Murder or Not Chapter 4

Murder or Not?

By

Rebecka Vigus

Copyright 2019 

All Rights Reseved 

Chapter 4

When Sam opened her front door to leave in the morning an envelope landed at her feet. Even before reaching for it, she hit speed dial on her cell phone to call her dad.

“Chief here,” he answered.

“Dad,” she said breathlessly. “I need you to stop by my house on your way to work. Bring rubber gloves and evidence bags. I’m taking photos with my phone when we hang up.”

“Hold on, Kiddo. I’m on my way,” he replied then disconnected.

True to her word, Sam took photos of the envelope with her cell phone. She found a ruler to put it next to the manila envelope for sizing. She was still standing in the doorway when her father arrived.

Carefully opening the screen door, he looked down saying, “What do we have?”

“This joker knows where I live,” moaned Sam. “I try to keep my private life and professional life separate. “How did he find me?”

“We’ll work on it as soon as I get to work,” he said handing her a pair of gloves. “Put these on so we can open it.”

Sam put the gloves on and carefully picked up the envelope. “Let’s take it to my office.” She turned and led the way holding the envelope by the edges as if it were hot. Once at her desk, she used a letter opener to slice the end, dumping all the contents onto her desk. She spread everything out and took photos of each item. There was a letter, a photo, and part of a map.

The photo was black and white. Two men stood in the photo. The map piece was a remote part of the county. Filled with hiking trails and day trails. Sam had hiked there often.

“What do you make of this, Dad?” she asked.

“I don’t know where to begin,” his honesty troubled Sam.

“Is there an old unsolved crime?”

“Yes, I’ll dig out the file as we get these processed,” he told her. “Happened when I was just a patrolman.”

Sam began sliding the photo, letter, and map into plastic. She labeled each and put the envelope into another plastic envelope and labeled it. Handing them to her dad she said, “Sign the chain of custody. If we find this crackpot, I want nothing to be wrong with the evidence.”

The chief signed each bag and put them in his briefcase. “I’ll have the file sent over as soon I can.”

She leaned into kiss him, “Thanks, Dad.”

They walked out together, Sam making sure her door was locked. Her dad left for the police department and Sam made her way to work.

###

Anna Wilkins bounced into the office carrying a cup of hot cocoa for Sam and coffee for herself. “What do we have on the calendar for today?”

“Finding a creep before he kills again,” Sam answered accepting the cup of cocoa. “Thanks for this.”

“No problem,” Anna said shrugging out of her jacket. “We have a murder case? Isn’t the chief handling it?”

“Team effort,” Sam replied. “Letters are coming to me here at the office and at home. It’s a bit creepy. Letter writer is hinting at killing someone connected to the Bakersfield Estate and being party to a murder when Dad was just a patrolman.”

“Weird,” Anna said shaking her head.

“I’m going to download the photos to my computer,” Sam told her. “I’ll forward them to you. Can you see if you can locate the photo in archives somewhere and a county map with the designated section on it?”

“I’m on it,” replied Anna as she booted up her computer. “Let’s get to work, Boss.”

Sam sat at her computer downloading the letters, the photo, and the map section, then forwarded them to Anna.

Anna Wilkins was a steal from the police department when she was assigned to keep tabs on Sam, after one of her cases went sideways. Sam had come out the winner thanks to Anna’s wizardry at the computer. It got her a settlement to take care of her mother, start a scholarship in her mom’s name and open a brand-new office for herself.

She reflected it had been almost a year since it had happened. Allen Bannister, Sr, kept her on retainer running background checks on his employees before and after hiring them. She managed to find a couple of run-away teens and bring them home safely and worked with the police department to find a couple of lost hikers. Last month she and Anna finished up the cheating husband case, much to the amazement of the wife. Who was now basking in the high life on her ex-husband’s hidden fortune. His mistress ran off with some rich guy from the east coast. The husband came out a loser on both counts.

The file from her dad arrived at the same time Anna breezed in with newspaper accounts of the murder. I knew how I was spending my afternoon.