The Electra File

By JC Simmons

"The Electra File (Book 5 of the Jay Leicester Mysteries Series)" by critically acclaimed southern author JC Simmons.

In this newly re-released and moving novel, Jay Leicester ("pronounced "Lester"), Simmons' celebrated Mississippi Aviation Consultant/Private Investigator, is hired by his friend, Guy Robbins, to help find his missing sailboat. It is found scuttled offshore with two bodies aboard. When identified, it is determined that the individuals were associated with the new gaming industry that has reshaped the Mississippi coastline and boosted the economy. However, the benefits to the area do not come without consequence.

When a candatate in the local mayoral election who openly opposed the gambling industry is killed, many suspect involvement by casino officials. Angered by the negative publicity and the millions it could cost them, casino officials, at least on the surface, work with Leicester to help solve the murders.

There are 10 ebooks in the Jay Leicester Mysteries Series by JC Simmons:

Blood on the Vine
Some People Die Quick
Blind Overlook
Icy Blue Descent
The Electra File
Popping the Shine
Four Nines Fine
The Underground Lady
Akel Dama
The Candela of Cancri

• Language: English
• Publisher: JC Simmons
• Release date: Jan 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781936377701

JC Simmons

JC Simmons is the author of an Ernest Hemingway biography, several short stories and ten critically acclaimed serial mystery novels, known as the "Jay Leicester Mysteries Series". Included in the series are: Blood On The Vine, Some People Die Quick, Blind Overlook, Icy Blue Descent, The Electra File, Popping the Shine, Four Nines Fine, The Underground Lady, Akel Dama, and The Candela of Cancri, all of which have been recently re-released as ebooks by Nighttime Press LLC.From the Author's mouth:My flying career and writing in general was inspired by a single book titled, Fate is the Hunter, by Ernest K. Gann. Writing specifically as a style was manifest due to a single book titled, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, by Carlos Baker, Hemingway’s official biographer. A friend and Emergency Room doctor, Edgar Grissom, who would later publish the definitive bibliography on Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway: A Descriptive Bibliography, loaned me his copy of Baker’s bio one summer back in the early 70s. The rest, as they say, is history.During the next few years, I read everything by and about Hemingway. Never has a writer influenced me more. My first foray into the world of letters was to be about Hemingway. John Evans, owner of Lemuria Books, and my mentor in all things literati, pointed out that there were literally hundreds of bios on Hemingway. However, a scholarly study on the man and his work had never been done in a Q&A format. So was born the “Workbook.”Evans, Grissom, Evan’s store manager, Tom Gerald and his assistant Valerie Sims, all collaborated on the manuscript. It took two years to finish. I learned much on the journey.It was from this endeavor with the Hemingway bio that emerged the Jay Leicester Murder/Mystery series. Even the name Leicester came from Hemingway’s brother, who also published a bio, My Brother Ernest Hemingway, in 1961.Hemingway once said he “learned to write landscapes by looking at the paintings of Cezanne in the Louvre in Paris,” and “that it’s not how much one puts into a book, but what the writer leaves out that makes the story.” From him I learned how to write true dialogue, and how to add the sights, sounds, and smells so that the reader feels he is there. While I did not try and copy his style, thousands have tried and failed, I did take what he offered and used it well, I hope. You the reader will make that determination.J.C. Simmons was born, raised, educated, and stayed in the great State of Mississippi. He is a retired Airline/Corporate pilot and lives with his wife on the family farm in Union, Mississippi where he is working on a autobiographical work detailing his life and times as a pilot.

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THE ELECTRA FILE (Book 5 of the Jay Leicester Mysteries Series)

by JC Simmons

Copyright 2012 by JC Simmons

Smashwords Edition

This ebook, POPPING THE SHINE, is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. POPPING THE SHINE 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 reader. 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.

PUBLISHED BY NIGHTTIME PRESS LLC

Copyright © 2012 Edition by JC Simmons

All rights reserved

Check out all ten books in

The Jay Leicester Mysteries Series:

Blood on the Vine

Some People Die Quick

Blind Overlook

Icy Blue Descent

The Electra File

Popping the Shine

Four Nines Fine

The Underground Lady

Akel Dama

The Candela of Cancri

Now available at the usual outlets

The Electra File

(Book 5 of the Jay Leicester Mysteries Series)

By JC Simmons

***

PROLOGUE

The angry three-foot Garter snake lay coiled on the north side of the cottage next to the water hose. It struck again and again at my boot, then crawled away, pausing only once to look back at me with a hateful stare and mean flicks of a black forked-tongue. Across the road a tractor made concentric circles raising choking clouds of dust in the hay field. It had been hot and dry for weeks.

