Death Sting
Below is the first chapter of my novel, DEATH STING
DEATH STING
By
Bob Liter
CHAPTER ONE
"However," I read from the local newspaper, "according to the coroner, it wasn't the bee stings that killed her. She apparently died from a heart attack brought on by stress."
Maggie Atley, who sat across from me at the fold-down kitchen table in my apartment, lowered her latest romance novel, something about "Hot Coles."
"What?"
"The body was found in a field southwest of town, according to the Central City Press. In other words, this woman was scared to death."
"What a horrible way to die," Maggie said. "Who was she?"
She marked her place in the book with one of my latest past due bills, put the book down, lifted her coffee cup and sipped. She frowned, said, "Yuk," got up, went to the counter, poured the coffee from her cup into the coffee maker, refilled her cup and returned.
"Her name was Vicki Fowler. Twenty-three years old from Springfield. She lived here at the Good Shepherd Home."
Maggie pushed light brown hair from her forehead and sighed.
"I know what you're thinking," she said.
"You always think you do."
She put her elbows on the table, held the cup in both hands and smiled that knowing smile I loved.
"You're thinking there’s a story in this you can sell to the Chicago Times. You're planning right to investigate and neglect work that brings in steady money, work that pays the bills. Right, Nick? It’s your business, of course, but you need money."
When we first met I was thinking I would like to get in her pants -- to coin a phrase -- and her warm blue eyes, sparkling with amusement, suggested she had read my thoughts. Instead of pretending to be offended, she smiled.
Now I admired her freshly scrubbed face. She was a knockout when her hair was teased into a semblance of obedience, and she wore that eye shadow stuff and the rest of it. But at breakfast, with tousled hair and freckles on her checks unhidden by makeup, she was woman.
"Well, why not?" I said. "There’s surely more to the story than what they’ve printed here."
As it turned out there was a hell of a lot more. If I’d known how dangerous to my well being the players would turn out to be, well I’d have thought about it.
Maggie was my part-time secretary, lover and would-be slave driver. She lived with me at the moment. We had agreed it wasn’t necessarily a permanent arrangement, which was fine with me, I thought.
My name is Nick Bancroft. I'm an ex-reporter who inherited a run-down one-man detective agency. I’m a couple of years older than Maggie's "nearly forty."
"What about those pictures you promised that attorney?" Maggie asked. "The ones of the broken sidewalk. And you have two traffic-accident photo jobs."
I squeezed out from under the table and kissed her forehead. After refilling my cup, I went to the office in the front of the apartment, taking the newspaper with me.
She was right, I had to get to work, and I would in a minute or two, but first I had to consider the possibilities of the bee-sting story. How would a woman get bee stings all over her body and wind up dead in a nearby farm field?
My cat jumped upon the desk, sniffed the coffee cup, sat and waited. I petted it automatically, a cat-trained provider. It was mostly white with a black ear and an attitude. Maggie had foisted the stray on me back at my old office. It wouldn’t let me touch it for weeks even though it showed up regularly to be fed. I hadn’t bothered to give it a name. Maggie called it Ruffles until I convinced her it was male.
She appeared in the office doorway, leaned against the jamb, and sighed. "You pay more attention to that cat than to me. I want more than a peck on the forehead when you head out to slay dragons."
She glided into the room, petted the cat, and sat on my lap. Her one-hundred-and-twenty or so pounds settled in as we kissed. I got a pleasant whiff of Dial soap, the soap I had used in the shower to wash perspiration from her body after her usual two-mile run.
We sat, as we often had since she came to live with me, and watched through the large front window as a variety of shoes and ankles marched past on the sidewalk above. Stairs from the walk led down and by the window and its black, block lettering advertising my business, "AAA Investigations."
My office consisted of an old wooden desk, a couple of metal file cabinets, an outdated Dell computer, a Canon printer and a Motorola radio in a cracked plastic case.
"Okay boss, I'll get the mundane stuff done, and then see what I can find out about how and why a woman winds up scared to death by bees."
Maggie placed her warm, moist lips on mine. I caressed a well-formed breast before she pulled away, stood, and said, "Oh no. We've both got things to do."
She placed one hand atop her head and sashayed from the room. I downed the rest of the coffee and left the cup on my desk. She'd see it later, take it to the kitchen, and insist she wasn’t going to chase all over the apartment picking up dirty cups. Life was good . . . then.
The complete ebook is available at http://renebooks.com Under search and author type in BOB LITER, click search and all of my novels, including this one, will be offered for sale at $4 or less.
