One Lost Soul More Read online

  One Lost Soul More

  M. Glenn Graves

  Contents

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  Introduction

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Epilogue

  A Look At Mercy Killing (A Clancy Evans Mystery)

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  About the Author

  One Lost Soul More

  (A Clancy Evans Mystery)

  by

  M. Glenn Graves

  City Lights Press

  An Imprint of Wolfpack Publishing

  P.O. Box 620427

  Las Vegas, NV 89162

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 M. Glenn Graves

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  ISBN: 978-1-62918-219-3

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  to Cindy, with great love

  Introduction

  Blot out his name, then,

  record one lost soul more,

  One task more declined,

  one more footpath untrod,

  One more devils’-triumph

  and sorrow for angels,

  One wrong more to man,

  one more insult to God!

  Robert Browning,

  from The Lost Leader

  Prologue

  My father, Bill Evans, had been the Sheriff of Pitt County, Virginia and the only law our little town of Clancyville had known for as long as I could remember anything. He was the only real, live hero I knew. Sure, I had a great passion for the television character Harry O; but, I never knew David Jansen, so I have no idea if he were heroic. Harry and Sherlock Holmes were fictional characters I admired. Bill Evans was the model for my life and the reason I became a detective.

  I turned eleven that summer, the summer I solved my first crime. It was a double homicide, two brothers, Lydell “Buster” Scruggs & Micah Scruggs. Buster had been my age at the time, while Micah was close to six when their young lives were ended brutally. I helped my daddy solve those murders.

  That same summer was also the time I became friends with Joe Jenkins. He was a black man who lived on the edge of town not far from the Staunton River. He was falsely accused of killing Buster and Micah, chiefly because their bodies had been found in his barn. Guilt by association. The color of his skin didn’t help him much either since both of the boys were white.

  My brother Scott and I got to know Joe Jenkins fairly well that summer. I trusted him enough to believe that he didn’t kill those two little boys. Call it a hunch or intuition, it was my belief that Joe was innocent and I set out to prove it.

  I uncovered enough evidence to tie Donald Scruggs, the boys’ father, Ralph Hines, my father’s deputy, and Betty Ann Greesome, the music director of our Baptist church together in a scheme to make and distribute child pornography. My daddy and I put it all together, or so we thought, and concluded that Donald Scruggs had actually killed the boys. We learned that he caused the death of Betty Ann, and he finally met his end at the hands of his wife. She shot him.

  I made one nearly fatal mistake while helping my father solve the crime. Follow up all loose ends and never quit a case until it is over. Dad and I had failed to check out a story given to us by the minister of our church. If we had done that, we would have discovered that he was lying. We trusted him because he was a minister. Bad mistake.

  Turns out that the good clergyman of the Baptist church in Clancyville was the mastermind behind a child pornography ring. Scot and I were fishing near the end of summer, enjoying the last days of freedom before school began, and Reverend Flowers showed up to kill us. Our friend Joe Jenkins arrived in time to save us. In the process of saving our lives, Joe almost lost his. He was shot twice in the chest with the .38 but mercifully he didn’t die. Miracles still can happen.

  On August 25 Joe Jenkins came home from the hospital. Our family was preparing to visit Joe that day. Mama was busy putting the final touches on a cake while Scottie and I were stacking up the presents we had for Joe. I heard my mother announce my father’s arrival just before I heard the gun shots.

  My father died in our driveway on August 25 after arriving home from his office. He was gunned down about five feet from his car and some fifty feet from the backdoor to our house. He was hit twice, one in the head and one in the chest. I heard five shots that day. First there was three, then two. For a long time after his murder I wished that just one of those other shots had killed me too.

  I lived in a daze for two years. I hated school. I hated my mother. I hated my life. I hated the world and I hated the people who made up the world, especially those who were on the opposite side of the place where my father had stood. I mostly hated the fact that my only real, live hero was dead. I wanted to be dead, too.

  Two years after the horrors of that long, hot summer, a gangly youth named Roosevelt Drexel Washington entered my life. He had just turned fifteen when he arrived from North Carolina with his mother, Joe’s sister. He wanted to be called R.D., but I preferred Rosey. Joe asked me to be sure he met some folks at school and got along okay. It was sort of a deal made between friends. I was glad to help Joe. I owed him that much.

  Sometime that year, Rosey’s mother left him with Mr. Joe. Despite the fact that I asked, no one ever told me the story of what happened, why she left, and where she went. It remains a mystery to this day.

