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    Free Range Malice
    Free Range Malice
    Free Range Malice
    Ebook140 pages1 hour

    Free Range Malice

    By Robert Oster

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    About this ebook

    Ruby and Perry are two retired New York City detectives living in a condo community in New Jersey. Their lives are turned around when they inadvertently discover a dead body in the woods while playing a round of golf. Could the body belong to a famous TV celebrity chef? Their investigation brings them in contact with a member of an international drug cartel, a local gangster, a paramilitary security corporation and the food service industry.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateMar 5, 2014
    ISBN9781491722329
    Free Range Malice
    Author

    Robert Oster

    Robert Oster is the author of two earlier satirical novellas, The Maltese Meatloaf Mystery and The California Honeymoon Caper, featuring Private Culinary Detective, Phillip Bartlow. Both stories are combined in one book, The Maltese Meatloaf Mystery and Other Tales Prior to his literary career, Dr. Oster, a psychologist specializing in REBT (Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy) and hypnotherapy, had presented a countless number of courses, seminars, workshops and training programs in the areas of stress management and burnout prevention, chemical dependency treatment, customer service, program development and team facilitation at colleges and to public and private sector organizations for over thirty years. Robert lives in Central New Jersey with his wife Judy, a college instructor.

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      Book preview

      Free Range Malice - Robert Oster

      Prologue

      I t was a crisp and sunny autumn day at Cucumber Springs Golf Course as Ruby Bodner watched his golf buddy, Perry Washington, drive his ball from the sixteenth hole tee box. The ball flew off the face of Perry’s Ping Driver in a perfect 230 yard arched hook right into the woods on the left side of the fairway. . . . As usual. Bemoaned the now rotund former New York City police officer. How was it that I could hit the paper perp target in the heart nine times out of ten on the shooting range thirty years ago but I can’t hit a golf ball stra ight?

      Maybe the ball is following the independent rules that golf balls all around the world have agreed to. The slimmer 6 foot-5 inch Ruby explained to his longtime friend and ex-partner from the Brooklyn Detective Squad.

      What rules are those? asked Perry, as he maneuvered the golf cart towards the area where the offending small white round dimpled monster had made it’s home.

      "Well, . . . the maxim states that, On a sunny day, a golf ball tends to look for shade in the woods or bury itself in the deep cool sand or water. Ruby teased, trying to make light of Perry’s exasperation. The rule applies even on a cloudy day because it’s sunny somewhere in the world."

      It could also be that I’ve put on a few pounds since we were young cops together… and, my back problems keep me up at night. Perry responded as the two retirees drove to the spot where the ball entered the woods.

      I’m forever grateful to you for injuring your back when you saved my life twenty eight years ago, buddy. Said Ruby. That’s why I’ll go to the ends of the earth to find and bring your Top-Flite golf ball in for questioning.

      Yeah, . . . well, pulling you under the car when those drug dealers were shooting at us was easier for me in 1985 than landing a golf ball on the fairway in 2013. Perry replied as he painfully eased himself out of the golf cart.

      The two men, now out of the cart, walked into the woods. The ground between the trees, was covered with deep mounds of leaves that had been blown off the fairway and rough earlier that day by the golf course maintenance workers.

      There’s a ball just sitting on top of that mound of leaves next to the tree over there! Perry shouted. Hmm… . I wonder why it didn’t go down into the pile of leaves.

      It’s your ball all right. Said Ruby very excitedly. It’s resting on top of a dead body!

      Chapter One

      Ruby and Perry

      T wo years after his wife Laura passed away from cancer, Ruby reached the compulsory retirement age of sixty-five and had to put in his retirement papers for the second time. The first time had been as a 30 year veteran Detective-Specialist with The New York City Police Department; the second time was as Chief Security Administrator at CCN, ( The Culinary Cable Network ) where he worked from 1988 to 2010.

      The forced retirement gave Ruby enough free time to finish his doctoral dissertation at The Salmon P. Chase School of Criminal Justice where he had been teaching courses as an adjunct instructor on-and-off for several years.

      Upon the urging of his former partner, Perry Washington, Rueben Bodner sold his small suburban house in Levitt Beach, on Long Island’s South Shore, and purchased a new two bedroom condo in Spring Oaks, a 55 plus adult condo community, in Cucumber Township, New Jersey. Very soon after the move, Ruby had doubts about living in the country an hour and a half drive from his beloved New York. He would often complain to his friends that, There’s just so much golf you can play without aching to do something useful with all the other hours. I don’t play cards night and day, like 80% of the residents in Spring Oaks, nor do I have any desire to.

      It wasn’t long before Ruby was in the classroom again. He was hired as an adjunct professor at Rutgers University’s School of Criminal Justice.

