Claws of the Griffin

By Ron D. Voigts

"When North meets South, it's murder."

Chicago entrepreneur, Peter Reynolds, is barely thirty and has sold his import/export business for seven million dollars. He is at loose ends, not terribly moral and more than a little spoiled to a lavish lifestyle. All that he has come to know and cherish is about to change when he gets an invitation to attend the funeral of an ex-girlfriend, Diane Cottwell, in Archer Springs, North Carolina.

From the moment he steps off the plane, things take a downward spiral. Beginning with the rental car from hell, he finds himself embroiled with moonshiners, good-ole-boy politics and a sociopathic killer. When Diane’s seven-year-old son inherits the family farm, 875 acres of prime land, Peter has his hands full outsmarting conniving relatives and a greedy businessman, all with their eyes set on getting the property. And a love starved country girl and the businessman’s lustful wife offer him plenty of temptation.

Diane’s death that initially looked like a home invasion gone wrong starts to look more and more like a planned murder. Then more people die and Reynolds finds himself on the trail of a ruthless killer whose next victim may be Diane’s son.

Claws of the Griffin is a roller coaster ride of mystery, mayhem and murder, Southern style.

“When rich northerner, Peter Reynolds, heads to North Carolina for the funeral of an old girlfriend, he gets more than expected, including murder. This is a must read for anyone who likes their mysteries served with a southern flavor.” --Rick Bylina, Author of One Promise Too Many

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ron D. Voigts
• Release date: Apr 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301912414

Ron D. Voigts

Originally from the Midwest, Ron D. Voigts now calls North Carolina home where he and his wife have a home off the Neuse River. Ideas for his stories comes from the rural areas where he has lived, places he has visited, his love of the paranormal, and an overactive imagination. Ron considers his writing to be a literary fusion of mystery, thriller, paranormal, and any genre that suits the moment. When not plunking out a novel at the keyboard, he spends his time sharpening his culinary skills, watching gritty movies, and eating cookies with chocolate chips.

Book preview

Chapter One

When an old girlfriend comes back into my life, things never go well—but when she’s also dead, they go horrid.

My current girlfriend Ivy kicked off her shoes and dropped them by the front door. She pulled out a barrette, shook her head and loosened blonde tresses that fell to her shoulders.

You can’t keep calling me at work and having me paged every half hour. People are starting to talk.

I can’t help it if I’m in the mood. I slipped my arms around her waist and pressed my lips against hers.

She tried to talk while I smothered her face with kisses. Peter, you need a hobby. Maybe you can start another company. Or collect stamps.

I just sold my company. Why would I want another headache? I moved my mouth closer to her ear. You’re my hobby.

My fingers had glided across the front of her blouse and undone a button when the phone rang. I nuzzled her neck and took in the sweet scent of her skin while releasing another button. After the third ring, Ivy slapped my hand and pushed me away.

Aren’t you going to answer it? She buttoned her blouse and smoothed its fabric.

I hit the speaker button. This better be good.

Mr. Peter Reynolds? a deep voice said with a melodramatic tone.

I hesitated, used to sales pitches and requests for donations from benevolent associations to save whales, take care of widows and orphans, and free my soul from eternal damnation.

Yes.

You are Peter Reynolds of Bamboo Imports?

With her chin tucked in and her mouth puckered, Ivy did a silent imitation of the man speaking.

Look, if this is business, you need to call my office. I omitted telling him that I had sold my company two months ago and for a tidy sum.

It’s not business, Mr. Reynolds. I'm only making certain that I'm speaking with the correct Peter Reynolds.

Well, you have the right guy. The call had become irksome now. Unfortunately, I don’t know who you are.

My name is—. The caller gave a low grunt. I guess right now that doesn’t matter. I'm calling about Diane Cottwell.

Ivy’s eyes narrowed. She was about to say something when I held a finger to my lips and signaled her to stay silent.

Yes, I remember her.

She died last week.

The words grabbed me in the pit of my stomach. I sat down on the couch and stared at the phone. It had been eight years since I'd seen her, and although our parting had been less than amiable, I remembered her warmly.

