Ghost Squad 6 - Ghost Bride: A Rest in Peace Crime Story, #6

By Bob Moats

Detroit Police Detective Russ Baker is in charge of Cold Cases and with his partner, Mary, and their ghostly friend and partner, Wes Loomis, they have to solve murders to be able to send the victim’s spirits to the hereafter. 
A ten year old cold case of a bride and her groom dying in a motel room drives the Ghost Squad to finding the truth. They come up on twists and turns that would make a ghost’s head spin. Will they catch the killer and send the couple to the hereafter? 
Murder, mayhem, humor, ghosts galore, and lots of fun are in store in this paranormal ghost crime story by Bob Moats.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Moats
• Release date: Mar 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524260583

Bob Moats

Detroit area resident, Bob Moats, has been writing short stories and plays for as long as he can remember. He has lost most of his original stories, typed or handwritten, in the numerous moves he has made from his hometown of Fraser, Michigan to Northern Michigan, to Las Vegas and back to Fraser, where he now lives. Moats became one of the causalities of unemployment a year ago, and had time on his hands to finally pursue a life long dream of writing a full blown crime novel. Thus was born the first book, "Classmate Murders".What followed was a series of seven books starting with "The Classmate Murders" which introduces the main character, Jim Richards, who has to admit he has become a senior citizen, reluctantly. Richards, one day, receives an email from a childhood sweetheart asking for his help, but by the time he reaches her, she has been murdered. His life turns around and he is pulled into numerous murders of women from his high school who he hasn't seen in forty years. Along with a friend of his, Buck, a big, mustached biker, they go off to track down the killer before he can get to one former classmate, Penny Wickens, a TV talk show host who Jim has just fallen for while protecting her. The killer is also murdering the women right out from under police protection, driving homicide detective Will Trapper crazy, and he slowly depends on Jim to help. There's humor, suspense, wild chases across suburban Detroit with cops, classic cars and motorcycle clubs; murder, mayhem, a good amount of romance and a twist ending.Jim and his crime fighters, continue in the other books, traveling to Las Vegas twice, back to Detroit and out to New York to solve murders involving dominatrix; mistresses; Bridezillas; magic and strip clubs.Book titles: Classmate Murders; Vegas Showgirl Murders; Dominatrix Murders; Mistress Murders; Bridezilla Murders; Magic Murders; Strip Club Murders and Made-for-TV Murders.

Book preview

This book is licensed for your personal use only. This 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, please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

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This is a work of pure fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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For information and address:

Magic 1 Productions

P.O. Box 524, Fraser MI 48026-0524

Website: http://murdernovels.com

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Cover design by Bob Moats

Stock photo (c) kikujungboy www.fotosearch.com

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Extra special thanks to:

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To Susan Haughton, for editing my chapters.

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To the proof readers, Amy Morningstar, Cindy Valstad, and Al Norris for proofing the final copy and hopefully catching all those annoying little errors that slip through.

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To Russ Holthaus, a police officer, who made sure my characters didn't violate any laws.

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To my ARC readers for their comments, Beth Rosen, Pamela Cooke Malone-O'Brien, Carolyn Linington,  Lisa Keller, and Debbie Carter. I thank you.

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Thank you to all the people who purchased this book. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it for my faithful readers.

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The Bob Moats Family of Readers is listed in the back of the book.

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Chapter 1

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We spent the next week catching up on taking care of the ghosts in the file room. We had neglected them during our work at the Michigan Central Train Station and then the old mental asylum hospital in Northern Michigan. Both jobs were for the Captain's brother-in-law and we enjoyed our visit to the North Country. But we were away from our file room ghosts during that time.

Wes was organizing the ghosts in the file room according to the dates as to when their murders occurred. Most had been committed over ten years back and some went as far back as thirty. Those would be the hardest due to the lack of evidence remaining at any crime scenes.

The ghosts were cooperating with us as we worked their cases. They knew from what we had already accomplished, that they would be going on to their rewards in eternity. I was surprised that we were able to solve all their cases, so far. Of course, with Wes helping, it cut through a lot of problems that came up.

I've got a list of the next five ghosts to go, Wes said, appearing in front of my desk. I knew he couldn't write the names so he just filed them in his head.

Okay, who's next? I asked, as Mary sat listening.

This girl was going to get married and she turned up dead on her wedding night. Then her groom was murdered shortly thereafter. They both are upset that they couldn't consummate the marriage.

They were murdered and all they worried about was the sex? Didn't they have premarital sex at any time? Mary asked.

That's the thing. The groom never met the bride until just before they were to get married. She was what they call a mail order bride that this guy ordered.

They still do that? I asked.

Yeah, it's a big business to get women from other countries to marry American men so they can live here. These men aren't all winners, so the best they can do is explore the websites offering women to marry. This murdered woman was from Indonesia. A lot of mail order brides come from Russia, too.

Yes, I've gotten spam emails about lovely Russian women looking for love in the United States. Easy way to gain citizenship, marry some sap who is too hard up to meet women on his own. So where is the murder book on this? I asked.

Wes pointed in front of me. There was a file on my desk and I was always amazed that he could move things around. Fine, let Mary and me look this over and we'll see what we can do.

Wes smiled and vanished. I figured he went back in the file room to report to the unfortunate couple, but sometimes I felt he made himself invisible just to spy on us.

Mary rolled her chair over to my desk and waited. I opened the file and pulled out the reports of the incident. There were crime scene photos that weren't pleasant. The bride had a large gash on her forehead and the groom had his throat slit.

I feel so sorry for men who resort to this, bringing a woman into the U.S. to get married. As I understand it, the marriage doesn't last more than a year if the husband isn't rich and cannot provide for her needs, Mary said.

Which are usually more than the husband can provide, I said. This is the land of milk and honey and lots of nice cars and electronic devices. Any woman would love to spend her husband's hard earned money for their pleasures.

I wonder if there are foreign men who advertise to get married to lonely women. Then live off of them. I don't trust most foreign men.

Don't tell me you profile people by their ethnicity, I said with a grin.

No, not all, but I've come across a number of them when I worked missing persons. We would find that the husbands would make their wives disappear to get their property. I got to the point of annoyance having to listen to them and not understanding most of them. They all were scum.

That's harsh. But I understand. Most ethnic men have a different outlook on women. Most consider them to be beneath men. Those are the ones I don't trust.

Exactly. Now take this couple here. He's American and she's Indonesian. What could they have in common?

"I'd say love,