DEATH STING
By
Bob Liter
CHAPTER ONE
"However," I read from the local newspaper, "according to the coroner, it wasn't the bee stings that killed her. She apparently died from a heart attack brought on by stress."
Maggie Atley, who sat across from me at the fold-down kitchen table in my apartment, lowered her latest romance novel, something about "Hot Coles."
"What?"
"The body was found in a field southwest of town, according to the Central City Press. In other words, this woman was scared to death."
"What a horrible way to die," Maggie said. "Who was she?"
She marked her place in the book with one of my latest past due bills, put the book down, lifted her coffee cup and sipped. She frowned, said, "Yuk," got up, went to the counter, poured the coffee from her cup into the coffee maker, refilled her cup and returned.
"Her name was Vicki Fowler. Twenty-three years old from Springfield. She lived here at the Good Shepherd Home."
Maggie pushed light brown hair from her forehead and sighed.
"I know what you're thinking," she said.
"You always think you do."
She put her elbows on the table, held the cup in both hands and smiled that knowing smile I loved.
"You're thinking there’s a story in this you can sell to the Chicago Times. You're planning right to investigate and neglect work that brings in steady money, work that pays the bills. Right, Nick? It’s your business, of course, but you need money."
When we first met I was thinking I would like to get in her pants -- to coin a phrase -- and her warm blue eyes, sparkling with amusement, suggested she had read my thoughts. Instead of pretending to be offended, she smiled.
Now I admired her freshly scrubbed face. She was a knockout when her hair was teased into a semblance of obedience, and she wore that eye shadow stuff and the rest of it. But at breakfast, with tousled hair and freckles on her checks unhidden by makeup, she was woman.
"Well, why not?" I said. "There’s surely more to the story than what they’ve printed here."
As it turned out there was a hell of a lot more. If I’d known how dangerous to my well being the players would turn out to be, well I’d have thought about it.
Maggie was my part-time secretary, lover and would-be slave driver. She lived with me at the moment. We had agreed it wasn’t necessarily a permanent arrangement, which was fine with me, I thought.
My name is Nick Bancroft. I'm an ex-reporter who inherited a run-down one-man detective agency. I’m a couple of years older than Maggie's "nearly forty."
"What about those pictures you promised that attorney?" Maggie asked. "The ones of the broken sidewalk. And you have two traffic-accident photo jobs."
I squeezed out from under the table and kissed her forehead. After refilling my cup, I went to the office in the front of the apartment, taking the newspaper with me.
She was right, I had to get to work, and I would in a minute or two, but first I had to consider the possibilities of the bee-sting story. How would a woman get bee stings all over her body and wind up dead in a nearby farm field?
My cat jumped upon the desk, sniffed the coffee cup, sat and waited. I petted it automatically, a cat-trained provider. It was mostly white with a black ear and an attitude. Maggie had foisted the stray on me back at my old office. It wouldn’t let me touch it for weeks even though it showed up regularly to be fed. I hadn’t bothered to give it a name. Maggie called it Ruffles until I convinced her it was male.
She appeared in the office doorway, leaned against the jamb, and sighed. "You pay more attention to that cat than to me. I want more than a peck on the forehead when you head out to slay dragons."
She glided into the room, petted the cat, and sat on my lap. Her one-hundred-and-twenty or so pounds settled in as we kissed. I got a pleasant whiff of Dial soap, the soap I had used in the shower to wash perspiration from her body after her usual two-mile run.
We sat, as we often had since she came to live with me, and watched through the large front window as a variety of shoes and ankles marched past on the sidewalk above. Stairs from the walk led down and by the window and its black, block lettering advertising my business, "AAA Investigations."
My office consisted of an old wooden desk, a couple of metal file cabinets, an outdated Dell computer, a Canon printer and a Motorola radio in a cracked plastic case.
"Okay boss, I'll get the mundane stuff done, and then see what I can find out about how and why a woman winds up scared to death by bees."
Maggie placed her warm, moist lips on mine. I caressed a well-formed breast before she pulled away, stood, and said, "Oh no. We've both got things to do."
She placed one hand atop her head and sashayed from the room. I downed the rest of the coffee and left the cup on my desk. She'd see it later, take it to the kitchen, and insist she wasn’t going to chase all over the apartment picking up dirty cups. Life was good . . . then.
The complete ebook is available at http://renebooks.com Under search and author type in BOB LITER, click search and all of my novels, including this one, will be offered for sale at $4 or less.
posted by Bob Liter at 8:07 AM
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