Smoked (The Alex Harris Mystery Series) (29 page)

There didn’t seem to be anything else to do. After thirty minutes of sitting alone with a murderer I just wanted to be alone and so I left the office under the startled stares of my office mates and went home.

Sometime around midnight, I heard John come into the bedroom and crawl in beside me. He moved close to me and wrapped me in his arms.

“John, are you okay? Has something else happened?” I whispered in the dark.

“Deanna Moffet went home, closed the garage door and left the car running. She’s dead.”

A few days before Thanksgiving I stopped by Sergei’s shop. If the news of the murders had in any way sullied his reputation you couldn’t tell by the number of customers standing in line; if anything it seemed to have brought in more people ghoulishly hoping to get a glimpse of the philandering butcher who juggled women like he did pieces of meat. I ordered a half a sandwich and a cup of soup and some tea and took a seat in the little café area. I had a few things to say to Sergei Kravec and was prepared to wait all day if need be.

Ellery Kravec was thrilled her mother’s killer was found and that her father wasn’t going to prison. She felt now that it was all over she could get on with her life and informed me she had gone to the movies and dinner with some friends over the weekend. I knew she would be okay. She even offered to loan me money to expand my business to include an investigation department, but I assured her I was happy with the way things were.

Ryan Reynolds, the former PayAcc employee, not the actor, was arrested for drug trafficking. The shipments from China, in addition to cheap faux vegan products also contained contraband prescription drugs, which, as it turned out, was the true reason for starting the Vegan View. He had planned all along to sell the drugs on the site under the guise of vegan-certified products using an ingenious coding system. The site was of course shut down and Ryan’s TV offer was rescinded. There would only be one Ryan Reynolds up on the big screen and it wasn’t the one from Indian Cove.

George Shruder decided to stay in the home he had lived in all his life and told the developer he would not be joining the campaign to change the area. He liked things just the way they were. He told me he had never been a good brother and felt a lot of remorse because of it, but maybe he could be a good uncle. I thought that sounded like a great plan.

My sister finally made friends with her newest family member and was trying to get me to see little Scopes in a different light. She had her work cut out for her on that front.

Millie and Reuben were blissfully happy living together. She had finally gone to see Sloth where he placed her crossed skis tattoo on her upper back between her shoulder blades. After seeing how sore she was both Sam and I decided to stick with our fake ones for the time being.

Meme and her band of cotton-haired friends continued to reign havoc on the senior community. She was contemplating putting together a calendar of hotties with Walter, he of the best butt contest, to take the January spot.

I finished the last of my sandwich just as Sergei came over to my table.

“I owe you a great debt, Alex. If not for you, I may have been taken to prison for the rest of my life.”

“You don’t owe me anything. I did it for Ellery.”

“I see.”

“You may not be going to prison, Mr. Kravec, but I hope you understand the part you played in the deaths of three women. It may have been a game to you, but your actions put into motion the events that led to your wife’s death. You’re going to have to live with that for the rest of your life.”

I left Sergei sitting there looking properly chastised. It wasn’t enough as far as I was concerned but it was the best I could do.

I walked out into a beautiful autumn day. The season would soon be over and I had missed so much of it so consumed as I was by the murders. The sky was the bluest I had seen in a long time and the air was cold and crisp and I didn’t feel like going back to work. An hour later I walked along the boardwalk, the ocean waves gently fading into the sand, the breeze on my face and Riley tugging at his leash.

Elaine Macko is a transplanted New Englander living in California. From a very young age, she possessed an over-active imagination finding intrigue and mayhem in everyday situations, often with hilarious results.

In the 1980s bored with life in general, Elaine signed up for a six-day vacation to London and Brussels in the dead of winter, and found time to meet and fall in love with a local Belgian man and extended her trip to last 12 years. While living abroad Elaine became a board member of a charitable organization and taught Mexican cooking classes to the expatriate community. With a love of writing always lingering on the back burner, Elaine decided to try her hand writing a mystery and after several months, completed a draft of her first book,
Armed
, and moved on to three other books in the series.

Elaine never forgot her New England roots and centers her books in the fictional town of Indian Cove, Connecticut. Each book includes a European connection bringing together her love of both places.

An active member of Sisters in Crime, Elaine takes comfort in knowing that there are many others like her out there spending all their free time trying to come up with inventive ways to kill people.

• Title page
  
• Other Books in the Alex Harris series
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two
  
• Chapter Twenty-Three
  
• Chapter Twenty-Four
  
• Chapter Twenty-Five
  
• Chapter Twenty-Six
  
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
  
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
  
• Chapter Twenty-Nine
  
• Chapter Thirty
  
• Chapter Thirty-One
  
• Chapter Thirty-Two
  
• Chapter Thirty-Three
  
• Chapter Thirty-Four
  
• Chapter Thirty-Five
  
• Chapter Thirty-Six
  
• Chapter Thirty-Seven
  
• Chapter Thirty-Eight
  
• Chapter Thirty-Nine
  
• Chapter Forty
  
• Chapter Forty-One
  
• Chapter Forty-Two
  
• Chapter Forty-Three
  
• Chapter Forty-Four
  
• Chapter Forty-Five
  
• Chapter Forty-Six
  
• Chapter Forty-Seven
  
• Chapter Forty-Eight
  
• Chapter Forty-Nine
  
• Chapter Fifty
  
• Chapter Fifty-One
  
• Chapter Fifty-Two
  
• Chapter Fifty-Three
  
• Chapter Fifty-Four
  
• Chapter Fifty-Five
  
• Chapter Fifty-Six
  
• Chapter Fifty-Seven
  
• Chapter Fifty-Eight
  
• Chapter Fifty-Nine
  
• Chapter Sixty
  
• Chapter Sixty-One
  
• Chapter Sixty-Two
  
• Chapter Sixty-Three
  
• Chapter Sixty-Four
  
• Chapter Sixty-Five
  
• Chapter Sixty-Six
  
• Chapter Sixty-Seven
  
• Chapter Sixty-Eight
  
• Chapter Sixty-Nine
  
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR