Baylin House (Cassandra Crowley Mystery) Read online

  BAYLIN HOUSE

  Cassandra Crowley Mystery #1

  A novel by L. J. Parker

  Published by Double-L Resources

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters and some of the locations, as well as activities which take place in the story, are purely fictional creations of the author’s imagination, and not meant to resemble anyone living or dead.

  Text Copyright © 2013 Double-L Resources

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means of printed or electronic media, without written permission from the author or author’s designated representative.

  For information contact: [email protected]

  Cover Design by: Book Graphics, http://bookgraphics.wordpress.com/

  Published by Double-L Resources, Las Vegas, NV

  1st Kindle Edition February 2013

  2nd Kindle Edition July 2013

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Thank You for Reading Baylin House

  Prologue

  Wednesday, July 17, 2006

  San Miguel was a neighborhood no one ventured into by accident more than once. This was south of the river where pot-holed streets, half-dead trees, and sagging adobe haciendas were home to the lowest income level for two-hundred miles.

  Little attention was paid to anything down here unless it caught fire. And the man was not on fire; he was merely dead.

  He lay curled on his side in the unlocked trunk of a Dodge sedan parked behind the trash bins at the QuickStop Market. He drew no interest until the stink of death and decomposition was too much to ignore, and Kenneth Nguyen, the store’s owner, phoned Cordell Bay Police Department to complain. “It can’t wait forty-eight hours; it’s already been here longer than that. It’s driving my customers away!”

  Patrol Officer Randy Bledsoe answered the dispatch call. He drove to the convenience store location, found the trunk lid unlatched and the decomposing body inside. He immediately taped off the area with yellow crime scene tape and called in his report of possible homicide. Within minutes, the CSI team and the Coroner were on their way, with Cordell Bay Homicide Detectives Pete Gorduno and Rob Baxter not far behind.

  Gorduno drove his unmarked police sedan into the convenience store lot and parked in front of the entrance. Gorduno knew this neighborhood well; he was born a few blocks from here 62 years ago. As he got out of the car, he hiked his belt a little higher on his paunch, and pointed a thumb toward the yellow crime scene line at the side of the building. “Check with Morales and Kirkland,” he said to Detective Baxter in the passenger seat. “I’ll go inside and find the store owner.”

  Baxter gladly stepped out and uncoiled his 6’4” frame from the low-seated sedan. He stretched his back, raising one broad shoulder and then the other, twisting his spine to relieve muscles screaming at him. Even a dozen years younger than Gorduno, he had a bevy of aches and pains when he sat cramped too long. Baxter normally drove the tan and white Ford Expedition assigned to him. Today it was in the garage having new tires mounted, so he was riding with Gorduno.

  Outside the car, he leaned down to retrieve his badge wallet lying next to the strobe light on the dash. Then he ambled toward the taped line.

  The CSI team was packing their gear to return to the lab. Morales looked up at the familiar . . . click . . . click . . . click . . . of metal on asphalt: a titanium leg brace under Detective Baxter’s left shoe often announced his approach.

  “Hola, Detective,” Morales said in greeting. “You can take over as soon as Kirkland’s done.”

  Baxter glanced toward the back of the car. Cordell County Coroner Jeff Kirkland was leaning into the car’s open trunk. His assistant was unfolding a vinyl body bag onto a scissor-leg gurney.

  “Finished already?” Baxter asked Morales.

  “Not that much to do,” Morales replied, shaking his head. “So far it could be natural causes.”

  “Natural Causes in the trunk of a car . . ?”

  “It wasn’t locked. Victim wasn’t trapped. No sign of struggle inside.”

  “Maybe the body was stashed post mortem?”

  “Kirkland doesn’t think so. Anyway, the vehicle will be at the impound lot for a while if we need to look for anything else.”

  “Damn,” Baxter said, shaking his head. “Find anything we can use?”

  “No plates. No registration inside. I called Motor Vehicles for a record search on the VIN; should have something back later today. Trunk lock is busted from the outside; no prints on it. Also no rust, so the damage is recent. We got fresh prints off the driver door handles inside and out, window cranks, gear knob, and steering wheel. Everything else is covered with too much dust.”

  “Too much dust . . ?” Baxter’s eyebrows arched. The fine layer on the car’s hood wouldn’t be a problem. He bent to look inside at the dashboard, the passenger seat, the back seat; there was a thick layer of dust on the interior surfaces, as if the car had been left somewhere a long time with the windows down. Any prints retrieved from under that layer could be months or years old.

  “We’ll run tests to measure mold and salt to narrow down the geography for you. If it’s from around here we’ll find green spores. Salt dust will tell us closer to the coast, but that could be anywhere from Houston to Brownsville.”

  Baxter sucked in a thoughtful breath. “Okay. If we’re lucky it will match the address you get on the VIN and we won’t have to look any farther.”

