A Nose For Crime Read online

  A Nose for Crime

  A Rory Harper West Haven Mystery

  Noel Cash

  A NOSE FOR CRIME

  Copyright © 2021 by Noel Cash

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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

  Book and Cover design by James, www.GoOnWrite.COM

  First Edition: January 2021

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  About the Story

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by Noel Cash

  Preview of Book Four-Follow Your Nose

  About the Story

  This story started with Jack Trades. I’d written three chapters of his journey before I had to stop and rewind. Certain events had to happen in his past before I could continue.

  Somewhere along the line, Rory Harper and Kix Burrowes nudged their way into my imagination. One story led to another, and I have at least six books planned before West Haven’s timeline catches up to Jack.

  In the meantime, please enjoy the Schnoztopia series. If you like them, please leave a review. It will be most appreciated.

  Thank you

  Chapter One

  The thing about ex-bosses is, once they’re out of your life, they tend to jump into your private pond like a big, ugly bullfrog, splashing around and still causing trouble.

  Take Frank Bothwell, for example. For six months, he’d made my life hell at Myth, Inc., the governing body of all things myth in North America. Then he’d mistimed his change into a werewolf and killed a nice troll by the name of Bertha Van Camp. In my lab. I’d taken it personally and gathered evidence to convict him. He returned the favor by asking me to help clear him on a second murder charge. Against my better judgment, I did.

  After that, H.W. Burrowes, the vice-president of Myth, took over. I worked for him for ten days before I quit. Nothing against the guy. I split for other reasons, but I didn’t expect him to walk into my newly formed private detective agency, The Nose Knows, posing as a client. But there he was, fresh as a daisy on a Monday morning, looking a little like a brunet Anderson Cooper, if AC had been born a pixie.

  “H. Williams?” I didn’t rise from behind my desk. Maybe I would to escort him out, but I wanted to let him know he wasn’t welcome.

  I shot my receptionist, Lucille, a dirty look for not screening my visitors better. In typical troll fashion, she took it as an insult and turned her back on me. I saw another I-apologize lunch in the immediate future.

  H.W. watched her retreat to her desk and closed the door. “I assumed if I gave my real name, you’d refuse to see me.”

  “Damn Skippy I would.” Why should I lie? Myth had left a bad taste in my mouth.

  He ignored the insult. “May I sit?”

  I shrugged and waved to one of the two guest chairs. “I haven’t seen you since I walked out of your office. Come to talk me back into working for you?”

  “I don’t think I could. You left a big hole, Rory.” He settled in the chair and straightened the pleats in his trousers.

  He could save the whole guilt trip thing. I wasn’t buying.

  “I heard you promoted Charlie Bishop as head of the 5’s,” I said, using the nickname of Myth’s research labs of the five senses. I’d specialized in sensory evaluation, specifically odor perception, heading the Olfactory Department.

  “He’s doing a good job. We transferred someone from Munich to fill his spot.”

  Did he want an award for Manager of the Year?

  “I heard that as well. I haven’t entirely cut off my ties with the 5’s. Some of us still have lunch together.” The lunch bunch included Matt Tomaszewski, my former assistant, once accused of the crime Frank had committed.

  I picked up my pen in a not-so-subtle way of telling my visitor his time had expired. “What can I do for you, H.W.?”

  Not that I had any desire to help him.

  He blinked a few times, either from nervousness, or, I suspected, vampire blood a few generations back. “Ah, yes. I assume what I say will be held in the strictest confidence?”

  “Of course.” I had some integrity left.

  “It’s of a delicate nature.” He looked past my right shoulder in an effort to not get to the point.

  I stopped short of praying to the Gods for deliverance. I didn’t want to hear his confession, whatever it was.

  “I’m a private investigator. I deal with secrets of a delicate nature all day.”

  Out of boredom and backed by my investigative experience at Myth, I’d hung out my shingle four months after leaving. So far, I’d tailed cheating spouses, found a couple of missing persons, and traced a goblin who’d skipped out on bail for tax evasion. I’d followed him to Mexico, and, believe me, Acapulco in February will never equal the eastern shore of Lake Michigan in February.

  H.W. squirmed, so out of character I almost dropped the pen. “I don’t want to see innocent people hurt. Your past actions have proven you’re the man to cut through to the truth.”

  Okay, he’d intrigued me. Damn.

  “Oh?” A sudden thought hit me, and my spine stiffened. “Is this about Frank?”

  H.W. dismissed him with a wave of a manicured hand. “Frank’s in jail.”

