When The Wind Blows: A Spruce Run Mystery Read online

  WHEN THE WIND BLOWS

  ___________

  MARK MUELLER

  ________________

  Copyright © 2015 Mark Mueller

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be produced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by an information storage and retrieval system—except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper—without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First Edition: August 2015

  Published in North America by Rubicon Books.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN – 978-0-6924-9881-1

  1. FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Amateur Sleuth. 2. FICTION / Romance / Suspense. 3. FICTION / Humorous. 4. FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / General. 5. SELF-HELP / Substance Abuse & Addictions / Alcohol. 6. FICTION / Crime.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Comments about When The Wind Blows and requests for additional copies, book club rates and author speaking appearances may be addressed to Rubicon Books via e-mail at [email protected].

  Also available as an eBook from Internet retailers.

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my grandmother

  Helen Dwyer

  The angel on my shoulder

  Who sang to me;

  “Grab your coat and get your hat

  Leave your worries on the doorstep

  Life can be so sweet

  On the sunny side of the street”

  A faint cold fear thrills through my veins.

  —William Shakespeare

  Romeo and Juliet, Act 4, Scene 3

  I love them Duke boys.

  —Ruby K. Mueller

  WHEN THE WIND BLOWS

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  My name is Louis McMurphy. I’m a writer. For the past five years I’ve worked at the Spruce Run Bugler, a weekly newspaper that’s located in the midriff of rural Hunterdon County, New Jersey. I began as a reporter, and just last year I was promoted to editor when Old Man Letts took a dirt nap at the ripe old age of eighty-eight. It’s not a bad job considering it’s out in the sticks. I also live in Spruce Run, which makes my morning commute a quick one.

  Yes, rural areas do exist in New Jersey. Not everyone lives close to the New Jersey Turnpike, and people around here just might slap you upside the head if you ask “what exit” when inquiring where Spruce Run is located. You might also get slapped upside the head if you refer to New Jersey as Joisy. The comedian Joe Piscopo created the word once in a Saturday Night Live skit in the early ‘80’s, and now the whole country refers to Jersey as Joisy. Do people know how damn foolish they sounds when they say it? Come on, it’s a stupid word.

  What can I say? I’m a Jersey guy. We’re touchy and we have attitude. But, I digress.

  It’s true what they say about small towns. Not much happens and everyone knows each other. Spruce Run is no exception. We’re not a one-horse town by any stretch, but we’re not a one-stoplight town either. We don’t have any stoplights. Spruce Run is so small that we don’t even have our own zip code. We have to share one with Round Valley, the next town over.

  We also don’t have our own police force, either. Not that Spruce Run is a crime-free town or anything, but we do have protection from the county sheriff’s department.

  I grew up in Spruce Run. I went to the public school here which, by the way, is the last remaining K-I2 single-school in the entire state. And because I’ve lived here all my life, I’m a townie. Most of us in Spruce Run are townies. And because of that and my livelihood, everyone knows me. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view.

  I live in a one-floor ranch-style house with my cat. Three bedrooms, a living room, a full bath and a kitchen make up the relatively small floor plan. A detached one-car garage is connected to the kitchen by a screened-in breezeway. I grew up in this house and continued to live in it after my parents retired and moved to Hudson, Florida. My parents still own the house and stay here from early summer until the end of the Christmas season each year. Otherwise, I live here alone and rent-free. I do pay the property taxes and utilities myself. It’s a good trade-off.

  * * * *

  I was sitting here at the desk in the living room, in front of the bay window, and bored to death because there’s often nothing better to do than to stare out the window and wait for something to happen. Boredom took up a lot of my time these days, but it wasn’t always that way. I used to have plenty of ways to keep myself busy.

  Well, that’s not entirely true. Truth be told, I once had a girlfriend who had plenty of ways to keep myself busy. She was the love of my life until Jameson Irish Whiskey showed up at the party. Once Jameson entered the picture, I thought I was the most interesting man in the world. And believe me, I was staying thirsty, my friends. Unfortunately, she couldn’t compete with my drinking, so she made like rain and got the hail out of my life.

  I don’t drink anymore, but I’m digressing again. I’ll discuss more on that later.

  As I sat pondering the details of my quixotic existence, I was watching smoke from a Havana Corona cigar swirl around the room with help from a ceiling fan. The cigar was a dead one I had resurrected from my waste can.

  I must admit, cigars are much gamier the second time around.

  My cat was asleep on the desk, curled up in a ball equidistant between two olive-green telephones, one at each comer and both connected to the same phone line. Don’t ask me why I connected two phones to the same line because I don’t remember. Maybe I had too much to drink that day. Or maybe it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Still, though, the two phones have occupied the power corners of my desk for so long that they should be on my Christmas card list.

