Kissing Fitz: Fracktown Gumshoe, #4

By Debra Gaskill

WINNER OF THE 2018 SILVER FALCHION AWARD FOR BEST SUSPENSE!

A Saturday of ballistic therapy at the Fawcettville gun range turns bloody for PI Niccolo 'Fitz' Fitzhugh when local social worker and community theater star Anna Maria Ippolito is found murdered in her home. It's personal too—he's been casually dating Anna Maria following his disastrous break up with prosecutor Alicia Linnerman.

The discovery of a strange coded journal at Anna Maria's home makes Fitz and Anna Maria's sister Carlotta wonder if she's living some sort of double life, one Carlotta wants to know about before the police get wind of it.

A box of clothing and other strange items raises more concern, even as the mayor's wife wants Fitz to investigate her husband's suspected infidelity.

When Fitz cracks the journal's code, the two cases converge in a way no one could in this Rust Belt Ohio town could imagine.

This is the fourth in the Niccolo Fitzhugh detective series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debra Gaskill
• Release date: Dec 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386467311

Debra Gaskill

Debra Gaskill is the former managing editor of the Washington Court House (Ohio) Record Herald, which earned two Associated Press General Excellence awards during her tenure. She was an award-winning journalist for 20 years, writing for a number of Ohio newspapers covering the cops and courts beat, and the Associated Press, covering any stories thrown her way. Gaskill brings her knowledge of newspapers to her Jubilant Falls series. The mysteries 'Barn Burner' (2009), 'The Major's Wife' (2010), 'Lethal Little Lies' (2013), 'Murder on the Lunatic Fringe' (2014) and 'Death of A High Maintenance Blonde' (2014) all center around crimes committed in the fictional small town Jubilant Falls, Ohio, and often center around the damage family secrets can do. 'The Major's Wife' received honorable mention in the 2011 Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards and 'Barn Burner' was a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award at Killer Nashville.. Her next series, featuring the private investigator Niccolo Fitzhugh, brings her cops and courts experience together in a mystery that "creates complex characters and places them in real settings" according to customer reviews. That series includes Call Fitz (2015), Holy Fitz (2016), Love Fitz (2016), and the 2018 Silver Falchion Award winner for Best Suspense, Kissing Fitz (2017). Gaskill has an associates degree in liberal arts from Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, Va., a bachelor's degree in English and journalism from Wittenberg University and a master of fine arts in creative writing from Antioch University, Yellow Springs. She and her husband Greg, a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, have two children and three grandchildren. They raise llamas and alpacas on their farm in Enon, Ohio. Connect with her on her website, www.debragaskillnovels.com, as well as on Twitter and Facebook.

Book preview

Chapter 1

There's nothing like a little ballistic therapy on a cold Saturday morning.

I focused on the paper target’s center body mass, and, pointing the barrel of my Glock 21, fixed my stance. I squeezed off three, four, five shots and grinned as I surveyed my handiwork. All five shots clustered in the center of the chest. I stepped to the wall of my shooting stall and pushed the button to bring the target back toward me on the retrieval rail.

Fawcettville’s only commercial shooting range was a product of the times: a toxic mixture of money from the incoming fracking business and rising crime. Over the last few years, a Wild West mentality had overtaken my hometown as more companies located here to build wells. There was money again, yes, but more hookers, strippers and thugs to take it from you than I’d seen in years. Folks flocked to concealed carry classes to ensure they could make it to their cars after dark.

I came there because I couldn’t use the police range any longer and needed to stay sharp as my hometown’s only private detective.

Yeah, I’m a shamus, a dick, a private eye. My name is Niccolo Fitzhugh—most folks call me Fitz.

I took up the business after twenty years with the Fawcettville PD. Most of my work leaned toward domestic cases, chasing down errant spouses who were convinced they could do more than feel up the barmaid while their spouse was reading bedtime stories to their three kids. There was the occasional defense work or civil case, but generally my bread and butter was catching those who advanced from slap and tickle to fondle and, well, screw in this has-been little town.

I holstered the familiar handgun—it had been my service weapon, and I’d received it when I retired. It had been a part of my life longer than all of my romantic relationships put together, which doesn’t say much.