  It didn’t take long for us to become friends. Despite the age difference, the gender difference, and the racial difference, we were close. We spent much time together. Mutual respect. There was never any romance. I was fascinated by him, but it never turned to a crush or anything like that. We did have friendly competition. I was a better athlete since he
was a late bloomer. He was good in school, but never seemed to work at it. It came easy for him.

  Like I said, Rosey was gangly when he arrived in Virginia. When you looked at him, you thought skinny before you thought tall. At fifteen, he was nearly six feet, but he only weighed one hundred and thirteen pounds. I could easily out run him because his legs often would get tangled with each other. We walked most places we went.

  He graduated from high school two years ahead of me and left for the University of Virginia. We had little contact after that. I think the larger world drew him away from tiny Clancyville. He would come home from time to time, but I lost him somewhere in that period. Before I graduated, I made inquiries from Joe about Rosey. He was working in Charlottesville, doing fine, hoping for this and that. My own career was looming larger and larger in front of me, but it was mostly a wall of doubt that I kept staring at.

  I stopped thinking about Rosey and began focusing upon my own life. I had to do something, so I began my own journey towards a job. Towards my obsession.

  It took me a while, but I finally discovered that my gifts were in the field of criminology. People make for good puzzles. Sometimes, if you can put the pieces together, they form a picture and tell a story. I have a knack for finding puzzle pieces and putting them together. This knack comes with a price. Lots of people don’t like me. I push, prod, provoke, perplex, and otherwise piss off people who’d rather I’d go away and leave them alone. Mind my own business. I get that line a lot. But, it’s what I do because of who I am.

  I’m not necessarily a great detective. Maybe not even a good one, but I get results. I have help. I have two dogs and a feisty computer. Not many can say that about a machine. Rogers is a little more than a machine. I’m a private detective with some limited social skills and lots of tenacity. Giving up has never been an option for me.

  1

  It was late August and I was busy reading an early Baldacci novel. I discovered him some six books into his career and thought I’d go back to his beginning. He tells a good story. Exciting even. I enjoy reading good, exciting stories.

  I was lying comfortably on the sofa while Sam was asleep near the chair by the window. Blackie was pretending to sleep in the kitchen. She was guarding her bowl and wishing it weren’t empty. Me and my book and the two dogs.

  The heat pump was humming along keeping my apartment cool. Outside it was close to ninety. It had been in the seventies when Sam and I had jogged at 6 o’clock. Blackie didn’t jog. She was too busy guarding her bowl and waiting for the next meal.

  I had finished breakfast and was already deep into chapter two when the phone rang. It was nearly 8:30. Must be a client. This is what we detectives do. We use our powers of intuition to decide who is calling us and interrupting our study time. I was between cases so I didn’t mind the interruption. That’s another thing we detectives do. We spend a lot of time between cases.

  “Clancy here.”

  “This Clancy Evans, world famous detective?” the smooth, silky, baritone voice on the other end said.

  I was either talking to James Earl Jones or his first cousin.

  “The same. May I help you?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Okay. Talk.”

  “Not on the phone, lady. Eyeball to eyeball.”

  “About what?”

  “The past.”

  “Whose?”

  “Ours.”

  “As in you and me?”

  “The same.”

  “So you and I have some shared history, Mr….” I said searching.

  “You bet.”

  “And your name?”

  “You’ll know me when we meet.”

  “You’re assuming, aren’t you?”

  “You’re curious, aren’t you?”

  He knew me better than I thought. The rich voice was unfamiliar, except for my love of listening to James Earl Jones. I was curious.

  “Name the place,” I said.

  “The Monastery on Granby. Enter the alcove on the left. I will stand and tip my hat when you approach. That way you’ll know it is your past greeting you. Noon.”

  He hung up. Just like that he was gone. The voice had disturbed my morning reading pleasure but had awakened my inquisitiveness. Sam looked at me and cocked his head at an odd angle the way most Labrador Retrievers do. His expression seemed to be questioning my sanity. Any self-respecting investigator would know without a doubt that my caller was a dead-end as far as a potential client was concerned.

  “It’s not what you think,” I said to him.

  He blinked and put his large, black head back down on the wooden floor. He sighed deeply and loudly.

  Blackie walked into the living room, put her smaller black head on the sofa near my knee and looked up at me.

