waved it back and forth under her nose. She took a deep breath, gagged and shortly thereafter her eyes opened and they began to focus.

Leaning over Michaels' shoulder, Delk said, "Do you think we better notify Fred?"

Michaels raised his head, "Who?" he didn't recognize the name.

"Fred Abbott, Bill's brother," Delk answered and added as an after thought, "Some time after you left for Las Vegas, Bill called Fred back east and offered the position of managing Sierra Foothill Video. It's a store specializing in all kinds of tapes, games, and movie rentals. Bill thought it a natural outlet for his products, he purchased the property and the building."

"I see," Michaels said, "Get him on the phone, will you? Tell him to get over here as quickly as possible. It is not necessary to go into any detail over the phone."

"Okay," Delk said, he seemed to have gathered at least a portion of his composure. He went to the phone, punched a number while Michaels turned his attention again to Mary Abbott. He smiled reassuringly, murmured,

"Take it easy Mary, the Sheriff and his men will be here in a few minutes and they are going to ask a lot of questions. Try to get a grip on yourself."

She nodded mutely, pinched her eyes shut and several teardrops leaked out from under the lids.

After Delk finished making his call he joined Michaels and Mary. He said, "He'll be here in a few minutes. He wanted an explanation, I told him he would get one after he arrived. He thought I was kidding."

Michaels said in a low, rocky voice, "I wish to God you were." He had lost a very close friend and it was beginning to take its toll. He pulled himself together and whispered, "If I let my feelings take control, my ability to function will be severely compromised, I can't let that happen.

"Delk!" Michaels wanted his attention. "Let's start from the beginning. Why in the hell did you come crashing out through the back door? Did you see something? Maybe you heard something. Talk to me Delk. I don't want to hear, 'I didn't kill him.'"

Delk shook his head, he looked as if he was about to lose his lunch. He said nothing. Michaels was beginning to think Delk was avoiding his questions deliberately.

"Delk? you either talk to me now or you'll talk to the Sheriff and I guarantee, you won't like the corner he'll put you in."

Delk insisted upon taking the high road. "I don't know anything that's of any consequence."

"I'll be the judge of that," Michaels snapped, he was about to flush Delk out of the nest. "Let's take it back to before you made an ass out of yourself."

Delk didn't like the inference, but he began, "I was working on a rush order of illustrations for an astrological firm and I had to stay late to finish them. I could hear Bill using his CD Laser unit. A few minutes later the noise stopped. I thought he'd finished and called it a night. I was about to go into Bill's shop to have a word with him when I heard Mary. I ran back there and saw Bill face down on the bench, with that ugly thing in his neck. It scared the hell out of me and, eh, I guess I panicked."

"I guess you did," Michaels agreed, and then said, "You ran out of here so fast you looked like a blur. You're fortunate the killer already left the office. Had the killer still been in the vicinity, you'd be history." Michaels watched Delk's reaction and waited for him to respond. Delk's blinked his eyes nervously as he spoke,

"I know," he admitted. "I couldn't get out of there fast enough."

Michaels listened, acknowledged Delk's explanation then inquired, "Did you see anyone come in? or did you hear anyone in the building before or after Bill's wife screamed?"

"No. Like I said, I was pretty busy and I didn't see anyone. I had the door between my section and Bill's shop closed trying to shut down as much noise as possible. Even after Bill shut off the laser there was little chance of hearing anyone other than Mary. Someone could've sneaked in, there is no way I could've heard them, even if my door was open." He indicated the door and Michaels opened it and stuck his head in.

Delk's studio was partitioned off from the main part of the building and was about ten feet wide. A half finished sketch lay on the drawing board.

Michaels mumbled, "The killer must have come in the back door or through window. Delk? you stay here with Bill's wife while I go into the back and have a look see."

He hurried through the shop, past Bill Abbott's body, through the shop door and into the storage section of the building. He found the light switch and snapped it on.

The back area took up a third of the floor space and at first glance it looked like a disaster. Broken CD's, circuit boards, and old engravings. Obsolete equipment, benches and old yellowed newspapers. On top of practically all of it, a thick layer of dust.

Michaels slowly moved his eyes from the rear wall, passed the pile and come to rest on the other side. It was an open partition, fenced and occupied by a wholesale merchandiser of tobacco and candy. The wholesaler used half of the storeroom, but it was accessible only from a separate part of the building.

Satisfied the killer could not have come in from that side of the building, Michaels shifted his eyes to the opposite wall. One door large enough to accommodate the entrance of a vehicle and next to it, another door for foot traffic.

Michaels took a step or two in that direction, stopped abruptly. "What have we here?" Michaels hummed. He stepped around the wet spot and kneeled. Again he looked at the wall, back to the wet spot then to the pile of junk.

It wasn't difficult to reconstruct the events leading to Bill Abbott's demise. The murderer came in the rear door, it was dark, and he brushed against the box and knocked the jug to the floor. Delk said Bill was operating his laser unit, in which case he would not have heard the crash of the bottle.

Michaels stuck his finger in the wet spot, smelled t, "Whew," wrinkled his nose and wiped his finger off. The back door was secure but as he stepped over to inspect the window, the shop door opened and he heard a melange of voices. He retraced his steps through the work area and back into the office.

