Book Previews
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Welcome to the first chapters of IN PLAIN SIGHT and CROCODILE TALE.
(Transferring file text to this blog alters the original formatting, so please bear with the lack of paragraph indents and other oddities.)
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IN PLAIN SIGHT
◊ VANISHED ◊
Black and yellow crime scene tape draped around Mildred Mildew’s Tucson home greeted her nephew, Max Taylor, upon his arrival from San Francisco.
The shocking news that Aunt Millie was missing had him primed for action, only to tread water while the TPD technicians searched for evidence. How ironic, Max thought, for a crime investigator to vanish into thin air. Retired from teaching, his aunt had taken on a new career pursuing a license in criminology and assisting in surveillance assignments at Ace Investigations.
Her colleague, retired TPD detective Vic Van Mutter, met Max at the airport and took him to lunch while the police did their thing. That morning when Mildew failed to show up at Ace for an undercover job, Vic had used her emergency key to enter the home. The fact that there were no signs of forced entry or a struggle seemed ominous, and he didn’t hesitate to call both 911 and Max.
In late afternoon the detective in charge of the Mildew case allowed Max access to the property. On the hall table her bulky leather purse, leashed to a ring of keys by a braided cord, looked like an overweight dog waiting to go walkies. Max verified that the typical papers, cash, and stun gun she usually carried were intact. Her 1935 Lagonda Rapide sports car was in the carport, its lavender paint as shiny as if she’d just washed it.
Aunt Millie’s guest room was always ready for a drop-in visit from her “favorite only nephew.” Lying back on the spare bed with his feet hanging over the end, Max tried to conjure the physical person from his mental image—a sixtyish Snow White tending to her menagerie of wild birds, seven stunted saguaro cacti, and her ginger cat, Watson.
As her next-of-kin and beneficiary, Max had power of attorney and access to her personal information, but as a bystander he felt painfully useless. His frustration peaked with an explosive, “Son of a witch!”
Watson leapt a foot in the air, ginger fur bristling, outrage in his green eyes at the rude interruption of his catnap. Verbal apologies being useless, Max headed for a colorful ceramic jar that held both the cat’s favorite treat and his own—beef jerky, South African style. Aunt Millie had a standing online order from Biltong USA and happily there was plenty to share, so the feline friendship was instantly restored.
When Watson wasn’t looking Max went back for seconds, but what his fingers groped into this time felt quite different from dried meat. The prize he withdrew from the jar made him whistle: a cherry-sized cabochon emerald framed in diamonds, set in a heavy gold ring.
The design was more suited to a drug lord or a millionaire than to a petite woman like his aunt. What was it doing in the jerky jar? In the real world it made no sense—but Aunt Millie’s world was littered with Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit holes. Right now he couldn’t spare the time to explore any tunnels except the one she had vanished into. Reluctantly he slipped the ring back to the jar and out of his mind.
He carried his tea to the book-lined study, set the cup on the desk next to the computer and lowered his caboose onto the antique secretarial chair. Glaring at the iMac’s blank screen as if it were a suspect copping the fifth, it occurred to him that case files from her investigations might hold valuable insights. What a triumph it would be if he solved the mystery of Aunt Millie’s disappearance before the detectives did!
Powering up the computer Max opened the Documents folder in search of crime reports. The label NOYB jumped out at him, for “None Of Your Business” was Aunt Millie’s favorite reprimand when she thought people were being too nosy.
Inside the NOYB folder, the first file was labeled Case Index. With racing heart he skipped over the heading and started reading titles: The Butler Didn’t, Cuffed, Double Vision … Huh? Confused, he returned to the rest of the heading he’d overlooked and found his answer : ACTUAL CASES DISGUISED AS FICTION. Official reports on secure files at Ace. His shoulders drooped and he sulked for a while until Watson’s piercing stare goaded him into action. If he wished to be useful, his only option was to make the best of the material he had, for the detectives weren’t ready to share their progress.
