Promissory Payback Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  Copyright Page

  PROLOGUE

  Detective Jane Perry took another hard drag on her cigarette. She knew she needed to quiet her nerves for what she was about to see.

  Another victim. Another senseless, gruesome murder that she would add to the board at Denver Headquarters. When Sergeant Weyler called her half an hour ago, she hadn’t even finished her third cup of coffee. “This one is odd, Jane,” he told her with that characteristic tone in his voice that also suggested an evil tinge behind the slaying du jour. “Be prepared,” he said before hanging up. It was a helluva way to start a Monday morning.

  As Jane drove her ’66 Mustang toward the crime scene in the tony section of Denver known as Cherry Creek, she tried to look on the bright side. If she’d still been a drinker, she’d be battling an epic hangover at that moment and doing her best to hide it from Weyler. But since becoming a friend of Bill W., her addictions involved healthier options such as jogging, buying way too many pounds of expensive coffee and even briefly joining a yoga group. She stopped attending the class only because the pansy-ass male instructor wasn’t comfortable with her setting her Glock in the holster to the side of her mat during class. Since she was usually headed to work after the 7:00 AM stretch session, Jane was obviously carrying her service weapon. She wasn’t about to leave it in her car or a locker at the facility. Nor would she be so careless as to hang it on one of the eco-friendly bamboo hooks that lined the yoga room.

  So for Jane, it was obvious and more than natural for the Glock to lie next to her as she attempted the Salutation to the Sun pose and arched into Downward Facing Dog. In her mind, there was no dichotomy between the peacefulness of yoga and the brain-splattering capacity of her Glock. As the annoying, high-pitched flute music played in the background—a sound meant to encourage calmness but which sounded more like a dying parakeet to Jane—she felt completely safe knowing that a loaded gun was inches from her grasp. The other people in the class, however, did have a problem, and they showed it by arranging their mats as far from Jane as humanly possible. None of this behavior bothered Jane until the soy milk__chugging teacher took her aside and asked her to please remove the Glock from class. Since Jane wasn’t about to take orders from a guy in a fuchsia leotard who had a penchant for crying at least twice during class, she strapped her 9-mm across her organic cotton yoga top and quit.

  That’s what predictably happened whenever you shoved a square peg like Jane Perry in a round hole of people and situations that don’t understand the real world. Crime has a nasty habit of worming its way into the most unlikely places—churches, schools, sacred retreats and possibly yoga studios. The way Jane Perry looked at life, yoga might keep you flexible but a loaded gun kept you alive so you could continue being flexible. She knew what it felt like to be the victim of circumstance, to be held hostage by another person’s violent objective. Even though it was a long time ago, she’d never wash the stench from her memory. Her vow was always the same: Nobody would ever make Jane Perry a victim again.

  CHAPTER 1

  But somebody apparently had made the old lady inside the Cherry Creek house a victim. Jane rolled to the curb and parked the Mustang, sucking the last microgram of nicotine from the butt of her cigarette. Squashing it onto the street with the heel of her roughout cowboy boots, she flashed her shield to the cops standing at the periphery and ducked under the yellow crime tape that was draped between the two precision-trimmed boxwood shrubs that framed the bottom of the long, immaculate brick driveway.

  Jane checked the front door. There was no sign of forced entry. Stepping back, she searched and easily found two security cameras. PROPERTY PROTECTED BY S.O.S.—SECURITY ON SITE the decal read. One camera was poised above the front door and the other located at the corner of the house directed toward the rear of the property. Entering the home, Jane gazed at the gleaming marble floor that gracefully skirted the entry. A French reproduction crescent-shaped walnut wood table stood to the left with a Waterford vase atop it filled with nine strikingly fragrant stems of Oriental “Stargazer” lilies. Jane leaned closer and took a deep whiff of the aromatic flowers. She figured they were damn near fresh due to the sturdy wax coating still remaining on the petals. The heady scent was alluring and certainly disguised the stink of death, urine and fear that awaited her up the magnificent marble stairway and in the master bedroom. Jane steadied herself, fastening her armor around her heart so she’d be able to view what she was about to witness without losing whatever was left in her stomach of the pad thai dinner from the previous evening.

