Murder in Chinatown (Peyton Brooks' Series Book 5) Read online

  Murder in Chinatown

  A Peyton Brooks’ Mystery

  Volume 5

  ML Hamilton

  Cover Art by Karri Klawiter

  www.artbykarri.com

  Photography by Jared Lugo

  Murder in Chinatown

  © 2013 ML Hamilton, Sacramento, CA

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

  First print

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

  The joy of writing never gets old, but the joy of knowing people are reading cannot be beaten. Thank you to all of my readers who continue to follow Peyton’s adventures. Thank you as always to my family for your support and commitment to my dream!

  “I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”

  -- Marilyn Monroe

  Table of Contents

  Table of 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

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  Billy sat down on the edge of her desk, obscuring her view of the monitor. She sighed and looked up at him. With his mop of brown hair, his boyish looks, and his enthusiasm, he reminded her of a Golden Retriever puppy she’d had as a little girl.

  “Why don’t you invite me over to your house for dinner?” he said, giving her the full force of his twin dimples.

  She shoved him in the side, unseating him. “Not gonna happen.”

  “Why not?” He turned the dimples into a pout. “If we’re gonna be partners, shouldn’t we know each other better?”

  “No.” She began typing her email again, ignoring him.

  He shuffled back to his desk and slumped into the chair, swinging it back and forth. “I’m bored. Half the time we just sit around waiting for something to happen.”

  “Call the lab and see if we got a hit on that missing person, Lois Clearwater. They should be done processing the hair from that brush by now.”

  He grumbled something, but swung the chair around to face his monitor, reaching for his desk phone. Gabby tried to ignore him as she worked. She hadn’t wanted to train anyone, but she realized that there were just too many cases for her to work by herself. Still, she’d have preferred an older, more seasoned cop, not one who was still wet behind the ears. Billy Lucott had served four years as a beat cop before switching to homicide. Now he was taking classes to be a detective. The captain assured her he was a quick study, but he hadn’t done much of anything to impress her yet.

  “Hey, Gabby.”

  Gabby looked up to see Rick Montano, the victim’s advocate, approaching her desk.

  “Rick.”

  “Got a woman out front. Name’s Janet Messette. Says she wants to see Buck Reiter.”

  “You tell her he’s retired?”

  “Did. Says it’s important.”

  Gabby glanced at her unfinished email. “Okay. I’ll be right out. Just let me finish this.”

  “I’ll let her know.” He turned and walked back the way he’d come.

  Gabby finished her email, half listening to Billy’s call to the lab, then she hit the send button and rolled her chair back from her desk. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she told him.

  He hung up the phone. “Can I come?”

  “Not right now. What’d you find out?”

  “They’re still working on it. Could be another day or two. Why can’t I come? I’m supposed to shadow you.”

  “Ain’t nothing to shadow yet. Just sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

  “What if it’s a case?”

  “It’s an old Reiter case. Probably nothing there. I’ll let you know if it’s something.”

  He slumped down in his chair, then reached for the mouse, pulling up a game of solitaire. “When they told me I’d be working Cold Case, I didn’t know they meant the detectives,” he grumbled.

  Gabby smiled as she walked away. Maybe if he complained enough, they’d move him to something more exciting, like the Gang Task Force. Despite the caseload, she just wasn’t convinced she needed help from a boy who still needed someone to tie his shoes for him.

  When she reached the lobby, she found a young woman waiting for her. She had to be about twenty-five, maybe thirty at the outside. She had brown hair, pulled back in clips, and wore jeans and an embroidered peasant blouse with a pair of wedged espadrilles. She held something in her hands, but Gabby couldn’t see it clearly.

  “Ms. Messette? I’m Detective Gabriela Acosta with Miami’s Cold Case Squad.” She held out her hand.

  The young woman took it with one of her own. Her touch was cool despite the late summer Floridian weather. “Detective, pleasure to meet you.”

  “Officer Montano said you were looking for Detective Reiter?”

  “Right, but he said he retired about three years ago.”

  “He did. I took his place. Is there something I can help you with?”

  She looked down at the thing in her hand. Gabby could see it was an envelope, bound up with rubber bands crisscrossed over the entire surface of it, except for a perfect square that said Detective Reiter in thick permanent marker. She gave Gabby a sheepish smile. “My grandmother loved her rubber bands. They’re on everything…” Her voice choked off and her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry,” she said, holding up a hand. “It’s been eight months, but it still hurts.”

  “I understand. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  She nodded and swiped a tear away. “Anyway, I think this was very important to her.”

  “She didn’t tell you what it was?”

  “The last year and a half she couldn’t really communicate effectively. She had a stroke and it destroyed her ability to talk.”

  “I see. Do you know if there was a case that Detective Reiter was working on for her?”