  The phones blasted off, startling me out of my reverie. The cat, which was still sleeping between the phones, yelped awake and leapt three feet in the air. When it landed on all fours on the floor, it sneered at me and sauntered from the room in a monstro snit.

  I snorted, and collared the blower on the right. I’ve always referred to the telephone as a blower ever since I’d heard my grandfather call his own telephone a blower when I was a child. My grandfather always had an amusing way with words, and this was one of the small, but endearing memories I kept of him.

  “Stan talking,” I said.

  “F.O.T., F.O.T.!” an excited voice bellowed across the wire as I toked my cigar. Those unusual words meant just one thing. Ducky was on the phone.

  Leroy “Ducky” Duckworth was my lifelong best friend. We met in Kindergarten and have been inseparable friends ever since. When we first met, he couldn’t pronounce my last name, so he started calling me “Louie Mac.” The nickname eventually eroded to just “Mac.”

  The nickname stuck like Velcro, and after a while almost everyone in Spruce Run stopped using my given name. I had no choice but to get used to it. I didn’t mind.

  Ducky was also a Spruce run townie, and was a detective with the Hunterdon County Sheriff’s Department. He and I grew up together, went through public school together and were college roommates. When we graduated, my first job was as a reporter for the Ocean County Press. Ducky became a dispatcher with the sheriff’s department, and over the next several years was promoted up through the ranks. We’ve stayed best friends through good times and bad, through his divorce, and through a bad relationship breakup I had experienced.

  I think the reason why Ducky and I stayed best friends was because we had a mutual lo
ve for humor. We made jokes about everything, and nothing was sacred. Where I liked wordplays, puns, and unusual metaphors, Ducky liked slapstick and unique comical observations.

  Ducky was far more outgoing than I was. He was one of those people who could talk his way into any conversation, so much so that I’ve often joked that he should have gone into politics instead of law enforcement. But, law enforcement was what he loved, even when he was growing up. He was such a law and order enthusiast, when we were kids that he insisted on my joining the high school rifle club, which had target-shooting contests with other high school clubs around the state.

  Ducky and I continued to compete with each other through college, and even now on occasion. He always reminded me that I needed to “stay in shape, because you never know.” I laugh at that because if you knew Spruce Run the way I do, the “you never knows” never happens. Still, Ducky even went as far as to get me a Glock 22 pistol and a shoulder holster for my birthday a few years ago, and I’ve gotten to enjoy target practicing with him.

  Ducky was now the senior detective in the sheriff’s department. And whenever we phoned each other, we always began our conversations by shouting “F.O.T.,” a code the two of us had invented a few years ago, when several housing developments began sprouting up in the area.

  Housing developments meant more traffic on the roads and more city folk who had decided to leave the city life behind for the slower pace in the country.

  Neither of us liked F.O.Ts; we felt encroached upon. I heard once that Daniel Boone didn’t like F.O.Ts back in the day, either. It seemed that whenever old Daniel could see smoke rising from above the trees out in the wilderness, he took that as a sign that the F.O.Ts were getting too close and it was time again to move west.

  True story.

  What are F.O.T.s, you ask?

  Friskin’ Out of Towners.

  I know. But, curious minds want to know.

  I exhaled a lungful of smoke. “What’s up, Duck?”

  “Mac! I got a call. Want to come?” Ducky knew that, as a newspaper reporter, I enjoyed nothing more than shadowing him as investigated real-life criminal cases. Plus, it’s a decent way to keep up with covering breaking news for the Bugler.

  “Where at?”

  “Jugtown Mountain Convenience Store. Robbery. Could be an inside job.”

  “Okay. I’ll be ready when you get here.”

  “Groovy. See you in a few.” The blower went dead in my hand. Typical Ducky exit strategy. He always hung up abruptly.

  I chuckled and cradled it. Ducky lived with his sister on a two thousand acre horse farm ten minutes away and always kept a county vehicle on hand for occasions such as this.

  As a result, I knew he’d arrive promptly so I put on a blazer right away. I had to look presentable.

  When Ducky arrived, I grabbed a fresh cigar.

  And then I left the cat in charge.

  Chapter Two

  A short while later we walked through the Jugtown Convenience store’s front door. A middle-aged, creepy bald guy who resembled Uncle Fester was waiting for us. He introduced himself to us as John Livingston, the store manager. He motioned us to his office.

  “Took you long enough to get here,” he sneered as he sat down at his desk.

  What a prick. It was my day off.

  “We’re here now,” Ducky asserted. “So, what’s the skinny?”

  “I got four hundred dollars missing from my safe. That boy out there took it.”

  “What boy is that?”

  “Klansek.”

  “Does he have a first name?” I asked.

