Double Jeopardy: A Village of Artists Mystery, #1

By Esther Luttrell

"Mystery! Suspense! Clues and red herrings! If you like Jessica Fletcher, Columbo and Miss Marple, you're bound to enjoy the two novellas, 'Yellow, Green, Blue and Dead' plus 'Murder in Magenta', found between the covers of one book, 'Double Jeopardy'. I like the way the author uses the same characters in both stories, set over a year apart. I felt as if I knew everyone and I took their situations almost personally. Crimes occur in a village of artists and two radio personalities are caught up in a web of intrigue that had me puzzled. Esther does a masterful job of concealing the identity of the killer until the last moment. Once they've been revealed, it's so logical I wondered why I didn't figure it out earlier. The Added Feature at the back of the book, A Stranger in the House, held me nearly spellbound. I couldn't put the book down. Highly recommend it to all mystery lovers." Jack Diamond, national radio host.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Esther Luttrell
• Release date: Feb 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386246107

Esther Luttrell

Esther Luttrell began her career writing educational films for Ivy League college psychology departments. She later participated in a PhD grant at the UMKC-Columbia as campus filmmaker. When the grant ended, she moved to the west coast where she became executive assistant to the VP of MGM-TV. She also wrote and produced television programs and feature films. A move to Topeka, Kansas in 2003 began a new career as the writer of mystery novels. However, it was her spiritual journey following the death of her son that inspired her to write "Between Heaven & Earth, Proof Beyond Doubt that Life and Love are Eternal". Her latest book of inspiration, "Evidence of God", is intended for those who feels their prayers have gone unanswered or are on the verge of losing faith. She lives in Topeka, Kansas with way too many cats.

Book preview

DOUBLE JEOPARDY

2 NOVELLAS

+

BONUS FEATURE

A Stranger in the House

––––––––

DOUBLE JEOPARDY – 2 Novellas

A Village of Artists Mystery

Curtis - Cox Publishing

Copyright©by Esther Luttrell 2014, (revised).2019

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, with the exception of brief excerpts for professional review.

––––––––

www.estherluttrelbooks.com

Table of Contents

Foreword: About The Village

Acknowledgements

Yellow, Green, Blue & Dead

Murder in Magenta

Author’s Notes

BONUS FEATURE

A Stranger in the House

About the Author

DEDICATION

To everyone who has ever attempted

to write a book. Only you understand

how absurdly impossible the task.

––––––––

FOREWORD

ABOUT THE VILLAGE

When I first arrived in Topeka, Kansas it was to visit my daughter who was renting a farm house a few miles south of town. On one of my exploratory drives to see what this part of the Midwest was all about, I crossed the Kansas River from downtown Topeka. What I found on the other side of that bridge was a world entirely different from the section that houses the State Capital. Although at that time most of the turn-of-the-century buildings were rather rundown and abandoned, I realized it had the potential to one day achieve the same kind of notoriety enjoyed by New York City’s NoHo art district. Or maybe even Greenwich Village.

In doing a bit of research I learned that William Curtis—grandfather of Charles Curtis, who was born in North Topeka and went on to become Vice President of the United States under Herbert Hoover—and his friend Louis Laurent laid out the town in 1865 and named it Eugene. One year later, on New Years’ Day, Eugene welcomed its first train (Union Pacific). Because of that event, North Topeka became the industrial heart of the Kansas capital for most of the 19th century.

In April1867, the south side of Topeka annexed Eugene. The two sides then began a tug-of-war to see who would reign supreme among industry and commerce. However, 1903 brought with it one of the worst Midwest floods in American history. Fortunately, Kansans are a sturdy lot. They knew how to regroup and rebuild, and that’s exactly what they did.

In 1951, fate and the weather had another devastating blow in store for them. The rains began in May and did not let up until mid-July. By then the Kansas River had crested at 40.80 feet—or 14.80 feet above flood stage.

Seven thousand Topeka homes and businesses were destroyed.  The total cost in losses in the Kansas River Basin, including Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas, exceeded $725,000,000. Using today’s money standards that would equate to over one trillion dollars in damages.

