Deadly Readings: A Jenkins & Burns Mystery

Chapter One

Monday, June 7

8:45 p.m.

It had been one of those days that made him doubt his decision to become a cop. Where were the opportunities to make a difference? Where was the excitement? Where were all those heroic reasons his dad had felt were worth dying for?

Surely it wasn’t in the stack of paperwork he had spent the past three hours working on, or the petty theft cases a preschooler could solve. And it most certainly wasn’t in the courtroom, where perp after perp got off on some bogus technicality that never seemed to benefit anyone but the perp.

Mitch raked a hand through his hair, willing himself to get a grip. Griping about wrongs didn’t change anything. The only thing it ever did was give him a headache, like the one currently pounding away behind his temples.

Fortunately for him, the cure-all was mere steps away. Mia’s Chinese Food could fix just about anything, including the Monday blahs. In fact, he found it funny how his stride quickened at the same spot every week—as if fried rice and a fortune cookie was akin to cookies and milk after a tough day at elementary school.

The string of bells above the door jingled as Mitch pushed his way into the dimly lit restaurant, the throbbing in his head starting to abate already.

Hey, Mia. How are you this evening? He leaned across the register and kissed the fifty-something’s forehead. A hint of soy sauce on her skin made him smile. No matter how long the day had been, somehow it always seemed insignificant when he stepped inside her restaurant. Maybe it was the inviting smells or the genuine smile she always had for him. Maybe it was the knowledge that despite a hard life, she was always positive and upbeat. Or maybe she was simply one of the angels on earth Aunt Betty spoke about on a near daily basis.

Whatever it was, he was glad. Grateful, even.

Mia’s dark eyes searched his face closely. I am fine, but you look tired, Mitch.

I am, a little. But I’ll be fine. Really. It’s just been crazy around the department the past few weeks. He leaned his weight against the counter and traced a faint crack along the muted gold Formica with his index finger. The chief’s a bit on edge these days with a new boss to answer to. And when the chief is on edge . . . we’re all on edge. It’s the way it rolls.

I take care of you, Mitch. Cashew chicken, white rice and egg roll?

Predictability probably isn’t such a great personality trait for a detective, huh?

You good detective. I just know your favorites.

That you do. Thanks, Mia.

There was something comforting about living in a town where people knew you—knew your likes and your dislikes, your triumphs and your sorrows. Then again, the towns like that were usually the ones where people rarely moved out or, even more rarely, in.

A copy of the latest Ocean Point Weekly waited for him on his usual table. He sat down, draped his leg across an adjacent chair, and unfolded the newspaper with casual interest. The front page was pretty much the norm: an article on the new mayor, a photograph of Dave and Pat’s kid with another spelling bee trophy, and—

His shoe hit the ground with a thud as he sat up straight in his chair. Johnson and Associates was at it again.

Year after year it was the same old thing. And year after year the town council banded together to vote down Dan Johnson’s proposal to build a beachside luxury condominium complex.

The problem was whether or not they could stay strong against the developer’s mounting pressure and not so cleverly disguised bribery. Especially when all it really took for a house of cards to fall was one weak link.

If that happened one of these times, Ocean Point would be forever changed, the tradition of family vacations quickly overshadowed by the presence of an entirely different kind of crowd.

For Mitch, the thought of more vacationers squeezing into Ocean Point, New Jersey, each summer was far from appealing. More tourists meant more problems, and more problems meant more work for him and everyone else in the department.

Work.

Determined to enjoy his evening, he turned the page on the latest condominium proposal and forced his attention onto the next page, a small black-and-white headshot of an attractive young woman making the change surprisingly easy. Wishing the photograph was in color, he found himself eagerly reading the brief biography that accompanied it.

Elise Jenkins, 22, has joined the editorial staff of the Ocean Point Weekly. Jenkins graduated this spring with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri. Jenkins will be covering both news and feature stories in and around the Ocean Point community.

When he reached the end of the write-up, he took in the picture once again, studying every detail of the young woman—the wavy dark hair, the high cheekbones, the beautiful lips, the killer smile . . .

She pretty, Mitch.

He turned the page quickly, looking up at Mia when the picture was safely buried in the front section. Oh? Who’s pretty?

Now, Mitch, I see you look at picture of new reporter. It be our little secret, no?

So much for his acting debut. He prayed silently for the ground to open up and swallow him whole. Barring that, he would simply settle for his face to return to its normal shade.