  “Evil requires the sanction of the victim,” she said to herself, recalling the line from Atlas Shrugged. It was a powerful statement and one that Jane was too often reminded of when she viewed the battered and often unrecognizable corpse at a violent crime scene. The way she interpreted Ayn Rand’s words, in order for a murderous act to take place, somewhere in the chain of events, there had to be compliance by the victim. That compliance didn’t have to be conscious. In fact, it was usually unconscious. But the adage that you attract to yourself what you put out rang true for Jane, no matter how politically incorrect that belief was. Whether it be naively allowing the wrong people into your life or putting yourself in situations that are rife with nefarious outcomes, the one who is labeled the “vic” on the sheet down at Headquarters, usually made some lapse in judgment that allowed evil to take them out of this world in a black body bag.

  Sergeant Weyler met Jane just outside the bedroom suite door. Inside, she could see the flash of a camera documenting the crime scene. Several CSIs lifted prints. In the far corner of the room, a street cop sat next to a petite woman who looked to be in her early seventies. The moonfaced woman stared aimlessly at the carpet, seemingly detached from the grisly scene just twenty feet away.

  “What do we know so far?” Jane asked Weyler.

  “Not much. Except it sure as hell wasn’t a suicide.”

  Jane was familiar with gallows humor, but Weyler wasn’t normally one to participate in it. When she walked further into the bedroom and saw the body, she realized his comment was meant more as a statement of the obvious.

  There on the king-size bed was a woman, early sixties, nude, lying on her stomach and hog-tied. Her mouth and nose were taped shut with several pieces of duct tape. One eye was still slightly open and seemingly staring at Jane from across the room. The fear and understanding of death was still imprinted on the woman’s orb. Her body may have been cold but somewhere in that shell, Jane felt as if this victim was still transmitting the last impressions she took in before the specter of death choked her final breath. Jane could taste it in the air—the freshness of madness and chaos.

  “Her name is Carolyn Handel,” Weyler offered. “She’s sixty-two and lived in this house for almost thirty years. Her best friend,” he gestured tactfully toward the woman seated across the room in the corner, “found her body this morning around 7:30, after getting a call last night from Ms. Handel saying she needed to talk to her. Her name is Laura Abernathy. They’ve been friends since grade school.” Jane shook her head in amazement, partly that anyone could still be friendly with someone they knew for more than fifty years and partly because it was one helluva way to say adiós to your pal.

  “Any idea how long she’s been dead?” Jane asked quietly.

  “Body temp suggests twelve hours.”

  Jane checked the time on her cell ph
one. “So about 8:30 last night,” she said, more to herself to make a mental note.

  Jane moved closer to the bed and viewed Handel’s naked body. A yellow stain of urine soiled the white comforter under the woman’s pelvis. A smaller mark of feces lay next to her left hip. It wasn’t unusual for the vics to evacuate their bladder, since death relaxed the body. But when she saw shit expelled, it often meant that there was a sufficient degree of conscious fear while the attack progressed, allowing to literally “scare the shit” out of them. Across her back, written in red lipstick was KARMA IS A BITCH! The lipstick holder sat on the side table, its red phallic crown still exposed to the air, with the dusty trace of fingerprints left around the cylinder by the crime scene techs.

  “Whoever did this, took their time, didn’t they?” Jane stated. “They wanted her to suffer badly.” She looked at Weyler. “Why let God sort it out, when you can take the power in your own hands and make it easy on Him.” Jane hunkered down to get level with Handel’s point of view. That deathly, terrified stare appeared to be gazing at a point just behind where Jane stood. The only thing in that area was a single chair. “Has that been moved?” she asked one of the crime techs who replied that it was in the same spot when they arrived. “That’s an odd place for a single chair, don’t you think? Facing the bed like you’re watching a TV program.”

