Grave Misgivings Read online

  Grave Misgivings

  Kristen Houghton

  A Cate Harlow Private Investigation

  “I always count it a plus when no one gets killed.”

  Cate Harlow

  GRAVE MISGIVINGS

  Copyright © 2015 by Kristen Houghton

  ISBN-13: 978-0-692-42310-3

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

  system, or transmitted in any form by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopy,

  recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the

  express written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance

  to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The names, incidents, dialogue, and

  opinions expressed are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed

  as real.

  Published by

  HH Skylight Publishing ®

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY10010

  Skylightbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  Houghton, Kristen

  Grave Misgivings: A Cate Harlow Private Investigation crime novel/Kristen Houghton-1st. ed.

  1.Cate Harlow (Fictitious character)-Fiction 2. private investigator 3.crime 4. female sleuth

  5. mystery 6. detective 7. New York City

  Books by Kristen Houghton

  CRIME and MYSTERY

  CATE HARLOW PRIVATE INVESTIGATION series

  For I Have Sinned

  Grave Misgivings

  Unrepentent: Pray for Us Sinners

  FANTASY

  THE TEDDY JAMESON CHRONICLES

  Welcome to Hell, Teddy Jameson

  Life in Hell

  HISTORICAL ROMANCE

  The Anchoress: A Romantic Tale of Terror

  ANTHOLOGY

  No Woman Diets Alone-There’s Always a Man Behind Her Eating a Doughnut

  And Then I’ll Be Happy!

  For Alan, with love and thanks

  always...

  Chapter 1

  “CATHERINE, YOU’RE LATE for your nine-thirty appointment,” says the prim and proper voice of my part-time secretary Myrtle Goldberg Tuttle. “Your client, a Ms. Jennifer Brooks-Warren, has been waiting here in the office for twenty minutes. Where are you?”

  “On my way, Myrtle. There’s a garbage truck with a blown-out tire that’s holding up traffic. Can you believe this? What a hot mess! Anyway, tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can. Get her coffee or tea or whatever and tell her the truth about why I’m late. Give her one of Harry’s pastries. They always make waiting easier.”

  “All right, tea or coffee, but I don’t think the young woman wants one of Harry’s double-stuffed cupcakes. She doesn’t seem like the type who eats those. The older man with her might take one, though. By the way, you didn’t tell me we had a modeling agency as part of our clientele.”

  “We don’t. Why do you say that?”

  “You’ll see what I mean when you get here.” Pause. “How are you dressed this morning?”

  “The same as usual, jeans, sneakers; you know what I wear.”

  “Pity you didn’t dress up. Are you wearing makeup at the very least?”

  “A little. Why the sudden questions about my appearance, Myrtle? What’s up?”

  “Never mind. Just make sure your hair is neatly brushed before you come upstairs.”

  ๕๕๕

  She is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. There is no way to describe her other than breathtakingly beautiful or drop-dead gorgeous. Next to this incredible porcelain doll I feel like Raggedy Ann. I completely understand why Myrtle had thought this woman was a model. But as beautiful as she is, I am certain that her beauty isn’t the reason she has come to Catherine Harlow, Private Investigations. I am right. The lady needs help of a protective kind. Someone has hired a professional hit man to kill her.

  A well-dressed, distinguished-looking man with a meticulously trimmed beard sits next to her on my couch and a brief introduction lets me know that his name is Edward Penn, and that he is her fiancé. He is pleasant enough but he lets her do all the talking.

  “This was me before the cosmetic surgery, Ms. Harlow,” says my prospective client.

  I tell her to call me Cate then look at the several photos she hands to me. They’re the kind of “before” pictures plastic surgeons take of their prospective patients. I try not to change expression as I look at them but I do glance from the beauty in front of me to the beast in the pictures with surprise. Jennifer Brooks-Warren smiles at me and shakes her head.

  “Unbelievable, right? But that really was me two years ago.”

  She’s obviously waiting for me to say something so I do. “It is an incredible change, Ms. Brooks-Warren, um, Jennifer. May I ask what you had done?”

  “Yes, of course. I had a brow lift, cheek implants, nose remodeling, jaw shaping, ear pinning, liposuction, extensive dental work and caps, and breast augmentation. I also lost forty pounds and regularly worked out with a trainer. I still try to work out every day even now. I’ve made myself into a completely different person.” Her eyes hold a small glint of triumph.

  KRISTEN HOUGHTON 3

  “Quite a metamorphosis. You don’t look like the same woman at all. And you say you think someone has put a contract out on your life?”

  “Not think, I know.”

  “It’s obvious that you wanted to put your past behind you so I have to assume that the person who wants you killed is someone from your past. Do you have the name of that someone?”

  I am poised with a pen and small notebook.

  “Y—y—yes, I do. But, you see, that’s the problem. The person’s name.”

  “I don’t follow. You’re hiring me to help you. If you do know who wants you dead it’s in your best interest to tell me. Can you do that?” I pause. Something’s not quite right. “You do know the person’s name, right?” She nods her head yes.