Now, don’t go being shy. You need someone special in your life.

You’ve been talking to my aunt, haven’t you? he said, knowing full well there was no sense in arguing. Aunt Betty was always after him to find a nice girl, too. It was what women their age did. Which, or course, prompted guys his age to smile and change the subject.

He cleared his throat and pointed at the plate of food in the woman’s hand. Wow. That looks great, Mia. I’m starved.

You can change subject, but you know I right, she said quietly. She carefully set his plate on the table in front of him and then headed back to the kitchen.

Sighing, he reached for the chopsticks Mia had placed beside his plate and carefully picked up a piece of cashew chicken, the tantalizing aroma making his mouth water. But as he brought the food toward his mouth, small tremors vibrated his fingers until the chicken fell back onto his plate.

He tried again. And again the piece of chicken fell to the plate.

Too hungry to try again, he reached for the fork Mia always left alongside the chopsticks and dug in, his favorite Monday-night dish working its magic in short order. Suddenly, the headache that only thirty minutes earlier had seemed like it would never go away was disappearing almost as quickly as the food on his plate. And like any good medicine, it cleared his thoughts of all things bothersome. Including the mountain of paperwork he’d left behind on his desk, knowing full well tomorrow was just around the corner.

The crackle of his radio snapped his attention back to reality.

D-1, do you copy?

He grabbed the radio from its holder and held it to his mouth. D-1, go ahead.

D-1, we’ve got a J-4 at 115 Sea Wave Drive. Suspicious circumstances, please respond immediately.

A chill zipped down his spine mere seconds before the adrenaline kicked in. A J-4? In Ocean Point? He took a deep breath then held the radio to his mouth one last time, the calm the situation required his for the taking. Roger that. D-1 in route.

Stuffing the last bite of egg roll into his mouth, he leapt to his feet and ran toward the door. Gotta go, Mia. Duty calls.

9:55 p.m.

Nothing at the academy could have prepared him for this moment. Sure, he had seen dead bodies before, but in Ocean Point they usually belonged to eighty-year-old nursing home patients. Not young women in their mid-twenties.

He made a mental note of the victim’s fully clothed body. Not a rape. Her car keys were still clutched in her left hand, her hair matted with blood. A botched burglary, perhaps?

He bent down and studied the woman’s body, his eyes stopping on her right hand and its fully extended index finger.

She must have been nagging some poor guy when she bought it, huh?

Mitch turned to see Troy, the department’s rookie, standing behind him, a self-satisfied smirk on the young man’s freckled face.

I don’t have time for this now, Troy, Mitch snapped as he turned back to the victim and the mental notes he was making.

I’m serious. Why else does a woman move her finger like that? Mitch looked from the body to Troy and back again as the newbie continued. I mean, my wife shakes her finger at me like that all the time when she’s nagging me about something. But then again, you’re not married so you haven’t had the pleasure yet, have you?

Any sign of forced entry? Mitch knew his question was biting in tone, but he had little use for guys like Troy. They were so used to their cocky frat-boy attitude getting them places in life that it became almost second nature. But a crime scene wasn’t the place for ridiculous stories and personal anecdotes. Not for Mitch, anyway.

Nope. Looks like the perp walked through the front door just like your average Joe.

Mitch reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a tiny recording device. Rising to his feet, he walked around to the other side of the body and then knelt beside her once again. A tiny sliver of wood near the woman’s head wound caught his attention, prompting him to begin speaking into the recorder.

Female victim. Mid-twenties. Body discovered by a neighbor. Facedown. Looks like she was hit with some sort of wooden object to the back of her head.

He looked around at the small apartment.

Victim found in her kitchen. No sign of a struggle.

An open door at the end of the hallway obviously led to the woman’s bedroom. Curious, he stood and walked the short distance to the neatly kept room. A wooden jewelry box stood on the dresser to the left of the bed with several necklaces visible through its small glass opening. A bank envelope nearby contained a withdrawal slip and ten crisp twenty-dollar bills.

Mitch raised the recorder to his mouth once again and spoke slowly, clearly. Money, jewelry, possessions seem to be untouched. Robbery does not appear to be the motive.

Releasing his finger from the record button, he walked back into the kitchen to find that the officers assigned to fingerprint and photography detail had arrived.

