His Song Silenced Read online

  His Song Silenced

  Book One of the Hank Morgan Aspen Mystery-Thrillers

  By Michael Arches

  Copyright by Pyrenees Publishing 2019

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  Table of Contents

  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 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Book 2 Excerpt—Perverted Justice

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  Chapter 1

  No Wang, nowhere.

  That was a huge problem. One week ago, Splendiferous Wang, the world-famous rapper from Hong Kong, had vanished in Aspen. He was last seen at a party inside the historic Hotel Jerome. The man wore a lemon-yellow silk shirt, black pants, and ruby slippers. He seemed to be having the time of his life.

  For unknown reasons, his billionaire uncle didn’t report him missing for two full days. But as soon as he did, reporters from all across the globe descended upon our little Shangri La.

  Aspen’s cops naturally investigated the apparent kidnapping, and their police chief asked for help from the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office. That’s where I came into the case. I’m Henrietta Morgan, the department’s only detective.

  For five days, we searched day and night for the missing rapper. The only clue we’ve found so far is that Wang’s family is connected to triads back in Hong Kong. They haven’t responded to our requests for information, and neither have the Chinese police.

  Us local cops don’t know anything about Chinese organized crime, but I did manage to talk to Interpol’s top expert on Asian gangs. She told me, “The triads in Hong Kong make their American counterparts in the mafia look like altar boys.”

  That sent a zing through me. Not the kinds of criminals we were used to dealing with in laidback Aspen.

  -o-o-o-

  By the time three months passed, I doubted we’d ever find Splendiferous Wang. As far as anyone could tell, he’d disappeared from the face of the earth. CNN and the other news networks finally packed up and left.

  But on a Thursday morning in early September, I got a call from Muriel, our dispatcher.

  “Hank, girl,” she said in her raspy, snarky voice, “breaking news.”

  Everybody called me Hank because I’ve been a tomboy for all of my thirty-plus years. I groaned. “Good or bad?”

  “You tell me. We found Wang Chao!”

  That was the missing rapper’s legal name. “Finally! Where the hell is he?”

  “Ruedi Res, of all places.”

  That was a small reservoir in the mountains north of Aspen. No buildings or homes up there. Which meant Splendid—that’s what we called him—must’ve been in the lake. “Oh, no! I’d hoped he’d taken off to some secret retreat for beautiful people, like maybe in Stockholm or Rio.”

  “Nope, he didn’t get far. Wang’s apparently been in the water for three months, so ick. I’ll tell you one thing—we look ridiculous for not finding him sooner.”

  Muriel was a sober and respectable woman. Nothing upset her more than looking like a fool. I didn’t care for it either. “Sorry to hear he’s dead, but why call me? That’s Aspen PD’s case.”

  “Sorry right back to ya. Sheriff says you gotta find out who killed the guy.”

  I blew a raspberry at the phone’s speaker. Why had John Jenkins taken such a cold case? All of us in local law enforcement had looked like fools as we’d scurried around all summer. And now, this was my problem? I knew I was at the top of the sheriff’s shit list—didn’t know enough to stay meek and quiet. This was his way of getting back at me.

  Muriel seemed to read my mind. “Sheriff must’ve cut some kind of sweetheart deal with Aspen PD.”

  Unfortunately, neither our office or Aspen’s were qualified to investigate an international murder mystery. But the FBI had refused to do anything unless we uncovered a terrorist connection. And the Colorado Bureau of Investigation also refused to take over the case—too busy.

  I sighed and tried to look at the bright side. We had a body and a dump site. Might be able to collect useful evidence for a change.

  But it’d be three-month-old evidence. Damn!

  Muriel interrupted my pity party. “Sorry, Jenkins should’ve told you himself.”

  “No, the less I deal with him, the better. What else do you know?”

  “Alex Rivera drove his sailboat over the bloated corpse,” she said, “and tore it in half. The only witness was a female passenger, Charlotte Higgins. Don’t know her, but that Alex goes out with an incredible number of women. Why can’t he settle down?”

  Alex was Charlotte’s bodyguard, and she wouldn’t be romantically interested in any guy. I kept those thoughts to myself. Although I’d never spoken to her, she’d participated in a few get-togethers with the local sisterhood. Very pretty. Moved like a ballerina—a tall English lovely whose legs went on forever.

  And the woman had kept a very low profile during the four months since she’d arrived in town. Plenty of rich people did. They rightly worried about being targeted by scumbags. I’d have to check into her background to make sure she wasn’t hiding anything suspicious.

  But first, I needed to take control of our crime scene. “Who else did the sheriff invite to the party out at the res?”

  “Eagle County Sheriff, Aspen PD, and the coroner’s office. Plus, Jason and Linda are already on-scene with our boat.”

  They were two of our younger deputies. “On my way.”

  I was about to hang up when Muriel said, “I’m not surprised about what happened to that Chinese boy. All rap musicians live depraved lives.”

  I didn’t know enough about their world to comment, but one thing was for sure—Aspen had more than its fair share of people living depraved lives.

