The Queen of Hearts (Mountain Springs Mysteries, #1) Read online

  THE Queen of HEARTS

  BY

  J. E. MANN

  “The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.”

  ---Blaise Pascal

  “Murder is born of love, and love attains the greatest intensity in murder.”

  ---Octave Mirbeau

  “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”

  ---Arthur Conan Doyle

  To Sara M. our first editor and reader. We wouldn’t be here without your disdain for one of our characters. Thanks for loving them in the end.

  JAKE

  “I’m sorry folks this is a crime scene.”

  “It’s ok. We were asked to come here.”

  The officer, who looked like he was still in high school, glanced at a notepad.

  “Newspaper?”

  I shook my head.

  “Tell Detective Rodriguez that Rachel Paige and Jake Morningstar are here.”

  He nodded and stepped in to the restaurant. Before the door closed, he noticed the cigarette in my right hand.

  “You can’t smoke in here,” he said.

  I grunted and stepped off the curb. I had intended to throw it away; but that remark made my mind up that I was going to enjoy it to the filter. I’m not the type of guy that takes stands, but there has to be a line somewhere. Behind me, my pretty boss sighed. I held up a hand without looking at her.

  “Don’t start.”

  “I told you not to light up. We were one minute from this place.”

  “He’s not even back yet. I bet I will be done long before he sticks his face out the door. Besides, nicotine helps me think.”

  “Sure.”

  “Proven fact,” I said, “Nicotine stimulates brain cells and allows people to process information faster.”

  “It’s also killing you while it stimulates. Cocaine users swear the drug makes them more focused”

  I faced her.

  “Are you honestly comparing cocaine to this?”

  I held up my hand for emphasis.

  “Of course not,” Rach said, “Cocaine is not as addicting. And there isn’t that wonderful odor.”

  I could kill this woman, but then she couldn’t sign my paycheck. The things we put up with. Best to distract her instead, I looked up and pointed at the orange sign.

  “Genghis K?”

  She looked up and back down at me.

  “Genghis Khan. It’s a Mongolian restaurant.”

  “Like Asian right?”

  She shook her head.

  “Not really. Asian cooking is more beef and chicken. Mongolian is mostly lamb and mutton.”

  “Mutton? What the hell is mutton?”

  “Older sheep.”

  “And lamb is baby sheep, correct?”

  “Correct”

  “So it’s just sheep. Why do people insist on being so pretentious?

  She smiled.

  “Welcome to the restaurant business Jake.”

  I smiled back. I hadn’t been sure that pretentious was the word I wanted. Maybe hanging around the smartest person in the world had started to rub off on me. She would never give herself that title, but she was. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the officer coming back to the door. I took one last drag and threw the butt into the parking lot. He pushed open the door a crack.

  “Come right in.”

  As we walked toward the door, I shot Rach a sly smile.

  “See? Perfect timing.”

  She rolled her eyes as she stepped through the door. After we walked through the second set of doors, Rach’s hand suddenly shot up and covered her nose and mouth.

  “Oh my God! What is that smell!?”

  I looked at her, angry that she could be so childish.

  “You can’t even smell cigarette smoke after three minutes. They did…did…studies”

  My words failed me. The restaurant was bright orange with black sets of tables and chairs. In the center of the room a huge circular stone cooking table that demanded everyone’s attention. It would have been impressive by itself, but the dead body draped over it gave it a little something extra. I cocked my head,

  “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”

  “The smell is everywhere. It’s overwhelming!”

  I scratched my goatee.

  “This is going to be hell for business. You can’t keep something like this out of the news. It isn’t like the busboy saw a rat in the kitchen. This is the end.”

  Rach turned to me, eyes wide.

  “How are you even able to breathe in this?”

  “Oh I can’t smell a thing,” I said, patting my pants pocket, “Cigarettes.”

  We stood there for a moment, Rachel trying to make her hand a respirator, and I, thinking how the body made the cooking table look like an old sacrificial alter. When I decided it looked like the Irish variety, I turned to her.

  “Well?”

  She looked at me, not knowing what I was referring to. I motioned toward the cooking table in front of us.

  “Go detect. That’s what we’re here for, unless of course you want to grab a corner booth and see a menu. I wouldn’t recommend anything that requires cooking though.

  She shook her head, violently.

  “I..I can’t. I can’t get closer.”

  I sighed. Women.

  “All right, But I don’t want to hear anything bad about cigarettes for the next two weeks.”

  I took a few steps and waited about seven feet from the crime scene. I could smell something, like a hamburger that had been set out in the sun for a few days, but nothing overpowering. The visual sight didn’t bother me, I had seen much worse. Taking a deep breath, I focused my eyes so that the only thing I saw was the body and the surrounding area. Rach had taught me this trick. Record everything, report everything, and eventually you could remove things that don’t matter. The secret was to determine afterwards what was important.

  “No blood on the floor,” I called over my shoulder, “No marks around the oven.”

  I glanced up at the huge vent over the stove.