The cell phone emitted a hissing sound mimicking the Garter snake.

Where are you? I've been trying all morning to reach you.

Up at the farm. I've had the phone off. What's wrong?

They are making me move her. Can you believe this? They are forcing me to take her somewhere else.

Ease up, Guy. What are you talking about?

The gambling casino bought the whole thing; hotel, both golf courses, and the marina. They want all the boats moved by the first of the month. There's nothing I can do, not a thing.

There are other moorings available.

I thought you might have a suggestion? You know this area as well as anyone.

It will take some thought.

Well I'm not moving her to Back Bay.

What about the new place, Point Cadet?

That's an idea. The Sweatman's sailing out of there… The Sweatman is a replica of an old Biloxi schooner. It operated now as a commercial vessel, taking passengers on the Mississippi Sound, reminiscent of the days before the steam engine when shrimp fishermen made their living under sail. She was a beautiful sight, all sails standing, moving swiftly across the choppy, shallow waters like some giant sea gull. I've heard rumors they're going to build a casino there with a seven hundred room hotel. When will it ever end?

Offering up the only thing I could think of at the moment, I said, There's always the Biloxi Small Craft Harbor. Warren keeps Memoirs there. He seems happy enough.

But Picaroon's been in slip 117 all her life.

She was already two years old when you bought her, remember? Moored in Key West.

She belongs in slip 117 at the Broadwater. I'll call you tomorrow. Good-bye. He hung up.

Listening to the disconnect tone emitting from the receiver, I hit the off button and sat down in a swing on the porch of the cottage and thought about Guy Robbins and his beloved sailboat, Picaroon.

He and I went back almost to the beginning. We grew up together in the same small Mississippi town, fell in love with the same girl. Mildred was the smarter of us, and showed her intelligence by marrying Guy. They now lived on the coast where Guy had a thriving law practice. I resided in the state capital and made my living as an aviation consultant/private investigator after twenty-five years as a professional pilot. My retirement from flying the line was self-imposed for many reasons, not the least of which were the egotistical, nouveau-rich who think everyone, including pilots, are nothing but glorified bag boys or chauffeurs.

Guy sent me a lot of business from the coast. I loved him and Mildred as if they were family, of which I had none.

Picaroon; Guy loved that boat second only to Mildred. He had owned her for ten years, was his one true passion. I went with him to pick her up in Key West. We sailed across the Gulf of Mexico following the tail of a late fall hurricane. She performed brilliantly.

Built in St. Augustine, Florida, Picaroon was a radius-chined, full keeled, Colvin Archer design. Steel hulled, sloop rigged, and double ended, she drew six feet fully loaded. Her overall length was forty feet, and with thirty-six feet of waterline, she had a hull speed of over eight knots. A fine vessel, she was as strong and seaworthy as any boat of her class I have ever sailed.

Guy was not a man prone to excitement. This was as upset as I had ever heard him. It did, of course, involve his beloved Picaroon. If there were any legal way to prevent having to move his boat Guy would have found it. He had a brilliant legal mind. We worked together on a few complex cases. I watched him impress some learned Federal Judges and legal scholars.

Now the gambling fever had hit the Mississippi coast. In their infinite wisdom our state lawmakers legalized something called Dockside Gambling, the definition of which would take a legal scholar to task. This in a state where the liquor laws are so convoluted some counties cannot sell beer. Guy once tried to explain what constituted a dockside gambling casino, but it got so complicated I quit listening.

It wasn't that I was against gambling. God knows the Mississippi coast needed the infusion of money; the whole area almost dried up during the recession. There is no pretty blue water, no natural beaches, and the only decent place to eat was so crowded two hour waits were not uncommon. There was nothing to bring people to the coast in vast numbers, so gambling waited in the wings. What worried me were the other things this industry brought along with it, burglary, prostitution, drugs, con-men with new ways to beat the gaming tables, and murder in all its ugliness.

The old saying goes, if you don't know history, you are destined to repeat it. Gambling was prominent on the coast in the forties and fifties and the money flowed. So did all the bad things. It wasn't until the mid-sixties that the last vestiges of the old gambling were cleaned up. The mid-nineties started the process all over again.