Now fully restored, those wonderfully colorful old buildings house art galleries, bistros, taverns, and antique shops. In 1995, a non-partisan, nonprofit, organization, North Topeka on the Move Association (NOTOMA), was formed for the purpose of restoring and revitalizing the entire area. Kansas Avenue, from Gordon Street, north to the railroad tracks at Norris, is known today as NoTo (pronounced no-toe).

Since I’ve based my fictional Village of Artists in factual NoTo, I have taken a few liberties. There was actually an Internet radio station, WREN, in NoTo, owned and managed by broadcast veteran Frank Chaffin. He moved the station to another Topeka location a few years back, but the place was so interesting and so colorful, I decided to let it stay in our Village.

WRYT, another radio station in the stories that follow, only exists in this writer’s imagination, though Bradley’s Corner Café is where I say it is and is as warm and friendly as the story indicates. Read the Thank You pages for a more complete accounting of gave this endeavor their blessing.

There’s just too much to tell you about two of the characters in the book (Deb Goodman and Jack Ryman) to do them justice in this brief Foreword, though I’ve gone into some detail at the end of the book. I will say that Deb is based on Deb Goodrich, radio and TV host and all-round fun, terrific, little dynamo. Jack is, in real life, Jack Diamond, well-known Topeka radio personality and very much as he’s presented in the stories that follow.

Yellow, Green, Blue and Dead, and Murder in Magenta, are the first two in this ambitious series, but there are a lot more in development. If you have even half the fun reading them as I’m having writing them then you and I are going to make a great team, for a very long time.

Esther Luttrell

Topeka, Kansas

––––––––

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My deepest appreciation to those who were kind enough to answer my questions about police procedure in the areas mentioned in this book, and to those who enthusiastically planned or participated in book signings and release events in an effort to raise awareness of Noto’s uniqueness. Special thanks to retired Shawnee County Sheriff Lieutenant Martha S. Lutz, now Administrative Assistant to Sheriff Herman T. Jones, Shawnee County Sheriff’s office, Topeka, Kansas; Frank Chaffin and Les Glen who own and manage radio station WREN; and Ben Bradley owner of Bradley’s Corner Café. Huge thanks and much love to the star of these stories, Jack Diamond and Deb Goodrich. I’ll save special thanks for Author’s Notes, at the end of this book.

Blessings to those who always hold my hand through the agony and the ecstasy of book birthing: Helen Cleary and Betty Laird.

A whooping big thanks to you, the reader, is always saved for last. There would be no reason for any of this without you.

The next time you’re crossing the prairie, I hope you’ll divert your wagon to Topeka’s trendy art district, NoTo. Stop by to meet the folks in the galleries and shops mentioned in Double Jeopardy. Tell them I said hello.

––––––––

Yellow, Green, Blue

and Dead

Although Thomas Cleary was retired from the Topeka, Kansas police force, his training never left him. He arrived in NoTo close to three o’clock, on a blustery Monday in early November, with two paintings his wife wanted framed. He had just stepped to the counter in Arts & Expressions when someone came running down the street, shouting into a cell phone, 911? A homeless guy just found a body...a woman’s body...down by the Quincy Street overpass...

Every instinct came alert as Cleary took a receipt from the proprietor and walked outside. He went quickly to an opening between buildings where he could access the alley. Facing a vast lot filled with slush and debris—and, beyond that, train tracks—he stood, legs apart, fists on his hips, surveying the scene. Two men, bums they looked to be from where Cleary was standing, were hovering over a body sprawled on the ground. His police mentality was clicking at a furious pace. Snow that fell in the night was beginning to melt. A few hours ago, the form would have been no more than a white bump on a bleak and empty plot of land.

Cleary’s heart beat faster as he neared the death scene. He had to see for himself, had to turn murder over in his mind as he’d done for nearly thirty years, until his forced retirement six months ago. Damn, he missed it. His wife often kiddingly said to friends, It’s a wonder Tom doesn’t go out and commit a crime just so he’ll be first on the scene to solve it, that’s how much he still wants to be in the thick of things.

Cleary walked through the slushy lot, stepping over used condoms and empty beer cans, toward the body crumpled only a few feet away.