  “Yeah, if we’re lucky,” Morales agreed. “Poor old geezer probably wasn’t supposed to drive anymore and got lost. He doesn’t look like he belongs around this neighborhood.”

  Baxter gave a resigned grunt. It was not his favorite part of the job to notify family of a loved one found dead in a place like this.

  He turned his face away and took couple deep breaths of fresh air, and then joined the Coroner at the rear of the car.

  Kirkland had already photographed and examined the body in-situ where it lay inside the trunk
. Baxter scratched notes into his pocket notepad while Kirkland read to him from a clipboard tablet, “WMA, 60-65 years, 69-inches tall, approx. 185-lbs. Subject wearing khaki trousers, poly-cotton shirt, canvas shoes, no socks; condition of clothing is near-new, mildly soiled. Subject’s hair color gray, bald on top, fresh trim sides and back, not concurrent with homeless population known to inhabit this area. Preliminary exam shows no obvious signs of violence – no stab wounds or bullet holes, no blood; just the usual body fluids expelled upon death, which indicate it is unlikely the body was moved from another location after death occurred. Estimated time of death based on condition of body and environment is between noon and midnight Sunday, three days ago. That’s all I can tell you until we autopsy.”

  “Got it,” Baxter confirmed, writing TOD Sunday PM at the top of his page.

  Then he peered into the trunk. The dead man lay on his side, knees bent, one arm wrapped around a lightweight jacket wadded together as if he was using it for a pillow to keep his head off the trunk floor, other arm positioned with his hand wrapped around a tire iron. Maybe he was hiding from someone and expected to need it.

  On his left arm was a wristwatch – Seiko brand, not cheap, one of the moderately priced models like Tillman’s Department Store keeps locked in the jewelry counter. The fingers of the right hand were visible where they curled around the jacket. Little finger wore a hammered silver pinky ring, gold-rimmed chunk of polished turquoise the size of a lima bean.

  Baxter made another note in his little book.

  Kirkland reached in with his gloved hand to remove the jacket from the dead man’s grasp. He grunted when he had it loose, squeezing something square and flat through the fabric.

  “We may have a little more luck than usual,” he offered, and dug into the pocket. He retrieved a flat wallet and flipped it open.

  “Driver license?” Baxter asked hopefully.

  “No, but an ID card might be just as good. It says Brady Irwin, 3219 Saint Ignatius Avenue, Cordell Bay, Texas. No phone number.”

  “State Issued ID?” Detective Baxter couldn’t see the actual card behind the plastic holder. The way sunlight reflected off the shiny surface, he was surprised Kirkland could read it.

  “Hand written ID card that comes with any cheap wallet. This one doesn’t look very old.” Kirkland poked into the wallet’s slot pockets; empty. He opened the side fold; six one-dollar bills lay flat inside.

  “Definitely not a robbery,” Baxter said, and penned a symbol near his earlier note.

  Detective Gorduno slid under the tapeline with two men behind him. “This is Kenneth Nguyen, owner of the store, and Brian Stupak, cashier on weekdays,” Gorduno told Kirkland. “Brian’s agreed to see if he recognizes the deceased.”

  Kirkland and Baxter stepped back to make room. The cashier held his nose to get close enough to peer into the deep trunk. “Yeah,” he said with a shrug, “I’ve seen him around here off and on the last two or three weeks.”

  “Two or three weeks?” Baxter and Kirkland both echoed in surprise.

  Gorduno leaned forward and scrutinized the trunk to see for himself. He agreed; the man’s clothes did not look like he had been wearing them for three weeks, so he must have gone home between visits – and he must have had a reason to keep returning to this neighborhood.

  “Does he hang out with anyone in particular?” Gorduno asked. “Anybody ever call him by name?”

  The cashier shook his head. “He’s one of the loners. Doesn’t even talk when he comes in the store; just pulls something off the rack and puts his money down. Always exact change, too. Puts it down and walks out like I’m not even there.”

  “He was in this car?”

  “Never saw it before until I came in Monday morning, and I’d remember if I did. My dad has one just like it only different color.”

  “So the guy was in a different car when you saw him around here before.”

  “Not any car that I ever saw.”

  Baxter made another string of marks in his notebook. He and Gorduno would have to spend some time out here knocking on doors after Kirkland supplies them with a photo to show around.

  “When’s the last time this guy came in?” Baxter asked.

  Stupak shrugged. “He was here Thursday, but I was off for three days after that.”

  “Who was on duty when you weren’t here?”

  “James Raglan works Friday and Saturday,” Mr. Nguyen answered. “I work Sundays myself, and yes, the car was here all that time. James left me a note about it. He thought somebody parked it Friday night to ride around with friends and hadn’t sobered up enough to come get it.”

  “Got an address and phone for Raglan?”

  “I called his house and left a message for him to come down here right away, but he usually goes up to San Antonio during the week to visit his kids. He might not get the message until tomorrow afternoon.”

