No Torrent Like Greed

By Kevin L. O'Brien

Lt. Mark Thorner is fed up with being the New York Police Department's resident expert on occult and supernatural occurrences within the city. He decides he needs a vacation, and heads west, to Cairnsford, Colorado, to spend some with an old friend.

When he arrives, however, he finds his friend gone, called away for an important assignment. Even as he wonders how he will keep himself busy, opportunity literally comes knocking at his door, in the form of statuesque redhead. She desperately needs his help to protect her from a possessive and abusive gangster boyfriend, and he obliges.

It's something to do, won't take long, and afterwards the lady can help keep him entertained. But when the gangster turns up dead, shot through the head, things turn complicated, especially when it involves a lost gold mine.

Then the occult intrudes yet again, and he must partner with January Ian "Jaim" Mariposa and his uncanny black cat Bastet to solve the mystery before he becomes the next victim.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin L. O'Brien
• Release date: Jun 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301846887

Kevin L. O'Brien

Kevin L. O'Brien was born with a pen in his hand.Well, not quite, but he has been writing for as long as he can remember, at least since First Grade. Writing has always been his first, true love, but it hasn't always been his career. He worked for 15 years as a biomedical researcher, then for 3 years as a web designer. However, after 30 years of trying to be published in print with little success, he has decided to try his hand at self-publishing.He writes primarily speculative fiction -- fantasy, science fiction, horror, and their sub-genres -- but he also likes to try his hand at thrillers, suspense, mystery, and even westerns. However, his stories tend to have a fantasy element, no matter how subtle.Most of his stories involve the following three main characters:Medb hErenn (http://www.medbherenn.com/) -- One-time queen of Ireland, she is over 3500 years old. A warrior and a sorceress, she cannot be harmed by any weapon made by the hand of man.Eile and Sunny, Team Girl (http://www.teamgirlforever.com/) -- They are two adorable, vivacious, fun-loving young women whose motto is ONWARD TO ADVENTURE!!! Yet trouble follows them like a love-sick puppy wherever they go.Sir Differel Van Helsing (http://www.sir-differel.com/) -- The descendent of Abraham Van Helsing and King Arthur, she heads the Caerleon Order, the premier monster-hunting organization of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. She commands Dracula, the most powerful vampire extant, and the greatsword Caliburn, better known as Excalibur.He also writes a series of sword & sorcery stories set in an alternative universe known as the Lands of the Dreams of Men.Kevin lives in Denver with his family and 4 cats.For more information, see his website: http://www.kevinlobrien.com/

Book preview

No Torrent Like Greed

Kevin L. O'Brien & C. J. Henderson

Smashwords Edition

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Text Copyright 2013 by Kevin L. O'Brien & C. J. Henderson

Cover design and typography copyright 2013 by Kevin L. O'Brien

Betty Noir font distributed under a free use license by Nate Piekos and Blambot Comic Fonts & Lettering

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License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. It is licensed for your personal enjoyment and remains the copyrighted property of the author. This ebook may not be sold, reproduced, or copied, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes, but it may be given away if no changes are made. If you enjoyed this book and would like to share it, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from Smashwords or their favorite online retailer, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support, and for respecting the hard work of this author.

Please consider writing a review for this book on the retailer's website.

If you see any misspellings or typographical errors, please notify Kevin L. O'Brien using one of his online social networks. Thank you.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents, including those based on the real world, are either products of the imagination of Kevin L. O'Brien and C. J. Henderson, or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Because some ebook platforms do not support special characters, certain words may appear misspelled, but this was done deliberately to avoid the problem of the platforms deleting the characters. Also, the LRF platform used by older models of the Sony Reader does not permit the use of links to external URLs, whereas the PDB platform used by Palm reading devices does not support any form of linking whatsoever.