  “Okay, then tell me. It helps to spell it so I have the correct name to research.”

  She sits up straighter and holds her head up. I wait for a few moments. She sighs, looks at me and says, “Brooks-Warren, B-r-o-o-k-s-W-a-r-r-e-n.”

  I look up. “A relative? Can you give me the first name?”

  “I can give you the whole name. Jennifer Brooks-Warren.”

  I put my pen down and look at my prospective client before speaking.

  “Let me get this straight, Jennifer. Either you put a contract out on yourself or the person who wants you killed is a relative with the same name. Or, and I certainly hope this is not the case, you’re some new celebrity with a reality show due to air soon, looking to pull some type of stupid scam for publicity’s sake. If the last one’s the reason that you’re here, I have to tell you that you came to the wrong place. I don’t do scams.”

  “No, no, it’s me all right. I hired the hit, isn’t that what’s it’s called? Anyway I put the hit out on myself.”

  “May I ask why? But before you answer, let me give you some advice. If you are indeed the one who hired the killer, you should be able to cancel the contract, minus a retainer fee of course. I mean, I don’t condone hiring assassins and such, but if you pay a fee to this person to cancel out the hit then everyone’s happy. Get in touch with him or her.”

  “Him. And I can’t; I can’t get in touch with him. The number I have for him is no longer in service. He seems to be unreachable and I’m scared.”

  “What about the police? Have you contacted them? Maybe they can protect you.”

  “Edward filed a report wi
th them, he spoke with them several times; I was too upset to talk to them so he did so on my behalf. But I don’t think they fully believed him. Edward felt that I should get private protection.”

  “All right, let’s get some information about this hit you ordered. When was the last time you spoke to this man?”

  “Over two years ago when I needed his services.”

  I look up from writing her info on my notepad and sigh deeply. Shit! “I’m sorry, but did you just say that you ordered the hit over two years ago, Ms. Brooks-Warren?” She nods. I’m getting a little annoyed. “Well, as far as I can see you’re still alive. Again, I have to tell you that if this is some type of publicity scam, I absolutely do not…”

  GRAVE MISGIVINGS 4

  The man who was sitting so quietly on my couch that I had almost forgotten he was there suddenly speaks. “My fiancée, Jennifer, made the deal to have this professional hit man

  eliminate her on her twenty-fifth birthday.” He pauses and rises slowly. “Her birthday is two months from today, Ms. Harlow.”

  ๕๕๕

  My client-to-be looks out the window of my office, staring for a while at the flower-pot-cum-doves’-nest on my fire escape. The doves have been gone since last year; babies grown and all. The parents will be back in a week or two to begin nesting again and make new babies or so I’ve read. I hope so; they’re family.

  “Ms. Harlow, have you ever been ugly?”

  Her question surprises me. I don’t know how to respond but my curiosity is piqued. Certainly at certain points in our lives, everyone feels ugly; that’s usually just because we’re going through a bad time. It’s temporary until we feel good about ourselves again. Looking at Jennifer Brooks-Warren, I get the feeling that the before pictures of my new client tell more of a story than I had realized. When I don’t answer, she continues.

  “I mean truly ugly? Oh I know we women have a way of saying we look horrible or are having a bad hair day and silly things like that but that’s not being ugly. I know what ugly really is and how cruel people can be about it. I was ugly all my life. Look at the pictures of me back then and look at me now.”

  I do as she says, glancing from the beautiful woman in front of me to the pictures taken of her a few years ago. Genetics had not been kind to this woman and so she had taken it into her own hands, or in this case, the expert hands of a top-notch plastic surgeon and become the woman she wanted to be. Nothing wrong with that. Whatever makes you happy is my personal motto on that score. I let her talk. Listening is a key component for being a good private investigator.

  “My parents and I lived on a farm in Culpepper, Virginia about seventy miles from Washington, DC . I have no siblings but that’s only because my mother had three miscarriages; one before and two after I was born. She was not a well woman and the miscarriages took a real toll on whatever health she had. Even though I know they loved me, there wasn’t a whole lot of attention expended on me and there was very, very little money. My mother was always sick and depressed; she died when I was ten. All my father did was work that farm morning to night and save every dime, every penny, he could.

  “He wasn’t cruel or indifferent to my unhappiness; he was a farmer used to hard work and the misery that life can dole out. He’d had a hard life as a child. His family had lost their own farm to foreclosure. My dad felt that you had to suck up the bad things that happened in life and tough it out. Dad wasn’t the type to show emotions; he was just distant because he was exhausted all the time, poor man. He worked himself to death.”

  She sighs and stops for a few minutes. Patience is a skill; I wait, allowing her to collect her thoughts.

  “My school years were pure torture. You’ve seen in the news how some bullied children choose suicide over living in fear and torment? I understand that feeling all too well. I thought about it, believe me, but naively I continued to hope that maybe things would change. I was

  KRISTEN HOUGHTON 5

  really naïve and possibly a fool to think that way, because the cruelties continued all through

  elementary and middle schools. I never had friends. I was always the target of bullies. But in

  high school I found a way to be…popular.”

