Deadly Links Read online

  Deadly Links

  Paul Murphy

  Copyright Paul Murphy 2013

  Published by Paul Murphy

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  © 2013 by Paul Murphy

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.

  First digital version

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Print edition produced in the United States of America

  * * * * *

  To the memory of Bellringers

  and Murphys who have passed on.

  Acknowledgements

  Deadly Links could not have been written without the help of others.

  Special thanks to my editors, Mike Murphy and Nancy Kilpatrick, who whipped the book into shape.

  Heartfelt thanks to Sandy Trunzer, David Reid, Danny Toner, and Rita Vetere for their support, input, and expertise. Their significant contributions are scattered throughout the chapters of Deadly Links.

  Many thanks also to Denise Rago, Phil Sexton, and Brian Henry, each of whom helped push me to the finish line.

  And thank you again to Nancy Kilpatrick, who taught me how to write a novel. Any evidence to the contrary found within these pages is entirely the fault of her humble student.

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  PART I — IN THE DEEP ROUGH

  “Of all the hazards, fear is the worst.”

  -Sam Snead

  CHAPTER 1

  Growls broke the predawn quiet. Michael Flanigan sat at his kitchen table, massaging his temples. He took a gulp from a tumbler of orange juice, splashing some next to an old coffee stain on his Toronto Maple Leafs T-shirt. He checked his watch. It was just past five a.m.

  Danny was here.

  A staleness hung in the room. On the counter, an uncapped tequila bottle stood next to a line of Molson Canadian empties, like a king presiding over the pawns of a drunk’s chessboard. A Pizza Hut box sat on top of the fridge. He cursed himself for the hangover, his first in months.

  Tequila. Did I black out?

  He seldom heard a peep from his border collies when they were out for their morning constitutional, until they clawed at the back door to come inside. He gave it a minute, hoping they would settle down before the coffee finished brewing.

  Michael looked out the bay window. A fat, hazy moon peered in, the morning still cloaked in darkness. He squinted at the layer of fog blanketing the grounds at the rear of his country home. He could see nothing beyond the reflection in the glass that stared back at him. Nothing but the fog. The outdoor light hadn’t worked for weeks. He had little motivation for household chores since Emily...

  He reached behind, flicked off the kitchen light, and took another look. Still nothing.

  The dogs barked, persistent and agitated.

  Damn it.

  He’d have to go out.

  He got a flashlight from a kitchen drawer and pushed the button three, four times. Dead. He found another in the adjoining laundry room and clicked it once, bouncing a light beam off the wall. He slipped into his sneakers and stepped out the back door onto the low cedar deck.

  The warm mid-June morning hit him as he exited the air-conditioned house. The fog was thicker than he’d thought, now that it surrounded him. He inhaled deeply, the heavy, humid air still a welcome contrast to the weary aura lingering indoors.

  He stepped onto the grass, the morning dew seeping through his porous old shoes. The dogs didn’t let up. He pointed the flashlight toward the back of his property, in the direction of the staccato howls. Training the light on the ground in front of him, he navigated the balls and toys that littered his path to the fence. He made a mental note to avoid the swing set that he couldn’t see.

  Heavy fog often made him think of a scene from the movie An American Werewolf in London, the one where Griffin Dunne’s character ambles along the murky Yorkshire moors, just before the four-legged antagonist rips out much of what had attached his shoulders to his head.

  Painting the rear perimeter with the flashlight, he detected movement thirty yards away, near the chain-link fence that stood between his property and the eighth fairway at Foster Glen.

  “Paulie,” he called. “Silvio.” He lowered the flashlight to his side. “C’mon, guys.”

  The dogs ignored him.

  As Michael got to within a few feet of the fence, a crash from behind startled him. He slipped on the wet grass, slamming his ass onto the ground. The flashlight clattered off the fence. The dogs snarled. He identified the noise as an upended garbage bin. The dogs paid no attention to the sound of scurrying raccoons.

  What the hell is out here?

  Now on all fours, he made a futile grope for the flashlight, which had shut off when it hit the fence. The pleas from the dogs surged to a crescendo.

  The middle finger of his flailing left hand penetrated the link fence and squished into something pressed against the opposite side.

  He snatched back his hand, scraping it against the metal fence. As he tried to suck the pain from a knuckle, he slid backward on top of the flashlight. Michael jerked it out from under him and aimed it at the fence.

  It was his turn to yelp.

  CHAPTER 2

  Michael peered into the dining room mirror like he was looking at someone else. Grey speckled his bedraggled black hair, and his face displayed a neglected stubble. He felt beaten down, older than his forty-four years.

  He’d always felt a sense of safety and serenity in Burlington, just thirty-five minutes west of the metropolis of Toronto. His view of the world was changing.

  At least his oversize, tree-lined lot kept curious neighbours at an ignorable distance. He had just retreated from the chaos brewing at the front of the house, where TV and radio crews were setting up and police cars clogged the road.

