Rausch & Donlon - Can Be Murder 01 - Headaches Can Be Murder

Headaches Can Be Murder

Marilyn Rausch

and

Mary Donlon

Copyright © 2012 Marilyn Rausch and Mary Donlon

ISBN 978-0-87839-872-0

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Edition, September 2012

Electronic Edition, September 2012

Printed in the United States of America

Published by

North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

P.O. Box 451

St. Cloud, Minnesota 56302

www.northstarpress.com

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Dedication

In loving memory of my parents, Walter and Virginia, who loved crime stories. MJR

For my home cheering section, Peter, Jessica, and Rachel. MJD

Acknowledgements

Without the guidance, support, and encouragement of two writers groups this novel would never have been completed. Our gratitude is extended to the Bob Group—Kathy, Lesley, Karen, and Linda—and the Neva Group—Nico, Mike, Deb, Elise, Jane, Becky, and Kevin.

Our thanks to Romy C Photography for our portraits.

North Star Press has welcomed us and guided us through the process. Their willingness to nurture new authors and promote regional literature is commendable.

We have benefited greatly from our new friends in the North Star Authors Google Group and Sisters in Crime.

Our families and friends have shared in our struggles and rejoiced in our triumphs, offered advice when needed and withheld it when it was not. To them we send our love.

Chapter One

Iowa, Saturday, November 13

Through trial and error Chip Collingsworth had discovered his cell phone got the best reception from the roof of the tool shed on the Iowa property he had recently purchased. The rickety wooden ladder he found in the shed was missing the bottom two rungs. To get to the prime cell phone location, Chip had to launch himself onto the third rung of the old ladder, gingerly creep to the top, then perch carefully on the edge of the tin roof. The November sun, midway to its zenith, offered no warmth. Procrastinating, he pondered what he would do when ice and snow prevented him from reaching the roof.

Finally he turned on his phone and checked his messages. Four from Lucinda Patterson, his literary agent, and one from his brother Parker.

Tuesday, November 9, 9:05 a.m.

Chip, this is Lucinda. Just a friendly little nudge to remind you your first 50 pages are due tomorrow. Hope sequestering yourself at your little hobby farm has gotten your creative juices flowing.

Wednesday, November 10, 5:31 p.m.

Chip … Lucinda. I fully expected to have your submission today. Perhaps it is in cyberspace somewhere between Iowa and New York. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here, but the terms of your contract are quite clear. I need those pages pronto.

Thursday, November 11, 9:17 a.m.

No return calls, no emails, no submission … I’m steamed, Chip. This is inexcusable. Mystery Ink has been getting nasty. Printing of the paperback of your first book goes to press tomorrow, and we had agreed to provide an excerpt of book two to insert at the end. What in the hell is going on? I don’t care how far away you are. Get me those pages now. Oh, and they better be damn good!

Friday, November 12, 2:23 p.m.

Chip, this is Lucinda Patterson. I’m calling to inform you that you are in breach of contract. You will be contacted shortly by our lawyers. All I can say is that you will be sorry, buddy. Your career is going down the toilet. Goodbye.

Saturday, November 13, 10:31 a.m.

Hey, Chip. I’m waiting to tee off at the club. Can’t believe we’re still golfing in November, but it’s a gorgeous day here in Baltimore. Have you turned into a hayseed yet? Call me. I have some good news.

Chip surveyed his property, the homestead of a defunct farm. When people said that someplace was “in the middle of nowhere,” this was the place. The house and outbuildings had been abandoned after the original owner, a bachelor farmer, died, and the fields had been sold to neighboring farmers. All that was left was the buildings and yard. The barn listed to the left, looking as though one well-placed shove could reduce the once-mighty structure to a pile of timber.

A line of tall Norway pines surrounded the farmyard. Beyond that, as far as Chip could see, stretched harvested cornfields.

From the north a black v-shaped flock of Canadian geese came into view. As the birds glided overhead, Chip could hear their loud honks. They, too, seemed to be scolding him for his inertia.

