The Beholder, a Maddie Richards Mystery
Read The Beholder, a Maddie Richards Mystery Online
Authors: David Bishop
The Beholder
A Maddie Richards Mystery
by
David Bishop
This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents have been produced by the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, or to any actual events or precise locales is entirely coincidental or within the public domain.
The Beholder, A Maddie Richards Mystery
This e-book is licensed for your personal entertainment only, and may not be resold or given to other people.
If you wish to share this eBook, or any portion of its content, with another person or other people, please purchase additional copies for each such person. If you are reading this eBook without having purchased it, or without it being purchased by another for your reading, you are in violation of the author’s rights. If so, please discontinue until you have purchased your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of the author.
Copyright © 2011 by David Bishop.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or any portion hereof, in any form. Any use whatsoever without the express written permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic or printed editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials or other illegal use.
Please visit David Bishop, his books and characters at
www.davidbishopbooks.com
You may contact David Bishop at
[email protected]
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Cover designed by Telemachus Press, LLC
Cover art Copyright
©
iStockphoto #12854798 Millann
Published by Telemachus Press, LLC
http://www.telemachuspress.com
ISBN 978-1-937387-15-0 (eBook)
ISBN 978-1-937387-16-7 (Paperback)
Version 2012.08.29
Table of Contents
For current information on new releases visit:
Current Titles
The Beholder, a Maddie Richards Mystery
Who Murdered Garson Talmadge, a Matt Kile Mystery
The Woman
The Third Coincidence
The Blackmail Club, a Jack McCall Mystery
The Original Alibi, a Matt Kile Mystery
Money & Murder, a Matt Kile Mystery, short story. Fall, 2012
2013-2014
Death of a Bankster, a Maddie Richards Mystery
The Schroeder Protocol
The Red Hat Murders
Murder by Choice
To be notified when each of the above titles are available
:
Send your email address to,
[email protected]
For more information on books and characters visit:
www.davidbishopbooks.com
Each forthcoming novel will have a new list of titles and dates.
As I often do, I got by with a lot of help from my friends and relatives who did yeoman duty as readers, including Jody Madden, Kim Mellen, John Logan, Beth Eggers, Frank Evans, Diane Kilby, Mary Lee, Ellie Brooks, Dick and Toni Jaskowitz, Dick Houser, Joe and Ruth Anne George, and several members of the Augusta Books and Bubbles Club. My thanks also go to Steve Jackson, Claudia Jackson, Terri Himes, Steve Himes, Lorraine Hansen and all the staff at Telemachus Press who helped in so many ways to enhance the presentation of this novel.
The characters who reside within this story were made smarter, tougher, sexier, or more villainous through your unselfish assistance. They join the author in saying thank you.
This novel is dedicated to my first grandchild, Brandi Bishop, and Jody Madden, whose love and encouragement continues to inspire me, my other grandchildren, Kristopher and Kaia, my sons Todd and Dirk, all my nieces and nephews, and various other in-laws and out-laws. I wish to also add a group of unrelated young adults I recently met, Kirby, John, Brad, Eric, Carl, Jamie, Matt, and Michael. These wonderful young people collectively reassured me that the future of our great country is in very good hands. Without the faith and encouragement of so many, this book would not exist.
The Beholder
A Maddie Richards Mystery
From the air, Maddie Richard’s neighborhood would appear as a checkerboard pattern with medium-sized, thirty-to-forty-year-old stucco tract houses with black asphalt driveways that softened in the summer sun. The yards populated with succulents, scattered palms, and a few old elegant jacaranda trees with their fernlike leaves and soft purple flowers.
On the ground, today had been a good Thursday in Phoenix, Arizona. There had been no homicides and the temperature had stayed below one hundred. Maddie liked the heat or more accurately, she hated the cold.
She had picked up her mail and walked halfway up the driveway when her cell phone rang. She considered not answering, but that was not an option. She was a cop working homicides.
“We’ve got another dead woman,” her partner, Jed Smith, told her. “The killer left the same message as with that black chick last week, ‘I’ll Get You, My Pretty,’ printed in the woman’s own blood. Cinch up your britches, Maddie, the media will be dogging us on this one.”
