Dead Wrong

By JE Bridget

An introduction of detectives Case and Reynolds whose cases lean towards the unordinary

• Language: English
• Publisher: JE Bridget
• Release date: Oct 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386993865

Book preview

Monday

Coming into the office on Tuesday morning, I turned the car off just as Billy Squire finished singing Here in The Dark. A quick glance at the sky as I climbed out showed another cloudless, blue, and warm day in Southern California. I absolutely loved San Diego I told myself, then glanced at the decaled sticker just above the door handle. Case and Reynolds was all it said. No description of what we do, no important insights about what was going on inside, just the two names. I’m Case and my partner is Reynolds. We specialize in assistance, the special kind of assistance that ordinary people don’t think about in their ordinary day and most people don’t want to think about until something traumatic happens in that ordinary routine and their lives start to unravel. I guess if we had to classified into a group, we’d fall into the category of private investigators. But that would be generalizing us and Reynolds hates to be generalized and hates being called a PI even more.

Walking in, I crossed our small reception area towards the office alarm and punched in the sequence code turning it off for the morning. Heading into our second room, which we call the break room to start coffee brewing and saw an already full pot of coffee waiting for me. Stepping back out of the break room I glanced into the third room, which is the office Reynolds and I share.

Kelly Reynolds was in her chair, leaning back with her legs stretched out onto the top of the desk. All I could see was a pair of blue jeans tucked into a pair of short black suede boots and an open newspaper opened across her waist. Without glancing up from the paper, I heard her say, Bout’ time.

What are you doing here this early?

Flipping down the top edge of the newspaper so she could see me, Wow, you look like you just got up.

Yeah, I answered absently running a hand through the back of my hair. I got a strange call this morning and thought I’d come in a little early and look up some information on the computer.

Some lady by the name of Carrie? Said she had a case concerning a missing husband?

I nodded, You got the same call?

I did. She folded the newspaper back together and laid it on the desk. Sounded to me like she said her husband was carried off by something from a second story bedroom window last night.

Yeah, that’s what I thought she said, but I figured I’d heard her wrong. How the Hell did she get our numbers?

That’s what I asked her. Said she was given our names from a guy she knows as Tommy P.

Immediately, an image came to mind and I thought of Thomas Peale. No way! You don’t think she meant Peale do you?

Pulling her legs back, she dropped them down and I heard them hit the floor with a soft thud. She pulled herself closer to the desk and rested her elbows on the desktop. "That’s the only Tommy P I can think of. I am however, very curious to see what this Carrie is like if she’s really talking about Peale. I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind hanging out with him.

Thomas Peale was a local boy, born and raised in Southern California, just like Kelly and I. He started off life with a little grudge, that being left by his mother at the age of six while she went away to do a little time for the state of California. He’d grown up in the state system, in and out of the foster home debacle, and generally fending for himself which included being a little petty thievery, moving onto cars and the Mexican border when he was twelve, some racketeering along the way to eighteen, and finally, it was rumored that after eliminating some territorial competition and even some local law enforcement persons that had intruded into his territory and thought they might be able to get a bit of extortion money, he became an alleged major player in the San Diego drug trade. All of this happened before he was twenty.

Through the years though, as age and maturity grew, Thomas Peale discarded the drugs and now owned a great deal of real estate from San Diego, California over to Laughlin, Nevada and south to the border of Mexico. If something involved transport, chances are it went through Thomas Peale, or it didn’t go at all. Now in his early thirties, Thomas Peale was a very rich, very intense, and still a dangerous business man. It was even rumored that when his mother was finally released from prison, Peale was there to meet her and put a bullet in her head as she climbed into his car.

Kelly and I knew him from childhood and had helped him through some of his rougher times growing up. We reunited with him a few years ago when he got our names from a satisfied client. He was cordial, well spoken and dressed, and did remember us from childhood also and how we helped him through one of his rougher times. He commented on the way Kelly turned out, which by the way was not quite the model type beautiful, but a head-turner. Which by the way, most everyone does when she walks by. He had then turned the conversation to business and told us what he wanted. We both felt there wasn’t much room in the way of a refusal on our part. We took the job and reacquired the stolen property in a matter of two days delivering both the stolen items and the person involved to him.

For someone to drop his name and refer to him as Tommy P, I had to admit my curiosity was peaked as well.

I’ve made an appointment to meet her at eleven over a t Balboa Park. Kelly announced interrupting my thoughts.

I’ve known Kelly since we were kids and I can honestly say, she’s about the most prepared