Deceitful Kind: D&K Mysteries, #1

By Debra Ann Dotson

DeeAnn Dawson is fifty-two, divorced, a mother, a grandmother, and an office assistant at Copper Investigations, a private investigation firm.

 

She's also a murder suspect.

 

When DeeAnn finds her boss, Gary Copper, dead in the office she shared with him, she becomes Phoenix Police Detective Colter Wyatt's prime suspect. After she inherits Gary's business and everything else he owned, she becomes Detective Wyatt's only suspect.

 

Why would Gary leave everything to her? Especially his business. Does she have what it takes to be a private investigator? Kayla Weston, DeeAnn's best friend, believes she does and is anxious to take on the role of DeeAnn's assistant and help deal with the cases —and clients—Gary left behind.

 

But first, DeeAnn needs to find out who ended Gary's life, and at the same time, convince a certain police detective that she's not a killer.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Canyon Publishing, LLC
• Release date: May 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781733943871

Debra Ann Dotson

Debra Ann Dotson published her first novel, You Can’t Hide from Me, in 2012. Five years later, Murder by Fire, made its debut, and in 2019, Deadly Trust, the first in the Harrington Palmer series, was made available from Red Canyon Publishing. In 2020, Debra will present the first book in a new series, D&K Mysteries, and the second Harrington Palmer novel. In her spare time, Debra enjoys reading, listening to podcasts, and building LEGO spacecraft.

Book preview

DECEITFUL KIND

A

D&K Mystery

Novel

DEBRA ANN DOTSON

For all the women who inspire me.

You know who you are.

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

More books by Debra Ann Dotson

Copyright Page

Chapter One

TODAY WAS ONE OF THE worst days of my life.

When I tell you what happened, you’re going to wonder how it was just one of the worst days of my life and not the worst day. Suffice it to say, my life has been a series of bad days.

But I’m jumping ahead. Before I tell you about my really bad day, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

My name is DeeAnn Dawson and I decided at age fifty-one to go to the gym for the first time. Well, not exactly the first time. There had been a few false starts in my twenties, but this time it stuck. I’ve been going at least three times a week for over a year. I think I have convinced myself I can outrun old age.

So, now that I have the physical aspects of my life on the right track, it’s now time to work on the mental. The psychological. The emotional. I’m afraid that part is going to require a lot more work.

Not that I’m a mental case. I’m not suicidal or homicidal, or anything like that. Although, I have fantasized about all the ways my cheating ex-husband could meet an untimely death. Not that I would carry out any of those fantasies, but if he were to drive off a bridge in his brand new Mercedes with his brand new bride (who, by the way, is younger than our daughter), I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

Speaking of my daughter, she is the youngest of my two children. Doreen is twenty-seven, single, and a lawyer with a firm in downtown Phoenix. My son, Dash, is thirty and lives with his wife and two sons in Mesa. He’s a writer and stay-at-home father and his wife is a doctor. I don’t like Patricia. People think it’s because I don’t like doctors. That’s not it, although it doesn’t help her case any.

By the way, my ex-husband’s name is Darren. Yes, we all have names that begin with D. It was Darren’s idea. He thought it was cute. I, too, thought it was cute at the time. What can I say? I was young and stupid.

As for me, I have worked in corporate America nearly all my adult life—and have hated every minute of it. I’ve worked as a receptionist, bookkeeper, accountant—working my way up the ladder until the promotions no longer came my way. They were given to the men, or to women half my age. In case you were wondering, sexism and ageism are alive and well in our fine country.

Because I hated my job and because I had been passed over for no less than six promotions while doing twice as much work as those who were, it wasn’t hard for me to leave. I decided to try something different. Something new. Something crazy.

Something stupid.

When I was younger, I wanted to be a detective. More precisely, I wanted to be a private investigator. I grew up watching Barnaby Jones, Murder She Wrote, and Simon & Simon. So, when I was told about a position as an office manager for a private investigator, I jumped at the opportunity. After all, I was tired of doing paperwork all day—receiving paperwork, generating paperwork, sending paperwork. I needed a change.

I needed some excitement.

So now, as an office manager for a small private investigation firm, I spend my days receiving paperwork, generating paperwork, and sending paperwork. How is this different from my corporate job, you may ask?

It’s not. It’s exactly the same. Except the pay, benefits, and hours are so much worse. Especially the pay. We have lots of clients who don’t pay what they owe us. Good thing we charge a retainer, otherwise we would go broke. The problem arises when the retainer is used up and we go to billing clients monthly for the additional fees. Very few people fork over the extra money without making a fuss.

The main reason many clients don’t pay what they owe is they don’t get the answers they’re hoping for. If a husband thinks his wife is cheating on him, but we don’t find any evidence of it, he may feel we are cheating him.

The opposite is also true. Some want to hear their spouse is being faithful and if we find proof of cheating, they don’t believe us. Again, they feel cheated and don’t want to pay.

