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Category:
Action/Thriller
Type: Fiction
Starlight, Star Bright, who was killed last night?
Victor Falls volunteer firefighter and business owner Chase Bennett likes the mundane. He prefers the expected and sensible, but since he met Maggie, admittedly his life has been anything but predictable or ordinary.
Things start to unravel when Chase and his timber cutting crew discover a skeleton buried at the base of Emerald Ridge.
Who is the dead man? Was he murdered?
Three missing husbands. Two murderous wives. A couple of misfit plumbers, a lying mistress, a mad man and a bumbling Police Chief, Ike Potter all add to the frenzied chaos. As the residents feverishly plot to keep their secrets buried, the faster they are uncovered.
In a twisted tale of conspiracy and paradox nothing in Victor Falls is ever what it seems.
Seven Diamond Secrets is a delightfully mastered epic tale of human emotion and behavior unfolded amid love, thrilling suspense, and a murderous twist leaving the residents of Victor Falls surprised to discover . . . the simplest explanation is always closest to the truth.
Excerpt
Saturday, February 11, 2006
A small note posted on the door read, "Doorbell broken, please press hard."
Doing as instructed, I leaned on the doorbell with such force that I could have pushed the house over.
A German woman opened the door to greet me, and a speedy two-pound Chihuahua with a twelve-pound bark ran out from behind the woman’s legs to attack me.
"Nixie," The woman said, "Get inside!"
The little dog Nixie was apparently deaf, for he ignored her command. Instead, the mutt ran figure eights around my feet and nipped at my ankles trying to bite me. I suppose fear that I may lob him into orbit like a dropkicked football was all that inhibited him.
"I mean it Nixie!" She shouted. "Anschlag! Hergekommen. Right now!"
'Now' seemed to be the operative buzzword for disarming Nixie, as abidingly he tucked his tail between his legs and entered the house rather deflated.
"How can I help you?" She asked.
"I'm not sure if I have the right address, but I am looking for a man named Ray Forrester."
"Yes," She said, "This is the right place. Come in."
When I hesitated to enter, the woman added, "Don't worry about Nixie. He won't eat much. His bark is way worse than his bite."
Stepping through the threshold the welcoming smell of cinnamon strudel permeated the air. I followed the woman to a den just off the foyer.
"Wait here. Make yourself comfortable. I will get my husband."
I took a seat on the black leather sofa. Looking around the place I felt like I had stepped back into time, somewhere into the early 1950s. The walls were painted the ugliest rust color known to mankind. I hoped I did not have to wait too long, since the decor in this room made me rather uncomfortable.
In the center of the wall facing me hung a 18 x 20 painting of Jesus. The eyes in the portrait seemed to watch my every move, and that made me uneasy as well. If I had been a man with something to hide, or anything to feel guilty about, the Jesus picture was perfect for prompting a confession. Since I had nothing of importance to conceal the piercing eyes of Jesus just made me very apprehensive.
What was I doing here? Suddenly I had second thoughts about coming here at all. I doubted that Ray Forrester had anything to tell me that would help me find Maggie, but after seven months of searching on my own I was fresh out of clues. Maggie's sister Paige had been no help. Even if she had known where her sister was, Paige was not volunteering any assistance.
I was not sure where else to go except here. A private investigator I hired had given me the name of Ray Forrester, Maggie's estranged uncle. Ray was the older brother of Maggie's father. I knew Maggie did not have contact with her father long before he died, but if Ray Forrester had any information that could assist me in my search it was worth pursuing. It was a long shot, and I knew it.
After several minutes of tense silence, Ray Forrester shuffled into the room. He was a tall man with a slightly stooped posture and a noticeable leftward limp. He was a semi-bald frail man whom gravity had a grip on, pulling him downward. From the sunspots on his face I assumed he had spent a great deal of time outside at some point in his life. He was clad in a green and white plaid flannel shirt, remindful of a shirt I had seen my own grandfather wear. This was a shirt that with multiple launderings had become thread bare, but was still clinging to life.
I stood up to greet him. "Chase Bennett." I said extending my hand. "Thank you for taking time to see me."
"Please to meet you." Mr. Forrester replied. "What can I do for you Mr. Bennett?"
"I am not sure you can do anything for me especially. I am looking for a woman."
"Can't help you there, I have been out of the woman finding business for a long time, and my wife is not available." He said laughing at his own humor.
"No," I said apologetically, "I'm looking for a woman I believe may be your niece, Maggie Forrester."
"Oh, my brother Tom's daughter." He said nodding. "I do not think I can help you much on that score. I have not seen Maggie or her sister Paige since they were young babies. Both are grown women by now. I would not recognize either of them if I had passed them on the street yesterday."
Mr. Forrester was courteous enough, and I suspected the last kind of news he would need would be one of a shocking nature. I was reluctant to divulge the nature of my visit, but in my obsession to locate Maggie these past many months, I had to leave no stone unturned.
"I don't really know how to tell you other than to be straight forward." I said. "Maggie was abducted seven month’s ago."
"Abducted?" Mr. Forrester said. "Sweet Jesus, by whom? What on earth for?"
"That is a very long story sir." I said trying to calm him. "I cannot even be sure she was abducted, but she has disappeared. My gut instinct tells me she would not have left that way, leaving no trace of where she had gone."