***

Valle Stonewell, part-time on-air personality, full-time aspiring novelist, leaned to the microphone, waited for a commercial to end, then said in her best radio voice, "It’s a great day for browsing NoTo art galleries or picking up an antique or two. The snow is just about all melted around our studio here at WRYT, the station that’s right for you! Why is it right for you? Because we bring you the best in country music, twenty-four hours a day, every day of the week. Music like— She flipped a switch on the console. —Eddy Arnold telling us he wants to—" She upped the volume on Arnold’s classic hit, Make the World Go Away, and let the lyrics complete the sentence for her.

Untangling the headset from her dark hair, she grinned up at her buddy, Jack Ryman. I’m sounding more like you every day, she teased.

My voice is deeper, he countered, moving back in the cramped studio to allow her room to get to her feet. An automobile accident, more than twenty years before, left Jack with twisted knees no operation had been able to mend. He walked slowly and leaned heavily on a cane. Every step was painful. I’ve got about forty-five minutes before I have to be back on the air. Jack worked for Internet station WREN, another broadcast company, further down the block. Mind if we eat somewhere close? Eating somewhere close meant they had to choose between the only two restaurants in North Topeka’s trendy art district.

As they stepped into an outer office, nineteen-year-old broadcast intern, Jeffrey Nichols, threw open the door from the hall and rushed in, breathless. They found another one, he gasped. In that empty lot down by the overpass. Murdered, just like the others.

Four staff members—Megan, the traffic manager; Paula, secretary to the general manager; Ed Bowser, head of sales, and Liz Meyers, continuity writer—looked up from their work to stare at him. It was Ed who finally found his voice. Oh my God.

Color had drained from the intern’s face. Police are all over the place.

Valle and Jack hurried to a front window where they looked two stories down, to a street ordinarily empty on Monday afternoons. Antique shoppers and art lovers came in droves on Saturdays and on First Friday’s Art Walk, but not so much on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday or Thursday. NoTo survived primarily on weekend traffic and commissioned art work. Right now, however, the main drag—Kansas Avenue—was crawling with police cars.

Since the body was found in the empty lot that ran all the way under the Quincy Street overpass, Jack moved to a window that allowed him a view of the north side of the WRYT building. Police cruisers followed the coroner’s sedan as it turned off of Kansas Avenue onto Gordon Street. Once they passed beneath the window, Jack lost sight of them, though he knew where they were headed. They would drive into the alley that ran behind the entire block of stores. From there they would be able to access the two acres of barren property that stretched all the way to the underpass.

The other staff members pressed in around Valle at the front window in an effort to get a clearer view.

I’d better get back to the station, Jack said. We’ll catch lunch maybe tomorrow.

Watching the scene below, Valle replied absently, Yeah. Tomorrow.  She felt as if she were going to be sick. Three women had been killed within the last ten days, in a district known for its charm and weekend festivities. Each of the women had been stabbed in the back, each had been between eighteen and twenty-four years old. So far, those were the only common links the police had found between them. One had been an artist hoping to attract a gallery that would carry her work. Another had simply been a teen among hundreds of people taking part in NoTo’s Friday Art Walk. The third was a jewelry designer. On the day she died, she had made her first sale, to an antique dealer. There were no witnesses to any of the killings and no motive had yet come to light. The women were neither robbed nor sexually molested. They were simply murdered, perhaps for the sake of murder.

One by one, WRYT employees left the window to return to their desks. A pall had settled over the room; it was strangely quiet.

Better let Arnie know, Ed said to Paula. He’ll want us to run something about it on the news. The station only broadcast news at seven in the morning and ten at night. Ed doubled as anchorman on the two 15-minute programs. He crossed the room and hurried downstairs to see what he could learn from police and the coroner.

As Paula took her seat behind a cluttered desk, she mumbled to no one in particular, I think he was meeting someone at the country club, but I’m not sure...