Ivy became solemn, placed a hand on my knee and mouthed who’s she?

An old girlfriend I mouthed back.

In our relationship, Ivy and I remained uncommitted, keeping things more carnal than cerebral, allowing our minds to meet when required. She had her fashion design business, and I had the seven million dollars to spend from the sale of my company. I knew her first love was her work, and she knew about my past loves and had no problem with them.

Mr. Reynolds, are you there? came the regal voice from the phone.

Yes, I’m still here. I took a breath. Why are you telling me this? I can’t do anything about it.

I understand, but she would want you here now. Her funeral is the day after tomorrow, on Saturday. I can give you the details.

I interrupted the man. She asked for me to come to her funeral? A death bed request.

Not exactly. I had past conversations with her, and this is something she would want. She was quite fond of you.

Ivy smacked my arm and whispered, You should go.

I made a sour face and wrinkled my nose.

Her face suddenly took on the same scowl as my stepmother made when I was eleven and sassed her. It’ll do you good. You’ve been moping around since the sale of your company.

No, I mouthed, shaking my head.

Yes. She gave me a fierce glare that spelled trouble for the rest of the night if I didn’t agree.

I resolved to humor the man on the phone and appease Ivy. Give me the details. I jotted them down on the back of an electric bill envelope that she grabbed off the coffee table. My plan was to throw it away later when she left.

When we finished, I hung up. I’m not going.

Why not? Since you sold your import business, you’ve been bored. You call me a dozen times a day at work with nothing important to say except sexual innuendos. Maybe you should get away for a while. Ivy’s face turned solemn. If it were my funeral, you’d come, right?

I saw where this conversation was headed and gave the politically correct answer. You know I would.

If this woman meant something to you at one time, you need to go to her funeral.

The battle was lost. I knew I was going on this trip if I wanted an agreeable evening with Ivy. A few days out of town could be tolerated as long as I stayed at a five-star hotel, dined at upscale restaurants and took along some Cuban cigars. I resigned myself to the inevitable.

Then I need to leave tomorrow to be there for a funeral on Saturday. We can book everything online. When I sold the business, my Internet access at home went with it, since the company paid for it. I decided to live without it for a while and even dumped the Blackberry, opting for a simple cell phone where no one knew my number except Ivy. There’s a Starbucks with wireless a few blocks from here. Do you have your laptop?

It’s in the car. She grabbed my hand and pulled me off the couch. Let’s do it. Then we’ll come back, and I’ll give you a big send off.

Later that night I got my way with Ivy, and it was memorable. The next day I boarded a flight at O'Hare International Airport and flew to Raleigh-Durham. In my pocket I had the directions on the envelope to my final destination—Archer Springs, North Carolina.

++++

Peter Reynolds, the car rental agent repeated my name, tapping keys on a terminal and shaking his head. I can’t find you anywhere. But if you need a car, I have a Dodge Durango available.

My mind raced for an image of the car, and the only thing I saw was a vehicle the size of a circus elephant with an appetite for gasoline to match. That’s a mistake. I registered online for a Lexus. I don’t need something the size of a house on wheels.

This had to be an omen of things to come. Suddenly, I wished I had not agreed to make the trip. Sometimes memories are best left alone.

I’m sorry, but it’s the only thing left on the lot. He flashed a patronizing smile.

I spoke slow and deliberate. I got on your website, clicked my way through all the necessary choices, entered my credit card information, and it confirmed my Lexus.

The agent gave a nod of complacent understanding. Then show me the printout.

What printout?

Did you print the page confirming your car rental?

I sat in a Starbucks, drinking a latte, using their wireless. I leaned forward and spoke in a low tone. The Starbucks didn’t have a printer.

Did you at least write down the confirmation number?

I realized any hope to prove I booked a Lexus was rapidly vanishing. Outside the door of the car rental office, an orange Dodge Durango with red flames painted on its doors waited as an attendant cleaned the windows. Rather than admit my stupidity for not writing down the number, I feigned having it and patted the pockets of my sports coat. Maybe I did write it on something.