During visits with Aunt Millie he’d often been a captive audience for accounts of her cases. To weather long-winded episodes he’d perfected open-eyed sleep which he believed had fooled her. Now he sorely regretted having missed details that might be critical to finding her. To make up for his guilty habit and lost time, Max plunged into Case #1, The Butler Didn’t. Right away the ironic humor began to calm his anxiety and silence his patronizing chuckles. Aunt Millie’s voice animating the words encouraged him in his deadly serious goal to solve her mystifying disappearance.
©2010 ISBN13#978-1-61623-001-2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .286 pages
To order your autographed quality softcover edition, contact Molly at mtmwriter@gmail.com
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CROCODILE TALE
◊ 1 ◊ CRASH DIVE
Tat-tat-tat-tat! The Spitfire’s canopy shattered under the Nazi’s machine-gun fire. A second burst ripped open the fuel and oil lines. Black, oily smoke mixed with sweat stung his eyes. Son of a bitch! The massive Rolls Royce engine coughed and fell silent, dipping the Mark V’s long nose into a graceful death spiral.
◊ 2 ◊ CAREGIVERS
Tat-tat-tat-tat! Tony’s eyes snapped open. He needed a moment to grasp that he was half on the bunk, half on the floor of a South African Railways compartment.
More sharp raps on the metal door handle goaded him to unlatch the sliding door for the steward, who was balancing a tall coffee pot, squat tea pot, cream and sugar, four heavy-duty china cups and saucers, all on a tiny tray.
“Morning, sir. Tea, coffee?” The steward had a distinct Afrikaans accent that bespoke his German-Dutch background.
“Tea, thanks.” Tony’s throat felt dry. “When do you serve breakfast?”
“First sitting in half an hour, sir.” The grey-haired man’s face stiffened when he noticed the RAF Squadron Leader’s uniform hanging beside the door. The calendar might say 1943, but for this old-timer the 1902 Boer War evidently wasn’t over.
Tony had only foggy memories of his encounter with the Nazi fighter and of parachuting clear of his Spitfire over France. A fearless Resistance farmer helped him get to a hospital in England, where a flock of charming Nightingales attended to the gash on his left cheekbone and his mangled left shoulder. When his recurring nightmares about the dogfight became manageable, he was given medical leave to recuperate at home in Rhodesia. Miraculously, the ship from Southampton to Cape Town had avoided German torpedoes.
The next phase of the journey was by rail, heading north from Cape Town along the route Cecil Rhodes had hoped would be a direct link from Cape to Cairo. The four-day trip would cover 1500 miles, changing trains in Johannesburg and Bulawayo en route to Northern Rhodesia. The attractive blonde ticket clerk glanced at Tony’s R.A.F. uniform, then at the jagged scar on his left cheek and the sling on his left arm. Giving him a cordial smile she wangled him a coupé to himself right through to Ndeki.
He’d had no time to buy civilian clothes, but he shamelessly enjoyed the way the uniform dazzled the ladies despite his compact fighter-pilot stature. The erratic swaying of the railway coach made it challenging to dress himself with one arm, but he liked the final effect with his jacket arranged over the sling. Lurching along the narrow corridor he found the dining car and claimed the last empty table for two.
Overnight the train had crossed the Matroosberg peaks through the Hex River Pass, traversed the Karoo Desert, and started the gradual climb to Africa’s vast central plateau that was shared by both Johannesburg and Ndeki.
The serenity of the endless open plains gliding past the picture window was fractured by a shrill voice. “Excuse me, I must share your table.”
Tony exchanged his panoramic view of the landscape for a closeup of a nurse’s crisp white uniform straining at its buttons. His growing interest was stopped in its tracks by thick spectacles framing small, cold eyes.
Forcing a smile he stood up until the nurse was seated. “Tony Winford,” he said, extending his good hand.
“Helga van Snoet.” She touched his fingers briefly, keeping her eyes on the cutlery. Her rust-colored eyebrows met in a permanent frown.
The same steward who had brought the tea earlier greeted Helga and asked for her order. “Gooie môre, Mevrou. Wat sal jy hê?” He then continued to chat with her in Afrikaans, ignoring the disabled British officer. Tony had only taken French and Latin in school so most of their exchange was lost on him, but he smiled wisely every now and then to fake them out.