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Table of Contents

Preface

Prologue

The Case Begins

Mariposa & Bastet

The Lost Bothar Mine

Double & Triple Cross

Epilogue

About the Authors

Other Books by Kevin L. O'Brien & C. J. Henderson

Connect with Kevin L. O'Brien & C. J. Henderson

Sample Excerpts

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Preface

This story is a collaborative effort between myself and CJ. Some years ago I planned to edit and publish a collection of Cthulhu Mythos-based mystery and detective stories, and I invited him to write one using his hardboiled noir detective, Jack Hagee. He declined, saying he didn't want to write another paranormal mystery for that character, but he offered to do one with another hardboiled noir detective character, NYPD Lt. Mark Thorner. I agreed, and during the course of our conversations we decided to do a collaboration that would include one of my own characters, January Ian Jaim Mariposa with his cat Bastet. I wrote the first draft, he edited it into a second draft, then I polished it into the final draft, which he then read and approved.

Unfortunately, I was unable to finish that project, and so the story sat in limbo. However, CJ gave me permission to publish the story with Smashwords for free. I plan to publish it on Kindle and Kobo as well in the near future.

This is not a true Whodunit, in which the reader is invited to try to solve the mystery, but more a mixture of hardboiled crime fiction with giallo fiction, which includes elements of horror and eroticism. Even so, an intuitive reader could figure out the basics of what happened and why, though I defy anyone to guess the ending.

Back to TOC

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Prologue

There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed. -- Buddha

I

The large man walked up to the front of the apartment house, then stopped and turned to look out over the neighborhood. He stared for a long moment, relishing the quiet, so different from his own neighborhood in New York City. Indeed, had he not known differently, he would never have thought he was on the main street of some small town. He could tell that Cairnsford was not a big city, even by Denver's standards. But what it lacked in size it might make up for in character.

Maybe it'd even be a nice spot to retire to, he mused, assuming it's still like this in another twenty years.

Sighing at the likelihood of such a feat, he switched his bag to his other hand and turned towards the building behind him. It was a three story Victorian home that had been converted into apartments. Walking down the street he had noted that all the old Victorian homes on both sides of the block were either converted apartment buildings or boarding houses, though none were as rundown as he might have expected.

This obviously used to be an upscale neighborhood; probably still is from the look of it.

With that thought, Lt. Mark Thorner once more moved toward the door before him, allowing himself to imagine that perhaps his current endeavor might be a good idea after all.

II

Mark was a homicide detective with the New York City Police Department. He had been with the force for twenty years, and in all his decades, except for two weeks at the end of his rookie year, he had never asked for nor been given a day off that was not part of his normal leave. That was not to say he was one of those desperates who was only gladdened during his time on the job. The lieutenant lived for those weekends that could be spent fishing in the Poconos. He enjoyed escorting the occasional lady friend to the Catskills or Coney Island as much as the next man. But, he was never one to abuse the system by looking for more than his fair share.

So when his captain had called him into his office the week previous and told him to take a month's vacation, his first reaction had simply been numbness, followed by embarrassment. He flirted with the notion of telling his superior to go to Hell, but resisted. He was simply too weary to fight. He had just finished a particularly nasty case, one which had gotten a close friend killed and almost done him in. A grueling affair with more than one facet he had not put into his report, it had drained his soul and blackened his heart.

The physician his captain forced him to see strenuously recommended he be given a substantial block of time off. Mark had fought the decision initially, but when he was told that he either took a month off with pay or he would be suspended for a month without it, he threw in the towel. It was a Depression after all, and like most everyone else he could not afford to lose that much money. Besides, he had been tired and empty, and thirty days rest did not really sound all that bad.

He spent the first three days puttering aimlessly around in his apartment before he decided on a change of scenery. Finally spurred to action, he cabled his friend Patrick Michael Kennedy in Cairnsford, Colorado. Kennedy, a Secret Service man assigned to the Denver Mint, was an old Marine buddy who had been bugging Mark to come out and see him. Pulling himself together, the lieutenant wired his friend an acceptance, and was relieved to receive an enthusiastic reply.