  “It’s not time to eat.”

  She removed her head from the sofa, checked on Sam by the window and then returned to her guard post in the kitchen.

  “Besides, I think this group needs some excitement.”

  Sam didn’t budge. His breathing was regular now and I could sense that I was talking to his sleeping form.

  I checked the time. It was still before nine. I had time to read some more Baldacci and wait for a client to call.

  2

  It was 11:45 when my cab pulled up in front of the Monastery Restaurant. The small trees trimmed with white lights in planters along the front gave me the impression of Christmas, even in August. It was my first time here. The wooden arches recessed in the brick walls really gave the impression of an old monastery. I was escorted to the alcove just off of the main dining area by someone dressed in black pants, white shirt and black tie. I don’t think he was a monk.

  The restaurant was famous for European dishes from Hungry, Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, or at least that’s what Rogers had informed me just as I was leaving the apartment. She was doing background work on my destination.

  I was wearing my white cotton pants suit with my light blue sleeveless blouse so I could hide my .38 Smith and Wesson in my shoulder holster. My comfortable white flats finished off my stunning outfit.

  As I entered a three table alcove, a tall, African-American seated at the table to my left stood and tipped his black derby. He was handsome by all standards you would choose to use. He was wearing a black pin-stripe suit, white shirt, bright yellow tie and black loafers with tassels. What skin was showing was a rich, dark-brown finish which glowed in the sunlight coming through the window behind him. He was bald, apparently by choice. He smiled. He had a faint resemblance to Michael Jordan, both in the hairless style and that winsome smile which you wanted to trust almost immediately.

  “Please be seated,” the Voice said.

  I was traveling light today. No purse. My wallet was in my right coat pocket. My gun was on my left side. Balance. Occasionally I carry two weapons, one attached to my ankle or in the small of my back. I opted for one today. My sharp eyes noticed that there was no one else in the restaurant.

  The Voice pulled the heavy chair out for me with such ease that I immediately decided that three guns might not be enough if he decided to attack me.

  “You said I would know you when I saw you. I don’t.”

  “I’m disappointed,” he said.

  I stared at him to see if any memory would come. He looked vaguely familiar, but nothing registered. I think I would have remembered crossing paths with the likes of this man in my past.

  “It’s been two decades plus,” he said slowly.

  “Since we’ve seen each other?”

  “Yeah.”

  For some reason his first English slang sounded familiar. A memory was lurking. I was searching for something in the 80’s, but nothing would come.

  The waiter came, the same one who had escorted me to the alcove. He gave us a basket of warm bread, a plate of cheeses, and our menus. I gave him my order of water. The Voice was already drinking water. I was beginning to feel embarrassed sitting there with this handsome ma
n and not recognizing him. I studied him while he studied the menu. There was something about his voice pattern, his rhythm, his style of being sure about himself with every line he spoke which struck a familiar chord with me, but I simply could not place him anywhere in my life. Pity.

  The waiter returned with my water.

  “Forgive me for being so direct, but why are there no other people dining in the restaurant?” I said this to both the waiter and the handsome black man seated across from me.

  “They’re closed today,” The Voice said.

  “And we’re eating here because…?”

  “Anna and Adolf are friends of mine.”

  I looked puzzled.

  “The owners,” The Voice said.

  “Oh. So, we can order anything off of the menu?” I said to the waiter.

  “No, ma’am,” the waiter said.

  “I took the liberty of arranging this ahead of time. We’ll begin with a Hungarian Goulash Soup. It’s a deliciously hearty brown broth with a generous portion of beef chunks. You’ll like it,” the Voice said.

  “What if I were a vegetarian?”

  “Bread and water for you, then,” he said.

  “And the entrée?”

  “A salmon steak drowned in butter,” the Voice said.

  “Why the menus?”

  “Thought you might like to see what they offer, since you had never been before.”

  “And you know this how?”

  He smiled. A beautiful smile. Charming and mischievous.

  I turned to the waiter who was standing by me waiting patiently.

  “The soup and salmon will be great,” I said.

  The warm bread and cheeses were delicious. I wanted to say something, but I had the feeling that it was my host who should be talking to me. I nibbled away as if he were not even there. He was hard to ignore.

  Presently they brought us our soup. I didn’t know that I liked Hungarian Goulash Soup until I tasted theirs. I could have made a whole meal of it. We consumed our soup in silence. I ate some bread. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable by this point.