  “Danny.”

  “Okay,” Ducky said. “So how did Danny Klansek take the money from the safe?”

  Livingston rolled his eyes and motioned to a floor safe next to his desk. He opened the safe door and revealed a shelf stacked with cash. “Just like that.”

  Ducky hunched down in front of the safe and peered inside. “Who all has access to this safe?”

  “The access door was unlocked all day,” Livingston explained. “Anyone could have opened it.”

  “Let me ask you something,” Ducky said. “You didn’t misplace it or anything, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “And the money didn’t grow legs and walk its way into your pocket?”

  “No, sir. I run a respectable business here.”

  “Who’s the other kid out there?” I asked as I looked into the store.

  “That’s my boy.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “Jack.”

  “Ask Jack to come in here,” Ducky instructed.

  Livingston went to the office door. “Jack, come in here.”

  As Jack Livingston approached the office, his shoulder glanced the doorframe. As he did, I heard a short burst of laughter from the front of the store.

  “Sit down.” Ducky motioned to a metal folding chair in the office corner.

  Jack Livingston sat without making a sound.

  I pulled out a cigar from my inner jacket pocket and set it alight. John Livingston glared at me.

  “You’re Jack Livingston?” I asked the boy.

  “Yeah,” the boy grunted. He was a big kid who was trying too hard to show that he was some kind of tough guy. I wasn’t impressed. Punks like that are a dime a dozen.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty.”

  “Mind if we ask you a few questions?” Ducky pulled a notebook out of his jacket pocket.

  “It’s your party.”

  “Okay, but first I have to explain something to you. You have legal rights. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, the court will appoint one to you at no cost. Do you understand these rights?”

  “Yeah,” the punk grumbled.

  “Will you waive your right to remain silent and answer some questions now?”

  “Like I said before, it’s your party.”

  “Your old man says there’s four hundred dollars missing from the store safe. What do you know about it?”

  “Nothing,” the boy scoffed. “I’ve been busy all day. Besides, my dad can vouch for me.”

  “Can he?” Ducky looked at Livingston.

  “Yes I can,” Livingston confirmed. “He didn’t make any cash deposits to the safe all day. Klansek made four. Do the math.”

  “You sure?” I asked after noticing a stack of bank deposits on the desk. “Seems like you’ve got a lot of cash coming into this gig. Hard to believe just one person was making deposits all day.”

  “Be that as it may,” Livingston growled, “but if the boy says he didn’t make any deposits, he didn’t. Lay off.”

  “Fine,” I muttered, sensing a problem. I looked at Ducky.

  “I think we’re done here,” he said. “You can go, son. And tell that other boy to come back here.”

  “Sure,” the punk grunted.

  A moment later Danny Klansek came into the office.

  “How old are you?” Ducky asked him.

  “I’m nineteen.”

  “Okay, good. We’d like to ask you some questions, but first I must explain something to you. You have some legal rights, which include the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, the court can appoint one to you. Do you understand these rights?”

  “Yes I do.”

  “Will you waive your right to remain silent and answer some questions now?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  Ducky asked Danny about his job during the day and what had happened to the four hundred dollars. I asked him if anyone else had come into the office, and again who had access to the safe. Danny explained that he went to the safe four times during the course of the day to deposit cash register money into the sa
fe’s drop slot, but did not have access to the safe’s combination. When we ran out of questions, Ducky and I walked outside to the parking lot to talk in private.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I re-lit my cigar and inhaled a lungful. “Put a tent over it and sell tickets,” I finally said as I exhaled.

  “What?”

  “This is a circus. It could have been any one of them. I don’t like that Livingston character or that gnome of his loins, but their stories corroborate. With their two stories against one, we’re going to have to believe them.”

  Ducky nodded. “That Klansek kid’s story is shaky and it contradicts the other two.”

  “So, what do you think? Should you take him in? Maybe he’ll give you the real story then.”

  “It couldn’t hurt. Come on.”

  We went back into the store. Jack Livingston was at the register. Danny Klansek was leaning against the wall.

  “Come with us, Danny,” I motioned as we walked toward the store office.

  “Danny,” Ducky explained once we were all back in the office. “There’s a problem with your story.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Your manager says the safe’s access door had been unlocked all day. You went to the safe four times when it was open.”

  “How was I supposed to know the safe was unlocked? The access door was closed when I came into the office.” He was perspiring and looked like he was starting to panic.

  “Danny,” Ducky said. “I’d like you to come down to the sheriff’s department. We need to ask you some more questions. It’s common practice.”

  Danny looked at Ducky and then at me. “Did either of you check the safe to see if the money was missing? I mean, maybe when Mr. Livingston was looking for the money it was right in front of him and he didn’t see it.”