He found the train ride relaxing. Once outside New York, the green rushing by on both sides calmed him, giving his mind's eye something to concentrate on besides the past. While others grew bored, the lieutenant allowed it all to become one vast blur. The land past the Appalachians was flat, and after the Mississippi it was barren as well, but he did not mind.

By the time the train was approaching Denver, he found he was feeling much more himself. He awoke to his first sight of the Rocky Mountains and they fascinated him. He had thought the Adirondacks were tall, but the Rockies had foothills that were higher, and they were still covered with snow in May. As relaxed as he could be, the lieutenant fired up one of his thick cigars and stared at the mountains until Denver finally appeared over the horizon.

Cairnsford lay to the south, which meant switching trains. His second train took him as far as the town of Thunderbird Point. Cairnsford lay west from there, on the other side of a sharp-edged ridge. The only way there was via a rickety contraption purporting to be small bus, one that smelled bad, bucked like a mustang, and wheezed worse than an asthmatic as it fought its way uphill.

When the so-called bus stopped at the crest of the ridge to cool down, Mark got out to work some feeling back into several numb regions. Ahead of him the road descended into a bowl-shaped valley; Cairnsford lay at the bottom, huddled against the foothills on the opposite side. Though by western standards it was probably a decent-sized burg, he thought of it as a small town, but then he thought the same of any space outside of New York City. Immediately behind it rose the mountains in all their purple majesty, especially one broad, rounded, snowcapped mound that dominated the skyline. To the right of the town lay a lake half as big as the town itself, while a canyon opened in the mountains to the left. A stream flowed out of the opening and across the valley through the town before emptying into the lake. He found the view spectacular, but could not decide if it was truly impressive, or only seemed so to a permanent city dweller such as himself. When the bus finally dragged itself into Cairnsford, he knew he could trust his judgment of it.

The town was nothing much to look at. Few of its buildings were over four stories tall, with the majority being three or less. The center of Cairnsford did boast a half-dozen structures averaging around ten stories tall, but they were rectangular blocks made from uninspired stone, hardly impressive to a man who had beheld the world from the art deco majesty of the Empire State Building.

The bus driver had been a talkative fellow, but Mark zoned him out for most of the ride. Once inside the town, however, he became more interested in the driver's narrative. Surrounding downtown were mostly residences, the bus driver explained as they churned their way to the bus's official stop. To the south lay Landers College. To the north, between the town and the lake, sat a number of factories that used to process the raw ore and gold mined out of the mountains, until they were forced to close in the early years of the Depression.

Put a lot of locals out of work.

Do tell.

Indeed, young feller, the driver exclaimed. Either missing his passenger's sarcasm, or immune to it, he added, Heck, none, iff'n it weren't for the gold'at still trickles outta the walls of the canyon and the bottom of the ol' lake, I'm sayin' it, Cairnsford could up and maybe disappear like nearby Enoch's Farm done.

None of it meant anything to Mark. As far as he was concerned the whole country was suffering; what did it matter if one small town lived or died? But, he supposed, maybe in that way towns were like people: they simply want to survive as best as they can.

The lieutenant had known a lot of men--good men--patrolmen and detectives alike, who had been canned within a year of the Crash. He had survived only because of his seniority, his rabbi, and his superior's knowledge that there were certain...what could they call them? Occurrences? Situations? Whatever they were, he was the only man on the force who could keep the lid on them.

There but for the grace of God....Well, the grace of sumthin', anyway.

Gathering his belongings, the lieutenant muttered, Guess even a dump like Cairnsford's got the right to survive.

And then he made his way to the nearest bar to find himself a comfortable place to sit while he inquired as to the directions to his friend's home.

III

After a half hour's rest in the quiet of the establishment he had chosen, he felt refreshed enough from the rigors of his bus ride to finally make his way to his friend's apartment. His fellow patrons assured him the residence was close enough to reach by foot, and thus it was but the work of a few