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    Mannequin Murders: Jim Richards Murder Novels, #39
    Mannequin Murders: Jim Richards Murder Novels, #39
    Mannequin Murders: Jim Richards Murder Novels, #39
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    Mannequin Murders: Jim Richards Murder Novels, #39

    By Bob Moats

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    About this ebook

    Penny loves to shop, not so Jim Richards. He usually tags along to please his wife, but finally Penny let's Jim off the hook and goes to the mall by herself. While there she comes across a grisly murder. A body is embalmed in a store mannequin and she discovers it. Las Vegas PD needs to get to the bottom of the crime and since Penny is now a licensed P.I., she wants to work with them. Jim enjoys seeing Penny all fired up over a murder case, since it's Jim's curse, now being transferred to Penny. Will Penny solve the murder or discover more bodies in mannequins. Will she meet the killer and end up in a mannequin herself. Penny is on her own in this murder case. All in a day's work for Jim and his crime fighting crew in this 39th book of the series.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBob Moats
    Release dateJan 2, 2019
    ISBN9781536540932
    Mannequin Murders: Jim Richards Murder Novels, #39
    Author

    Bob Moats

    Detroit area resident, Bob Moats, has been writing short stories and plays for as long as he can remember. He has lost most of his original stories, typed or handwritten, in the numerous moves he has made from his hometown of Fraser, Michigan to Northern Michigan, to Las Vegas and back to Fraser, where he now lives. Moats became one of the causalities of unemployment a year ago, and had time on his hands to finally pursue a life long dream of writing a full blown crime novel. Thus was born the first book, "Classmate Murders".What followed was a series of seven books starting with "The Classmate Murders" which introduces the main character, Jim Richards, who has to admit he has become a senior citizen, reluctantly. Richards, one day, receives an email from a childhood sweetheart asking for his help, but by the time he reaches her, she has been murdered. His life turns around and he is pulled into numerous murders of women from his high school who he hasn't seen in forty years. Along with a friend of his, Buck, a big, mustached biker, they go off to track down the killer before he can get to one former classmate, Penny Wickens, a TV talk show host who Jim has just fallen for while protecting her. The killer is also murdering the women right out from under police protection, driving homicide detective Will Trapper crazy, and he slowly depends on Jim to help. There's humor, suspense, wild chases across suburban Detroit with cops, classic cars and motorcycle clubs; murder, mayhem, a good amount of romance and a twist ending.Jim and his crime fighters, continue in the other books, traveling to Las Vegas twice, back to Detroit and out to New York to solve murders involving dominatrix; mistresses; Bridezillas; magic and strip clubs.Book titles: Classmate Murders; Vegas Showgirl Murders; Dominatrix Murders; Mistress Murders; Bridezilla Murders; Magic Murders; Strip Club Murders and Made-for-TV Murders.

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      Book preview

      Mannequin Murders - Bob Moats

      Extra special thanks to:

      To Susan Haughton, for editing my chapters.

      TO THE BETA READERS, Cindy Valstad, Carolyn Linington, Amy Morningstar, and Al Norris for proofing the final copy and hopefully catching all those annoying little errors that slip through.

      THANK YOU TO ALL THE people who purchased this book. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it for my faithful readers.

      THE BOB MOATS FAMILY of Readers is listed in the back of the book.

      ~~*~~

      Chapter 1- Jim and Penny

      My beautiful, talented , wife Penny loves shopping. That’s a given. Me, I’m Jim Richards, world renowned private investigator. Okay, I’m known only around my adopted city of Las Vegas, maybe no further than that. Back to my wife, she loves to shop, and she also loves to drag me along just to annoy me. On this particular Saturday she was getting ready to go shopping. I could tell because she was checking her bank account online first, which was silly, because she was a rich woman and could afford to buy a whole store. She made most of her money from years as a television talk show host in both local cable and then national coverage twice. Now she’s retired, but still rich.

      She was paid well and was easily recognized anywhere she went. Me, not so much. But that was all right, I didn’t need the attention. Penny thrived on it. She closed up her computer and smiled at me. I knew I was a dead man. I usually sat in the middle of the mall waiting for her to come out of a store with her bounty. Which I had to carry.

      Sweetie, I’m going shopping, but you can stay home, she said and went past me to the bedroom.

      I was in shock.

      I followed her into the bedroom and said, You don’t want me to go?

      No, you can just relax. I know you are worn out from the casino case. All the stakeouts you had to endure, it took a lot out of you.

      My being involved in the case of the robbery, murder and kidnapping at a local casino was a long, boring process, but I had to accept that. It was part of the job being a private investigator. Besides Penny hung out with us on the stakeout even though she didn’t do much but watch. She finally got her private eye license and wanted to be part of the case. I let her but watched over her to be sure she didn’t get hurt. I knew she could take care of herself, as she had done so many times, but I still worried.

      The stakeouts didn’t wear me out, I responded, then thought better. If I said I was alright to go shopping, I was doomed. If I said I was worn out from the last case, I could bypass the agony. But I am a little tired. I think I need a nap.

      Good, you rest your weary bones and I’ll go clean out the shoe store, she said with her evil grin. Shoes? She had a walk-in closet full of them. I know she changed shoes every day, but she needed to get rid of them, not add to them.

      You do that, dear. Find some nice sexy high heels. At 63 years young, she still had great legs and they looked even better in high heels. But I worried that she would take a spill off a pair and injure herself. Pumps would be nice. Don’t you need more pumps? I asked.

      Whatever looks good. I’ll see when I get there. Are you sure you’d rather nap than go with me?

      No, you go have fun. I’ll just recuperate my weary bones. I may call the office and see if anyone is in. It is Saturday, so there may be no one working.

      Your people don’t work. They just lurk around the people they are following and get the dirt on them. Such an easy job.

      Your TV hosting job wasn’t very hard, either. You just sat around talking to celebrities promoting a new show or movie. How is that any harder than my job? Besides you never got shot at by one of your guests.

      Okay, I’ll give you that. Your job can be dangerous as seen during the casino case. Now, go take a nap and I’ll go shopping. Let Willy outside, he hasn’t relieved himself yet. I’ll see you later. She kissed me and breezed out the door to her car. Willy sat looking back and forth at her and me.

      Okay, mutt let’s go out and fertilize the lawn, I said as I went to the door. On the porch I watched both Willy doing his thing and Penny backing out of the drive. She honked as she drove away. I stood watching her drive down the road, hoping she didn’t bring home too much stuff. Willy was bouncing around my feet hoping to get picked up. I reached down for him just as I heard a vehicle drive up. It was a mail truck.

      The delivery person leaned out to toss the mail in our box at the road. He waved to me and I waved back, wondering what new bills had arrived. I put Willy down and walked out to the mail box at the edge of the road. We lived on a fairly secluded stretch of land just outside of Las Vegas, and the road was asphalt with no curbs, just a gravel shoulder. It was primitive but quiet.

      I opened the box and glanced in to be sure that no scorpions were hiding inside. As I understood, there are 23 species of scorpions in the Las Vegas Valley. Most weren’t dangerous except for one, the Arizona Bark Scorpion. It isn’t native to the area but comes in on palm trees and other desert landscaping. A single palm tree can be infested with hundreds of the venomous bastards. Scorpions move quickly so they worried me more than black widow spiders. The spiders infested the bushes, so I had landscapers replace everything with desert landscaping. Rocks, cactus and a couple palm trees. It made me feel like I was in the desert, but I didn’t worry about the spiders.  Plus, Willy wouldn’t bring in one to present to me.

      Satisfied that the box was scorpion free,

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