  “No blood on the air vent, which means he wasn’t…,“ Rach cut me off.

  “No guesses now. “

  “Right.”

  I walked a few more feet and stopped. I glanced around and saw no new pieces of information and took the final steps where all I saw was the body. The smell finally got to me and while I wasn’t sick, I didn’t want to be here any longer then I had too. What race this poor bastard was I couldn’t even guess. The skin was a mess of contradictions. Bright, dark and a deep shade of charcoaled burgundy. The hair was gone too.

  “Rach, apparently they couldn’t get to the finish line. They dragged the body on to the stove, but they didn’t make it all the way. The lower leg of the right foot is hanging off. No sign of clothing, but the fabric could have been burned in to the flesh. The fire alarm didn’t go off either. He looks like that steak I ordered at that Texas place. Remember that? I sent it back because it looked like it had been on the grill for days and…”

  Even from across the room, I heard a sickly nauseating sound escape from my boss’s mouth. I felt someone come up from behind me.

  “You really shouldn’t use food metaphors, hun.”

  I didn’t look away from the body.

  “Hey Karen, how you doing?”

  “I’ll be able to lose those two pounds I gained last week. Don’t you want a mask?”

  “Don’t want to ruin my macho display,” I said, “Know if it’s a he or a she?”

  “Body was burned too bad all over,” she said, “Guess is it’s a male, but won’t know
for certain until forensics comes back. We might be able to get some workable DNA, but there are a lot of particles that could mess up the tests. If that happens then we’ll have to see if we can get anything dental.”

  Karen Beheler, the current on shift medical examiner came from a family dedicated to taking care of people after they were deceased. This would seem strange if she wasn’t so damn good at her job. She also has a huge soft spot for Rach and always treated her like the daughter she never had.

  I motioned to Rach with my hand.

  “No good. You know she wants certainties.”

  I heard the sound of rustling paper.

  “Not many of those. The person has been dead for about twelve hours. No other marks we can see, but we have to dig thru a lot of burnt tissue. I hope whoever this is was dead before this grill was turned on, I can’t even imagine what was going their head at the time.”

  They would have screamed until their vocal cords burst I thought but did not say. Too many questions about how I came by that little bit of information. Something caught my eye and I pointed near the edge of the cooking table.

  “That normal?”

  There was a puddle of silver about an inch wide. Karen looked at it and then motioned for one of her techs to retrieve it.

  “Might be some kind of jewelry. We will take it back with us and examine it. I guess it would be stupid to hope the killer left their dog tags.”

  I turned around and headed back to Rach.

  “Some kind of unidentified liquid found on the cooking table. They died around twelve hours ago. No cause yet.”

  She nodded her head. She said something that sounded like “let’s go” but her hand in front of her mouth blocked most of the sound. When she turned and headed toward the door, I knew I had guessed right. Out in the fresh air, she took big breaths. She didn’t seem to be getting anything other than more chartreuse in color.

  “I can still smell it. It’s like it’s stuck in my nose.”

  I reached into my pocket and held out the small box to her.

  “Cigarette?”

  RACHEL

  "Excuse me!" "Excuse me!" I called rapidly toward a man that was retreating from the crime scene, he didn't seem to be interested anymore in what was happening around him and casually walked down the street. The man appeared to be about six feet tall and well dressed with a long black pea coat and slacks. I called out to him again, a little closer this time and he finally turned around looking confused.

  "Yes? Can I help you? You're talking to me right?"

  "Yes I am talking to you." I said unabashed by his irritation. "You are the owner of this establishment aren't you? My name is Rachel Paige I am the lead consultant on this case. I would like to ask a few questions if you have a moment to spare."

  "Look lady I don't really have time to answer anymore questions, every cop here has had their turn with me. Just ask them, I'm sure they can tell you what you want to know." Jake quickly caught up to me and sped past my right shoulder jumping in between us before he rudely interjected, “The lady told you to stop and you will." The tall man, who didn't offer his name wrinkled his brow, opened his mouth to say something before Jake cut him off again, "We're here to help, are you?"

  "Jake that was really rude I think you need another cigarette, go take a break, I've got this." I cut in before the man had a chance to retaliate. Jake smiled clearly uninhibited by the scene he just caused and walked across the street to be at a safe, yet annoying distance, in case I needed anything.

  "I'm very sorry about that sir, where were we?" He looked at me for a moment, scanned across the street to Jake and looked back at me again, "What do you want?" the man snapped. "I would just like to ask you about your restaurant and maybe a few other things. It won't take long; I know you're busy with many things right now." I hurried my words hoping to keep the man interested. "What is your name?" I said directly catching the man off guard. He answered almost immediately, "My name's Joshua." "Do you spell it like the ancient Israelites did?" Joshua's face crinkled confused looking mildly disturbed. He really was turning out to be a tough guy to work with. "I think I know you, don't I know you?" Joshua finally got out. He muttered to himself for a second, obviously processing the odd question I had asked. I stood there smiling hoping for his response. Asking random questions was often used as a tactic to get people to open up when put in to stressful situations. I looked across the street to Jake who was pacing back and forth along the sidewalk as he smoked. He stopped to mouth, "Are you ok?" I nodded politely and continued to stand in front of this man waiting on a response.

