BOUNTY: Crime Fiction Prequel to BUSTED

By Susan Swain

BOUNTY, the prequel to BUSTED, is all about money, murder, and a prized estate called Bounty.
Perce is used to getting what he wants and he wants Bounty, but getting it isn’t going to be easy. The current owner won’t give it up without a fight.

And when Perce falls victim to a serious illness, there’s something very suspicious about the man who suddenly wants to be his friend. Who is CJ and what does he really want?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Swain
• Release date: Aug 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301144204

Susan Swain

Susan Swain lives, reads, writes cozy crime and rhyming animal stories, gardens, and ​walks her liver spotted dalmatian, Bea, and beagle, Lally, in the Eastern Bay of Plenty of New Zealand.

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BOUNTY

Crime Fiction Prequel to BUSTED

Susan Swain

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Susan Swain

This book is available in print at most online retailers.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organizations, locales, or events is purely coincidental.

Acknowledgment

Thanks to Robyn Burke for the goldfish.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilog

About the Author

Discover other titles by Susan Swain

Connect with the Author

Chapter 1

He lay propped up on pillows in a nursing home bed. The bed head, positioned to the right of the picture window, placed his back to the skeletal stemmed winter rose garden. Despite the comfortable room temperature, he drew the baby blue coverlet closer to his body. Perce peered round the room with resignation. Beside the bed, visitor chairs and a cluttered night stand competed for floor space. The photograph of a sign that read Bounty lay carelessly discarded among drinking vessels and medications on the night stand. A red brick ranch house sprawled behind the sign. Unrelieved, green grass grew in the back yard of the house. In the privacy of his room, Perce’s eyes moistened at the memory.

Across from him, on the other side of the window, his latest and last, all channels package wide-screen television, though muted, dominated the corner room. A Zimmer frame had been discreetly parked beside it. Out of reach atop a chest of drawers lay a paperback novel. Plumbed in before the door, a white wash basin contrasted with the blank screen of the nursing home television mounted above it.

Although in need of assistance, Perce didn’t press the nursing home buzzer button he fumbled between his thumb and forefinger. The button would summon Ivy and the end of his life. His cell phone no longer lay within reach on the night stand. He suspected Poison Ivy had pocketed the phone. Perce wondered where his wallet was. He couldn’t remember when he’d seen it last. While out of sight, Poison Ivy was always within hearing. So he lay quietly counting last breaths.

But on a promising spring morning two years earlier, he received a call on his cell phone from Ivy at Bounty. It signaled the end of another life. His wife’s life. While his older wife endured bad health, he enjoyed good health. Perce looked forward to taking control of her estate and cashing in on the generous insurance policy he’d taken out on her life. After an indecently short period of mourning, Perce intended to openly pursue his long-term love interest, Kitty. She was a thirty something, short, slender, single mother with dark brown eyes and shoulder length black hair. He’d banked on this one’s returned interest in him. But before Kitty, he’d set his cap for Bounty.

Perce regarded himself as lucky. Lucky that Luce had hired him. He’d phoned her about the advertisement she’d placed for the position of Handyman and Groundsman in the Work Available column of the local newspaper.

Luce told him that she and her late husband Bert had retired from an accountancy practice and inner city apartment in Riverside. The city, with its scenic river walks, was about an hour’s drive north of Midway. The town of Midway was a further twenty minutes from the sign that read Bounty. Bert had the sign made and erected shortly after they bought the property. They had the house built as an early retirement present to themselves. Utilizing Luce’s gift for interior decorating, they’d fully furnished and moved into the house with the early onset of winter.

Bert’s morning routine changed somewhat when they took up residence at Bounty. He was tall and fair-skinned but soft thanks to a career spent in an office chair and Luce’s home baking. His gray eyes looked small and vulnerable after too many years spent squinting at small print. Although normally propped on his unremarkable nose, he’d left his silver rimmed glasses on the dining room table in readiness for his return. Face flushed with the cold, he wore gray cotton sweatpants and sweatshirt, and sporty gym shoes. His thinning straight gray hair flopped over his forehead as he dashed out to retrieve the newspaper from the driveway beside the Bounty sign.

Bert savored the inky smell and crackle of crisp pages as he unfolded them at his leisure on the breakfast table. He set the financial section aside for himself (can’t teach an old dog new tricks) and passed the entertainment section across the table to Luce. Luce, wearing a gray cotton leisure suit, pink lipstick, and fluffy slippers insisted it was to keep abreast of the conversation at her weekly beauty salon appointment in town. Bert suspected she enjoyed the gossip. He refolded the national and international news sections for Luce after he’d perused them while she cooked breakfast (eggs, toast, and coffee).

But his last run-of-the-mill breakfast took an unexpected turn. Bert looked up from the financial section with a startled expression on his long face and then slumped from his chair to the polished wooden floor, his glasses askew.

Luce collected herself quickly to phone for help, but it was already too late.

The kindly doctor told her that Bert had died almost instantly. He said, Apart from chest pain, Bert probably didn’t feel a thing, in an attempt to comfort her.

Bert left the large, flat property and hardly lived-in house for Luce to manage alone.