The sight of fresh eggs and bacon, butter and sugar and fruit, went to his head like champagne and liberated one of his few Afrikaans phrases, Bledie lekker!—bloody nice. Forgetting about loose lips sinking ships, he volunteered, “I’m going to Northern Rhodesia, Miss van Snoet. What about you?”
Helga took a bite of toast heaped with marmalade, chewed grimly, and took her time swallowing. “I stop at Kimberley.”
“Kimberley, eh? Have you seen the Big Hole?” To fill the gaping silence he shoveled in more words. “I mean, the De Beers diamond mine. Actually I’ve never seen it myself, but I’m a great admirer of Cecil Rhodes.”
Helga added a stony stare to her repertoire. “What will you do in Northern Rhodesia, Mr.—uh— ?”
“Winford … Tony.” He rubbed the rough vertical scar on the left side of his face. “I’m going to start a flying service at Ndeki, on the Copperbelt.”
Her pale eyes flickered over his sling. “A flying service, in some little dorp with two mud huts in the middle of nowhere?”
Centering the Spitfire’s gunsight between her eyes he shot up her face in a red explosion. When the debris cleared he flipped back, “Make that two mud huts and one splendid hotel—The Empire. My uncle owns it.”
Uncle Ed’s last letter had stressed his eagerness to see his nephew, his need for help at the hotel. The handwriting looked shaky as if he’d overdone the whiskey and soda, but it didn’t deter Tony from thinking fondly of his only relative—his only home—in Africa.
“You’ve never been to the Copperbelt, Miss van Snoet?”
“For what?” Her thin lips turned down at the corners.
“We have some of the richest copper mines in the world.” To make up for his lack of Afrikaans he rattled off the native names. “Ndola, Nchanga, Nkana, Mufulira, Luanshya. Ndeki was the first of them all. Now it survives because it’s near the rail junction to the Congo and Mozambique.”
Helga’s heavy-lidded eyes made it hard to tell whether she was awake or asleep, so he verbally prodded her again like a small boy teasing a toad. “Ndeki is near the ancestral home of Chitimukulu, Paramount Chief of the Bemba tribe. In fact, all Bemba chiefs are called Chitimukulu. It’s a hereditary title.”
Barely hiding a yawn with her napkin, she looked around for the waiter to collect her money.
His need for companionship still had control of his tongue. “What about you, Miss—I suppose you work in a hospital?”
“I give smallpox vaccinations to the natives in outlying areas.” She patted her frizzy orange hair, tucking some escapees back under her white cap.
When the waiter brought their meal vouchers she dropped her two shillings and sixpence on the table and with a tight-lipped nod vacated her seat. The waiter took that as his cue to begin clearing the table to prepare for the next sitting, while Tony gulped down the rest of his coffee.
The train stopped at Kimberley long enough for him to buy some treats he’d missed—Rowntree’s Peppermint Crisp, leechee nuts, new razor blades, two paperback books by Graham Greene and Agatha Christie. Returning to the compartment with his treasures, he let down the window and looked up and down the platform.
The nurse’s orange hair was hard to miss as she stood grimly next to her luggage. She was met by an Aryan type with close-cut blond hair who let her carry her own suitcase to a waiting pony cart. Their stiff gait and rigid faces had a fanatical air that reminded him of the Ossewa Brandwag, a shadowy network of pro-Nazi spies and saboteurs whose anti-British hostility was no secret.
Could the two be O.B.s? Tony shrugged off the suspicion. Combat experiences had left him overly paranoid, which the doctors had cautioned him about. He told himself to relax and leave national security in the capable hands of General Jan Smuts.
The train gave a mighty jerk to announce that ready or not, it was leaving Kimberley, home of the world’s most famous diamonds. Three hundred miles later it steamed into Johannesburg, as the setting sun painted a hazy red glow on the ochre-yellow hills marking the gold mines. There was no time for sightseeing in South Africa’s largest city before he had to change trains for the 400-mile overnight trip to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia.
©2009 ISBN13#978-1-61623-000-5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 pages
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To order your autographed quality softcover edition,please contact Molly at mtmwriter@gmail.com.
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