Deadly Ruse Read online

  A MAC McCLELLAN MYSTERY

  DEADLY

  RUSE

  E. MICHAEL HELMS

  Published 2014 by Seventh Street Books®, an imprint of Prometheus Books

  Deadly Ruse. Copyright © 2014 by E. Michael Helms. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations em bodied in critical articles and reviews.

  The characters, organizations, companies, products, and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, or organizations or companies, currently or previously existing, or existing product names is coincidental and is not intended by the author.

  Cover design by Grace M. Conti-Zilsberger

  Cover image © Media Bakery

  Inquiries should be addressed to

  Seventh Street Books

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  Amherst, New York 14228

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  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  Helms, E. Michael.

  Deadly ruse : a Mac McClellan mystery / by E. Michael Helms.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-61614-009-0 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-61614-077-9 (ebook)

  1. Retired military personnel—Fiction. 2. Marines—Fiction. 3. Florida

  Panhandle (Fla.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3608.E4653D434 2014

  813’.6—dc23

  2014023931

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my daughters, Melissa Ellis and Melanie McMillan.

  Thank you both for your unconditional love and support.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  I’d never been a big believer in coincidence until the night Kate Bell and I strolled out of O’Malley’s Theater after watching Dead Man Walking.

  O’Malley’s shows classics from yesteryear and other oldies, and instead of row after row of conventional seating, tables and chairs occupy most of the auditorium, where couples or small groups can enjoy dinner while viewing the night’s offering of cinematic magic.

  Not that I considered 1995’s Dead Man Walking a true oldie, but to the teens and twenty-somethings in the audience I suppose the flick qualified. After all, I’d served with several old salt Vietnam vets during my career with the Marines, and to me the Vietnam War was ancient history, much like World War II and Korea had been to the younger set. It’s all relative.

  I’m not much of a Sean Penn fan, although I think he’s a fine actor. I guess it’s his politics that rub me the wrong way. But Kate’s a big fan, and any excuse to spend time with her is good enough for me. We enjoyed grilled grouper sandwiches with the trimmings and a pitcher of beer while I suffered through the movie.

  When R. Lee Ermey (a career Marine himself), who played the rape/murder victim’s father, tossed do-gooder Sister Helen out of his house I almost cheered, while the scene brought Kate to tears. Ugh. And when they finally strapped Matthew Poncelet’s no-good lying ass into Gruesome Gertie and fried the bastard, I did let slip a rather loud “Ooraah!” From the look she gave me, I thought Kate was going to slap the taste out of my mouth.

  “You just don’t get it, Mac,” she said, still dabbing at her eyes with a napkin as we left the theater and stepped into the cool, early-spring night air.

  “Sure I get it,” I countered as we strolled down the sidewalk toward my Silverado. “He raped that girl and murdered her and her boyfriend. Then they fried his butt. What’s not to get?”

  Kate reached over and pinched my arm. “You’re about as sentimental as Godzilla. I don’t know why you even—

  “Dang,” she said, interrupting herself, “I forgot my purse.”

  Kate turned and rushed back into O’Malley’s, leaving me several steps behind. Just as I stopped under the marquee I sidestepped a tall, dark-haired man and bumped head-on into an attractive redhead clutching his arm. She was wearing a tight black pantsuit that did nothing to hide a knockout figure.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, standing aside as they hurried down the sidewalk. I forced my eyes back into their sockets and rushed through the door after Kate. She had stopped dead in her tracks between the concession stand and the doorway leading into the auditorium and was shaking like she’d been poleaxed. I double-timed to her side, hoping she wasn’t having a heretofore-unmentioned epileptic fit or some similar medical malfunction.

  “What’s the matter?” I said, quickly wrapping an arm around Kate to steady her. She’d turned as pale as the mound of popcorn in the theater’s popper.

  “That man,” she said, just as her legs buckled. I caught her with my other arm and pulled her close. She trembled against my chest, her ragged breath coming in rushes. “That was...” and just like that she fainted.

  With an usher’s help I managed to get Kate to a chair inside the theater. I sent the young man after Kate’s purse as another usher arrived with a cool, damp cloth. I wiped Kate’s face with the cloth and declined the young lady’s offer to call 911 since Kate’s breathing had calmed and she was beginning to show signs of coming around. Her eyes fluttered several times and then opened. In a few seconds she sat upright and glanced around.

  “What in the world?” she said, looking confused.

  “You fainted. How’re you feeling?”

  “Okay.” She still looked woozy.

  “You sure? I can call a doctor.”

  “No, I’m fine.” Then her eyes grew wide and she looked around the theater, turning her head this way and that. “That man I passed in the lobby... it was Wes!”

  Okay, I don’t claim to be the brightest star in the celestials, but in our months together I was pretty damn sure I’d never heard Kate mention any Wes before. Who the hell was this guy Wes? I felt like a contestant on Jeopardy. Then the lightbulb flashed on—her late boyfriend, Wes Harrison, who had drowned over a decade ago in a boating accident.