  -o-o-o-

  As usual, I took my bloodhound Boomer along for the ride. He was sleeping in a corner of my cubicle, a rare moment of peace. I woke him gently, not that it mattered. His startled bay filled the room. Several other cops groaned because they heard him freak out a couple of times a day.

  “We’re leaving,” I said to scattered applause.

  Boomer was a hundred and thirty pounds of black and tan hound. His ears were large enough to act as airplane wings. I’d accepted him for free because he’d flunked out of two police dog training programs. The mutt’s nose was incredible, but he refused to obey most commands. My loveable lunatic.

  Although Ruedi Reservoir was ten miles north, several mountains stood in the way. We had to drive northwest down the Roaring Fork River to Basalt then west up the Fryingpan River to the res. The dog stuck his head out the window the entire way and howled off and on for no particular reason. His ears flapped like a bird’s wings.

  The lake looked lovely with deep blue water surrounded by green forested mountains. Dark gray clouds loomed over us, giving everything a somber tone.

  When I reached the public boat ramp and campground at the western end of the res, J
ason Riddle was already out on the water in our office’s skiff. A dozen other vessels surrounded him near the dam. I hoped he remembered not to touch the remains until the coroner arrived.

  Linda Kingsley, our other deputy on-scene, was standing with Alex, Charlotte, and a Forest Service ranger. Linda was as tall as me, about six-foot, but she was much slimmer. We were both brunettes. I’d known big and muscular Alex for a decade and had always appreciated his boyish charm. He was a fellow vet, so we had that kinship, too.

  His brow was furrowed, an unusual look for him.

  Charlotte was wearing faded blue jeans and a lovely pink blouse. No makeup. She’d braided her long chestnut hair, maybe to keep it from blowing in the breeze. Classic style.

  As Boomer and I approached the group, I realized Charlotte’s cheeks were stained with tears. Her lips trembled.

  A dozen people stood at a distance. They’d probably come to the lake to camp or to fish. I recognized a couple of faces and made a mental note to circle back to them.

  In the meantime, I introduced myself and Boomer to Charlotte and the ranger, a slim older woman with short gray hair. She was from the Forest Service’s law enforcement unit. Our office had worked with them many times. Three-fourths of Pitkin County was inside the White River National Forest.

  She asked Alex, “What happened after you realized your boat had hit a body in the water?”

  “I piloted over here to get help. A half-dozen other boats were floating near the ramp. One of them gave us a ride to the shore because the sailboat’s keel couldn’t let us approach. The campground host used a radio to reach you guys.”

  The ranger wandered off, apparently satisfied with his story. Charlotte looked like she was ready for another round of tears, so I suggested she and Alex sit at an empty picnic table nearby and wait for me.

  Although I sympathized with her distress, the rich didn’t get any special favors from me. I hoped she and Alex were as innocent as they seemed.

  The ranger promised she’d send me a copy of her report and drove away.

  I walked with Linda to a private spot near the water. She was a steady hand in a crisis. When we stepped onto the sand at the shore, I had to be careful about how I placed my prosthetic left foot. The real one had been blown off by an IED back in Iraq. The fake one contained a high-tech ankle controlled by a microchip. The damned thing was easily confused by soft surfaces, and Boomer could take off at any second. Flopping on my face in public was no fun. I knew that from repeated past experience.

  The ankle took a few seconds to figure out when it needed to stiffen. Linda pretended not to notice me wobbling. All my friends and colleagues knew about my injury, but I preferred not to have to explain it to strangers. “Did you hear his whole story?”

  “Yep.” Linda checked her notes. “The two were out for a relaxing boat ride when the keel snagged on something. The two halves of the body floated to the surface. They freaked.”

  “What’s your overall reaction?” I asked.

  “Alex is steady, as usual, but the woman’s very upset. Probably has never seen a corpse before, much less a bloated one that her boat had just torn apart.”

  “That’d get to most folks,” I said. “Any inconsistencies in their stories?”

  “No, and no apparent reason for them to lie. Just happened to come here today. The gorgous hunk has no idea who he hit yet.”

  “Why do you think the victim is Splendid?”

  “Jason came back to shore long enough to tell me he’s sure. The body’s wearing the same yellow shirt, black pants, and red shoes Wang had on when he was last seen. His face has been distorted from being in the water for months and chewed on by whatever, but Jason showed me a picture on his phone. Wang’s barely recognizable, the poor bastard.”

  “We’ll confirm with DNA,” I said.

  “Sure. Listen, I’m sorry you got stuck with this case. It’s going to be a shitshow. All the national news piranhas will come back to town.”

  I snickered. “Maybe Jenkins figures I’ll screw up this case, and that’ll hurt my campaign.”

  Our sheriff was retiring, and most of the office was happy to see him go, including me. He’d intended to give his job to my direct supervisor, Chief Deputy Randy Duncan, but I was damned tired of kowtowing to the good ol’ boys network in our county. So, I ran for the job, which pissed Jenkins off. He still hadn’t gotten over it. Probably never would.