I drove over to the back eighty where we were cutting timber to watch the mules. The logging crew used them to drag the downed trees to where they could be loaded onto trucks. Hooked to a log, their muscled flanks would drop and they surged forward tearing clods of hard-packed dirt from the forest floor, their eyes wide and alive as if this was what their life was about, and they were happy. When they finished the pull I wanted to cheer wildly. Skidding logs with a team of mules is a beautiful sight.

Guy Robbins did not call the next day as promised. It would be another three weeks before I heard from him. Then there would be sheer panic in his voice.

CHAPTER ONE

The phone was ringing as I walked into the office. It had been a long four days, no rest, and little sleep. I had been in Memphis working straight through on an aviation related murder case. An airline pilot killed his wife. She was also a pilot and flew for the same company. It was a nasty, pitiful affair. I was glad it was over.

Throwing my ditty bag on the floor in its usual place under the coffee table, I thought about letting the answering machine get the call. This is no big, fancy operation with a pretty blond secretary. It's just me. I work alone. It is better that way. When things screw up, and they do, the only one to blame is myself.

My office is a tiny, one-room closet with a half bath in a small row complex with a dozen other unsuccessful businesses located in the state capital. The rent is free, donated by an appreciative client who I saved from an angry, jealous husband. It is the only marital case I have ever worked, but the man was a friend. It got me this office.

Glancing at the old worn Rolex left over from my flying days, it showed the time in Greenwich, England or whatever local time zone one happened to be in at the moment. It read ten thirty a.m. Today was Saturday.

Deciding to answer the phone, I heard a frantic voice saying, She's gone. My God, she's gone. What are we gonna do? The voice was high-pitched, panicky and, at first, unrecognizable. Jay, you hear me? Jay?

Guy, is that you? What's the matter? Has something happened to Mildred?

Mildred? No, it's Picaroon for Christ's sake. She's been stolen. She's not in her slip. Nobody around here knows a thing. You've got to come down today. We have to find her.

Calm down. Tell me what happened.

She was gone when I arrived here this morning. Slipped her mooring and disappeared.

Maybe the casino people had her towed away?

No, no. I moved her two weeks ago to the Biloxi Small Craft Harbor. Someone sold a sportfisherman and the slip opened up. It's right next to Memoirs. I tried to call you and tell you this, but you're never there. I should not have moved her. I knew something like this would happen. Can you come down today?

Tomorrow would be a lot better. I'll fly down in the morning in the Stearman. Pick me up at McDonald Aviation at eight a.m.

You can't come today? He sounded pitiful.

Sighing, I thought for a moment. Okay, I'll be there around three o'clock this afternoon. You can give me the details then. Hanging up the phone, I sat down hard in the chair. No rest for the weary.

Leaning back, I laced my hands behind my head and glanced over at the ditty bag. It looked as tired as I felt. Well old boy we're off and running again. The bag did not answer. If it ever does, I'll retire.

Standing slowly, I felt every bit of my forty-four years. Tired muscles screamed for exercise, bones creaked, old football injuries popped and hurt. Limping into the tiny bathroom, I washed my face in cold water, dried off with a hand towel that begged for a washing machine. The face peering back at me from the mirror wasn't too bad, a few jagged scars and a tired, worn look, but not too bad.

Keeping in shape was hard, but I exercised three times a week with brisk, two-mile walks and worked out with freestanding weights. At six foot two and two hundred and sixty pounds, I was a little heavy, but the face still had sharp features. There was little fat showing on the jaw line. My reflexes were still quick thanks to boxing lessons from Eddie Brown down at Frank Hughes' gym. Lessons I took whenever the urge came to punish myself. Eddie Brown was an ex-middle weight contender who once fought for the title, losing early in the first round. Eddie taught me a lot. He enjoyed making me suffer for the lessons. He never truly hurt me. He could have at any time; he merely wanted me to remember what he taught. I did. Some of those lessons had saved my life. On more than one occasion.

Ten years ago I started an aviation consulting/private investigation business. I've been at it long enough to have made all the mistakes, learned how to survive; fortunate would be a good word for my experience. Somehow, over the years, I had gained expertise in three areas, aviation, the sea, and anything connected with fine wines. A fourth, of which I'm not proud, is a growing knowledge of murder. Killing in all its ugly forms. There are more ways humans destroy each other than there are grains of sand on a beach. The first thing one learns is that the human animal does not die quick, and the pain can be beyond imagination. Still we enter the killing fields thousands of times a day.