  “Kate, listen to me. That couldn’t have been Wes. Wes is dead.” A reasonable enough conclusion, I thought.

  “No, no... you don’t understand,” Kate said, making about as much sense to me as her feelings of compassion for the killer in the movie we’d just seen. “That really was Wes!”

  Kate had a wild look in her eyes, an expression I’d never seen on her face before. For a minute I thought she was going to keel over again. I grabbed her by both shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. She was still milky pale. “Kate, please listen. Wes drowned in a boating accident, remember?”

  Kate nodded. “But it was Wes.” She stared
at me like I’d just stepped onto Earth from an alien spaceship. “You don’t get it, Mac,” she said, her voice breaking up.

  Now where had I heard that before? Oh yeah, out on the sidewalk a few minutes earlier heading for my pickup while Kate was informing me what a lousy movie critic I was. “Okay. What don’t I get?”

  Kate turned and stared toward the lobby for a long moment and shook her head. “Dang, Mac, Wes is still alive!”

  CHAPTER 2

  By the time I dropped Kate off at her house I’d almost convinced her that seeing Wes Harrison was most likely a simple case of mistaken identity, “almost” being the operative word. I knew she wasn’t fully convinced that her eyes or mind had played a cruel trick on her, but she’d calmed down enough to promise to chew on my explanation for a while.

  Tomorrow being Saturday, Kate had to be at her job at Gillman’s Marina by six-thirty, so we called it a night. After making plans to meet for dinner and drinks after work, and a less-than-romantic good-night kiss, I drove to Gulf Pines Campground and my twenty-two-foot Grey Wolf camper trailer that I called home.

  It was a quarter to eleven when I unlocked the door and stepped inside, but I wasn’t the least bit sleepy. Kate believing she’d actually seen a dead man walking had me wound tight. Undressing to my socks and skivvies, I put on a sweat suit and my house slippers. I opened a cabinet door next to the sink, grabbed a tumbler, and poured myself a hefty three fingers of single-malt Scotch from a bottle of The Dalmore I kept on hand for special occasions. I figured Kate seeing a ghost from her past qualified. I stepped outside into the chilly night and took a seat atop the picnic table that serves as the centerpiece of my front yard, such as it is.

  Spring had officially arrived five days ago, but a late cold front made the past few nights feel more like winter along the Gulf Coast of the Florida Panhandle. I took a sip of the smooth twelve-year-old whiskey and stared through the pines at the stars dazzling the black sky like a million fine-cut diamonds. Another month would mark the first anniversary of my retirement from the Marine Corps after twenty-four years of service, and I still hadn’t figured out what to do with the rest of my life. The Marines had been my home since the day after I turned eighteen, and at times I still felt like a homeless waif.

  Last spring, shortly after departing Camp Lejeune and the Corps, I’d come to St. George, a small coastal town that wealthy retirees were bent on transforming from a sleepy fishing village into a mecca for artsier tastes. I’d planned to spend a couple of weeks fishing and lazing on the beach while mapping out my future. I’ll spare the details, but finding a body one morning while fishing for speckled trout near Five-Mile Island, and the consequences that followed, had prompted me to stay. Okay, meeting Kate Bell had a little something to do with my decision, too.

  Kate. I sipped more Scotch and thought about her fainting spell earlier tonight and how upset she’d been. Kate is no wimp, anything but, so she must’ve really been convinced she’d seen this Harrison guy. That was impossible, of course; the man had been dead for twelve years, and I don’t believe in ghosts. But what if it was him? Did that mean the others were alive, too? There had been three guys aboard the boat that day, if I remembered her brief account of the incident correctly. Had they planned and managed to pull off some elaborate scam for whatever reason? That idea was loony. No man in his right mind would’ve given up a life with Kate to work some scheme with a couple of other schmucks and then disappear into thin air. No, Davy Jones had claimed those three unfortunates.

  I drained the last of the fine whiskey and headed for the warmth of the trailer. I felt a shiver run down my spine as the wind moaned through the swaying pine tops. Damned if it didn’t sound like a ghost.

  Because she’d opened the store that morning and the busy season hadn’t yet arrived for the marina, Kate got off work at four that afternoon. We’d agreed to meet at four-thirty at St. George’s most popular hangout, The Green Parrot Bar and Grill, for happy hour and an early dinner. Saturday night was also karaoke night on the back deck, so there wouldn’t be a dull moment, not that there was ever a dull moment when I spent time with Kate. Hell, I might even decide to sing myself if the mood struck and I got buzzed enough.

  I’d been helping Jerry Meadows move a new food cooler into the campground office/store that afternoon and was running a few minutes late. Jerry and his wife, Donna, own and operate Gulf Pines. I’d rented site 44 from them for almost a year, and we’d become fast friends. They were like the favorite aunt and uncle I’d never had.