Two months passed along with Bert before Luce realized she needed help to run the property. Luce did not intend to retire to town just yet.

She placed an advertisement in Midway’s weekly newspaper. Of the dozens of phone calls Luce received about the position, she interviewed six applicants. On a chilly late winter Friday morning, she employed the final applicant, Perce.

Perce spotted the white wooden sign hanging from a rail attached to a post. The bold black Roman letters spelled Bounty. He turned off the two-lane rural road into the driveway beside the sign. Directly ahead lay a two car parking pad in front of a double garage, its doors closed to prying eyes. He eased his late model, red sedan along the front of the red brick building. Large picture windows overlooked the driveway. Perce braked beside the covered entry. He got out of his sedan, locked it, and walked up to the bright red front door. Perce liked the color red.

He rapped the brass ring attached to the door. While he waited for a response, Perce contemplated the door. It needed a horseshoe. Perce didn’t like horses, but he liked horseshoes. If he owned this house, he’d nail one to the door for luck.

The door swung open. His first thought was widow woman. Perce politely removed his cap. He saw a slight woman of about fifty, his height, with warm brown eyes set in a pleasant face framed by lank brown hair in need of cutting. She wore a black leisure suit, pink lipstick, and a ladies dress watch. The fourth finger of her left hand sparkled with an old gold ring inset with sapphires and diamonds.

She saw a thick-set, forty-something year old man of average height with striking blue eyes, a generous mouth, and close cropped brown hair. He wore blue jeans, a red flannel shirt, black loafers, and a men’s sports wrist watch.

Luce invited him into the wide hallway, its walls painted a warm cream. An empty colored glass vase and matching dish sat on a wooden hall table to their right. Beside the table a door opened into a living room. Perce peeked into the room. A large, wall-mounted television attracted his attention. Grouped under the television was a long, low wooden table, a comfortable dull green fabric sofa and two matching recliner chairs. Perce recognized local landmarks from the plain black framed photographs displayed on the cream walls. Heavy dull green drapes hung either side of the picture windows overlooking the driveway. The light brown carpet underfoot ran through the living room. Amused, Luce heard an appreciative whistle escape his lips. Perce was impressed. Given the opportunity, he wouldn’t change a thing in this room.

He followed her past the living room door and another passage leading off to the left. An open doorway led into the kitchen and dining area with its highly polished wooden floor and cream painted walls. Perce wondered if they’d bought a job lot of cream paint. The double ranch sliding doors gave on to a wide wooden deck running the length of the room. Arranged around the deck, he saw a barbecue table and six chairs and a low table between two matching loungers. All weather blue cushions brightened the setting. The gas barbecue grill didn’t look as if it had been fired up.

Luce offered him coffee and a chair at the oblong pine dining room table. The bright red cotton cushions tied to the seats and backs of the pine chairs proved both comfortable and cheerful. Perce recognized the expensive coffee maker hard at work on the nearby countertop from the local appliance store. He’d prolong the interview long enough to enjoy a second cup to wash down the homemade pound cake set out on a plain white plate in front of him.

As Luce poured the coffee into mugs, Perce looked out across the deck to the big, flat, grassed back yard. Luce placed a mug on a coaster customized with a picture of the Bounty sign in front of him. She seated herself opposite Perce, You’ll want to know more about the job before we talk about hours and wages.

Perce nodded in agreement.

The full-time handyman and groundsman is expected to do regular maintenance and repairs to keep everything in good working order. Keep the machinery well-oiled. She paused to look at the neatly penned list of duties on the table in front of her. Her son-in-law Bill, himself the employer of a part-time home handyman and groundsman, had helped her compile the list. She resumed, Duties include painting, clearing leaves and debris from the gutters and drains... Luce looked up to see Perce’s face creased with confusion, When we’ve established the shelter belt, orchard, and shade trees. Water the flower, vegetable, and herb gardens, she promptly amended, when we’ve planted them. Mow the grass. A riding mower and a walk-behind mower are supplied. Arrange garbage disposal and do whatever else needs doing. Luce consulted the list, If you can’t do the job, get quotes from contractors who can. Hire the best person for the job and oversee it to your satisfaction. Prioritize your work. There’s no set schedule. Maintain the tools and arrange for the car and the mowers to be serviced. Pass on all invoices to me for payment. Account for your time in the notebook provided by me and hand it in for approval and payment at the end of each week. She tapped a notebook sitting atop the small stack of papers in front of her.

You told me on the phone that you’ve been a self-employed home handyman and groundsman since the Midway mill’s closure. Seeing only a cap in his hands, she asked, Did you bring any references?

Perce replied gruffly, The mill’s closed so it’s too late to ask for references. Didn’t know to ask for them before it closed. He pulled a scrap of paper torn from a spiral bound notebook out of his shirt pocket. This is a list of the names and phone numbers of people who pay me to do their property maintenance and repairs and yard work. So I’ll have to tell them I can’t work for them anymore if I get the job. But I don’t want you upsetting things if I don’t get it.

Luce extended her hand for the slip of paper, but Perce held on gamely.

"How much are