Glancing again into the mirror, I thought, you are getting old, Leicester. Maybe too old for this game.

Picking up the small bag, I sighed. It felt heavier than when I threw it under the table an hour ago. The cluttered desk, the monthly billing, and the unpaid bills would have to wait. Someone had sailed away with Guy Robbins beloved Picaroon. He needed my help. At least no bloody corpse was involved, only grand theft sailboat. I thought.

***

Material things mean little to me. I have only four, a red 1967 Mustang convertible restored by my own hands, my trusty old S & W model 66 magnum revolver with a two and a half inch barrel, a blue and white 1941 Stearman biplane, and my wine cellar. The rest of the world I could care less about. Oh, I like my small house in the city. It's paid for, as is my cottage in the country. Three thousand-dollar tailored suits, gold jewelry, two hundred-dollar haircuts, manicured fingernails, or any other of the things we baby boomers seem to think necessary for existence do not impress me. I do have a decent library, however books are not like possessions, they are more like my friends. I'm only passionate about them when reading. Being a loner by nature keeps me from having big literary discussions. I talk literature with only one person and that is the one who sells me all my books. We rarely see eye to eye on anything, but at least we are looking at the same thing. His mantra to me is read the great books, Leicester. Just the great ones. Ignore the others. There's not enough time.

Arriving home, I showered, changed clothes, repacked my bag, and headed for the airport. At the small field north of the city, my plane was out of the hangar. I'd called before leaving the house and requested it be serviced. Each time I see this small aircraft I'm filled with pleasure. It is a superb machine, a remanufactured Stearman, rare and expensive. An appreciative lady who runs a Fortune Five Hundred company made a gift of the aircraft to me for services rendered when the owner of the conglomerate was killed in a crash. All aboard the company jet perished, including the two pilots who were friends. We'd shared a cockpit years ago. I found out why they died and who was responsible. The souls of these airmen are with me every time I fly the Stearman.

The young line boy who pulled the Stearman from the hangar came out and talked with me while I did a thorough preflight. His blond hair and bright, intelligent eyes showed an enthusiasm for flight. It was refreshing and I answered all his questions with delight.

Show us something on takeoff, Mr. Jay. Give us a snap roll.

How about a low pass down the runway. No low level aerobatics. We'll leave that kind of flying for the pros. All my yanking and banking is above five thousand feet. Remember that there are old pilots and there are bold pilots. There are no old, bold pilots. He walked away shaking his head.

The wind was out of the southeast. Taxing slowly, I S-turned my way to runway one seven, which meant the magnetic heading of the runway was oriented to one hundred and seventy degrees.

It was the beginning of summer in the south and, except for when a hurricane is blowing in from the gulf, the most pleasant time of the year with the best weather. Today the sky was steely blue, looking so finely tempered and eggshell thin that I imagined if one threw a football far enough the sky would shatter, splinter, and fall in hot, piercing shards.

Climbing to eight hundred feet, I circled back and made a low pass over the runway. The Pratt and Whitney radial engine rumbled and the propeller screamed. It is a wonderful sound to someone who loves airplanes. The line boy waved as I passed over, a wide grin on his face, thumbs up in approval.

Pointing the nose of the Stearman skyward, I climbed away from the airport feeling exhilarated. Departure control cleared me to seven thousand five hundred feet direct to Gulfport. Punching a button on the Trimble GPS receiver showed a course of 152 degrees for 130.7 miles to my destination. This GPS – Global Positioning System – is much faster, has more capability, and greater accuracy than the old ground-based loran. Ah computers and satellites.

Reaching cruising altitude, I could see the coastline, murky, on the horizon. Mobile, Alabama to the southeast and New Orleans to the southwest, appeared dimly in the afternoon haze. Below, gently rolling fields lay bare and freshly plowed. They seemed to be breathing the warm, spring sun the way a pearl diver breathes the air after an extended time down among the coral.

Up here, alone, I find peace, courage, and a sense of belonging to a unique society of human beings, a cadre of eagles. Everything is in order, and one is fully alive. I am like a bird with high intelligence and an ability to see life topographically and time