Sharpe Image: Prequel Novella (Maycroft Mystery Series Book 0) Read online

  The tap-tap-tap sound coming down the hallway meant Janice Marshall, the assistant principal, was ready for Deena to vacate the building. No one likes the screeching of fingernails on a chalkboard, but most teachers at Maycroft High School would have chosen it any day over the incessant sound of those clicking heels. Like I always say, there is something fishy about a woman who can stand on her feet all day in high heels. She is not to be trusted.

  Luckily, she would never again have to endure Ms. Marshall’s condescension or shoes.

  “How much longer are you going to be, Mrs. Sharpe?” She stood in the doorway as though entering might actually infect her with cooties.

  “Oh, just a bit longer.” Deena relished her intentional vagueness. Using her gooiest Southern drawl, she added, “You don’t have to wait for me, dear.”

  Ms. Marshall smirked, leaned against the door frame as if she herself were the very foundation of the building, and began occupying herself on her cell phone.

  Standing over her desk, the perch from which she ruled her flock, Deena slowed her movements, accomplishing two goals: savoring the moment and bugging her watchman. “Is this how you deal with all teachers when they leave this school? Are you worried I might steal this stapler?” She held it up as a visual aid.

  Ms. Marshall rolled her eyes. “No, but this is a special circumstance.”

  Still holding the heavy black stapler, Deena contemplated bashing her in the head or shoving it up her arse. She envisioned the headline in the newspaper: Ex-Journalism Teacher Bludgeons Assistant Principal with Swing Master II.

  She dropped it in the box she was filling to take home. Ha!

  Deena envisioned herself as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider—always ready to fight the good fight. She called it her Walter Mitty Complex. In her mind, she would kick butt and take names; in reality, she would step aside and apologize. Still, she was always looking for ways to unleash her inner Lara. She even took karate at one time but gave up when she got walloped by a six-year-old warrior princess.

  Rolling up a stack of posters that had once covered the now-colorless spaces on her classroom walls, she took care that the edges were perfectly aligned before securing them with a rubber band. Laying them on the back counter, she spotted the place where three years earlier Jared had carved his initials into the blue laminate surface simply because he was “bored.” She remembered how she had gotten on to him for destruction of school property. Now, sliding her fingers over the indentations made her smile, seeing them as a legacy rather than an eyesore. These kids would drive you crazy one minute and have you in stitches the next. Like the initials on the counter top, each child had carved out a special place in Deena’s heart.

  Choking back her emotions, she scanned the desolate classroom as though performing a final inventory check. In reality, she was capturing a mental photograph of the place she had spent the last eighteen years of her twenty-nine years in teaching. She never dreamed she’d be leaving the profession this soon. The last five months had flown by, and now leaving was harder than she had imagined.

  The wheels were set in motion back in January when Principal Haskett had requested, no, demanded she create a four-page spread on his daughter Christina in the yearbook. Four pages! No single student even gets two pages, not even the dead ones. They were featured on the final “In Memoriam” page in the back of the book. To a journalism teacher, this request broke every rule of ethics she had tried to instill in her students and her program, and she told him so. Seek truth and report it. Do not play favorites. Be objective. Never plagiarize.

  To throw that out the window—to lower her standards—because the principal’s daughter was a senior was the final blow to her journalistic integrity. The yearbook was not his personal scrapbook. She considered just quitting, but mustered the strength to stand her ground. After several more meetings, Mr. Haskett “suggested” that perhaps Deena’s talents could be more useful elsewhere. He said she could stay until the end of the school year and officially resign rather than be fired, but only if she kept the information under wraps until school was out.

  Deena agreed, although she didn’t give a hoot about whether or not people knew she was canned. Everyone in the suburbs already seemed to know all their neighbors’ business anyway. So, she included the pages and turned in her resignation.

  Now, surrendering her classroom keys to the principal’s chief stooge seemed like waving a white flag on her career. She still managed a pained, melancholy smile as she headed out of room 106 and down the hallway for the last time. Surprisingly, she felt no sense of relief, her stomach queasy, her chest tight. Instead, she felt the same foreboding she got every year on the eve of the first day of school.

  • 2 •

  Rookie deputies in the county sheriff’s department always did the grunt work, especially when the boss was running for re-election and his opposition was throwing around accusations of mismanagement. It was June, just six months until the November election. Deputy Trey Simms ached to get out in the field where the action was instead of being stuck cleaning out the ancient back closets of the original Perry County evidence room. How was he supposed to impress the boss doing clerical work? Most of the cold case evidence had long since been transferred to a warehouse in Maycroft, but this 3rd floor office was converted to a file room back in the ‘70s, and no one had bothered to empty out its three closets, until now.

  So far, the most unusual item he had uncovered was a bowling ball cut in half and drilled out to hold a small Colt pistol. It came from a 1971 case where a woman took her dead husband’s old Brunswick to the pawn shop. The clerk found the gun after dropping the ball, causing the pistol to fire. Luckily, no one was hit. The pistol came from a local liquor store, but the original owner never returned to claim it. Like all the other items he had inventoried, Simms entered the case number and description into the master computer spreadsheet, marking it for transfer. He put the case file and broken ball back in the cardboard box and re-sealed it with new evidence tape.

