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  Hometown Homicide

  C.K. Crigger

  Hometown Homicide

  Kindle Edition

  © Copyright 2019 C.K. Crigger

  City Lights Press

  An Imprint of Wolfpack Publishing

  6032 Wheat Penny Avenue

  Las Vegas, NV 89122

  citylightspress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  eBook ISBN 978-1-64119-934-6

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-64119-933-9

  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 27

  A Look at Lost Girl Lake by C.K. Crigger

  Also by C.K. Crigger

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  About the Author

  Hometown Homicide

  Chapter 1

  Frankie McGill, sitting on a straight-backed chair in the Hawkesford Emergency Services building, studied the man and the woman perched near her. As the last job candidate to be interviewed, she’d had plenty of time to conduct an evaluation of the two other finalists. The first was a big guy, bluff and hearty, the other a woman, mid-thirties, self-confident, already looking the station over as if choosing her locker.

  Jesselyn Pettigrew, Frankie’s best friend since the first grade, had explained when she called about the EMT opening, that there were several other applicants the captain wanted to talk to. But none, she said, with Frankie’s experience. And none of them had Frankie’s ties to the community. “You’re a shoo-in,” Jesselyn said.

  Watching the others now, Frankie wasn’t so certain. The guy had the personality to put the wounded—no, call them the injured—at ease. A little loud and overly friendly maybe, but everything depended on whether Fire Captain Karl Mager and the head paramedic, Lew Carpenter, liked his sort of bonhomie.

  As for the woman, she looked like the kind who’d always be willing to stop after work and lift a few while talking over the day. Some men really went for women like that.

  Frankie fluffed her short dark hair, making sure it covered the scar on her head, and tried to ignore the headache building behind her eyes. Not now. Please, please, hold off a while longer. Surreptitiously, she pressed a certain spot on her forehead, a treatment the therapist swore would forestall the pain and the flashes of light. Sometimes it helped. More often, it didn’t.

  The male applicant finished his interview and left, his expression unreadable, at least to her. The woman went into the office, voice a bit overloud as she greeted Karl and Lew. Through the Plexiglas window dividing the office from the rest of the room, Frankie could see the woman talking, her hands waving.

  Ten minutes later, she came out again, face flushed, and at last, it was Frankie’s turn. At Karl’s summons, she rose from the low bench, fighting sudden vertigo. Not now! Her limp almost imperceptible, she greeted the men with a firm handshake.

  “Captain Mager,” she said, “Mr. Carpenter.”

  Mager grinned at her. “Since when do you call me captain? You used to call me Karl way back when you were in high school and slinging hash at the café.”

  “That’s before the army taught me to respect my superiors,” she said. “I wasn’t looking for a job, then, either.”

  Carpenter snickered into his fist. “That’s a good answer, Karl. I like it.”

  “I do too.” Mager’s grin faded. “I guess I’ve only got two questions for you, Frankie. How’re you feeling, and are you well enough to undertake a job like this?”

  “I’m fine, sir,” she assured him. Aside from the foot and the headaches and not being able to sleep most nights. Oh, yeah. Include a few memory problems in the roster. “The VA gave me my medical release, and I’m good to go. Looking forward to putting all that training I got in Afghanistan to work. My credentials are first-rate, and my commanders gave me excellent recommendations.”

  Mager’s thick forefinger tapped a letter lying on his cluttered desk. “I know. Couldn’t be better on all counts.” He raised an eyebrow at the head paramedic. “How about you, Lew? Anything you want to ask Frankie?”

  Carpenter’s jaw jutted. “Yeah. I do. I wanta know if you think what happened to you in the war earned you a free pass? Because there isn’t anybody here able to take up the slack if you can’t or won’t do your job. You’ll have to prove yourself. We get a head-on out on the highway, bodies dropping left and right, we need somebody ready and willing to carry the load without falling apart. Screw up, and I’ll get rid of you.”

  “No free passes, sir. There never are, in my experience. And I wouldn’t have applied if I couldn’t handle the pressure.” She sat straight, mentally crossing her fingers and meeting his eyes without wavering.

  The two men looked at each other, and some invisible signal passed between them. “You want to go back out and sit down for a minute, Frankie?” Mager winked at her. “Lew and I gotta talk this over. We’ll be right with you.”

  Frankie got up. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Her back as straight as though she were on parade, she left the office, resuming her seat on the hard chair. That had been about the shortest interview on record. She had to answer more—and tougher—questions than that every time she went to the doctor. The interview seemed to have gone well, though, unless it’d been so bad Karl and Lew hadn’t wanted to waste more time on her. But, she thought, fingers crossing again, they hadn’t asked either of the other two applicants to wait. That must be a good sign.

  The old brick building they used for emergency services in this part of Kootenai County was a laid-back place. Her grandmother, who’d been quite the historian in her day, told Frankie once the place had been a blacksmith’s shop. Now a series of computer screens occupied the wide dispatch desk where Maggie Owens was on duty, ready to call out cops, fire trucks, or paramedics. People came in, did their business, visited a minute, and left.

  As Frankie waited, a farmer trailing dust from his work boots hurried in to ask for a burn permit, and a kid wanted a driver’s manual. Maggie efficiently supplied both requests.

  A SUV bearing Sheriff’s Department markings pulled in, and a man got out. Frankie guessed his age at thirty or so. He had brown hair and hazel eyes, which she saw when he took off his sunglasses as he asked Maggie a question. His gaze se
ttled on Frankie, too, a quick, interested evaluation, and he nodded an acknowledgment.

  Frankie flicked him a small smile before glancing away.

  She forced herself to relax. From here she could see through the window to where her pickup sat parked under a scrawny elm tree. Banner, her dog, was lying on a patch of grass beside the truck, his pink tongue lolling as he waited for her. A skinny girl who’d emerged from the post office next door and who bore an eerie resemblance to Charlene Lindstrom, Frankie’s old boss at the café Karl had spoken of, stopped to talk to the big Samoyed and scratch behind his pricked ears.

  Nerves stretched tight, the scar on the back of Frankie’s head began itching. She really needed this job. The Spokane or Coeur d’Alene fire departments would never accept her if she couldn’t pass the physical. Which she probably couldn’t. A small, rural outfit like Hawkesford, population 567 according to the sign outside town, was about the only hope she had. Oh, it wasn’t a lack of qualifications holding her back. Those were good. Great, in fact. An army veteran with battlefield experience? Most places would be clamoring for her services—until they found out she had a plate in her head, shrapnel in her back, and was missing part of her right foot.

  A commotion outside claimed her attention. The guys had left the door wide open to catch what was left of the morning’s cool breeze, and she could see an old John Deere tractor creeping down Hawkesford’s main drag, pulling a derelict Toyota Camry toward Cunningham’s Auto Repair. The tractor’s driver seemed oblivious to the line-up of cars following him along Highway 27. Repeated honks warned him to move over so they could pass. He ignored them.

  She recognized the man at the wheel as Big Mike Pettigrew, Jesselyn’s dad. Ornery old fart. Frankie smiled. He was being deliberately obstructionist, as usual. Jesselyn said her brother Russ grew more like his dad every day as he got older, his actions a bone of contention between the siblings. Meanwhile, Jesse did her best to overcome her male family member’s obnoxious reputation in the community. That included helping Frankie get a job, and the Hawkesford Fire Department acquire a good paramedic.

  A silence in the room behind her indicated the discussion had ended. Karl tapped on the dividing window and gestured. “Come on in,” he called.

  Frankie hastened to obey, managing to keep her hands loose at her sides as she awaited the verdict.

  “Lew has one more question for you, Frankie,” Karl said, his face sober.

  Her heart sank. She should’ve known the interview wouldn’t pan out. Live in her home town, surrounded by old friends and land a decent job at the same time? It was too good to be true.

  Carpenter scowled at the captain, then at her. “Yeah. When can you start? I’m so shorthanded the whole damn crew is about to revolt and call in sick.”

  What had he said? For a moment, it didn’t sink in. “You mean I’m hired?” she asked dumbly.

  “That’s the point of this rigmarole.”

  “I can start right now, tonight, if you need me,” she burbled, momentarily forgetting about the need to find a place to live that included a place for her dog. And a change of clothes wouldn’t hurt either.

  “Well, hallelujah. A regular eager beaver.” Lew Carpenter finally showed a grin. “You can fill out the paperwork immediately, but tomorrow is soon enough to report to work. You’ll be on night shift with me for your probationary period. Twelve hours on, twelve off, work four days, and have three off. Suit you?”

  Frankie would’ve joined forces with the devil just to have the job. Not that she thought Carpenter was the devil even if he did have a sour enough attitude. “Sounds good,” she said. “Thanks. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

  His scowl, which she judged customary to him considering the formation of lines on his dark, leathered face, settled back in place. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”

  “Welcome aboard,” Karl Mager said. “Hope you won’t get too bored in a little place like Hawkesford.”

  The cop was gone when Frankie went into the outer office to fill in the paperwork. She’d just handed her completed forms to Karl when Jesselyn Pettigrew drove into the parking lot. Her Jeep Liberty skidded to a halt in front of the fire station/emergency services building. She entered the station in a rush, bearing a box of Rosauer’s doughnuts. The greasy good aroma reminded Frankie she’d been too nervous to eat any breakfast, and it was now mid-morning.