  Janet gave a heavy sigh. “That’s the problem. The only thing I can think of was my aunt and uncle. They were killed in a home invasion robbery about twenty years ago.” She gave the envelope a sad smile. “She didn’t like to talk about them, so I never brought it up, but I can’t think of anything else it could be.”

  Gabby also studied the envelope. “If I can ask, Ms. Messette, why didn’t you open it?”

  “Call me Janet, please. I don’t know. It was addressed to Detective Reiter. I guess I wanted to honor my grandmother’s last wish.”

  Gabby motioned into the precinct. “Why don’t you come in and we’ll find a quiet place to open it. Then you can tell me whatever you know about your aunt and uncle.”

  Janet nodded. “Sounds good.”

  She followed Gabby as they wound through the precinct. When they passed Gabby’s desk, Billy spun around to watch, but she motioned him back down. He slumped again. She knew she was going to have to do something with him. No matter how much he reminded her of her past dog, she couldn’t keep treating him like one.

  She led Janet to a small conference room and offered her a chair.
“Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Water would be wonderful.”

  Gabby stepped out and filled two paper cups with water from the water cooler outside the door, then carried them back inside and set one in front of Janet. She went back out and snagged a pair of scissors off the closest unoccupied desk, then she took a seat opposite her.

  The young woman had placed the envelope flat on the desk. Gabby wasn’t sure of the size because it was so done up with rubber bands, but it couldn’t hold anything of monumental importance, she felt sure.

  Glancing up, Janet pushed the envelope across the table to her. “I’d feel better if you opened it.”

  Gabby picked up the envelope and turned it over, studying the intricate webbing of rubber, layer after layer across the entire surface. Madness this, she thought. Lifting the scissors, she gave Janet a sheepish look. “Do you mind?”

  Janet gave a laugh, then covered her mouth, her eyes shimmering with tears. “No. You’ll never get it open otherwise.”

  Gabby slipped one edge of the scissors beneath a layer of rubber band and began the tedious chore of cutting them away. “Why don’t you tell me what you know as I work on this?” she suggested.

  Janet lifted the cup and took a sip. “Like I said, I don’t know much. I didn’t even meet my grandmother until I was twelve.”

  Gabby stopped cutting and met her gaze. “Why?”

  “Both of my grandparents were professors at the University of Miami.”

  “Wow!” whistled Gabby.

  “Yep. Granddad was a physics professor and Grandma taught American Studies. They had two children, my aunt Carol and my father. Aunt Carol followed in their footsteps and became a doctor of oncology. Dad wasn’t like that. He barely graduated high school and definitely had no interest in college. He moved to Texas, met an exotic dancer, and became a truck driver. When I was born, Granddad disowned him and wouldn’t let Grandma have anything to do with us.”

  “Not to be judgmental, but that was a bit harsh, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, well, Dad didn’t much care. He didn’t have very many happy memories about his childhood. He was the youngest and never could live up to Aunt Carol’s accomplishments.” She tilted the cup and looked inside. “My mom left shortly after I was born, so my dad raised me. Like I said, I met my grandmother when I was twelve. She came out to Texas to reconcile with my father. My aunt and uncle had been killed and Granddad died about four months later. Heart attack, but Grandma always thought it was the grief of losing his favorite child. I don’t know. Two years later, Dad was killed in a trucking accident. Grandma came and got me and moved me to Miami. I lived with her ever since.” She set the cup down. “She was so good to me. Helped me get through high school, then college. I don’t know what I would have done without her.”

  “What a tragic life she had,” said Gabby, struck by the number of deaths surrounding her. She’d buried both children and a husband.

  “Yeah, it was. Then about a year and a half ago, she had her stroke. It crippled her and took away her ability to speak. I tried to take care of her for about six months, but it was so hard lifting her in and out of bed. She eventually demanded I put her in a home, even pulled up the one she wanted on the computer to show me.”

  Gabby smiled and went back to cutting. “Sounds like a remarkable woman.”

  “She was. We got her a private room, but it was small. She couldn’t take many possessions with her, but she picked out a few photos and one music box. I didn’t understand the music box, but it was important to her. She’d point to it and ask me to bring it to her, then she’d just sit and hold it.”

  Gabby had half the envelope free of rubber bands by now. She made a little pile in the middle of the table and turned the envelope, going to work on the opposite end. “Did you ever figure out what was special about the music box?”

  Janet gave the envelope a pointed look. “One day when I was visiting, we were watching television. Some reality show or something. Suddenly, she gets very agitated, starts pointing at the screen, then she points to the box. I got it for her, but this time, instead of holding it, she starts pointing at the keyhole, trying to tell me something. I searched all over her room for the key, I even tried to jimmy it open with paperclips and a nail file, but nothing worked. As soon as the show went off, she fell asleep and I never thought of it again, until yesterday.”

  Gabby stopped cutting. “Yesterday?”