Fortunately, we have a few reliable, solvent clients who pay on time, which makes it easier for my boss to pay me the meager wage he does.

The reliable clients are the corporate ones. The ones with the deep pockets. The ones with the boring cases: background checks, office theft, restaurant and bar theft. Ho hum.

At least they pay.

But I digress. I often go off on tangents on Monday after thinking and reflecting too much over the weekend. This Monday was no different. I had thought long and hard over the weekend and decided today was the day I was going to quit my job. The job I thought I would love. The job I thought would make me happy.

The job that was sucking the life out of me!

I decided I couldn’t take another month of trying to collect on overdue invoices just to hear every excuse in the book:

I just lost my job and have no money for food let alone bills.

My son needs surgery and we have no insurance.

My dog was hit by a car and the vet wouldn’t release him until we paid the bill.

Yes, I’ve heard them all.

And I’ve fallen for them all. My usual response is, I’m so sorry to hear about your job (your son, your dog). Maybe next month will be better. I’ll call you back then.

Yes, I’m a pushover, an easy mark. Worst part is everyone knows it.

So, I decided over the weekend to take yet another corporate job that would also suck the life out of me but would pay more and offer better benefits, because if the life was going to be sucked out of me, I definitely needed the benefits.

But I’m already having second thoughts. I’m fifty-two, for heaven’s sake! Am I ever going to find a job I truly love?

Probably not, since I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I’m fifty-two and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

That is, if I grow up. I’m starting to think it doesn’t happen for everyone.

I DRAGGED MYSELF OUT of bed, threw on jeans and a t-shirt, put a comb through my hair, and slapped on a smidgen of makeup (more wasn’t going to help any), and made my way to work.

The closer I got to the office, the stronger my feeling of dread became. Not that feeling dread about going to work was unusual. It was actually the norm. But this was different.

This was despair.

While I didn’t like my job—the pay, the hours, or the benefits—I did like my boss. I hated the thought of telling him I was leaving after being his assistant for three years, but the bottom line was, I had to save myself.

I continued to the small strip mall that housed three businesses—Reynaldo’s Shoe Repair, Sally’s Dry Cleaners, and Copper Investigations. You may not believe this, but my boss’s name is Gary Copper. Gary’s mother was a huge Gary Cooper fan and she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to almost name her only son after her favorite actor.

And Gary almost called his business Gary Copper Investigations. (Thank you, Gary, for deciding against that.) He thought Copper Investigations was enough for two reasons: Copper is slang for police officer, and Arizona, besides being called the Grand Canyon State, is also known as the Copper State.

Hence, I work for Copper Investigations, which to me sounds like we are in the business of locating future extraction sites for mining companies.

But again, I digress.

It was a few minutes before eight when I pulled into the rear parking lot of Copper Investigations, leaving the spaces in the front for customers, mostly for the dry cleaners and shoe repair establishments that flanked us on either side. We rarely had walk-in traffic. Most of our clients preferred to meet at their offices, or a coffee shop far away from their homes and businesses where cheating spouses, and friends of said spouses, wouldn’t see them conferring with a private investigator.

I was shocked when I didn’t see Gary’s car in the lot. Being a morning person, he usually beat me to the office by at least an hour; whereas I prefer to wait for the sun to rise before I decide if I’m going to drag my butt out of bed.

When I placed my hand on the doorknob to the back entrance, the feeling of dread that had turned to despair was at a new level. I was now at scared shitless.

Gary’s car wasn’t in the parking lot, yet the office door was unlocked. Should I go in? Should I try to call Gary? Should I call the police?

Since standing there with my hand on the doorknob, not moving, would begin to look and feel weird after a while, I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and called Gary.

The call went straight to voicemail.

Okay, that’s not good, I said out loud. I often talk to myself when I’m scared, concerned, or clueless.

As you can probably imagine, I talk to myself a lot.

I thought about calling the police, but if Gary simply drove down the street for coffee, he would never forgive me if he returned to a slew of flashing lights. Even though I was ready to quit my job, I had no intention of causing Gary Copper any embarrassment.

I took a deep breath, twisted the knob, and pushed the door open, calling out to Gary before entering the back room.

No response.

Gary? I called again. Are you here?

Still, no response.

I walked down the hall to Gary’s office where I found the door partially open. Pushing it open a bit farther, I peered in. Not seeing him there, I went across the hall to check the storage room where Gary kept everything that was no longer working. I’m not sure why he hung on to old computers, fax machines, and printers—things that should have long ago made their way to the electronics graveyard. It was just one of many things I don’t understand about men.

I trekked back down the hallway from which I came to see if Gary was in what was jokingly referred to as my office. In reality, it was our dirty, dusty file room that contained contracts and notes from every case Gary had worked on for the past two decades. As you can surmise by now, Gary is a pack rat, and because of that, I didn’t have an office, per se, but spent most of my time sitting behind a large desk in the reception area.