He looked bored and tired. I can give you a discount on the rental for the Durango.

This is a matter of principal. I rented a Lexus.

The phone rang and the agent answered. I can’t really talk right now. I know it’s your birthday, but daddy has to work late. I’m sorry, honey. Maybe we can do something this weekend. Okay. Bye. He hung up. That’s my daughter. She’s unhappy I have to work tonight and can’t be home for her birthday. Now let me see. You were renting a Durango.

I slipped a ten dollar bill from my wallet and laid it on the counter. Maybe one of the other car rental places has a Lexus or something else sharp looking.

He glanced at the money, shook his head and looked resolute. There’s a big convention at the Civic Center. You won’t find anything at this late date.

But I want a Lexus.

The agent tapped keys on the terminal again and stared at the screen. I have something coming back tomorrow morning you might like. An Acura. You could return and we can swap it for the Durango.

I stared through the glass door at the big ugly SUV. In my wildest dreams, I would never consider renting such a horrid beast, but I had no choice. It was late, I was tired, and tomorrow was the funeral. I just wanted to get this over with and return to Chicago.

Forget the Acura. I’ll take the beast.

I gave him my credit card, signed the papers and initialed the box refusing the $25-a-day insurance, taking full responsibility for the vehicle. After all, I’m a careful driver and have enough money in the bank to buy the car.

As I turned to leave, he grabbed the ten-dollar bill from the counter where it still laid. You forgot this.

My father was a workaholic who missed most of my birthdays for one reason or another. Typically I got a card delivered by my step-mother with an invitation to take me to the mall. She would hand me some money, drop me off and return a few hours later, smelling of whiskey. I went home with a bunch of junk that had little meaning to me.

I opened my wallet, took the ten and pushed it back in. Then I slipped out two twenties and handed them to him. Get your daughter something for her birthday.

The clerk looked dumfounded. As I turned to walk off, he said, Thank you. I’ll get her something nice.

I looked back and pointed a finger at him. Next time it better be a Lexus.

He grinned and nodded. I gave him a wink, and headed out the door, thinking how bad could it be, driving a Durango.

Outside, a crack of thunder and a flash of lightning heralded rain. Drops the size of chicken eggs plopped on me. I pushed my bag into the backseat and slipped behind the steering wheel. The sky lit again with a zigzag of lightning, turning the amber glow from the parking lot lights into daylight white. Thunder ripped the air like a cannon peal and rocked the car as if it took a hit.

A squirmy feeling danced in my stomach that this could only get worse.

++++

The Durango’s wipers slammed back and forth like the baton of a deranged conductor, slinging water from the windshield, squealing on the upswing and dragging a tail of rubber on the down stroke. Despite their valiant effort to clear the glass, the storm was winning the battle, dumping water on the car like Niagara Falls.

I frantically wiped the windshield with a tattered Starbucks napkin I had stuffed in my jacket pocket, and was now turning into mush, as I tried to clear wet haze from the glass. I couldn’t believe it. The windshield wipers were dying, and the defroster was already dead. This wouldn’t have happened with a Lexus.

Ahead, the asphalt road, dark of night, and torrential downpour soaked up the light like a thirsty sponge. The napkin became a wad of wet paper feeling more like modeling clay. I threw it to the passenger side floor and wiped with my bare hand while trying to see the centerline or the road’s edge.

Like a monster springing from its hiding place in the darkness, two headlights appeared ahead, and I realized I had drifted across the center of the road and straddled the double yellow lines. A horn blared like the creature’s wail, warning me to move over or die.

Shit!

I jerked the wheel hard, and the Durango lurched to the right, barely missing a pickup truck. The right tire bounced over the rutted shoulder. Gravel flew and pinged against the car's bottom. I twisted the steering wheel in the other direction. The Durango jumped from the shoulder, back to the road and into the far lane. The back end of the car fishtailed on the wet pavement. I continued the effort until I regained control and brought it safely back into the right lane.