  Rejoining his visitors, he slumped into the same kitchen chair from which the dogs had roused him two hours earlier. Paulie and Sylvio lay at his feet. The sun had risen and the fog had cleared. He watched a mix of uniformed and plainclothes police personnel hover by a thicket of trees just beyond the back fence, where a strand of yellow tape surrounded their investigation. A man in a tan suit operated a video camera, as if making a home movie whose star was about to be carried off set on a gurney.

  A stocky man in wire-rimmed glasses, a fedora, and an elbow-patched sport jacket stood just outside the kitchen, speaking softly into a cell phone. The man had introduced himself as Detective Leo Speagle of the Halton County Regional Police Department. Michael thought Speagle resembled a slightly younger version of Lou Piniella, the Chicago Cubs manager.

  A light-skinned black detective, about Michael’s age, sat at the end of the small table with his back to the window, arms folded across his chest, staring at Michael. At least six and a half feet tall, Detective John Alberts had not said a word since sliding his card in front of Michael minutes before. His biceps bulged from under his light grey suit.

  Speagle snapped his phone shut and joined them at the table. He made some notes in a small brown notebook that was dwarfed further by the cop’s meaty hands. It brought to mind Michael’s wannabe writer friend, Danny Higgins, who carried around a notebook to jot down ideas that came to him, for whatever story he had on the go.

  When did Danny leave?

  Speagle set his hat on the table and said, “Mr. Flanigan, tell us anything you remember around the time you made your discovery this morning.”
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  “I already told those cops,” said Michael, jerking his thumb in the direction of the crime scene crew out back. He squeezed his hands together in his lap to stop them from shaking.

  Speagle hunched over the tabletop. “We’ll be out of here before you know it.”

  Michael got up, poured a cup of coffee, and sipped it until a cylinder or two ignited. He sat down, with Paulie and Sylvio still at his feet, and told the detectives about the dogs summoning him into the predawn fog. He didn’t mention passing out on the couch after pounding back beer and tequila.

  At first, he told them, he thought he had stuck his finger in a pile of mud. “And then,” he said, quavering, “and then I flashed the light back at the fence. And I saw his face, pressed against the fence. It looked all muddy, bloody, I guess. I must have stuck my finger in his eye... or where it should have been.”

  He looked back and forth at the two detectives. “His eye was... gone, wasn’t it?”

  “What else, Mr. Flanigan?” asked Speagle.

  “There was so much blood,” said Michael. “And his other eye...”

  “Take your time, Mr. Flanigan,” said Speagle. “You’ve had a tough morning.”

  Michael ran his palms over his face, then closed his eyes and replayed the scene.

  “His other eye was open,” he said, “staring at me. I ran the flashlight down his body. He was naked. Something in his mouth, something bulging... white.” Michael opened his eyes. “Hey, it could have been a golf ball.”

  “Did you recognize him?” asked Alberts, finally joining the conversation.

  “I don’t think I ever saw him before. But considering the shape he was in... who knows?”

  “Anyone else in the house with you?” asked Speagle, looking around.

  “I live alone.” Michael reached under the table to pet the top of Paulie’s head. “Just me and the dogs.”

  Speagle glanced out to the backyard. “I noticed the toys and swing set.”

  “Emily liked to keep the toys here for when friends or family visited, for their kids. Clint, my sixteen-year-old, lives with his mother, my first wife Denise, in Kingston. My stepdaughter Sophie hasn’t lived at home for a while now.”

  “Emily’s your second wife?” asked Speagle.

  Michael nodded.

  “You divorce her, too?”

  “She died,” said Michael, thinking Speagle should already know that.

  “Our condolences,” said Speagle while writing in his notebook.

  “What did you do then?” asked Alberts.

  “It occurred to me that whoever did it might still be out there. I got my ass back in the house and phoned 911. I put the dogs in the basement. I just got them settled down a few minutes before you walked in.”

  “You must have got some blood on you,” said Alberts.

  Michael raised his hands; turned them. “I washed it off as soon as I could. The cops outside checked me over.”

  “Have any company last night?”

  “Danny Higgins, an old friend.” Michael filled them in on his day, from going out for dinner with Danny, to coming back to his house to relax, have a few drinks, and watch the U.S. Open. He didn’t remember who was winning the golf tournament, how much he had to drink, or what time Danny went home. He crashed on the couch and slept until the dogs woke him.

  Speagle continued to take notes.

  “You don’t remember much?” said Alberts.

  “I guess we did have more than a couple of drinks.”

  “Was your friend driving?”

  “I had a few drinks,” Michael said.

  “Do you do that often, have quite a bit to drink?”

  “No. What has that got to do with anything?”

  “If you can’t remember...”

  “What, do you think I had something to do with this?”

  “Did you?”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “Relax, Mr. Flanigan,” said Speagle.

  John Alberts leaned in, palms flat on the table. Sensing the big cop liked to intimidate, Michael held his gaze. He resented being treated like a criminal in his own home.

  Alberts sat back in his chair. “Just answer a few more questions,” he said, and after a glimpse at the empty beer bottles on the counter, added, “and you can go back to whatever it was you had planned for today.”

  Michael sighed. “What did you say your name was, Sergeant?”