It’s a secretary’s job to know where her boss is twenty-four seven.  Lucille Garfield’s voice seemed to echo in the stillness. No one even glanced up when she entered through a door at the rear of the room, her arms filled with documents she had duplicated on the copy machine in the back hall. Her footsteps were heavy on the hardwood floor. She sat down heavily at her desk. Everything about the woman was heavy...her eyelids, her thick salt-and-pepper hair, her hips, shoulders, even her stubby fingers. Almost every office with more than five employees has a Lucille Garfield among them, a know-it-all bearer of bad news with negative energy spilling out of every pore. General Manager Arnie Alterson often kidded station owner, Phil Hamilton, about The Garfield Grump. The CEO’s reply was always the same: Lucille’s been with me since she got out of college, back when I ran a two-listener station on the Kansas border. She’s stuck around longer than anybody else. And, she’s a damn good bookkeeper.

Yes, Phil, but everybody hates her.

Jeffrey-the-intern settled in behind the long table that served as a desk for him and fellow intern, Becky Rice. Becky was home with the flu so Jeffrey was doing double-duty. Not that he minded. He wanted to learn everything he could, about every aspect of broadcasting. It was more than just a vocation, it had become his passion.

Valle glanced at the big clock on the wall. A prerecorded program was coming through the speaker. Her work was finished for the day, and she had plans. St. Louis mystery writer, Jo Hiestand, was in town, touring with her latest novel. She was scheduled to give a talk at the local library from four until five-thirty. Valle, author of several unpublished crime stories, had to wonder which choice would be the most beneficial to her budding other career—listening to a successful mystery writer talk about her book, or mingling with police as they investigated a murder that happened almost under Valle’s nose.

When she emerged from the WRYT building, officers were urging onlookers—mostly shopkeepers and their employees—to move along. Valle walked quickly past Galaxy Art and crossed Laurent, headed for Bradley’s Corner Cafe. She decided to grab a sandwich before seeking out someone on the police force who might share what they had learned so far. Things were too chaotic to approach them right now.

She heard Jack’s voice coming from WREN’s outside speakers, next door to the restaurant. Installed so that foot traffic could hear rock and roll classics from the 50’s through the 70’s as they were broadcast, just now Jack was saying, "...no information yet on the identity of the victim or the circumstances surrounding her death. The wind was kicking up. A chill had fallen over the streets. Valle tugged her coat closer around her as she pulled open the door to the café.

Connie looked up from brewing a fresh pot of coffee, saw Valle and nodded toward a booth near the back counter.

What’s going on out there? the waitress asked, as Valle settled in. Somebody said another girl was murdered out in the alley.

Ed’s on the street now, trying to see what he can find out. I haven’t heard anything official yet.

Can’t help but wonder if she was stabbed like the others. Connie ignored the pencil she held poised over her order pad. That makes three, you know.

Uh-uh. That makes four.

I’m sure glad we close before dark. She shook her ponytailed blonde head and took a breath, trying to force from her mind images of a dead girl. What are you going to have today, Valle?

Deb Goodman moved like a tornado through the sparsely crowded café. Hey, she said, sliding into the seat across from Valle, did you guys hear what happened? Her dark eyes flashed with intelligence and curiosity. Standing at an even five foot, she had a powerful personality and the voice of one in love with life, qualities that marked her as one of Topeka’s top-rated radio personalities. Although she was new to WRYT, she was familiar to Kansas residents, having been on the air at one station or another for more than a decade. The brass at WRYT knew they were lucky to have her. Ratings had skyrocketed since she joined them.

We heard, Valle said.

Deb leaned in closer. "I saw Tom a few minutes ago—he’d been a police detective since they invented the wheel, I mean forever—"

I know Tom.

He said the woman was probably in her twenties, maybe twenty-one, twenty-two tops. Deb let out a deep breath and shook her head. Man, this is incredible. Three women in something like ten days. I cannot believe it.

Four women, Connie countered.

Man, Deb repeated, then, to Connie, added, Can you fix me a fast tuna sandwich to go? I didn’t have breakfast and I’ve got to be on the air in a few minutes. I won’t get a break for a couple of hours and I’m starving.

Connie took two steps back to lean over the counter and call toward a kitchen pass-thru, Make Deb a tuna on wheat to go. We need it fast.  She turned to Valle. You decided on what you want?

Tuna sounds good. And hot tea.

After Connie left, Deb scooted around to join Valle on the other side of the table. She lowered her voice to a level of confidentiality. Tom said the kid was stabbed eighteen times and not a sign of a struggle.

In the back, like the others?

"Yep. She probably