  Maggie looked up from her computer screen, nose twitching as Jesselyn walked past. “You spreading those around to all of us, Jesselyn, or are you trying to bribe Karl and Lew into hiring Frankie?”

  “Am I too late?” A mock look of dismay spread across Jesselyn’s pretty face. Short, a bit plump, pale-skinned to go with her strawberry blonde hair, her ready smile had always had the knack of drawing people to her.

  “Afraid so.” Karl’s mouth drooped sadly as he lifted the lid to the doughnut box the moment she set it down. He selected a maple bar and stuffed half of it into his mouth.

  “What do you mean?” Jesselyn snatched the doughnuts out of his reach and whirled to face her friend. “Frankie? You got the job, didn’t you?”

  Holding back a laugh, Frankie nodded. “I start tomorrow.”

  “See?” Jesselyn crowed. “I told you so. You’re the cream of the crop.”

  “Watch it.” Lew eyed the pastries before taking a plain glazed one. He pointed it toward Frankie. “I’m top dog around here, and I decide if you’re cream or cottage cheese. And don’t you forget it.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  He sounded remarkably similar to a sergeant she’d had back in Kandahar. Which didn’t do anything to make her more comfortable. Sergeant Pelker had died in the same explosion that killed most of their platoon and wounded Frankie.

  Jesselyn grabbed Frankie’s arm. “If you guys are done with your interrogation, we’re going to find her a place to live. Can’t have our new paramedic pitching a tent out in the boonies.”

  “That’s interview, not interrogation, missy.” Mager cast Frankie a puzzled look. “Aren’t you going to live in your grandma’s house? That was a point in your favor, not having to worry about housing. It’s kind of hard to come by here.”

  “Gabe Zantos lives in the McGill house,” murmured Maggie, who’d wandered over and snagged a cinnamon twist.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right. Can’t kick him out, I suppose.”

  Frankie took the comment seriously. “He’s got a year’s lease, captain. Don’t worry. I’ll find a place.” She grinned. “I’ll pile in with Jesselyn if I have to.” Upon noticing the expression on her friend’s face, she hurried to add, “Or I can always rent an apartment in Coeur d’Alene or Spokane and commute.”

  “Better find something close by,” Carpenter said. “We can’t wait for you if you’re late.”

  She stiffened. “I’m never late,” she said. “Sir.”

  “Our first step,” Jesselyn told Frankie, steering her out of the station and over to the parked cars, “is to talk with my sister Victoria.”

  “Victoria?” Frankie remembered Jesselyn’s older sister as the consummate high school fashion plate and drama queen. “Why?”

  “Because she’s a real estate agent now. She made beaucoup bucks until the big recession hit, and property values went to pot. Now the market is red-hot again, she’s back to making tons of money. If anybody knows what’s for rent around here, it’s her.” Jesselyn had her cell phone out. Her sister must’ve been on speed dial as she started talking almost immediately.

  “Hey,” she said, “it’s me. Have you heard for sure if that duplex is empty? You did? Can Frankie and I take a look?” There was a pause and her stub nose wrinkled. “Oh, well. I can help clean it up if necessary. Where’s the key? Okay. I’ll ask him.”

  Pressing the phone’s off key, she hopped into her Liberty. “Follow me,” she said. “I’ve got a hot lead.”

  Taking off like a bat out of hell, gravel spewed from beneath Jesselyn’s tires almost before Frankie cou
ld open her Ranger’s door and get Banner inside. “Jeez,” she told the dog, “I forgot she was like this, so frenetic.” In fact, thinking it over as she followed her friend across the highway to the south side of town, she couldn’t remember such behavior at all. Jesselyn had been the laid back one of the duo, Frankie the impatient one with lots of get up and go.

  A couple minutes later, she pulled in behind the Liberty parked in the driveway of an older duplex in sad need of a fresh coat of paint. Built rancher-style, the units were side by side. A patch of weedy lawn awaited mowing—and a good watering. All in all, it wasn’t what anyone would call a prepossessing place, but it was better than Frankie’s current apartment in Spokane.

  Jesselyn was already out of her car and pounding on one of the two front doors. As Frankie and Banner hastened to join her, the door opened a crack.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever you’re sellin’, I’m not buyin’,” a voice growled.

  “Oh, open up, Howie.” Jesselyn pushed until the crack widened. “Victoria wants you to give me the key to the other apartment, so I can show it to Frankie. She’s thinking about renting the empty unit.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Howie St. James, whom Frankie remembered as being a basketball star a couple years ahead of her in high school, swung the door wider. His left arm was in a dirty cast that stretched from wrist to shoulder. “Hi, Frankie,” he said. “Back from the wars, huh? Heard you were wounded.”