As if on cue, Nixie re-entered the room to offer his barking opinion.
"Mother," Mr. Forrester shouted to his wife, "Can you do something with this dad blame dog?"
While we waited for Mrs. Forrester to come and remove the dog, Mr. Forrester grabbed Nixie and held the dog back with one arm to keep him from attacking me. The man and his dog both continued to fuss about their discomforts.
"This blasted dog. Let me take that back. This is not a dog at all. This creature is a Now or Later. Nixie is a genetic experiment gone wrong, a cross between an alligator and a rat. That's why he shakes the way he does. He is so crazy mixed up he cannot decide whether to try and eat people now or take them along to eat later."
What became apparent to me was Nixie did not like Mr. Forrester any better than he liked me. That fact became obvious when Nixie bit Mr. Forrester on the hand he used to restrain him.
"I apologize, I should not have come." I said standing up. "Perhaps I should leave."
"No, now hang on there a second young fellow." Mr. Forrester said.
"Mother! Come, get Nixie out of here."
Promptly, Mrs. Forrester came in to whisk Nixie away.
Mr. Forrester pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to tend to the minor bleeding of his dog bite injury. "Where were we?" He asked.
"Are you all right?" I was shocked having witnessed a man attacked by his own dog.
"Oh this? It is nothing. Just a flesh wound. I'll be fine. That little bastard bites me on a regular basis, once after breakfast and twice before dinner." He said chuckling. "I'm used to it. That dog is the reason I remember to take my medicine on time; precisely a quarter past the dog bite."
I could not help but smile from his stoic sense of humor. I liked him.
"Have you contacted the police?" He asked.
"I have."
"What was their take?"
"They said they did not have much to go on to prove or disprove Maggie was abducted. They told me at this point they have done all they can do, and suggested I hire a private investigator."
"I am no private investigator. Hell, I am nothing but a retired old railroader."
"What did you do for the railroad?"
"'I worked 37 years as a brakeman for the Northern Pacific." He said, "Only job I ever had. Been retired close to twenty years now."
Working 37 years as a brakeman, and having been bitten by his own dog, I knew this old man was tougher than a two-dollar steak. Certainly much more enduring and not as frail as he appeared to be on the surface.
My fascination with trains, planes and cars had taught me considerably more than an average man should know about such things. I knew from study that back in the day, the brakeman's job was to walk on top of a moving train to manually turn the brake wheel for each car to apply the brakes. A job like that was way out of range for what an average man could handle.
"That was a rough job." I remarked. "I bet you have some stories to tell."
"Not too many really. The most eventful thing that ever happened to me on the job was on October 12, 1962. I remember it well. The winds that day topped 150 miles an hour, and it blew me plumb through two counties, all the way from Tacoma dang near to Cle Elum."
I knew that was not right. It was a good 95 miles from Tacoma to Cle Elum, and there was no way he was blown that far in any kind of weather. The old man's story had obviously gained miles and lost credibility in the 40+ years he had been retelling it. All I could think to say was, "Unbelievable."
"Damn straight it was unbelievable!" He said. "Forty-seven people died between here and San Francisco in the storm that day. I ended up in the hospital for eight months with my leg busted up in seven places. The doctors told me I'd never walk again, but I proved them wrong."
That explained his limp. "You are pretty lucky that it did not kill you."
"It's only a miracle of God it didn't. It just slowed me down a little is all." He said. "Enough about that. You didn't come here to hear an old man tell war stories. You wanted to know about my niece, Maggie, right?"
"Yes sir." I said respectfully. "I hoped there might be anything you could share with me about her."
"I can't tell you much. I have not seen her since she was just a baby like I said, maybe a couple months old. I wouldn't have a fool's notion where she is now or who could have taken off with her. But, I’ll tell you what I can do."
"What is that?" I asked.
"I am pretty good at solving a mystery. What do you say if you tell me everything you know, and between the two of us we try to connect the dots and find out what the heck happened to that girl. I'd be curious to know myself."
Since I had nowhere to go with any sense of urgency, I decided to share what I knew with Old Man Forrester. With any luck, he might come up with a clue, something that I had overlooked.
"You want some coffee or something?" He asked.
"No thanks." I replied. "I'm good."
"How about a cigar?" He said. "Go on and say yes, because if you have one, I can have one. The Mrs. doesn’t like it if I smoke, but she'll allow it when I have company."
"A cigar would be fine."
"Come with me Mr. Bennett." He said. "We'll have to do our smoking outside. We can sit out on the deck and see if we can diagram this thing out while we get some fresh ideas."
As we sauntered through the house, Mr. Forrester paused long enough to grab a small maple wood humidor of cigars from the cherry wood bookcase in their living room. "Mother," He said, "I'll be out back if anyone wants me. Mr. Bennett and I have a little feuchtwangering we gotta do."
I was not sure what he meant by the term, "feuchtwangering." It sounded German, and was strongly guttural. Oddly, it seemed like a perfect word to describe a cat trying to yak up a fur ball from the base of his tail, working its way out painfully.
From Mr. Forrester's inflection, he meant we were going to puzzle out what happened to Maggie no matter how distressful it was. That is, right after I coughed up every hairy detail leading to her disappearance.
I knew too this was going to take some time, because, after all, it was one hell of a twisted tale.
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