  “I finally decided to clean out her room at our house. Actually, I finally got up the courage to do it. It’s been eight months since she died and I haven’t been able to go in her room ever since.” She lifted the cup and drained the water.

  “Can I get you more?”

  “No, thank you. I’m fine.” She pushed the cup away from her. “Yesterday, as I was cleaning out her dresser, I found the key to the music box on a bunch of other keys. She’d stuffed it into a sock and bound the whole thing with…”

  “Rubber bands.”

  Janet laughed. “Yep.”

  Gabby smiled and went back to cutting. “And when you opened the music box, you found the envelope?”

  “Right. So here I am and there it is and I have no idea what it contains.”

  Gabby applied the scissors again. She cut the last of the rubber bands away and found a full sized letter envelope folded in half. Running her fingers across the surface, she could feel a hard edge. “Do you want to open it?”

  Janet shook her head.

  “I have your permission?”

  “You have my permission.”

  Gabby tore the envelope open on one end and shook the contents into her hand. Janet leaned forward and they both stared. A business card had been wrapped around a key and bound up with rubber bands. Janet let out a bark of laughter and covered her mouth again. Gabby smiled at her and reached for the scissors, cutting the bands away. Folding open the card, she picked up the key.

  “It looks like a safe deposit box key.” Setting it aside, she pressed the business card flat on the table. The words Coconut Grove Bank was embossed on the front in red letters with a Miami address. On the other side was the number 87 in black permanent marker.

  “A safe deposit box?”

  Gabby shrugged. “Did she have any valuables that you know of?”

  “No. She never liked jewelry and they were very frugal with their money. She had a few art pieces, but those are all at the house. Everything else she left to me in her will.”

  “Hm. I need to look up your aunt’s case. As far as you know, it was never solved.”

  “That’s right. When I was in high school, some kids mentioned it, so I did some research, but there wasn’t much to find. The police had nothing to go on, no suspects and no motive. Except for a little petty cash, nothing was stolen from my aunt’s house.”

  “Who found your aunt and uncle’s bodies?”

  “Their daughter. She was at her senior prom that night and she found them when she came home.”

  “Where is she now?”

  Janet shook her head. “No one knows. She stayed around for about six months or so after they died, living in that house, but she couldn’t take it. Once the case went cold, she took off. I don’t think my grandmother ever knew where she went.”

  “Okay. I’ll need your aunt and uncle’s names and the address to their house. I can go with you to the bank to look at the safe deposit box if you’d like.”

  “Will you do it? It’s hard enough for me to go through her stuff. I don’t think I can stand to see what’s in the safe deposit box.”

  “I understand. I’ll need you to fill out some papers, giving me permission to open the box, but it shouldn’t be hard to get a judge to give us a warrant.”

  “I’ll fill out whatever you need.” She glanced down at the table. “I don’t want to go to the bank, but I do want to know what you find. Will you keep me in the loop?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “I’m sure you have other cases you have to wo
rk, but I appreciate anything you can find out.”

  Gabby smiled and reached across the table to touch her hand. “That’s what we do in Cold Case. We get a lead and we follow it. You just gave us a lead.”

  Janet smiled in return and covered her hand with her free one. “Thank you, Detective Acosta, I know my grandmother would be grateful.”

  * * *

  Captain Katherine Defino liked to think she navigated the difficult waters of a predominantly male profession with finesse. She ran a tight ship, she kept her cops in line, and she was fair. She tried not to have favorites and she never asked her people to do something she wasn’t willing to do herself. And yet, here she was faced with the most difficult dilemma of her career and it annoyed her that she didn’t know what to do.

  She leaned on the wall beside the conference room and watched the four detectives and the crime scene photographer as they talked about their latest case. Marco D’Angelo, handsome as a male model but tough as nails, lounged in his desk chair. Bear-like Bill Simons sat backwards in an office chair next to him, his arms crossed over the top of it. Nathan Cho, quick and deadly, stood in the middle of the floor, his hands waving in the air as he told his story. Jake Ryder, the murder suspect turned crime scene photographer, sat at the juncture of the two desks where they pressed nose to nose against each other. His legs were swinging as they usually were whenever he perched on something. And directly across from Marco sat Peyton Brooks, the little 5’4” dynamo that couldn’t work a damn case without getting personally involved with the suspects.

  “So this is what we find,” said Cho. “19 year old kid been caught messing with a 16 year old. Parents find out, press charges. Kid gets convicted for statutory rape. Now he’s a registered sex offender.”

  Peyton and Marco both gave groans of dismay. Jake kicked his feet, refusing to look up. By the look on his face, Katherine felt sure he was somehow the butt of this story.

  “Two nights ago, someone throws a rock through the kid’s front window. Mom freaks. She’s heard about our serial killer and is sure he’s coming for her son.”