  Reaching for a yellowed cardboard box from the top of the metal shelf, he discovered this one was larger and heavier than the others. As he tipped it forward to get a hand underneath, dust fell like snow and landed on his hair and face. Setting it on the table of his makeshift workstation, he pulled out his dingy handkerchief to wipe off the debris, first from his face and then off the paper label on top of the box. It read, Jane Doe 3-18-64. The cellophane evidence tape had long since lost its ability to secure the contents of the file box and fell away as he gave it a slight tug. Removing the lid, he peered inside at a black plastic container with a lid that was taped shut. Simms, however, knew immediately what he had uncovered. Stunned, he shook his head. “Well, I’ll be darned.”

  *

  Like most Texas sheriffs, Bob Lowry was hands-on when it came to unusual cases in his jurisdiction. You aren’t reelected to office four times by trusting your deputies to do all the work. If a case proved important enough to make the newspapers, Lowry insisted his name appear in the article. He learned that playing nicely with the Maycroft Police Department worked to his advantage, and the two agencies were careful to keep off each other’s toes. He ruled over the county like a protective father who could not trust his children to fend for themselves.

  Deputy Simms understood this about his boss, which is why he headed straight down to the second floor with his Jane Doe evidence box in tow.

  “What in the heck is this?” the sheriff demanded, wiping away dust that settled on his heavy oak desk from the filthy box.

  “Take a look inside.” Simms carefully removed the lid.

  Sheriff Lowry stood up to get a better view. “Why on earth is there a body in my evidence room?” he shouted as his face reddened. “Whose case is this? How long has it been here?”

  Satisfied he had gotten the boss’s attention, Simms answered calmly. “Sir, it’s a Jane Doe from 1964, so it’s been here roughly fifty years. Do you want me to find the original officer’s name?” He opened t
he case folder for the first time and scanned the summary notes inside the cover, stopping on something unexpected.

  “No! Take it over to forensics.” Lowry pushed the box toward his newest deputy. “And Simms, as of right now, this is your case. And whatever happens, I want that skeleton in the ground as soon as possible. This could look really bad for me, so don’t screw it up!”

  “Yes sir.” Simms quickly put the folder inside the box and replaced the lid. He hurried out of the office holding the box in front of him like an undetonated bomb. Around the corner in the hallway, he stopped and leaned back against the wall, swallowing hard to keep down the bile creeping up his throat. “What have I done?”

  • 3 •

  So this is what it’s like when you don’t have a job, Deena thought as she turned the pages of the latest issue of Texas Monthly. Tossing the magazine on the coffee table, she walked to the window to look out on the backyard for the hundredth time that day. The flowerbeds, once brimming with brightly colored blooms, the seductive kind that whistle and wink as you stroll down the long aisles of the nursery, were barren except for the occasional leafy weed standing defiant against the sun’s crucifying rays. She wondered if cactus would even stand a chance when the June heat threw down a gauntlet to take on all challengers. Many of the much-anticipated thunderstorms had blown past or barely wet the pavement.

  Staring out at the neglected swimming pool, she leaned her forehead against the glass of the white French doors that led out to the covered patio. She watched a small bird peck in the dried-up birdbath, searching for even a drop of life-saving water. The unusually dry Texas spring took a toll on the vegetation, and residents unanimously agreed, “We need rain.”

  As a teacher, Deena was used to having summers off. Those long, hot days were filled with attending workshops, reorganizing her classroom, taking a few short trips with her husband, and getting her house back in order before the next school year began. She also used the time to work on her vintage booth at the Hidden Treasures Antique Mall, a hobby she had turned in to a small business. This summer was different, and she had no idea what to do with herself.

  The sound of cars driving past the house, garage doors opening and closing, children screaming for no real reason all signaled the end of the workday. She thought about her teacher friends excited to begin their summer vacations, carefully planning each day and week so as not to let the time slip by unproductively.

  It was only her third day to be at home, but already her house felt like a white-collar prison. With no children, she and Gary kept their ranch-style house tidy enough for their liking. Cooking was never one of her super powers. As a child, she preferred reading a book to helping her mother in the kitchen. Not until she graduated college and got her first teaching job in Lufkin did she have to worry about feeding herself. She was often like that little bird, pecking away at the refrigerator and pantry for something to tide her over until relief would come in the form of lunch in the school cafeteria. The gurgling in her stomach churned up old memories of rough times.

  She met Gary the first year she taught. He was a financial adviser and came to the school to discuss retirement plans for teachers. At just twenty-two years old, retirement was the last thing on Deena’s mind. She sat in the back of the auditorium, however, thinking how nice it would be to spend a little one-on-one time discussing her long-term future with the dashing Mr. Sharpe. After the meeting, she got his business card and he got her phone number.

  A wasp chose just that moment to buzz the glass door, disrupting her trance. She stepped back and heard the hum of the garage door. The sound of her husband’s car pulling in was like a trumpet announcing the king’s arrival. She glanced quickly in the mirror above the entry table, noting it was time to color the gray roots peeking out from her dark brown hair. She was not used to seeing herself in make-up this late in the day because it had usually smudged off by the time she got home from school.