The law had arrived in force and was deployed around the little office. Mary Abbott was now sitting up in the settee with Alfred Delk beside her, holding her hand and patting it hoping it would render some measure of comfort.

Sheriff Mike Kinney squinted his brown shoe button eyes at Michaels as he entered the office. He said in a low rumbling voice,

"Whoever is responsible for getting me out of bed, better have a damn good reason, and what's this about a murder? Come on, somebody say something, I haven't got all night!"

Michaels jerked a thumb over his shoulder, "Come in and see for yourself". He stepped aside and Kinney and his escort of deputies paraded into the shop.

Kinney weighed well over two hundred pounds and was built along the lines of one of Sherman's toys. The capillar es high up on his florid cheeks were beginning to show through the skin and he had bunch style ears, like doughnuts.

While his disgruntled looks resembled a hard nose, and whose wouldn't be at this hour of the morning, there was no doubt about his ability. He had built his reputation as the criminal investigator under the previous Sheriff and when the standing Sheriff retired, the outcome of the election was a mere formality.

The voters were hoping his reputation would spill over into his new job and they were not disappointed. His approach was somewhat unorthodox, and his method didn't always follow protocol.

Because of his vast experience his rate of success and positive results, were the highlight of his career. Along with this, he always imparted upon his deputies, honesty and integrity.

While the talent was there coupled with a tremendous amount of experience, these past years without any activity had left his brain in somewhat of a dormant state. His pride wouldn't let him admit to such a factor.

There were two uniformed deputies with him, the medical examiner, whose name was Bemis and a very elegantly put together young female reporter from the Times. Michaels was sure he recognized her.

She had shoulder length hair the color of dark red honey. Her choice of make up was conservative, but then she didn't need a paint job. An hourglass figure set off by a near perfect molded bust line that didn't need any help. Her hips tapered to a pair of lovely legs and Brad Michaels made up his mind she wasn't going to get away without him introducing himself.

Kinney's broad nose wrinkled and he said, "Jeezus, it smells sour in here." Nobody had to point out Bill Abbott's body, Kinney had no trouble spotting it. "Jump n' Jeezus," he said as he blew out his breath in a soft explosion. "It's Bill Abbott! My God what an ugly way to cash in." He frowned, pinched his lips together, his eyes became glazed and to avoid any embarrassment, he glued them on the murder weapon.

He waggled a finger at Bemis, "Get to it Bemis, I need to know a couple of things."

Bemis stepped briskly forward. He was a meticulously dressed little man, with a pince-nez overshadowing a thin wedge of a nose. A very conspicuous cockatoo's crest of mouse colored hair laid flation a shiny forehead sloping back to the crown of his head. He bent over, made a brief examination of the body, looked up and said in a flat monotone,

"Death was instantaneous. No other wounds on the body visible at this time. This may change based upon the results of my autopsy report."

Depending heavily on the strength of Delk's arm, Mary Abbott made her way into the shop. She was crying again and Kinney, hearing the gasps, turned, saw who it was and with as much well meant sympathy as possible said,

"I know this is a shocking ordeal for you Mrs. Abbott, but I have to ask you some questions. I'll try to keep them as simple as possible, take all the time you need to answer them."

She nodded, squinted her eyes shut and gripped Delk's arm. He patted her hand and gently said,

"Take it easy Mary. We've got to get to the bottom line. Try and tell the Sheriff what you know.

"I really don't know much of anything, " she sobbed, trying to muster what little control she had. "Bill didn't come up for his usual coffee break and I got worried, so I came downstairs and, -- and," she broke down again and couldn't finish. She blotted her eyes, tried to stem the flow of teardrops, with limited success.

"Did you hear anything?" Kinney asked. "Was your husband expecting anyone? You know, an appointment maybe." Kinney was piling on frivolous questions and Michaels took exception.

"Come on Kinney, Bill wouldn't have an appointment at this time of the morning. Give her a break and knock off the BS, she's having a hard enough time as it is."

Kinney glared at Michaels, "Who's running this investigation? You're not!" Kinney meant it to sound intimidating. He looked at Mary, repeated the questions. She replied,

"I'm sure he didn't have an appointment, not at this time of the morning. He had a piece of his equipment running and I couldn't hear a thing. Alfred was the only one in the shop besides Bill that I know of."

"Alfred Who?"

"She means me," Delk volunteered. His voice sounded strained and with some reluctance he continued, "I was working on some back orders in the my studio." He indicated the walled in cubicle with a motion of his head and Kinney said,

"You didn't hear anything either?"

"No. Like Mary said, Bill had his laser unit running, the door was closed and I was concentrating on my work."

Through the plate glass front, Michaels saw a black mini-van pull up and come to rest at the curb. A man got out, spoke to a deputy who was monitoring the investigation line. The deputy listened a moment, then pointed to the front door. The man made his way to the door, opened it and stepped inside. He was immediately met by a sobbing Mary, escorted by Delk and followed by the rest of the occupants including Michaels, the reporter, Kinney and a pair of his deputies.

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Catalogue Information

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