  Twelve months for involuntary manslaughter for killing Bertie, but cleared of all charges on the death of Evelyn Fletcher, Myth’s Vice President of Operations.

  “Why isn’t M.I.C.U. handling this problem for you?” Myth Investigation and Crime Unit, the weakest link in the organization. Their sloppy inquiry of the murders and other crimes had contributed to me leaving.

  H.W. stared over my shoulder, not, I assumed, to gauge the intensity of the snow falling outside, but to avoid telling me the truth.

  “I don’t want them involved,” he said after a moment.

  Which told me he either agreed with my opinion of M.I.C.U.’s incompetence, or the problem lay so far down the rabbit hole he’d come to me in desperation.

  “So you thought you’d toss old Rory Harper a bone? Let him pick up the pieces in a hush-hush, under-the-table way?” I held my annoyance in check, but only because I didn’t want to throw him out on his ear and cause a scene in front of my secretary. One insult to her sensibilities was enough for today, thank you very much.

  “You’re not old,” H.W. said, still dancing around the problem.

  Eighty-eight, but my elf blood accounted for that. W
ith my mix of elf, vampire, troll, and various other myth races, including human, which no one talked about, I didn’t know my life expectancy. I was born before WWII, but looked the equivalent of thirty-five human years.

  “Thanks for the compliment. Now, why are you here? You’ve delayed long enough.”

  He leaned forward, and I mirrored his movement, eager to know what had brought the Vice President of Myth, Inc. to my doorstep.

  “I think my wife is cheating on me.”

  Chapter Two

  “I didn’t know you were married. Kix never mentioned it.”

  Damn. I could have shot myself in the foot for bringing his sister into the conversation. Our relationship, if you could call it that, existed on a one-way plane. I liked her and had looked for more. She’d toyed with the idea then decided to go in another direction, one pointed at a private investigator from her past. Ironic that she fell for a P.I., and now I worked as one.

  I should have kicked out H.W. the minute he stepped into my office. He brought nothing but trouble and memories.

  “We’ve been married twenty years,” he said, studying the laces of his brogues. “We have twin boys, away in college now.”

  “What makes you think she’s cheating? What’s her name, by the way?”

  “Margaret. Margo.” He glanced around the room as if expecting her to appear. “With the boys gone, she has extra time on her hands.”

  “Hugh,” I said, walking away from his pretentious initials and treating him as a fellow myth for the first time, “an empty nest doesn’t equate to adultery. What, specifically, has she done to raise your suspicions?”

  He blinked, giving me the impression of an owl who’d lost its way. “She bakes.”

  “Excuse me? I thought you said she bakes.”

  “I did. It’s hard to understand, but every morning there’s a new item on the kitchen table. Bread, rolls, muffins, sometimes cookies.” He tapered off.

  “Okay, so she has a new hobby.”

  “I’ve checked the flour bin,” he said with sudden fierceness. “The level never changes. The oven isn’t warm, but the hood of her car is. She leaves between one and three in the morning, whenever she thinks I’m asleep.”

  He hadn’t thought of following her? But some people don’t want to face the truth. By hiring me, the responsibility for the revelation landed on my shoulders.

  I sat back and studied the tortured man before me. In our previous meetings, all at his Myth office, he’d had total control.

  “Does she visit a bakery?” I knew the question was stupid, but I had to ask.

  “Where are the bags, the labels?” He desperately sought answers in his wife’s actions.

  “Does she have magic?”

  He met my gaze. “Not many of us do nowadays, but no, not that kind.”

  Time and inbreeding had diluted our magic. Outside of my superior sense of smell, which might stem from it, I couldn’t do any more than conjure an occasional ball of light.

  “How does adultery fit in to this sudden interest in baked goods?” Did someone pay her in sourdough?

  “I don’t know. It’s the only explanation I have.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  He shrugged. “I thought maybe with your talent, you could tell me if Margo’s baking came from her or someone else.”

  I’d solved a kidnapping by identifying the hay mixture from where the kidnapper had held the victim. Did he think I’d memorized the smell of every bakery in town?

  “I don’t think that’s the answer.”

  I didn’t want to get involved because of my past with Myth and Kix. The percentages ran in my favor that a quick catch-her-in-the-act wouldn’t pull me into their orbits. One night of surveillance and a discrete tail should wrap things up in an untidy, sordid bundle.

  Besides, I needed to prove to him that my solving a murder and a kidnapping wasn’t a fluke. Yeah, I wanted to impress the guy.

  “Okay,” I said, regretting the decision but not seeing a way out. I shoved the pen and a notebook across the desk. “Give me your address and her social media info, and I’ll check it out.”