I released a deep sigh and wiped my moist forehead with the back of my hand, and wished I’d never left the comfort of my apartment at the Grand Plaza in downtown Chicago.

I slowed the Durango to a more controllable speed, around 20 mph. After all, the funeral was for an old friend, and I didn’t want it to be mine.

Sometime later, the rain slowed, but the car lights seemed to dissolve into the wet pavement, leaving only glimpses of things. A speed limit sign. A mailbox. A sign warning about a curve ahead. This was not the city life I knew where street lights made everything safe and comforting. The darkness seemed forbidding and ominous, as if it tried to suck the soul out of me.

I spotted something in the headlights’ beam. A bedraggled dog with soaked fur matted against its body stood in my path, neither moving nor showing fear of the car. The dog’s eyes glowed in the car’s lights like some demon sent from hell to make my life more miserable. Most strange of all, the dog wore a red scarf around its neck.

I jammed my foot on the pedal, and almost pushed it through the floor. The car lurched and slid sideways down the pavement. I turned the wheel hard, but this time the Durango refused to obey. The front wheels caught the pavement’s edge, snapping the car from the road, and sending it into the ditch where it stopped, tilting forward with its headlights shining into a wall of trees.

I rolled the window down and a spray of rain pelted my face. The air smelled sweet and earthy. A light breeze touched my hot skin.

Stupid dog, I screamed into the darkness.

Lightning flashed like a fissure splitting the heavens, and thunder shook the car. In the flicker of the light, I saw the evil mutt staring at me. Next to him stood a woman, wet hair sticking to her face, soaked clothing clinging to her body. With two dark orbs for eyes, she gazed at me like a ghostly apparition.

The sky darkened again. My eyes blurred in the rain. I wiped them, blinked and stared at the road.

Another flash of lightning lit the world, and the road was empty.

Chapter Two

Blocks away, Sheriff Stacey Goodnight heard the alarm ringing at Bradshaw’s Home Center. She turned left on Main Street and crossed the railroad tracks. The emergency light on the dashboard of her Dodge Charger reflected off the storefronts. The car’s headlights shimmered against wet pavement.

The street was deserted. Rain had ended anyone’s plans to be in downtown Archer Springs on a Friday night. Except for the glowing neon sign, Sweet Treats candy store was dark inside. A night light in Hamburger Heaven glowed above the take-out counter. Even Angelo’s Italian Restaurant had closed early.

She stopped in the home center parking lot.

Everything looked standard. A row of red and blue wheelbarrows chained and padlocked together lined the walk going to the front entrance. A sign hung in the window, announcing a 2-for-1 paint sale. Inside a chain link fence were bags of manure, peat, and landscape timbers.

Stacey drove slowly through the side parking lot and around back toward a cruiser with flashing lights that reflected against the building. As she parked, Deputy Carl Poole left his car and walked to hers. He scrunched his shoulders toward his ears and tipped his head so that his hat gave him some protection against the wind and drizzle. He slipped into the passenger’s seat of her car and shook himself like a dog.

A man would have to be crazy to rob a place in weather like this. He picked at some mud on his shoe and let it drop onto the floor mat.

Please, Carl, clean your shoes in a county vehicle, not my car.

Sorry. He retrieved the clump of sticky clay, cracked the window open and tossed it out.

Stacey shook her head and turned her gaze to the door at the back of the building. Has anyone contacted Edwin Bradshaw?

Dispatch called him. Got him out of bed. Poole grinned as if he enjoyed dragging someone out in the inclement weather. He bitched about it, but said he’d be here shortly.

She ignored Poole's private joke. Did you check inside?

The door shows signs of forced entry. I entered the premises and tried the light switch, but it looks as if power was cut. I waited for backup.

Stacey listened to the building’s alarm still ringing. The security system batteries are still working. Maybe it scared him off. She hated times like this. Only one way to find out.