Hey, guys, thanks for getting here so quickly. Nothing seems to be out of place anywhere beyond the body, but still, we need to dust for prints everywhere just in case. And Sorelli . . . make sure to get lots of shots of the victim from every conceivable angle. The more shots I have to look at during the investigation, the better.

He turned his attention back to the victim’s immediate surroundings. Nothing seemed amiss, nothing screamed to be noticed until a woman’s purse, sitting on top of the coffee table in the cheerfully decorated living room, caught his eye. He reached into the leather bag and pulled out the woman’s wallet. The driver’s license put a name to the victim’s face.

Susie Carlson. Twenty-four years old.

"Mayor Brown is not going to be happy with this one, Troy said, looking over Mitch’s shoulder at the license. With the tourist season hitting full swing next week, this could certainly put a damper on things."

"Look, right now I couldn’t give a flip about the tourist season or anything else. A girl was murdered here, Troy. Murdered. That’s all I’m worried about right now." But even as the words left his mouth, Mitch knew Troy was right. A brutal murder at the start of vacation season could send a panic through town. A panic that could disrupt the kind of business that Ocean Point relied on to survive. There was going to be a lot of pressure on the department to solve this crime quickly. And as the department’s only detective, the brunt of that pressure was going to fall on Mitch.

Raking his hand through his hair, he released a long, deep breath. The very reason he’d become a police officer was staring him in the face. Someone had taken an innocent woman’s life and robbed an entire family of the right to feel joy.

Mitch leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, his mom’s tear-streaked face filling his thoughts as clearly as if she were standing in front of him at that very moment.

It wasn’t her health that had killed her.

It was the not knowing.

And it was the not knowing that had robbed Mitch of yet another parent.

He knew what that kind of pain was. He knew the kind of helplessness that bred. And he wasn’t going to stand by and watch someone else live like that.

He couldn’t.

Suddenly, the pressure he was going to get from the department to solve this crime paled in comparison to the pressure he knew he was about to put on himself.

But he had to.

For his mom. And for himself.

His gaze drifted out the window to the coroner’s vehicle that had just pulled up to the curb, prompting him to step onto the screened-in porch and hold the door open for the man and his gurney. She’s in the kitchen, he said by way of greeting.

The coroner stopped to shake Mitch’s hand and then followed him down the tiny hallway toward the kitchen. So, what do we got here, Mitch?

One by one, he began cataloguing what he knew so far, his voice taking on an almost robotic quality. Female victim, twenty-four years old, wood splinters near the head—

Oh my God, Mitch . . . do you know who this is?

Yeah. He held the woman’s license up for the man to see as he read the name aloud. Her name is Susie—

Susie Carlson. Ray Carlson’s daughter.

In a flash, the kind face belonging to the organ player at St. Theresa’s was front and center in Mitch’s mind, the pressure he knew he’d be facing suddenly magnifying tenfold.

Chapter Two

Thursday, June 10

4:30 p.m.

Elise Jenkins studied every detail of the photograph in her hand. All the legwork she had done over the past two days had painted an image of Susie Carlson that made her murder all the more difficult to comprehend. The young woman had been the pride and joy of every teacher she’d had, every coach who’d worked with her, every neighbor she’d ever touched. And based on the picture Elise held, the victim had been someone who was absolutely adored by her younger brothers and sisters.

The image captured Susie during the Christmas season. Her pretty blonde hair was twisted into a French braid and her sparkly brown eyes were the perfect complement to her infectious smile. She was tickling a younger girl with one hand while her other arm rested casually across the shoulder of a young man who looked a little younger than Susie herself.

It’s so sad, isn’t it?

Elise wiped at the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks and glanced up from the photo to find Debbie, the office receptionist, peering over her shoulder, a frown tugging the woman’s pencil-thin lips downward.

I can’t even begin to imagine what her family is going through right now, Elise said before pausing to clear her throat in an effort to steady her voice. I never thought I’d be facing a story like this so soon.

Debbie softly touched her shoulder. You’ll do fine.

She hoped Debbie was right. But ever since the photograph had been dropped off at the paper, all Elise could do was stare at the victim.

Reluctantly, she set the picture down and turned back to her computer. The cursor on the darkened screen blinked back at her in almost taunting fashion, its presence a reminder of all the stories she had to write before the end of the day.

How’s it going, Elise?

She looked up to see her new boss, Sam Hughes, standing beside her desk. His balding head was deceptive, leading people to believe he was much older than forty-something. But