  I didn’t understand why he’d chosen me. I’d lie if I said I was his favorite person, but I’d do right by him. Twenty-four hours should be enough time to get in and out of his life, especially the out part.

  Hugh Willis Burrowes scribbled on a fresh page then reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a checkbook.

  “No,” I said, my hand stopping the motion. “I’m not charging you.”

  “You’re not my employee anymore. I can’t ask you to do this for nothing.”

  “I don’t need the money.” One advantage to living so long is outriding the fluctuations in the stock market. His case wouldn’t make or break me.

  Money meant nothing. His validation of my talent did.

  “Nevertheless.” He wrote out the check and tore it off. “Donate it to charity if you want, but I don’t like my debts unpaid.”

  I took the paper, noting the amount as far and above any I would have asked. I tucked it into a pocket and stood.

  “I should have something in a day or two.” The sooner I deleted a Burrowes from my life, the sooner I could resume normalcy.

  Hugh stood and stuck out his hand. I shook it, a dry, impersonal transaction. Then he retrieved his coat and hat from the outer office.

  “Cold out there,” he said as he wound a muffler around his neck.

  “Michigan.” I didn’t need to add more.

  I waited until the storm swallowed him, pondering if I’d made the right decision. I’d made a living at Myth for twenty years, but three weeks last August had shaken the belief I had in my nose. Two months at The Nose Knows and a few routine cases a human could have solved didn’t bolster my confidence.

  Did I think discovering what a bored housewife did in her spare time would?

  Disgusted that I’d allowed Myth and a Burrowes to snag me into their clutches, I turned to my secretary for distraction. “Lucille, where shall we go for lunch?”

  Chapter Three

  We ate at an Italian place close by, my choice two-fold. Bring Lucille out of her insulted-for-life doldrums and back into her everyday doldrums. And to fortify me for a night of surveillance.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon on my computer, learning everything I could about Margo Burrowes. Forty-six, active in several charities, a killer mahjong player, a game that had found a resurgence in the myth community, and an avid golfer. I scoured her social media accounts and found nothing that indicated she led a double life.

  I sent Lucille home at four and followed her out the door at five. A half-hour later, I opened the garage door of my house, less than two miles away, the storm delaying what should be an easy drive. Such are the trials of living in a northern climate on the shores of the Great Lakes—snowflakes as big as eagles and the accompanying mess.

  At midnight, after a brief nap, I set out for Marinette, the gated community where Hugh lived. For once I blessed the continuing snowfall. No one would be out. No one would notice a strange car in the neighborhood.

  I parked a half-block from the Burrowes house, a simple two-story, three-stall, five-thousand square foot cottage. I might have spotted a cupola or I’d mistaken the snow buildup on the roof as one.

  I sipped hot coffee from a thermos, kept a window cracked to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning, and contemplated how I’d arrived at this point in life.

  My heightened sense of smell, hyperosmia, had led me to Myth, Inc., once they’d recognized myth with more than twenty-one percent of any race. For the last twenty years, I’d worked at US headquarters in West Haven. Boring, uneventful. Identifying whatever the myth needed—grandma’s perfume; tobacco grades; mouthwashes; werewolf hides. Life swam along until Frank killed Bertie. Then someone—not Frank—killed Evelyn Fletcher.

  Then Penny died.

  I swallowed the scalding liquid and gazed at viciously swirling snowflakes.

  I
hadn’t known the M.I.C.U. detective long when we teamed together on a stakeout two blocks from a ransom drop. A texting driver had hit and killed her. She’d been six months pregnant.

  I still mourned Penny Trades.

  My fault, all my fault. I should have protected her, as I should have protected others in my life. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t?

  The light over a garage door snapped me from my self-flagellation. I sat straight and noted the time.

  Two-fifteen.

  The door opened, and a Bentley backed out. I waited until Margo drove around a corner before I turned on my lights and followed.

  After two in the morning is not the best time to tail someone. I held my breath, sure my lights stood out like a lighthouse beacon. I hung back as far as possible as she approached the gate. The car turned left toward the city.

  The bars must have let out because traffic appeared from everywhere. I slipped two, three, four cars behind Margo, my wipers chugging furiously as the snow fell at a blinding rate.

  I slowed, unable to see the car ahead, let alone the fading taillights of the Bentley. What was I doing, following a middle-aged woman who’d left a dull, boring husband for a little adventure?

  Why couldn’t she meet her lover during the day?

  We turned south on Broadway Ave., and the businesses thinned. The streetlights as well. Flakes swirled around their dim globes, the light struggling to reach the snow-packed road.