  Joshua still looked plagued with confusion when he spit out, "I do know you, you're that kid prodigy from a few years ago, wow!" He seemed relieved by the connection he had made and his face lit up. Maybe he was going to be more willing to talk than I realized.

  I was disappointed that of all the things he wanted to talk about, it was my past stardom. I thought all of the attention had died down as I got older, but it never failed that I always came across on or two people that recognized my name. When I was younger I skipped three school grades, could play chess like no one else and started composing music at age 7, it was nothing to get excited over really.

  I tried to hide the uneasiness from my face so I didn't appear rude to my suspect. "Thank you." I said quickly before hammering him with another question. "Joshua you're the owner here, correct? Has anyone recently gone missing from your staff? Has anything been strange or out of place in the past few days that you can think of?" Joshua started to snap to realizing the questions weren't going to be about me, but more about the murder in his restaurant, the murder his name wouldn't escape for a very long time in the tabloids.

  "I showed up this morning like always, at five AM. When I got here the door was already open and the security system was shut off. I saw the grill smoking; it wasn't until I got closer that I realized there was a body on display. I called the cops immediately." I hesitated waiting for more information before adding on, "And what of your staff Joshua? Has anything been strange? Do you know who could have been there before you?" He shook his head left and right with a sad look upon his face. "I've owned this business for over five years now and turnover has been low and my employees usually get whatever they need.

  There are rarely any fights and I've never had issues with being robbed or feeling unsafe. It really has been a great experience owning this business." Has been, something about that struck me as strange. A thought struck my head and I continued questioning, "Alright, what about your competitors? I'm sure there are more businesses that offer the same service. Can you think of anyone that would be out to hurt your business or your image?" He stood in thought for a minute. He seemed like a pretty straight forward guy, but assumptions weren't in my nature. I had to have fact. He could be anyone for all I knew, playing any number of games. That's how it always worked.

  "There are many restaurants in the city that also serve Mongolian cuisine but I don't have any enemies that I know of. We don't exactly meet up to talk strategy." He smiled cockily at his good track record. "One last question Joshua, and then you’re free to go ok? Do you have any family or anyone close to you that may have a problem with your business here, anything new that has changed recently?" He glared at me like I had hit a nerve and I knew there was an answer that wasn't going to be very comfortable coming. "Look Rachel, I don't know what you're getting at here but my family has nothing to do with this." I retorted ready to fight to get my answer," Joshua I know this is difficult but I need to know everything to solve this murder."

  "Questioning is over lady, good day to you." He spun quickly and started walking away briskly.

  I stood there dumbfounded when Jake jogged across the street. "So...how'd it go?" He had a twisted grin on his face like he knew something I didn't.

  "You're an ass you know that?" I spat out, disturbed and angry that I didn't get my answers.

  JAKE

  Four hours. Four damn hours. Here we w
ere, standing in a hot parking lot, not a food truck in sight. Didn't cops like to eat once in a while? I threw down my cigarette butt and walked toward the nearest blue solider. Rach wasn't talking to me since her spouting off at the mouth; she was looking at her phone in the car. This meant I couldn’t take said car to a gas station. Maybe one of these cops could lend me a doughnut. I leaned against a lamp post and started to talk with one who looked semi intelligent.

  "Any place around here where I could get something to eat?"

  The cop looked a little startled. "Are you talking to me?" He asked.

  My earlier assessment of his intelligence might have been generous.

  "Sure am," I said. "Unless someone I can't see is here."

  "There's a fast food place about three miles away. You have to cross the highway though."

  Dodging cars was not my idea of a good time even for a burger.

  "You two are detectives aren't you? You and that woman."

  "She's the detective, I just help her out."

  “I've heard about her,” the cop said “She solved the vanishing library case."

  She had. Took her almost all of the summer, but she had. I turned my head from side to side.

  “Where is Detective Rodriguez?”

  The cop looked more confused than ever. “I’m sorry?” he asked.

  “Rodriguez. Tall guy, Hispanic. Thinks his shield gives him the right to be better then everyone?”

  “Detective Rodriguez hasn’t been assigned to this case.”

  I stared, dumbfounded. If Rodriguez hadn’t been here, then how did he know to ask us to help? I pointed at the cop still guarding the door. “I told that guy that Rodriguez had asked for our help. He let us in without even shouting boo.”

  The cop looked where I was pointing and then back at me. “You must have been what Charlie and the sergeant was confused about.”

  I was going to ask what that meant when it all began to come clear for me. Rach, somehow, had known about the crime. We had shown up, uninvited. The guy in charge must have known about the work we do and let us in. My boss had been keeping secrets and there was no way I was going to let that stand.