  As an added plus, I’d also infuriated my conservative dad. That didn’t much matter because I hadn’t spoken to him in a decade. When I was a kid, he’d always treated me like the son he dearly wished he’d had. I spent countless hours with him, working on the ranch.

  Even though I’d tried my damnedest to please him, he’d never been satisfied. I was supposed to blindly obey, like a robot, but that wasn’t my style. By the time I graduated from high school, he and I were barely speaking to each other.

  Linda patted my arm to break me out of my reverie. “We’re pulling for you to surprise the hell out of the developers and fat cats who run things around here. Randy’s not a bad guy, but he’ll let the powerful keep getting away with their sleazy shit.”

  That summed up my views of the race, too. “Thanks for your support. It means the world to me. With any luck, in two months we’ll have the only county in the state with an openly gay sheriff.”

  She laughed. “Won’t that be a kick in the head.”

  “In the meantime, we need to get back to work. If we don’t solve this murder, I’ll lose the election for sure.”

  Chapter 2

  The coroner, Dr. Daniel Longfellow, arrived instead of his assistant. He was a steady older ER veteran from our community hospital. He’d patched up lots of cops over the years, so we adored him.

  Dr. Dan must’ve gotten the word that this corpse was going to become national news again. We needed our A Team on this one, and everything had to be done perfectly.

  Not only was it the right thing to do, but we didn’t want to look like idiots in front of the entire world. I still heard bitter stories about how Eagle County had screwed up their prosecution of Kobe Bryant fifteen years ago. We didn’t need that.

  I told the good doctor what little I knew then waved Jason back to shore to take the coroner out to examine the body. Jason was a tall and wiry man in his late twenties. Loved working outdoors whenever possible, so this was a dream assignment for him.

  Alex approached me and petted Boomer. “Hey, Hank, do you think Charlotte could go home? She’s pretty upset and doesn’t know anything I don’t also know.”

  That seemed reasonable, but I wanted to talk to other witnesses before circling back to both of them.

  “Not yet,” I said. “Just keep her out of the way for now and stay with her. I need to interview both of you again.”

  “Why is this turning into such a BFD? Eagle County just showed up. They had to drive for an hour.”

  “I’ll tell you as soon as I can.”

  He shrugged and went back to sit with Charlotte.

  I said hello to a female deputy from Eagle County who I’d met a few times over the years. Without any chitchat, she asked, “Is that where the body was dumped, over by all those boats?”

  “Yep, just off the southern shore.”

  She pulled out a topo map of the area. “Hank, in case you’re not aware of exactly where the county line runs.” She pointed at the res on the map. “I’m sure they’re on Pitkin County’s side of the line.”

  I stared at the map. She was right. “Damn.”

  She grinned. “Not our case. Sorry.”

  Nobody seemed eager to investigate the murder of a mobbed-up Hong Kong rapper, but he still deserved justice. I stated the obvious. “We’ll cover it.”

  “Be careful,” she said. “I hear triads can be particularly nasty mobsters, not that there are any good ones.”

  She waved and took off before I could figure out a way to tie her county into this case.


  -o-o-o-

  The Aspen PD detective who’d been working Splendid’s case finally arrived. I hoped she’d be a big help. The bouncy blonde looked like an older Lindsey Vonn. But not as sharp. She beamed at me. “I hear this case is yours now, Hank. Sucks to be you.”

  “Your sympathy is overwhelming and appreciated,” I snapped back.

  She cringed. “Okay, I’m sorry it is you, girlfriend, but this nightmare has aged me a decade. In three months, we’ve learned almost nothing. Most of the witnesses in this case had bolted before we knew the rapper was missing. I’ve tried to track them down by phone, but almost nobody will speak to a cop.”

  I knew all that, but she was trying to rationalize dumping the dog of a case on me. “I’ll have to try to interview those witnesses myself. Fly to LA. That’s where most of them live. I’ll just show up on their damned doorsteps and stay until they talk or start shooting.”

  She nodded like that made perfect sense. “Anyway, I was ordered by our chief to give my entire file to you without keeping a copy. I left it with your desk sergeant. Gotta run. I will answer your emails, but I’m not supposed to stay involved.”

  Before I could ask why, she jumped in her car and bolted.

  My life officially sucked, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it except try harder than she had.

  With that in mind, I waved Linda over, and we split up the interviews of the folks milling around near the campground.

  Most knew nothing new, and none had heard yet who the corpse was.

  I finished my witnesses and glanced over at Linda. She waved me over to talk to Pauline Catalano, a buxom owner of a sports bar in Basalt.

  For no obvious reason, Boomer made a lunge to sniff at her crotch. It wasn’t the first time he’d pulled that stunt, and I kept a firm grip on the leash attached to his harness, just in case. But my fake ankle gave way when I needed it most. Linda grabbed my hand holding the leash and helped me pull the mutt back.

  Pauline gasped and shook a finger at him. “No more rib bones for you, buddy.”