Murder Mystery Book Series Set In North Carolina
Mountainside Mysteries by Chris Hunter
Series Excerpt
While Barry Gulden was drowning his sorrows at the Black Bear, another man was making his own plans for the evening. He was different. He always had been. His father had seen it back when he was six. It was the way he played with the bait when they went fishing. They always used live frogs that his father would hook through the back. The big bass that lurked in the pond near their property couldn’t resist them as they writhed under water. At some point, his father noticed that he would play with the frogs on his hook, twisting them this way and that with a fascinated smile and a vacant look in his eyes. This had so much disturbed his dad that he overheard him telling his mom about it late one evening.
“Oh, he is just a child,” she said, “I’m sure you did some weird things when you were a kid.” Mom was like that, always stood up for him.
“Not like that,” his dad replied. “That stuff is more than weird. Eating live bait is weird. Playing with animals like they are voodoo dolls is damn disturbing.” They had left it at that. But it was around that time that his father switched to artificial lures.
He had learned his lesson, though. He didn’t want to be weird or different. From that point on, he learned to act normal. He didn’t mess with animals as a rule but when he did, he made sure that he was alone in the woods that surrounded their home. More importantly, he studied people and learned to emulate their expressions of sympathy and sadness over someone else’s loss.
This learned skill came in handy when he was twenty-three . That was when his parents were killed by a drunk driver while coming home from his father’s retirement party. All those years at the paper mill, working his way up from the yard where he had helped sort logs as a teenager to the position of foreman with a salary and benefits. Now, just when it was time to enjoy the fruits of his labor, his father was dead, along with the wife he had adored since high school. They had been driving home in his dad’s F-150, the truck he hunted out of and drove to work every day. His mother had been sitting in the middle of the seat, teenage-girlfriend style, and a local lowlife with several prior convictions for drug-related activity had plowed into them at high speed. They were both pronounced dead on the scene. Half the county had turned out for the funeral. He acted appropriately and received sympathy from friends and family members, but it was mostly an act. He wasn’t happy that his parents were gone by any means, but any loss that he may have felt had been more than compensated for by the realization that he would inherit the house free and clear. It wasn’t a mansion but it was a solid brick rambler built in the seventies. He would also inherit the bass boat that his father had purchased two weeks prior to his death. Now, twenty years later, the bass boat was long gone but he still lived in the same house. He hadn’t changed a thing about it.
He was more financially successful than his father had ever been. As a respected professional, he made a decent salary. As a dishonest professional, he made several times that salary. He was also careful. He made sure to hide his fortune well. It wasn’t in a local bank. It wasn’t even in the country. He never married and didn’t date much. He endured just enough short-term relationships to appear normal. The fact was that he never understood the benefit or even the concept of “sharing his life” with someone. He didn’t like sharing. Usually, when he felt the urge, he simply drove down to Charlotte and satisfied it with a room at the Hampton Inn and a young call girl. He honestly didn’t understand why more men didn’t stay single and do the same. He had only slipped up one time. He had knocked up a twenty something piece of trailer trash six years ago. She refused to get an abortion but did agree to accept payments of eight hundred a month to keep quiet and raise the kid. She lived two counties away and, other than when he went by once a month with cash, he never saw her or his kid, and he kept those meetings short. Nobody knew about it and she knew better than to cross him. Besides, with the food stamps, the welfare check and his cash payments, she did pretty well for herself. As far as her county social services knew, she was a single mother with no income. She would be crazy to mess that up. With that one annoying exception, his life was simple and trouble-free. He planned on retiring comfortably before he was fifty. He would move far away. Nothing was going to mess that up. Certainly not a slimy defense lawyer.
It was time. He would meet Gulden later that night at the Black Bear. He knew Gulden well. He would be there sitting on a barstool by five-thirty. By seven-thirty he would have consumed several drinks. Maybe not enough to be falling down drunk. That might jeopardize the good-ole-boy DUI pass that a guy like Gulden expected from local law enforcement. But he would be feeling good and his guard would be down. Gulden would be heading home around then. He didn’t actually intend to meet Gulden in the Black Bear. He would wait for him outside. In the shadows.
He strode across the thick seventies-vintage carpet to his father’s old gun safe that resided in the corner of his living room. From it he retrieved a model 1911 Colt 45. It was large, powerful and more than up to the task. Best of all it was untraceable to him. The gun had belonged to his father who had gotten it from his father-in-law who had bought it shortly after WWII at a yard sale. The ATF would have no idea of the sale or any record of the .45 changing hands. Probably no record of it at all as it had likely been taken home by a long-forgotten GI. As final insurance, he had collected all the shell casings every time he practiced shooting the gun behind the house. He would spread a tarp out and stand on it while target shooting or shooting at squirrels. Then he would collect the casings from the tarp, making sure he got each one. He knew that although television shows always depicted bullets being traced to a particular firearm, it was usually not the case. Bullets distort and rifling patterns are often destroyed. Shell casings have unique marks left by both the firing pin that strikes the primer and the ejector that pulls the empty shell case from the chamber. They are never distorted and easier to find, making them favored for forensic analysis. He always got rid of the casings when he travelled to Charlotte. He would ride through the poorest neighborhood at night and fling them from the window at random. He wore latex gloves, of course, whenever he handled them. He figured that if he ever used the gun for its intended purpose and the police ever recovered shell casings from the scene and by chance matched them up with one recovered from Charlotte, it would really throw them off. It was a long shot, but it always made him laugh to think of it.
He loaded seven full-metal-jacket rounds into the gun’s magazine and slid it into the butt of the pistol. It gave an audible click. He wouldn’t need seven rounds but he liked to be prepared for anything. He racked the slide, which cocked the hammer and forced a round into the chamber. He placed the safety on. The gun was now “cocked and locked.” All he had to do was slide the safety lever down and pull the trigger.
He opened the door and saw that there was a slight cold drizzle. It was perfect for his plans. He stepped back in and donned his dark wool trench coat. He dropped the .45 into the side pocket and strode out to his car.
His car was the only thing on which he had spent significant money during his entire adult life. Back in 2008, it had cost him $40,000. That was a large sum but, considering he owned his house outright and had no debt, nobody questioned it. It was a plain black Mustang and, to the average person, that was all it was. But the large wheels, the hood vents and the Cobra logo on the front grill told any car buff that it was a Shelby Mustang GT-500. The vented hood covered a 5.4 liter supercharged V8 with 550 horsepower. It could get to 60 mph in well under five seconds and could cover the quarter mile in 12 seconds and change. There were a few cars that could outrun it but not many. He never really loved anything in his life, but that car was close. He maintained it meticulously. He opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat. The interior smelled like leather and preservative. It was a pleasant smell. He turned the key and the engine rumbled to life. He put the wipers on intermittent mode and pulled out of his driveway, took a right and headed towards town. He smiled with pleasure every time he heard the supercharger whine just before he shifted gears.
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