Breakfast & Bullets in Bed: An Emmanuel Smith Mystery

By John T. Schmitz

Breakfast & Bullets in Bed is the exciting sequel to Any Port in a Storm—the second volume in the Emmanuel Smith Mystery series, which is a hilarious and raw look at police work, crime, the underworld, and even human nature.

A month has gone by and Emmanuel Smith has settled into his new role as a private investigator. He and his partner, Sarah Stackley, decide to use some of their reward money from their last big case and spend Memorial Day weekend in Seaside Harbor, a picturesque resort town a hundred miles up the coast from Bay Port City.

What the two private eyes don’t realize is that Irish crime boss Archibald Stone is hiding out next door—and he’s holding a grudge against the old detective. Matters are further complicated when they’re asked to unearth an ancient treasure, which soon everyone is scrambling to get their hands on, including a guest who turns up dead.

Breakfast & Bullets in Bed is witty and fast-paced, laced with the author’s signature humor ... and in the end, will Manny Smith defeat his foes and find the treasure, or will he be lost at sea?

• Language: English
• Publisher: John T. Schmitz
• Release date: Jul 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465933645

John T. Schmitz

John T. Schmitz is the editor & publisher of Secret Laboratory; he is the founder of Maple Hills Press and has also freelanced as a writer and photographer, contributing to various local and international publications. Mr. Schmitz lives in Minnesota with his Kim, some cats, and a Maki; he is the author of five books. Visit Mr. Schmitz at http://www.secretlaboratory.org

Book preview

BREAKFAST & BULLETS IN BED

AN EMMANUEL SMITH MYSTERY

John T. Schmitz

Published by Maple Hills Press at Smashwords

Copyright © 2011 by John T. Schmitz

All Rights Reserved

Cover design and photograph by John T. Schmitz, Copyright © 2011

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Smashwords License Statement 

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook 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.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Please visit Mr. Schmitz at http://www.johnschmitz.wordpress.com

This book is dedicated to my mother and father; without their love and support, none of this would have been possible.

—JTS

Why, I'd like nothing better than to achieve some bold adventure, worthy of our trip.

—Aristophanes

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

—Niccolo Machiavelli

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue – The Legend

Chapter 01 – After the Storm

Chapter 02 – Swimming with the Sharks

Chapter 03 – A Nightcap at Nell’s

Chapter 04 – Early Birds

Chapter 05 – Check-in

Chapter 06 – Guess Who’s Coming to Lunch?

Chapter 07 – Dinner and Dancing

Chapter 08 – The Lighthouse

Chapter 09 – Breakfast & Bullets in Bed

Chapter 10 – Out East and Back Home

Chapter 11 – Murder at the Seal Rock Inn

Chapter 12 – Afternoon Delight

Chapter 13 – Another Storm

Chapter 14 – Overboard

Epilogue – Nell’s

About the Author

PROLOGUE

The Legend

Piracy had been a big business for hundreds of years off the coast of the Americas; during what historians have dubbed The Golden Age of Piracy, one particularly ruthless brute ruled the waters off California unopposed.

Unlike most men of his ilk, he outgrew piracy—he was too old for it. He disbanded his crew and scuttled his ship, settling on the very coast that he had terrorized for so long. As unlikely as it was, he also had a family of sorts by then; he had become quite fond of one of the slave girls on his ship and she had borne him sons.

He was a rich man. It took considerable ingenuity to secret his treasure on his new-found property. He made a map for each of his sons and tried to live quietly, but his past came back to haunt him before he could properly enjoy his retirement.

Before they hanged him, they demanded to know where the millions in gold that he had stolen was hidden. He professed ignorance, saying that the treasure had gone down with his ship. His common-law wife repeated her husband’s lie. The magistrate took her for a simpleton and had pity on her and the children.

They lived simply for many years; it was only as adults that the pirate’s heirs received their maps and were allowed to seek their fortune. By that time, people had largely forgotten about the legend ... and it would remain that way until a savvy college professor happened across the only remaining map over two-hundred years later.

CHAPTER ONE

After the Storm

1

Dan Sorensen was surprised to find out that he was going to have a new boss—another boss, rather. As unexpected as it was—Sarah Stackley had always been such a loner—it wasn’t unpleasant news.

My Sarah needs a guy in her life, the middle-aged man with the pompadour thought. And it sure will be nice having Mr. Smith around to look at. What a hunk!

Dan Sorensen set up another desk in Sarah’s office, installed a second telephone line, and added Emmanuel Smith’s name to the sign out front; it now read: STACKLEY & SMITH INVESTIGATIONS.

The workload had been light; they had hardly been to the office. Dan thought that they were like a couple of kids in love—which they steadfastly denied, of course.

"We’re not in love, Dan, Sarah had said; we just work together now. We’re partners."

Which was true enough, Dan supposed, but he didn’t think that either one of them had slept alone in the last month. The envious assistant sure wished that he could meet a nice strong man like Emmanuel Smith!

2

April had given way to May and that was almost over, too; the rain in Bay Port City had finally ceased and Memorial Day weekend was fast approaching. Emmanuel Smith and Sarah Stackley had done very little work since he retired from the police department after twenty-two years; the former Inspector Smith needed a vacation after being a corpse cop for so long and then losing his partner, Al Conway, to a case that had only been solved in a very technical sense.

