Redlined: A Detroit Murder Mystery

By Cynthia Hall

Casualty Insurance, a seemingly respectable insurance company, has been overtaken by white collar thugs, hell bent on capitalizing on the criminal climate of Detroit in 2006. When Eva Lyons, one of their managerial employees, unwittingly stumbles across a statistical error and points it out to her bosses, she is fired, then dies under inexplicable circumstances. Her close friend, special agent Michael Elliot is heartbroken. But when a mysterious young woman appears, claiming to be Eva’s daughter, he finds himself infiltrating a world of treacherous corporate raiders, unscrupulous attorneys, seedy public officials and murderers. What did Eva discover that cost her life and threatened the lives of others? What did it have to do with the astronomical auto insurance rates in Detroit? Detroit is more than the setting for this suspense mystery and redlining is more than just a dirty insurance tactic. REDLINED is a fictional expose’ of corporate corruption and how the rich get richer by exploiting the poor.. A rare glimpse into what’s really going on behind the closed doors of major insurance companies, not just in Detroit, but in other major cities across the country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cynthia Hall
• Release date: Oct 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370799022

Cynthia Hall

Cynthia Hall was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, the third oldest of twelve siblings. Her late parents, Eugene and Dorothy Hall, were from Mississippi. She is a first generation college graduate and cum laude from both Murray-Wright High School and Eastern Michigan University. Cynthia worked in the insurance industry for two decades. She also has experience as a secondary education teacher and social worker. She describes writing as her true profession, something she has been doing since age twelve. She personally likes to write stories that engage the imagination and enlighten while entertaining. Stories that stay with you, long after you've finished reading the book. Redlined is her first published ebook. She is currently working on a sequel and plans to have both in paperback by June 2018.

Book preview

REDLINED

A Detroit Murder Mystery

by Cynthia Hall

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

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, photocopying, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

Cover design by Cynthia Hall

Photo by m-imagephotography

Copyright 2006 Cynthia Hall

All Rights Reserved

Dedicated to my father, Eugene Hall, who taught

me the art of storytelling and my daughter Rachel

and son in law Sublime, for encouraging me to

finally use my God given talents.

Prologue

Eva died fighting for her life. She knew it was just a matter of time before they got to her. But not before she set into motion a series of dire consequences for those responsible for her demise.

Sara walked away from the grave site, heartbroken. Her wavy, auburn, hair blowing gently in the late August breeze, sunglasses hiding the tears forming in her hazel brown eyes.

Michael Elliot thought he recognized the young woman, but couldn’t quite place her. He watched her walk across the uneven gravel road to a late model, black, four door Durango and drive away. He turned back to the small, quickly dissipating burial party and thought, Eva would have wanted it like this, short and sweet. Only the closest of her friends had come to pay their condolences, and, the unknown young woman with the auburn hair, He didn’t know who she was, but he intended to find out.

Michael had found Eva’s body slumped in a chaise lounge in the sun room, where she appeared to have been reading a novel. The coroner attributed Eva’s death to heart failure. But Michael didn’t believe it. She had no history of heart disease and was in good health before she died. There had to be another explanation for her untimely death. He felt lost as he pulled n white rose from the pile of flowers lying on her coffin and stuck it in his lapel. The funeral was over, everyone was gone. He found it hard to leave her. Overwhelmed by a sorrow only death could evoke, he broke down and wept.

Chapter One

Eva Lyons was born Eva Lynette Thompson, forty-five years before, in a small rural town about fifty-five miles outside of Jackson, Mississippi. The youngest of five children, her folks were the last generation of sharecroppers on the old plantation where she grew up. Eva and her siblings enjoyed the slow pace and simplicity of the plantation, their favorite swimming pond and the cool shade of the large magnolia trees that graced the land.

The plantation was owned by Bill Nelson, the great grandson of a white slave owner. Bill's great grand mother, Betty, was a slave. Bill's father, John, a mulatto, married Ruth, a mulatto like himself. As such, Bill was mulatto and his younger sister, Luanne, was so light skinned, she could pass for white. When she turned seventeen, Luanne left Mississippi and went North, where it was rumored she married a white man and was passing for white. Bill married a mulatto, Suzanne, like himself and together they had three sons. The oldest two boys were born mulatto, like Bill and Suzanne, but the baby boy, Nathan, was born white, with emerald green eyes.

It was in the mid-sixties and all the Negro children in town went to a school for coloreds about a mile and a half down a dirt road from the old plantation. This included Nathan and his two brothers. Nathan wasn’t the only white Negro at the school, but for some reason, he was the one all the other children liked to pick on. They said because he was uppity. All that harassment made Nathan mean and he grew up hating the darker skinned Negroes who picked on him.

When she was thirteen, Eva became ill and left school early to go home. Normally, her eighteen-year old sister, Gerry, would have been with her. Gerry, who was about to graduate, had finals to take that day and couldn't leave. So, Eva walked the mile and a half alone.

On the way, Eva saw Nathan near the swimming pond, where some of the children liked to hang out after school. He was the same age as Gerry and Eva wondered why he wasn't in school taking his finals too. She didn’t know he skipped school that day, so as not to take the finals, because he hadn't studied for them. As Eva passed the swimming pond, Nathan ran over to her. He was taller than her by a few inches and weighed a lot more than her small frame. He scared Eva, causing her to drop