  “I’m so glad you’re home,” she said when Gary walked in the side door from the garage.

  “That’s nice to hear. I’m not used to you being here when I get home.” He placed his briefcase and keys on the entry table. “I think I’m going to like this.”

  Deena stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek and plopped down on the stool next to the counter.

  “What? No dinner on the table?” he asked, looking around in mock surprise.

  Deena shot him a look that made him laugh.

  *

  They drove to Las Abuela’s, their favorite Mexican food restaurant. It was small and dark and served great margaritas and comfort food. There were plenty of other good restaurants in Maycroft, most filled with tourists or screaming babies. Except for the strolling mariachis on Saturday nights, the place was quiet and cozy. Maycroft thrived on tourism, mostly from the antique stores, flea markets, and bed-and-breakfasts. The locals, however, had their favorite haunts off the main street.

  “So how does it feel to be retired?” He took a sip of his drink.

  “Unemployed, not retired,” Deena shot back. “I’m only fifty-seven. For Pete’s sake, there are plenty of jobs I can do.”

  “I know, but you don’t have to work if you don’t want to. Besides, you know how burned out you were. This is the perfect time to take a break and re-group. We can manage financially.” He covered her hand with his. “I just want you to be happy.”

  It was true. Gary had always looked out for her happiness. When she wanted to go back to school to get her master’s degree, he was supportive. When she backed out of moving to Florida, he was supportive. And when she had a hysterectomy at age thirty, he was right there to make it all okay.

  “You’re the absolute best.” The strong tequila and spicy salsa began to raise her spirits. “I talked to Russell today. Have you heard his latest scheme?”

  “What’s he up to now? Building a spaceship or searching for Bigfoot?”

  Deena’s older brother Russell was the family eccentric. Intelligent and creative, he had served in the army and was never quite the same. One of the reasons she decided to stay in Texas was to be near him. She had hoped he would marry, but it seemed he was destined to bachelorhood. That didn’t stop Deena from setting him up on blind dates, though.

  “He and some of his survivalist buddies are going to build one of those underground shelters for when the next D-Day comes. They’re like little boys playing army in the dirt.”

  They both laughed and shook their heads at the thought of Russell’s exploits, an endless source of amusement.

  “So, I was thinking,” Deena said just as the server appeared with their food. She waited until the girl left. “What if I try to get a job at the newspaper?”

  “Is that something you want to do?”

  “I think so, it’s just…” She felt the old insecurities creeping up and looked down at the table.

  “Just what?”

  “You know what they say, ‘Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.’”

  Gary leaned forward, looking her straight in the eyes. “You are one of the smartest people I know. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

  She looked back at his warm brown eyes and smiled. For a moment, she was Lois Lane and Gary was Superman.

  “Besides,” he added, “the only reason you didn’t become a reporter in the first place was so that you could be close to home to take care of your brother.”

  She unlocked eyes and looked down at her plate.

  Not sensing her uneasiness, he picked up his glass to make a toast. “Here’s wishing you much luck for the start of your new career.”

  She clinked her glass against his. “Move over Woodward and Bernstein. Make way for Sharpe.” She pressed the salty glass rim against her lips, swallowing down the end of her drink along with the feeling of being a complete fraud.

  • 4 •

  The Perry County Forensics Department consisted of two technicians and an intelligence analyst. Far from the sophisticated set-ups in big city polic
e departments, the forensics lab mainly took fingerprints, gathered DNA samples, and bagged evidence to send to larger forensics contractors to be processed. Automobile accidents, burglaries, and the occasional cattle rustling kept the small team busy.

  Trey Simms was not surprised when the lab tech told him it would be several weeks before she could even look at his fifty-year-old skeleton. He hoped calling it a “high priority” for Sheriff Lowry would speed up the process, but she only scoffed and said, “Everything is a high priority for Sheriff Lowry.”

  So it came as a shock when less than a week later he got a message to call the lab about his skeleton from the closet.

  “Are you aware that your vic was shot twice in the back of the head?” the tech asked.

  Simms was very much aware, having spent several nights poring over the case files. The facts of the case were simple: A local farmer found the body in a lowlying area of his back forty in the southern part of the county. It was March, and the ground had begun to thaw. The victim was approximately thirty years old, according to the report. Due to the damp conditions, the body had badly decomposed and had been dragged—probably by coyotes—before it was found.

  The deputy recovered two bullet casings from a Model 10 Smith & Wesson along with the skeletal remains. The victim had no identification and no personal belongings. The only recognizable scrap of clothing was a tattered piece from what appeared to be a green raincoat. The color of the coat led the deputy to believe it was a woman’s garment. The report concluded that based on the size of the skeleton and the type of clothing found, the body was that of a female. The cause of death was gunshot wounds to the head, and the case was labeled a homicide.

  With a lack of sophisticated scientific technology in 1964, common sense proved to be as big a part of crime solving as DNA evidence was today.