  Gorduno turned away from the trunk to take a deep breath, and hiked his belt again. “You said the car has been parked here since Saturday?”

  “Late Friday night,” Nguyen corrected. “It was already here at six o’clock Saturday morning when James opened up.”

  Baxter held his notebook for Gorduno to see “TOD Sunday PM”.

  Gorduno nodded; the car was here at least thirty-six hours before Time-Of-Death, but not during the rest of the ‘two or three weeks’ the victim was seen in this area.

  To Nguyen, he said, “First seen here Saturday morning and still here Sunday morning.” It was not a question.

  “Yes,” Nguyen confirmed anyway. “I noticed it when I drove in. Then I read the note that James left, and came out to check it myself. It didn’t smell bad then, and it was empty as far as I could see. I don’t think the trunk was open, but I didn’t actually look at that. I just cranked up the windows and locked the doors.”

  “You were inside the vehicle?” Detective Baxter grimaced. On the outside chance this was a homicide, Mr. Nguyen had just admitted contaminating the evidence. Baxter wondered if Nguyen knew his admission had also added his name to the suspects list. Maybe he did it on purpose to excuse his prints being there.

  “I had to do something,” Nguyen insisted. “I don’t want a stolen vehicle claim on my insurance.”

  “Yes sir, we understand your concern,” Gorduno soothed.

  Baxter made a couple more notes.

  “You won’t mind letting us take your fingerprints so we can eliminate them from others we collect. Our CSI team can handle it while they’re here so you won’t have to come into town right away.”

  Nguyen paled. “Fingerprints? . . . I . . . well . . . I thought . . . I mean I didn’t—.”

  “You didn’t know it was a crime scene,” Gorduno suggested, nodding. “We understand that. You’re not being accused of anything, Mr. Nguyen; we just need to save time by eliminating your prints from what we have to chase down.”

  The CSI people left a half-hour later with their labeled samples and two sets of fingerprint cards from Nguyen and his clerk. That was ten minutes after the Coroner and his assistant left with the body. Gorduno and Baxter stayed behind another hour, intending to interview any customers who visited the store while they waited for the transport truck to haul the car to the impound lot.

  But there were no customers while the police were around. To Nguyen’s continued dismay, not so much as a pack of gum sold at his store in over three and a half hours. He hoped the neighborhood bums had plenty of cash to pay for their beer and cheap wine this evening to make up for it.

  Gorduno growled under his breath as the truck drove away. CBPD’s Public Information Officer was not available; Gorduno would have to handle the press himself. His rancor for media people was palpable. Too many of them gathered gossip from anyone who would talk to them, and sold their made-up stories to any junk network that wanted to fill airtime.

  So he was primed accordingly for the ghouls when he walked to the gate at the impound lot and met the small gathering of coiffed hea
ds with microphones, and kept his disgust in check to perform the nuisance exercise in a manner that would make the Mayor proud.

  No, he could not release the name of the victim until the family was notified. No, he could not tell them what facts had been discovered in the investigation so far; the media could get that from the PIO when the information was ready for release. No, they didn’t have exact cause of death; that would come from autopsy. Yes, he was assigned to Homicide Division, and yes, the body was found in the trunk of the impounded car, but that was not by itself an indication of homicide. No, he could not release the name of the car’s registered owner. Yada, yada, yada . . .

  A little after six o’clock, Gorduno and Baxter drove to the address on the wallet ID card. For the last half block on Madera Boulevard they were trapped in traffic behind a lumbering City Transit Authority bus.

  Baxter gasped, and pushed a button on the dash to turn off the air conditioner sucking diesel fumes and blowing in his face. He was already miserable, riding yet another hour cramped in the car. The least he could do was try to keep his lungs from aching as bad as his back and legs already did.

  Gorduno grumped agreement.

  Both Detectives were steeling themselves to inform the family of bad news, meeting Mrs. Brady Irwin, maybe needing to find other family members to watch over her for a while. She would be desperate for answers, and the Detectives would have nothing to offer.

  Officially, they needed to find someone who could come to the morgue and identify the body. Baxter dreaded making that request of the grieving widow. Better if he could find a more distant family member or a close friend to do it. It would not be the first time he had to canvass a neighborhood to locate someone willing to spare the family that pain in the initial investigation.

  Suddenly the bus veered a few inches closer to the curb and stopped, leaving the unmarked police car trapped behind it. Thirty feet ahead was the corner where they needed to make a right hand turn; St. Ignatius Avenue.

  Two women in nurse uniforms exited the rear door of the bus, followed by a heavy built man in a dark red uniform shirt and dark blue trousers. All three walked behind the bus bench, moving toward the corner crosswalk signal. Three other women stood in line to climb aboard the bus at the front, each pushing a toddler in a stroller, each taking a long moment as she reached the steps, to stop and remove the child and fold the stroller, and then climb aboard.