      Ruby and Perry had a mutual friend, Cucumber Township Chief of Police Ned Lynch. Lynch had assumed this position after an early retirement from The New York P. D. ten years earlier.

      Perry had moved here two years earlier from his Manhattan apartment to this Central New Jersey condo development when his third wife, Tashika, left him for a younger man. This was not so surprising, since his two former wives had done the same. After all, Perry used to brag that he never had a mother-in-law that was older than he was. Never mind the fact that the once healthy, vigorous Detective-First Grade Washington had stopped working out at the gym and minding his waistline as he approached middle age.

      Perry was an ingenious inventor of small gadgets that would find their way into TV infomercials in the wee hours of the morning. He devoted his full time to what was once a hobby after he retired from the police force. He made a considerable amount of money from these short-lived items, spending most days and nights at his workshop on the top story of a building in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Naturally, his wives were neglected and they did what young twenty year younger wives would do when they go out with their younger single friends and come home to an exhausted balding overweight older man. Apparently, after a while, money isn’t everything when you’re twenty-five.

      The prospect of living closer to his younger sister, Betty, her kids and grandkids, was also an inducement for Perry to shed his urban lifestyle. Betty’s husband, Thad, had succumbed to heart disease five years ago and Perry felt that she would benefit from having her only living relative nearby. Thad Chambers had been a research chemist at the Markle and Fogg Pharmaceutical Company in their headquarters facility in Plainsboro, NJ. He built a large McMansion, as Perry described it, for Betty and their three children fifteen years ago in nearby Princeton Crossing.

      Chapter Two

      Ceviche

      P erry was busy on his cell phone calling 911 and alerting Gabe Mackey at the Clubhouse about the dead body they found in the woods on the sixteenth hole. Ruby, meanwhile, used his cell phone camera to take some pictures of the area where the dead body lay. While waiting for the police to arrive, the two men gently brushed off the mound of leaves and examined the body which was lying on it’s back. My God! shouted Perry. The face of the deceased was a flattish mass of burned skin.

      Looks like thorough acid damage. Said Ruby. "Can you make out what’s etched on the chest? I can only hope this part of this unfortunate man’s torture was done after he was killed."

      Mmm. Let’s see. Said Perry. Looks like, C—E—V—I—C—H… and, I think the last letter is another E. What’s that supposed to mean?

      Ceviche is a method of cooking fish and other seafood by marination in a food acid… usually lime or lemon juice. It’s popular in Spanish cooking. Ruby explained.

      Four Cucumber Township police officers arrived with Gabe Mackey in tow.

      Two of the cops examined the body while the other two took Ruby and Perry’s statements. They told Gabe that they will have to stay with the body until a forensic specialist arrives at the scene along with the Medical Examiner. They told him that the whole course would have to be closed down and more officers were on the way to question anyone who was at the course today.

      Chapter Three

      Vera

      R uby and Perry took the golf cart back to the clubhouse garage after unloading their golf equipment into the trunk of Perry’s SUV. They drove to Big Mo’s Diner, near Route 130, just 800 feet from the ramp to Exit 8A of the New Jersey Turnpike. The diner was dwarfed by the many large warehouses on it’s left side and across the road.

      Anyone one else but an ex-homicide detective wouldn’t even be able to think of eating lunch… after what we just witnessed. Ruby remarked.

      Nothing like a gory dead body to make you crave one of Vera’s bacon cheese burgers and greasy fries. Perry replied as he eased the Lexus SUV into the diner parking lot.

      You just keep eating like that, old buddy, Said Ruby.  . . . and I guarantee you that you’ll end up like… Well, I really wish you’d take better care of yourself.

      I know you mean well… but you should know by now that it’s counterproductive to tell someone something they already know. Perry responded.

      I’m just sayin’. Ruby continued. . . . You keep renewing your membership at the Silver Atlas Gym every year… and you never go.

      Well, . . . maybe I’ll start next month. Perry countered, . . . when the weather gets too cold for golf.

      I was so happy when you finally quit smoking ten years ago… . last word on the subject… . I promise. Ruby said. Maybe you oughta look up that hypnotherapist that helped you back then. You can contact the PBA. They had him come in every November for National Smoke-Out Week.

      Aw! You certainly know how to ruin a man’s appetite. Perry replied. Lucky for me… I have the appetite of three men!

      The small diner was a classic looking art-deco style dining car shaped structure with horizontal fluted aluminum outer walls and a flashing neon sign atop the long red convex roof. Sparkling clean inside, it sported a long counter with round stools and booths along the outer walls on either side of the entrance doors. Abutting the entrance was a small cashier/hostess station. A gum snapping teenager was trying to figure out how much change to give a rather impatient UPS driver who wanted to get back to his route. Ruby

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