  It was pushing five by the time I parked, and I hurried across the Parrot’s lot. I saw J.D. Owens coming down the wooden crossover that spans the dunes to protect them and the sea oats from foot traffic. He was leading a bedraggled but attractive young lady by the arm. As they crossed the sidewalk and stepped onto the pavement, I could see that his hand, firmly gripping her bicep, covered a tattoo. In my quick head-to-toe survey I also noticed her belly button and left eyebrow were pierced. She looked eighteen, twenty at the most, and like a lot of young beachgoers trying to get a head start on a tan, she wasn’t exactly dressed for the weather. She was decked out in flip-flops, ragged hip-hugging denim short-shorts that were way beyond tight, and a print midriff-baring tank top at least two sizes too small. The top barely covered what it was designed to cover, and there was enough cleavage showing to cause a blind man to wander into rush-hour traffic. A pair of hummingbirds hovered over flowery vines at the tank top’s strategic points. Lucky hummers.

  “Hey, Mr. McClellan,” J.D. greeted me with a grin. I still couldn’t convince the lanky young police officer to call me Mac, even though he’d saved my bacon last summer.

  “Sergeant Owens,” I said, giving him tit for tat. J.D. had been awarded a medal of valor and a meritorious promotion to sergeant when he helped me bust up a drug operation last summer that was indirectly related to the body I’d found.

  J.D. flushed. He hadn’t taken well to being hailed a hero by the community or being addressed by his lofty new rank, for that matter.

  “Who’s your friend?” I was trying hard not to stare at the girl, who was tall but still a head shorter than J.D.

  He gave the girl a quick glance. “Oh. This is Dakota, my cousin. Boyfriend trouble. Her and some girl got into a little altercation down on the beach, so I’m taking her home.” He turned a couple of shades deeper. “Her house, I mean, not mine.”

  Dakota made a throaty noise that might’ve been a growl and blew a strand of tangled, bleached-blonde hair out of her big brown eyes. It was only then I noticed the purplish mouse below her right eye and a small split on her full upper lip still seeping blood. “Hey, I know you,” she said. She flicked out her tongue—also pierced—and licked at the blood. “You’re the guy that found Maddie Harper’s body. I saw you and J.D. on TV the night y’all played hero busting them drug dudes.”

  A well-known local family had made a fortune smuggling drugs into the area for years via their commercial fishing fleet. Their son, Maddie’s boyfriend, had gotten greedy. His solo venture into the marijuana trade had ended tragically.

  “Nice to meet you, Dakota,” I said, trying my best to keep my eyes above her chin, which was no easy task. She flashed a curled-lip Elvis snarl.

  I turned my attention to J.D. “I need to talk to you about something. Give me a call when you get some time.”

  “Yes, sir,” J.D. said, giving Cousin Dakota a “let’s go” tug.

  “Ouch, you bastard!” she spat as they passed by me, heading for J.D.’s blue and white cruiser. “Friggin’ pig!”

  “One foot in front of the other,” I muttered, heading for the stairs leading down to the back deck and fighting the urge to turn around, “just one foot in front of the other.”

  Kate was waiting at our favorite table next to the rail overlooking the beach, sipping on a glass of white wine. I half-expected her to be pissed because I was thirty minutes late, but when she spotted me coming her way she greeted me with that special smile of hers.
I was glad to see she seemed to be in a good mood, especially after last night’s drama.

  “Dang, Mac, you missed the show,” Kate said as I sat down opposite her, the cute, tiny gap between her front teeth highlighting the smile still spread across her face. The glow from the orange ball of sun just starting to touch the gulf’s horizon highlighted her shoulder-length auburn hair.

  “Yeah? What show?”

  Kate waved a hand toward the beach. “A catfight on the beach, just past the volleyball net about fifteen minutes ago. This pretty brunette was catching rays with a guy when some scruffy-looking blonde walked up cussing like a sailor and started kicking sand all over them. The girl on the blanket jumped up and the two of them went at it. They were throwing punches and pulling hair like a couple of pro wrestlers.”

  I grinned. “Yeah? How come The Fabulous Moolah didn’t step in and break it up?” Kate’s brothers had dubbed their tomboy sister “The Fabulous Moolah” when they were kids, in honor of Lillian Ellison, one of the greatest lady wrestlers of all time. I’d learned this valuable tidbit from Kate’s younger brother, Mark, when he’d done a big favor for us during the case I’d stumbled into last summer.

  Kate half-rolled her eyes. “Very funny, Mac, ha ha. Anyway, the girl in the bikini almost lost her top. If J.D. Owens hadn’t shown up when he did, somebody might’ve really gotten hurt.”

  My grin stayed intact as the image of bouncing female anatomy flashed through my mind. “Who won?”

  Kate hesitated and arched her brow. “Nobody, thanks to J.D. I would’ve put my money on the blonde, though. What’s with the guilty look?”

  I couldn’t help myself. “You mean the girl wearing short-shorts and a tank top with hummingbirds hovering on her chest?”

  Kate’s brow rose higher. “Let me guess. You ran into J.D. and the half-dressed perpetrator out front.”

  I grinned again and nodded. “That ‘scruffy blonde’ J.D. busted is his cousin, Dakota. Talk about kissing cousins.”