  “Or waiting,” Weyler suggested.

  “Yeah. Waiting.” Jane carefully sat in the chair and looked at Handel. She had to hunker down a bit in the seat to meet the dead woman’s fixed gaze. “Waiting,” Jane repeated, “to make sure Carolyn saw who was killing her . . . and maybe to make sure she was dead before they left.” Sitting there, Jane could almost feel an intangible connection to the ass that sat in that same seat twelve hours earlier. It was right there ... so close. As if they were still watching Handel suffer the fate they dealt to her.

  Weyler noted that the specific knot used to secure Handel was known as a “figure eight.” “It’s an anchor knot often used in rescues. I believe it’s in the Army Field Manual.”

  “So did the killer want to ‘be all he could be’?” Jane took a closer look at Handel’s cheeks. They looked puffy, but bloating would take a little longer to cause that. She slipped on a latex glove and gently poked the flesh around Handel’s mouth. A soft, crunchy sound was emitted. “There’s something in her mouth.”

  A crime scene tech carefully removed the layers of duct tape. Like confetti erupting from a small tube, strings of shredded paper drifted from Handel’s mouth and onto the comforter. Jane gingerly released more of the salivalaced shreds until she found one strip where she could clearly read the words Promissory Note.

  “What the fuck—?” Jane muttered. In the background, she could hear Handel’s childhood friend, Laura Abernathy, whispering to the street cop. Jane stood up and spoke confidentially to Weyler. “Is there a reason why Mrs. Abernathy is still here?”

  “Apparently, she doesn’t want to leave her friend.”

  Jane looked across the room at the round-faced woman. Her diminutive stature was exaggerated by the soft pink dress that hung well below her knees. Clamped in the crease of her elbow was the strap of a matching pink purse. It was the kind of outfit you’d wear to church or high tea.

  “Has anyone talked to her yet?”

  “Not formally,” Weyler stated.

  Speaking to witnesses to death at crime scenes was never Jane Perry’s forte. Her gruff manner better suited mind-fucking perps in the interrogation room. And when it came to dealing with genteel ladies in pink dresses and matching purses, well, it was anybody’s guess what the outcome would be.

  After a quick introduction, Jane pulled up a chair so she could be on the same level as Laura Abernathy. She saved her domineering, lording-over stance for criminals. “I’m sorry for your loss,” Jane started the conversation. It had become a robotic line all cops used before questioning family or friends of murder victims. There usually was no genuine “sorrow,” but it sounded good and usually made the family feel more comfortable when talking to a cop. But Laura’s response to her automatic statement was odd to Jane.

  “Did you know Carolyn?” Laura asked, with a quizzical look.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Oh. I see. I wondered.”

  Jane studied Laura. “So, you’re saying that you’re not so choked up over this?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant, dear,” she said quietly. “I’m just saying that I don’t think there’s going to many people mourning her loss ... except those who she owed money to . . . They’ll never see a dime from their investments.”

  Okay. We have a possible motive, Jane figured. And it certainly was in keeping with the shredded promissory note found in Carolyn’s duct-taped mouth. “Do you happen to know the names of those investors?”

  Laura looked momentarily lost. “Oh, well, no. I stayed out of that. I just know that there were some very angry people who lost a great deal of money because of Carolyn’s behavior.”

  “What kind of money?”

  Again, she appeared stumped. “I believe it was about fifty-thousand dollars each.” She rolled her eyes. “Carolyn promised them that if they invested their money with her, she’d guarantee them a one hundred percent return within sixty days.”

  Jane furrowed her brow. “And that quick payout didn’t seem a little odd to these investors?”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I can’t answer that.” Sweetheart, Jane thought. Here was a woman who probably used that term of endearment for everyone she encountered who showed the least amount of interest in her. “I just know that the people involved were all quite desperate and the terms probably seemed very attractive to them.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Jane observed Laura. She looked like the archetypal grandmother. The cloying scent of Lily of the Valley and fresh baked cookies was all that was missing. “Did she tell them where she was investing their money?”