  She walks toward the window.

  “In high school I became something of a, I guess the only word to describe it is, a slut.” Her fiancé, who has resumed sitting on the couch, gives her a sad smile.

  “I thought that having sex with boys would bring me some type of acceptance, that someone would like me. Oh, believe me, they all wanted it and I gave it to them, whatever way they wanted it.” She laughs bitterly. “An older girl, who I guess felt sorry for me, took me aside one day and told me I should stop what I was doing. It wasn’t making me popular, she said, the boys were using me. Then she reluctantly repeated what the boys were saying about me. She told me that they said, ‘If you put a bag over Jenny’s head and close your eyes, fucking her isn’t so bad.’”

  I wince at the cruelty of teenage boys. In my freshman year of high school I punched a guy in the stomach hard enough to make him vomit. This was after he unexpectedly grabbed my breast in a dark corner at a homecoming dance and remarked loudly, “Wow! Harlow’s got melons! Anything more than a handful is a waste.” High school can be tough.

  “I wanted to die after she told me that. I prayed to die. I didn’t want to live anymore but I just kept on going.” She stops and I hand her a box of tissues.

  “I had worked all through my school years as the clean-up girl in a bar called the K & K. The owner, Kevin, didn’t say it but I knew he didn’t think I was attractive enough to be a waitress. The pretty girls who served the customers were good for business and he knew it.

  “After graduation, I continued working there because it was a place to hide. At the bar, we had a lot of just regular folk come in, but occasionally there’d be some stranger who got lost or someone just traveling through who wanted a quick beer and burger. One night we were short-handed and Kevin actually asked me to be a waitress. And that was the night this man sat down at one of my tables. He was a hit man except I didn’t know it then. You could see that he was someone who exuded power. I mean he was polite to Kevin and very well-spoken but he had the kind of bearing that made other people steer clear of him. Usually the people in the bar are friendly and talk to strangers and all but no one spoke to this man. His eyes were hard, almost cruel. He sat in a booth in my section of the bar near the back door and ordered beer and a burger just like anyone else. He didn’t bother anyone.”

  I interrupt her to ask her to describe this man.

  “Tall, definitely over six feet, very short blond hair, and he looked like an athlete.”

  “What color eyes?“

  “Oh, cold, so cold, blue.” She shivers.

  This Jennifer Brooks-Warren seems to be reliving that night in her mind; it is almost as if she is talking to herself and has forgotten that I am sitting there. The man on my couch simply sits there with his eyes on Jennifer and says nothing.

  “How did you find out that he did murder for hire, Jennifer?” I asked. “Certainly he didn’t just mention it in polite conversation.”

  GRAVE MISGIVINGS 6

  She smiles and shakes her head. “I found out about his…line of work accidentally. He got a call on his cell phone.”

  “Do you remember his part of the conversation?”

  “I only heard a little of what he said to whoever called him. He said, ‘You wanted it, you got it, it’s done. I have the evidence you requested.’ Even though his voice was low and polite, his words were frightening. But he was nice to me and gave me a twenty dollar tip for a twelve dollar bill.”

  “Can you tell me how you found out he was a killer for hire?” I press.

  “From a business card.”

  “He gave you his business card?”

  “Not exactly.” Jennifer Brooks-Warren paces back and forth in front of the windows then comes to a stop in front of my desk.

&nb
sp; “A woman came in shortly after his phone call and sat at his table. She ordered two drinks in a row, then a third one. It was as if she wanted to get drunk really fast. We had a lot of people do that on Fridays; you know, bad week; get drunk as fast as you can to forget it.”

  “Describe the woman if you can,” I tell her. “Age, hair color, weight, and height; every detail helps me.”

  “She was maybe in her late thirties. I think her hair was a dark brown or black and very short. She was wearing some sort of exercise clothes, as if she’d just come from a gym. I guess she was about my height, five foot three, and she was very skinny. She was wearing glasses with black frames. That’s all I can remember.”

  “You’re doing fine, Jennifer. Go on. Tell me what happened next.”

  “After she finished her third drink the man motioned to her and then both of them got up from the table and stood talking. It got real loud suddenly because someone started up the old jukebox we had in the bar. The man looked annoyed.

  “I had to take out the empty bottles for the recycle bins and that’s when I saw both the man and the woman come outside. I kind of hid when the man looked around to see if anyone was nearby because he scared me. I heard them talking, though. She said, ‘It’s really over then? You did it? I’m free?’ The man nodded and said to her really low, ‘You’re free. I get paid to do a job, it gets done, one way or another. You paid for this. Here it is.’ I saw him take something out of his jacket that was wrapped in some type of foil. He unwrapped it and it was a, it was a… finger with a fancy ring still attached to it. He handed it to the woman. She took it and gasped then quickly handed it back to the man. I heard her say, ‘Yes, this is proof, all right. That’s his. Did he…suffer?’ The man put the ringed finger back inside his jacket pocket and smiled coldly. ‘That’s what you paid for, isn’t it? That’s what you got. The elimination is complete.’ Then he walked away toward the parking lot. The woman went back inside.