With his gun and flashlight out, Poole led the way. Stacey pulled the brim down on her baseball-style cap to shield her eyes from the rain and followed. Poole stopped just inside the doorway, winked, and nodded to the light switch.

Stacey flipped it, but no lights—as he had said. The beam of her own flashlight created shadows that swayed and twisted as she swept it from side to side. Her stomach felt as if she had swallowed battery acid. She could be sitting in the safety of her home if she had made different choices.

After leaving Raleigh PD, she had struggled as a real estate agent for a few years. Even when the market boomed, she had barely made enough to support her niece, herself, and pay the mortgage on a seventy-year-old house on Deacon Street. A few of Archer Springs’s affluent citizens had supported her run for Sheriff, and she won by a wide margin.

Stacey moved her light across the back room without seeing anything that looked like a breaker panel. We’re doing this in the dark.

Poole gave a salute and led the way farther inside.

After checking the stock areas, they moved ahead into the store. The flashlight beams cast deep shadows from the shelves into the shopping aisles. At the far end, light from a street lamp passed through the front window and cast a dim glow across checkout counters and registers. Stacey saw something move and her heart skipped a beat. Outside, a dogwood tree rocked in the wind, its silhouette dancing across the front window. She exhaled a sigh and nodded for Carl to proceed.

Starting at the left side of the store, they aimed their flashlights down the aisles, checking for the intruder, alternating turns, one watching the aisle while the other advanced to the next, making sure that no one could double back on them. Reaching the far right side, garden supplies, Stacey waved for them to walk to the store’s front. Poole nodded and led the way.

Something scraped the floor and caught Stacey’s attention. She paused and listened but heard nothing. Had it been Poole's shoe sliding against the tiled floor? Or her imagination in adrenaline overload?

In the recess between the rack of garden tools and shelves of insect spray was an emergency door. The shelf of cans blocked the light of their flashlights, making the exit dark and forbidding. She squinted, staring into the black. Something didn’t look right. The shadow bulged and swelled against the rack of tools.

A shovel arced overhead, the spade end targeting the back of Poole's head.

She lunged and tackled him. His gun and the flashlights slid down the aisle. The shovel clanged against floor. The shadow leaped out, crashed into the cans of insect spray, and caused an avalanche.

What the—? came Poole's astonished cry.

Stacey groped for the gun, crawling over his body, grabbed it and a flashlight. She rolled to her stomach and aimed the light down the aisle.

The dark figure raced toward the back room, knocking over a display advertising the perfect lawn. Boxes split open and dumped grass seed across the aisle.

She scrambled to her feet and ran after him. Her old leg wound flared up. The pain shot into her hip like someone stabbing her with an ice pick. Bouncing along with a noticeable wobble, she raced toward the back room.

A figure stood in the doorway. A man with a furrowed brow, high forehead, and graying red hair stared back at her. His eyeglasses reflected the light like headlights on a car. He wore a yellow raincoat, paisley printed pajama bottoms, and brown knee-high rubber boots.

Stacey skidded to a halt. The pain in her bad leg became unbearable. She gritted her teeth and shifted her weight to her good leg.

From behind, Poole ran full throttle, throwing himself at the figure in the doorway, grabbing the man around the chest, driving his shoulder hard into the solar plexus. Air escaped the man’s lungs, sounding like a car tire blowout as they rolled out the back door. He grappled with the man and pinned him to the wet asphalt.

Stacey limped to the doorway, the pain in her leg seeming less important, and commanded, Get off of Mr. Bradshaw.

The wrestling match ended. Poole jumped up and stared down at the rumpled man. Sorry. I thought you were the perp.

Bradshaw stood, stretching his limbs of sixty-some years. Stupid oaf, the man went that way. He pointed to the alley at the back of the home center.

Yes, sir.

As Poole ran toward his cruiser, Stacey waved his gun. Forget something?

He jogged back, took the weapon and holstered it. Thanks.

Stacey shook her head. Sorry to pull you out on a night like this, Mr. Bradshaw. Did you get a good look at the man?

He scowled, his lower jaw moving, grumbling to himself. "Didn’t really