  Laura cleared her throat. The line of questioning was obviously not something she was prepared for. “Land to build a condo complex near Playa Del Carmen in Mexico. She said she was the middleman for a deal down there and that the return was so high because the developer already had offers of well over two hundred thousand dollars on each condo.”

  “Did she ever show you photos or blueprints of these condos?”

  “Me?” Laura said incredulously. “Why would she show them to me?”

  “Well, you’re her oldest friend. I just thought that in the course of conversation she might—”

  “There’d be no reason for Carolyn to show me that kind of thing. I didn’t have the money to invest, so why bother?”

  Okay, Jane deduced. This was one of those odd friendships—the kind that goes way back and continues not necessarily because of kinship but more due to a toxic, familial alliance. Jane considered the state of Carolyn’s dead body behind her. If anything screams, “I’m making a statement,” it’s hog-tying a nude woman and scrawling “Karma is a bitch!” on her back in red lipstick, while stuffing her cheeks with shredded promissory notes. Somebody didn’t get their money back, and somebody was mad enough to kill Carolyn Handel because of it. The idea of a ponzi scheme came to Jane’s mind. The illegal high-risk investment con was still operating with abandon by numerous get-rich, fraud financiers, even after the Bernie Madoff scandal should have dissuaded these crooks from continuing their disreputable tactics.

  “Do you think this condo building in Playa Del Carmen really existed?” Laura looked at the carpet sheepishly. “Do you?” Jane said, as if she were talking to a child.

  “I hate to say this ...” her voice was barely audible, “but, no. I don’t think it ever existed.”

  “Then how was she expecting to pay those investors back?”

  “I’m not sure. She didn’t worry about it. She didn’t seem worried about anything, actually. Her life was going well.” Laura’s eyes canvassed the elegant furniture in the room.

  So, either Carolyn was a sociopath or j
ust a rotten crook. “Nobody threatened to sue her or call the authorities ?” Jane asked, beginning to dislike the hog-tied body getting stiffer by the moment behind her.

  Laura let out a sigh. “No. Carolyn had a way of talking to you that made you feel as though you could trust her completely. She carried herself with such confidence. She owned every room she ever walked into.”

  Sure she did, Jane deduced. Owned it on the backs of other people’s money. Jane snuck a look behind her. The crime scene techs struggled briefly to remove the oddly tied rope around Carolyn’s ankles and wrists. Rigor was setting in and when the rope was removed, Carolyn’s arms and legs were frozen in such a way that she looked like she was about to take flight. Jane turned back to Laura who was staring emotionless at Carolyn’s body. She moved her chair to obstruct Laura’s view.

  “Do you know if she paid any portion of the money back?” Jane asked, in an attempt to regain Laura’s attention.

  “No,” Laura declared.

  “You say that with authority. How do you know for certain?”

  “Because when I was here, the investors would call and ask her when they were going to get their money back. Some of them were quite agitated. I can’t blame them. From what I could hear, time was of the essence for all of them. It’s been more than a year since they loaned her the money.” Laura’s eyes drifted again to the action going on behind Jane. She was seemingly repulsed and drawn to the scene simultaneously.

  Jane shifted again in her chair. “What do you mean, ‘time was of the essence?’”

  Laura froze, biting her lower lip. It was an unconscious reaction that often meant one wished they could take back what they just said. “Oh, well, you know ...” Laura replied, somewhat struggling to find the right words. “How many people are struggling right now with this darned economy? Time is of the essence for everyone, dear!”

  Everyone except Carolyn Handel, it seemed. Laura’s verbal recovery was somewhat believable to Jane, but there was still something off. “What did she tell these investors when they’d call asking for their money back?”