The fields had been lush with waving green stalks of corn on the day he arrived. The sun had been high in the sky. He had gotten in his Volvo the day after the divorce proceedings from his third wife and driven west with no place in mind and no idea of how he would survive financially. Wife number two was suing him for a chunk of his earnings from his book. He stopped in the middle of Iowa at a town named Turners Bend … population 932. “I bet my editor would cringe at the lack of an apostrophe in the name,” he said to himself as he entered the town. He had run out of gas … not gasoline, but the fumes that had been fueling his journey.

Now he was sitting on the roof of a tool shed, being hounded by his agent and verbally assaulted by a bunch of birds. So went life, or at least his life.

Chip found Parker on his contact list and dialed his brother’s cell number.

“Hi, little brother, how’s your handicap these days?”

“Better than Dad’s, and that’s all that counts. Hey, I finally got around to reading your book. Not bad. I understand it’s a blockbuster, and you’re on your way to being the next John Sandford or John Grisham. Your portrayals of Bambi and Erica were pretty thinly veiled, though. I can’t believe they haven’t put up a fuss.”

“Oh, I’ve heard from Bambi’s lawyer, of course. She’s sleeping with him now, by the way. Erica could care less. I doubt she has even lowered herself to read it. She’s too busy spending her divorce settlement in Paris. So what’s the good news you called about?”

“Oh, I was made chief of staff in Neurosurgery, so you can thank me for saving the family name.”

“Congrats, I appreciate it. Hey, do you ever see Mary?”

“We have coffee every once in a while at the hospital. She’s nursing director of the NICU, and quite happy, I think. Her husband’s a pretty decent guy, and she’s crazy about those two little boys. I still can’t believe you left her for Bambi.”

“Let’s set the record straight. I didn’t leave her. She left me, and it’s probably one of the smartest things she ever did. I really screwed up. She was the best thing that happened to me, and I drove her away.”

“Hey, don’t put yourself down. Sure you made some bad choices, but you’ve redeemed yourself now and you’re sitting on the top of the literary world.”

Chip looked at the tool shed roof. He was on top of something, anyway. “Well, I don’t imagine I’ve redeemed myself with Dad.”

“Sorry Chip, the course starter’s calling my foursome. Take care.”

Charles Edgar Collingsworth III, son of Dr. Charles Edgar Collingsworth Jr., the eminent neurosurgeon, and grandson of Dr. Charles Edgar Collingsworth Sr., the world-renowned pioneer of neurosurgery, sat on the roof of a tool shed in the middle of Iowa. His younger brother was now in the place where his family had expected Chip to be.

And Chip, what was he? He was a medical school dropout, who was once married to a smart, hard-working nurse, and who then married a conniving gold-digging cocktail waitress, and subsequently married his prominent Baltimore divorce lawyer. Yes, his own divorce lawyer divorced him! In the end the substantial inheritance from his grandfather was reduced to his Volvo and his laptop.

He had his therapist to thank, or perhaps blame, for him becoming a writer.

“Write down your feelings, Chip. Write about who you want to be. Visualize yourself as a successful, purpose-driven person,” Dr. Cooper had said.

“I assume you mean instead of the loser that I am,” Chip had replied.

He did write, but not exactly what his therapist had suggested. He wrote
The Cranium Killer
, a whodunit about a serial killer who removed the brains of his victims with surgical precision. Two of the victims were an unscrupulous cocktail waitress and a cold-hearted female attorney. He described their deaths in gory detail, dredging up anatomy lessons from his past. The hero was a brilliant neurosurgeon called in by the police to consult on the crimes. Dr. John Goodman had devoted himself to his profession and had never married, although many young, beautiful women lusted after him. But he was too busy saving lives and tracking down serial killers to return their affections.

One day in a New York bar, Chip sat down next to a tall, striking woman in a gray business suit and stiletto heels—Lucinda Patterson. A few drinks later, he had a literary agent. Two weeks later, she had sold his book to Mystery Ink, a small publisher. Much to his surprise and Lucinda’s pleasure, the mystery-reading public was seduced by his lurid descriptions and charmed by the dashing doctor. Lucinda envisioned a multi-book series and signed Chip to a three-book contract. With the publisher’s advance, he had updated the plumbing and electricity in his farmhouse.