The smell of simmering taco meat enveloped Maddie when she opened her front door. She tossed the mail on the hall table, jotted down the address Jed gave her and hung up.
After putting a smile on her face, she joined her mother and son in the kitchen. His lips tasted minty. He usually had to be reminded to brush his teeth before bed, but on taco nights he always brushed before dinner, saying it gave the tacos more zing.
“Mommy’s gotta go back to work, honey,” she said, trying to keep it casual.
“Ah, Mom. You missed tacos last week, too. You promised.”
“You know I’d rather be here eating tacos with you. I’m really sorry.”
Despite only being in the fifth grade, Bradley had already learned that murderers were rarely considerate enough to ply their trade during normal working hours.
Maddie’s widowed mother, Rita, who lived with her and Bradley, stood at the stove stirring the taco meat.
Thwack. Thwack.
The large kitchen spoon her mother had seemingly been carrying since the Jurassic Period struck the side of the pot. A goober of taco sauce splattered her apron, joining the remains of many meals past. Strands of the old woman’s salt-and-pepper hair hung limp about a face lined by living and her husband’s death. Still, a contented face, Rita lived to help those she loved.
Thwack. Thwack.
Her spoon never struck in solo. The aroma from the meat reminded Maddie she had not eaten since breakfast. She took the wooden spoon, worn smooth by her mother’s coarse hand, scooped out some of the spiced ground beef and nibbled it over the sink.
Rita, who had let herself go after her husband died, rested her hands on her well-padded hips. “I kinda understood your father being a cop. The man loved it. God, rest his soul. But I don’t get it with you. You’re a woman.”
There was really no reason for her mother to
get it
when Maddie sometimes wondered why herself. She knew being a woman had helped her climb in the department, but she also knew she had done the job. Hell, more than done the job. She had kicked ass.
Her mother still criticized her some about talking rough. To Maddie’s way of thinking, a woman could elbow her way into police work, but not a lady. Cop work was traditionally a man’s gig, and the women who shoved their noses under the cop boy’s tent were met more with tolerance than welcome. Maddie preferred to think of her sister officers as embattled women striving to prove themselves. Even to the point of sometimes taking on a masculine swagger, a choice Maddie had resisted. She liked walking as a woman, the looks from the men. Even the remarks, well, some of them anyway. She didn’t want to be one of the boys; she just wanted to be equal, knowing that to accomplish that she would have to be better than equal.
“You need to find a good man and get married again,” her mother said with bias dripping from each word, “this time for keeps.”
Thwack. Thwack.
In the kitchen, the spoon punctuated everything Rita considered profound.
Maddie liked the idea of having a steady man in her life. She wanted the sharing, the intimacy, not necessarily the “husband” label. A perfect relationship would include that, but her view of the world didn’t require perfect.
“We’ve already had this conversation, Mom, too many times.” Maddie mussed her son’s hair. “Gotta go. Bye, you two.”
The heat outside pressed through her clothing, moisture immediately leaching from her skin. The sun was gradually surrendering to a darkening sky that would soon shroud the city like a net dropped over a wild animal. She started the engine, twisted the AC dial to full blast, and aimed all the vents at her face.
As Maddie backed out of her driveway she saw Gary Packard, her new neighbor from across the street, walking toward his mailbox. At more than six feet he moved with grace, his height mostly in his vee-shaped upper body.
Gary smiled and waved. Maddie waved back as she drove away. So far, this had been the extent of their exchanged pleasantries. Maddie’s mother had learned through the neighborhood women that Gary was single or at least lived alone. Maddie knew nothing else other than he wore tight Levis, had a dimple in his chin, and drove a pickup truck. Yet, her police instincts told her he was a city boy.
Maddie’s father had started his police career as a New York patrolman in the days when cops walked a beat. When the family moved to Arizona, the Phoenix police department put him in a cruiser. His retirement seven years later lasted only two years. After a lifetime of rich doughnuts and poor cigars, he died. The death certificate read natural causes, which Maddie knew translated to boredom, no hobbies, and no self-identity without a badge pinned to his shirt. He had wanted his daughter to become a doctor.