I sensed someone speaking behind me, but resisted the urge to pull off my ear protection. Other shooters stood in the stalls on either side of me—my ears would have rung like a church bell for days. Like most of the other shooters on the range that Saturday, I had doubled up on my hearing protection—ear plugs along with sound-cancelling earmuffs.

Instead, I turned around to see Joe Barnes—or I should say, Fawcettville Police Detective Joseph A. Barnes—ten years older than me and retiring in less than two weeks. Of course, he wasn’t run off the force for sleeping with the chief’s wife, like I had been all those years ago. He’d spent a full thirty on the force, given his whole fucking life to the job—no wife, no kids, nothing but the job.

Not a bad shot for someone who’s been drawing a pension for almost ten years now, he smirked good-naturedly as he shouted over the gunfire.

Fuck you, Barnes, I replied, equally as loudly. What brings you here? It’s a Saturday—I figured you’d be sitting down at Puccini’s coffee shop, cursing at the college students who got there before you did.

I’d watched Barnes age as the years went by—when we both started on the force, we were both smooth-cheeked and straight-shouldered. Today, the lines in his cheeks and forehead, as well as mine, were deep. I wasn’t completely gray, but his old-style high-and-tight Marine haircut was, and he still regularly beat new recruits on the physical fitness course. I couldn’t make that claim. What would Barnes do when he was able to sleep in late?

Barnes shrugged and ignored my question. Haven’t seen you in a couple weeks, Fitz. What have you been up to?

It was my turn to shrug. Been pretty busy—seems like half the world believes their spouse is screwing around on them. I hope they are—that means more billable hours for me.

How’s the social life? I hear you’re back out on the dating scene again.

I nodded as I hooked up another paper target and pressed the button on the right side of the stall to return it to the earthen back wall.

Why do you ask?

Before he answered, I assumed a tactical stance, squeezing off four more quick shots. They all hit the paper target in the center body mass.

Yes, I was back in the dating pool—and I hated it. I’d lost the love of my life, my wife Gracie, to breast cancer, two years ago, then was too stupid to know better as my second chance at love, Prosecutor Alicia Linnerman, slipped out of my arms and got engaged to some Akron probate lawyer.

The rock on her finger made it difficult when she hired me as a freelance investigator. I missed the way we used to flirt back and forth—Alicia was all business now and more than a little curt with me. She and the boyfriend hadn’t tied the knot yet, but from what I heard, the local rise in crime was keeping her in the courtroom and out of the wedding chapel.

My little sister, Katie, talked me into joining an online dating site for folks over fifty. It was a virtual fucking meat market—you can switch those words around anyway you like. The meaning is still the same.

There were two or three different women generally—relatively attractive, eminently screwable, but generally boring. We’d date once or twice, there might be conversation, a couple laughs, maybe a drink or two, most always sex—but it always ended. Sometimes with tears, sometimes anger, sometimes silence, but it was always over in no more than sixty days.

Maybe I compared them to Gracie or to Alicia—maybe I didn’t. Maybe they were just a way to pass time—crude, I know, but I couldn’t stand the empty house where memories seemed to fill every corner. Either way, I was going through women again like most folks go through socks. And where I once would have felt some swagger about the notches I was putting in my bedpost, it now felt very, very hollow.

Barnes leaned in close to me, so I could hear him through my ear protection. 

I understand you’ve been seeing Anna Maria Ippolito.

My final shot went wide, missing the target entirely, burying itself in the earthen back wall. I turned to face him. He gestured for me to follow him out to the lobby, where I pulled off my earmuffs.

From your poor shot, I’m guessing that’s a yes?

Yeah, we’ve gone out a couple times. Why? I pulled the earplugs from my ears and threw them in the trash.

Did you see her last night?

I shrugged. We had pizza last night at my office. She brought it by after we closed.

Did you go back to her place afterwards?

No.

You sure? You wouldn’t bullshit me, would you, Fitz?

What is this about?

Anybody else see her leave your office?

Mary Margaret Cleary, my assistant.

She had pizza with you, too?