So they went sailing; they spent day after day out on John Sutherland’s new boat, which he christened the Sunset. The name was fitting enough—the vessel was his retirement gift, arranged by his former adjutant and the new chief of police, Thomas Flaherty. Poor old John Sutherland had spent thirty years on the force, the very idea of which drove Manny Smith crackers.

Sarah Stackley sympathized with the two men but had no first-hand knowledge of what it was like to be a cop—especially for so long. Sarah had been making her living as a private investigator for some time, but that was a little different.

You’re lucky, Manny told her; "your hair ain’t gray yet and ya drive a Cadillac and ya only got a little drinkin’ problem."

Manny Smith had found that most people hire private investigators to do background checks and maybe a little surveillance now and then; thus far, he hadn’t solved a single jewel heist.

I need a good whodunit, he told Sarah Stackley. To keep the blood flowin’.

"Oh, Manny, just enjoy your retirement," she said.

And so, they went sailing and spent the reward money from the Pearl Clevette case and drank and tried to see how many times they could screw in a single day. All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to spend the spring, but they’d have to buckle down and get back to work when summer came.

Why don’t we take a little trip up the coast over Memorial Day weekend? Sarah suggested. I know a great little bed & breakfast in Seaside Harbor—it’ll be relaxing and romantic, she promised.

3

Archibald Stone hated Seaside Harbor. The little resort town was one-hundred miles north of Bay Port City and was a pretty good place for a mean old Irish gangster like himself to lay low, but sitting around all day in his safe house with nothing to do but play solitaire and smoke cigars was driving him bananas.

The fresh air and the clean living were starting to make him cranky.

When’s the heat gonna die down? he whined to one of his bodyguards. My whole business is fallin’ apart!

It was true. First Knuckles O’Malley and then Jimmy The Creep had been killed, leaving his interests in Bay Port City vulnerable to attack not only from the cops, but from Remo The Bug Benelli, as well. His old rival, Paul Santelli, was still fouling the air of his 8’ x 10’ cell with his unfiltered Pall Malls while he awaited trial on various charges ranging from extortion to murder; meanwhile, Remo had taken over and that was infinitely worse. Remo was not an imposing figure—his stature earned him his nickname—but he was meaner than the Marquis de Sade and enjoyed torturing people almost as much.

Then there was Vinnie Bourassa.

When that bastard Manny Smith pinned the murders of two cops named Dunn and Goder on his lieutenant, Jimmy The Creep Finnegan, the fuzz was forced to release Bourassa. Everything had been going so well: after Jimmy killed the cops, he drummed up a couple of bogus witnesses who hung the whole thing on Vinnie and three of his thugs.

Then it all fell apart.

Archie Stone sighed and sipped his brandy. He was sitting at the kitchen table, his favorite place in the whole house, which was right next to a pretentious bed & breakfast where everyone wore ties and played croquet and drank martinis all day long. The window was open. He could smell the ocean; he could hear laughter and the click of the croquet balls—he could also hear the seals barking.

The owners of the bed & breakfast, a middle-aged man and his wife, had named their establishment the Seal Rock Inn, presumably because directly behind it was a jutting stone peninsula that was home to an old lighthouse. At first this seemed like a picturesque amenity; however, the peninsula was overrun by a bevy of ill-tempered, smelly seals that polluted the otherwise tranquil environment day and night with their obnoxious woofing.

Archie had been tempted more than once to go out there and shoot the dumb beasts, but that would draw too much attention. He considered ordering his bodyguards to sneak down after dark and club the brutes to death, but why take chances? That kind of thing might work in the city, but the authorities in Seaside Harbor wouldn’t put up with such nonsense, no matter how much he offered to pay them.

Archie sighed again and had another sip of brandy. His head hurt. Manny Smith. Not only did that stupid cop get Bourassa sprung from jail, but he killed Jimmy Finnegan right before he did it. When he caught up with Manny Smith, he would make him pay. A smile formed at the corners of his mouth as he puffed contentedly on his cigar.

Maybe it’s not so bad, Archie thought; maybe Vinnie Bourassa will get together with his old number two, Michael Torrini, and they’ll start a little war with Remo Benelli. Maybe they’ll splinter the family so bad that I’ll be able to pick right up where I left off.

Archibald Stone looked out his window; he looked past the bed & breakfast, past the wretched seals, and stared at the ocean. He began making plans.

4

Vinnie Bourassa did get together with Michael Two-Tone Torrini; when he did, he gave him a severe ass chewing.

How could ya let this happen? he cried, wanting to smack Two-Tone in the mouth. The old man put you in charge while I was in the can, and lookit what ya went and did! Ya let the cops cart him away and then ran and hid while that little shit Remo took over!

Michael Torrini didn’t think that he was getting a fair shake, but what could he say? He had to admit even to himself that his one-time aspirations of being a boss now seemed implausible at best; it looked like he might be forever doomed to being nothing but a lowly thug, or at most, someone’s number two. As vicious as he was, he didn’t dare take on Vinnie Bourassa for the power ... but he would