  “Alberts. Detective Alberts.”

  Paulie snarled. Sylvio followed his lead. Alberts flinched.

  Michael smiled. He reached down to pet the dogs and said, “Good boys.” After walking them to the basement door, he returned to his chair in the kitchen.

  “Well, Detective, I’ve been through enough lately that I’m not going to be intimidated by your act.” Michael looked away and shook his head, then turned back to Alberts. “Go ahead and ask your damn questions... whatever it takes get you the hell out of my house.”

  “What have you been through lately?” asked Speagle.

  The two cops glanced at each other, then turned their attention back to Michael. He sensed they knew more than they were letting on.

  Speagle tapped his pen in the air in front of Michael. “Michael Flanigan,” he said. “You’re that guy, from the golf thing. Up north. You’re Tommy Flanigan’s boy.”

  Michael said nothing.

  “You guys stood to make a lot of dough, didn’t ya? And then you inherited some more,” said Speagle. “Quite a bit more.”

  “I invested a little in the development.”

  Speagle fidgeted in his chair before continuing in a softer, grave tone. “And then, your wife...”

  “And then my wife,” said Michael.

  “Where do you work?” asked Alberts.

  “Until recently, I taught at T. J. Walsh.”

  “You aren’t working?” asked Alberts.

  “Look, it was dark and foggy. I didn’t see or hear anyone else out there this morning, or last night.” He stood up and pushed in his chair. “Now, if there’s nothing else.”

  The two cops looked at each other and nodded.

  Speagle tucked his notebook inside his jacket pocket and put on his fedora. “We’ll call you if we need anything else,” he said.

  Before the detectives got to the kitchen doorway, Alberts stopped and turned back. “Aren’t you at all curious about the identity of the dead man behind your house?”

  “He was naked. I figured he wouldn’t have had any ID.” Why was he defending himself?

  Speagle retrieved the notebook from his pocket. He opened it and held it down by his waist, peering through the bottom of bifocals.

  “Vincent Fronda, age thirty-five.” Speagle read it like a roll call for the dead. “He was a photographer,” he said, and looked up at Michael before adding, “Belonged to some local club.”

  “Never met him,” said Michael, hoping his expression didn’t betray him.

  “What did your late wife do for a living, Mr. Flanigan?” asked Alberts.

  “My wife?” Her life had been well-documented in the media. “She worked at the art centre downtown. She worked in the gift store, taught some photography classes. Whatever needed doing, as far as I could tell.”

  Speagle made a note.

  The three men stood in silence for a few seconds, the detectives staring at Michael as if hoping he’d say more. When he did not, Speagle said, “Would you mind writing down the address and phone number of your friend Higgins? We’ll need to speak with him. Just a formality.”

  Michael took the pen and notebook from Speagle. A single word in capital letters was underlined at the top of the page: PHOTOGRAPHY. Michael hesitated, without looking up, and wrote down Danny’s address and cell phone number.

  Alberts said, “We’d appreciate it if you stuck around, in case we need to reach you.”

  “Where would I go?” asked Michael. “You know, technically this didn’t happen on my property. It was on the golf course. Are you asking my neigh
bours to stick around in case you need them?”

  “Don’t go too far,” said Alberts. He and Speagle turned and left.

  Michael felt a little woozy. He belched, and tasted the tequila again. He grabbed a bottle of water and sat back down.

  He hadn’t lied to the detectives. He had never met the dead man. But he thought his late wife may have.

  CHAPTER 3

  Standing under the shower, Michael wondered how long the police tape would remain, branding his property a murder scene. He would bet money that Vincent Fronda—Vinnie?—was a guy in Emily’s photography club. He attached nothing good to the name, but couldn’t remember why.

  He stepped out of the shower and shook out two Advil from the bottle on his dresser. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he tried in vain to recall anything between cocktails with Danny and waking up on the couch.

  He fell back on the bed and closed his eyes.

  The phone woke Michael a couple of hours later. Disoriented at first, the events of the early morning soon came back to him. After a half-dozen rings, his voice mail picked up the call.

  He felt rather refreshed, all things considered. He usually recovered quickly, perhaps his curse.

  The ringing started again.

  “Anything you want to tell me?” said Danny Higgins when Michael answered the phone.

  “Higgy. Shit, man, I was gonna call you.”

  Alberts and Speagle had put Danny through a similar drill, and his friend verified for them that he had left Michael asleep on the couch just after eleven.

  “Hopefully they figure he was killed before then,” said Michael, pulling at the drapes for another peek at the yellow police tape. “You shoulda seen him, man. Fucking butchered.”

  “Un-fucking-believable. It coulda happened while we were sitting there watching the tube.”

  “Tequila. Didn’t know I had any in the house. Must have been collecting dust at the back of the cabinet.” Michael shivered. The last time he had tequila was at a student pub in Kingston, when Danny was at Queen’s University. It was the last stop on a night of bar-hopping. He was barely twenty. Four hours of that night never came back to him, like a black hole in his memory. He vowed then never to touch the stuff again.