No. She’s a vegetarian now. Anna Maria brought a pizza with sausage and peppers. Mary Margaret wouldn’t touch it, so Anna Maria brought her a salad.

You know what I mean.

Yes, we all three ate together. When we were done, we all three walked to our cars, which were all parked on the street. Somebody drove by the office and honked at Anna Maria. She waved at them, like she knew them. Then I watched as she got in her car and I got in mine and we went our separate ways.

You didn’t see her later? Didn’t talk to her?

No—I went to La Dolce Vita to watch the Cavaliers on the new big screen there. Half of New Tivoli was there. What the fuck is going on, Barnes?

It’s Anna Maria. She’s dead.

My stomach sank.

Shit. What happened?

She was shot.

I hung my head. Dammit. Where was she found?

Her place—the neighbor was walking his dog when he looked through the window this morning and saw her on the couch, covered in blood. He called the police.

Oh, Jesus.

She was shot with a .45.

Like mine?

Like yours.

I pulled the Glock from my holster and handed it to him. Go ahead—test it. You won’t find anything. I’ll meet you at the station. Give me about five minutes.

No, Fitz. I got an unmarked out front. You’re coming with me.

WE RODE BACK TO POLICE headquarters in silence. At least Barnes gave me the respect to let me ride in the front seat instead of the cage in the back. I knew better than to say anything that could incriminate me—I also knew that my silence could be taken wrong. A man whose lady friend was found dead should be at least a little upset, right?

Barnes was making some assumptions about my relationship with Anna Maria, and I needed to set him straight.

Barnes dropped my Glock off for ballistic testing with one of the crime-scene techs and showed me into an interview room, like I’d never been there before or didn’t know where it was. I glimpsed up at the camera in the corner where the ceiling met the wall and waved.

You’re not under arrest, Fitz, so I’m not going to read you your rights. We’re just trying to figure out what happened.

Am I a suspect?

That depends on what we find out. So tell me about you and Anna Maria. She’s not your usual type. You like ’em younger, if I remember correctly.

No, she’s not—and yes, I do. Maybe that was the reason we hadn’t had sex yet.

How’d you meet her?

We both grew up in New Tivoli—I played football in high school with her brother Hugh. We found each other on an online dating site.

So what do you and she have in common?

You know she is—was—a social worker, right? She was always working with those little shits over at the juvenile court. We had enough mutual connections within the law enforcement community to have enough to talk about. What’s this about? You got a suspect?

Barnes didn’t answer me.

Know anything about her family? Ex-husbands? Kids?

Her parents are long gone. Hugh lives in California now. I think one of her sisters lives in Pittsburgh, and the other one lives in Youngstown. Anna Maria never married.

Barnes arched an eyebrow. What, she was like some crazy cat lady?

Barnes, this is why you’ve been single all your life. Anna Maria was a college graduate; she traveled a lot with her girlfriends and her sisters. She spoke three languages, for Christ sake. She was engaged once, she told me, in graduate school, but he’d died in a motorcycle accident.

How close were you guys?

We were comfortable together, like old acquaintances are comfortable. Why?

That's code for you weren’t sexually involved.

I was getting frustrated with his line of questioning, but I couldn’t help grinning. Barnes was right. There was something about Anna Maria that attracted people to her—a magnetism, you could say. Hell, that magnetism sure attracted me—but we weren’t sleeping together. My sisters, Chrissy, who was older than me, and Katie, who was younger, were tickled to death to learn I’d been out with Anna Maria a couple times. They pushed me for details and when I had none, cursed my reticence to—as Chrissy delicately said —deepen the relationship with her.

Was she involved with anyone else? Barnes asked.

That’s her business. Not mine. We weren’t exclusive. I’m giving you everything I know—why won’t you answer my questions?

Could anyone have anything against her?

Shit, I don’t know! Some of those little assholes she deals with can be pretty wicked, but I don’t know about anything specific. I don’t know of any conflicts she had with any adults.

Barnes leaned back in his metal chair and hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his khakis. There’s something you’re not telling me.

Like what? My frustration at being grilled broke through. Calm down, old man, I told myself. Stay cool—you don’t want to do anything that you put you in his sights as a suspect.

Like why would she meet you and Mary Margaret at your office after hours? Was she a client?

Not officially. She told me she needed my services to look into something—I don’t know what, though. That’s why we met at the office. We didn’t get very far in discussing it—she didn’t want to say anything in front of Mary Margaret. I gave her a contract and she was going to read it over the weekend. We were supposed to meet Monday for lunch and go over the details.

Barnes’ phone buzzed with a text message. He pulled a pair of black reading glasses from his FPD polo shirt pocket to read it.

You’re in the clear, Fitz. Your weapon doesn’t match the one that killed Anna Maria.

I could have told you that.

Well, you know we have to check everything out. Come on—let’s go get your handgun and I’ll take you back to the range. I had hopes my last two weeks on the force would be quiet ones. I guess I was wrong.

I was silent as I followed him down to the CSU to pick up my Glock.

I hadn’t been totally honest with Barnes. Once in my Excursion, I pulled out my phone. I swiped my thumb across its face. The last communication with Anna Maria was a text message I’d found on my phone Friday morning: I need your services, Fitz. I think I’m being targeted by somebody—somebody who’s very dangerous.

Chapter 2

Like I said, Anna Maria and I connected online, both of us surprised that the other had chosen this end of the Internet dating pool. She never told me what her experiences with online dating were, but I found the fish in that polluted sea a combination of bottom-feeders and losers.

Anna Maria Ippolito didn’t look like your average social worker. She was a little taller than me—but then, most everybody was. Like all of us heading into the late stages of middle age, I assumed her once-athletic frame was going a bit soft, but I had no proof of that. It was her confidence and class that caught my eye and led to more than a couple nice evenings together. Evenings that didn’t include sex.

I don’t know why we didn’t click that way. She had great legs, gray hair that skimmed her shoulder blades and bright turquoise reading glasses that she frequently forgot were on top of her head. She dressed well, wearing stylish knee-length jackets, ornate, gauzy shawls that were as bright as her green eyes. Unlike a lot of social workers her age, who were beaten into dumpy, cardigan-wearing, semi-alcoholics by years of ever-rising caseloads and ever-sinking budgets, Anna Maria had class, lots of it—and I was always attracted to class.

We all want our partners to have what we don’t, right? Gracie had class—loads of it—topped off with an education, her doctorate in music theory. Alicia did, too. Class and education were two things I lacked, beyond my blue collar Irish-Italian childhood, the security police training I got at Lackland Air Force Base and the six-week police academy after that.

Anna Maria was smart, too, and a little flamboyant. Thanks to her Tuscan grandmother, she spoke Italian, as well as French—and pretty decent Spanish, thanks to the influx of Mexican parents trying to keep their little hoodlums under control.

Everybody in town knew her, if not for her work with troubled children, then for her performances in community theater. In addition to her command of languages, she was a great actress, performing everything from a boozy, angry Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to the mayor’s wife in The Music Man. Gracie and I had seen her perform in the summer theater productions more than once.

But for some reason, I never could get Anna Maria in the sack—and I tried. Believe me, I tried.

You do realize that sexually-transmitted diseases are increasing by leaps and bounds among older adults don’t you? That was her coy response to my suggestion we got back to her place. It was our third date and we were having margaritas at Lupe’s, the Mexican restaurant downtown.

You sound very social worker-ish when you say that. I leaned in to kiss her.

I do, don’t I? she laughed and pulled away. I keep pamphlets and condoms in my purse so I can pass them out to all my dates.

Can’t blame a guy for trying, can you?

No, Fitz. No, I can’t. She sat up a little taller and crossed her legs, her body language letting me know that one, I didn’t have a chance and two, don’t ask again.

Anna Maria was reticent about sex—talking about it as well as doing it. I took that as part of her classiness. I figured I had to earn my way into her bed—and was working hard to get there. I’d talked more than one no into a yes over the years and figured I could still get there. For all my efforts, however, taking our relationship further was, frankly, a non-starter.

Still, we had good times together, a lot in common.

Like me, she came from the old neighborhood. Unlike me, she’d never left. She owned one of the old bungalows that lined New Tivoli’s brick streets, built when smoke from the steel mills