Even though I didn’t expect to find Gary in the file room, I was, nevertheless, disappointed not to see him there digging through old case files.

I made my way to the reception area to check on the front door, only to find it was still locked. With the hair on the back of my neck standing at attention, I took a few minutes to plan my next move.

What I really wanted to do was leave Gary a note, lock up the place, and go home. But even though I no longer wanted to work for Copper Investigations, I respected Gary enough to tell him in person and not on a sticky note.

So, while I waited for Gary to return, I unlocked the front door and headed to my desk to get everything prepared for a new workday.

That’s when I saw him.

Gary Copper, my boss, was on the floor behind my desk, lying in a large pool of blood.

I had often wondered if I were the type of woman who would scream her head off after finding a dead body. I’m happy to say I’m not.

I’m one of those women who stand there staring at a dead body, frozen, unable to move or do anything useful.

After what seemed like an eternity but was only a few seconds, I called 9-1-1, which was a miracle considering my hands were shaking uncontrollably.

I told the 9-1-1 operator where I was and what I had found. She wanted me to check Gary for a pulse and I took a few steps back.

Ma’am, I don’t think that’s necessary, I said, as I felt my stomach do a somersault. "I mean, there’s a lot of blood and... I took a deep breath before continuing, ...brain matter all over the floor.

The 9-1-1 operator asked if he may have been shot.

Yes, ma’am, he was shot in the head. Just saying those words made me want to throw up. But I somehow maintained my composure, such as it is.

The operator told me help was on its way just seconds before I heard sirens blaring in the distance.

WITHIN MINUTES, THE parking lot was filled with vehicles from the fire and police departments, an ambulance—although it was obviously too late for that—and another vehicle with the words Crime Scene Response Unit emblazoned on the side.

Since the body was in the reception area, behind what used to be my desk, a police officer escorted me into a small room Gary had turned into a kitchen where I would be out of the way but available when they were ready to question me.

Besides having a tiny sink, the room contained a mini refrigerator, a cheap microwave, and a 4-cup coffee maker. Thankfully, it also had a two-person table with a couple of folding chairs where I could sit uncomfortably while I waited for Officer Conrad, a stout man in his late thirties who hadn’t bothered to brush the donut crumbs from the front of his once-dark uniform, to question me about my morning.

It was the crumbs on his uniform I chose to fixate on as I was barraged with a million questions.

Did you touch anything?

Where were you before you arrived and found the body?

Did you see anyone hanging around the building?

Why did you park out back? Is that normal?

Why didn’t you call the police when you realized the door was unlocked?

Did Mr. Copper have a habit of leaving the door open?

To these questions, I responded: No, home, no, yes, I don’t know, and sometimes.

I guess these answers weren’t good enough, because I had to repeat them to a detective when he arrived more than an hour later. He also asked one more question that I didn’t particularly care for.

Was Mr. Copper dead when you arrived?

What? I said to the insolent human being in front of me. The man was wearing a gray t-shirt, black jeans, and black tactical boots. His gun was holstered on his right hip and his badge hung on a chain around his neck. He was tall, a little over six feet, with dark eyes, and wavy black hair that could stand to be trimmed. He also had a five o’clock shadow even though it was still morning. He had introduced himself as Detective Wayne. Or was it Wyatt? Williams? Well, it started with a W, I’m almost certain.

Are you suggesting I’m a suspect in my boss’s murder?

I’m not suggesting anything, ma’am, he said as he jotted something down in his little notebook. I’m just asking a few questions.

Bullshit, I thought. Then, I can go?

Sure, the detective said.

I started to get up from my chair, anxious to leave the place that still housed the dead body of my boss, but I didn’t get far.

I just have a few more questions before you go.

Of course you do, I thought as I eased myself back into the chair.

You stated when you arrived the back door was unlocked.

Yes, that’s what I said. I did my best not to sigh and roll my eyes at being asked that question for the fourth or fifth time. But my best wasn’t good enough. I did both.

Do you have a problem answering my questions, Mrs. Dawson?

"That’s Ms. Dawson, and I don’t have a problem answering your questions. I have a problem answering the same questions over and over."

Sorry, Miz Dawson, he said, emphasizing Ms. as if he had swallowed a swarm of bees. But it’s my job to ask these questions.

No, Detective, it’s your job to try to catch someone in a lie. But you’re wasting your time. I’m not lying. I’ve told you everything I know.

Uh huh. That’s what they all say.

I had reached my limit with this guy. This detective. This man whose name I couldn’t remember who was probably younger than my son. Which means I’m old enough to be his mother. It also means I don’t have to sit here and take this crap. I stood to leave.

Where do you think you’re going?

I’m leaving, I said as I grabbed my purse. Unless you want to arrest me, I’m going home so I can start processing the fact that my boss was murdered and I no longer have a job.

I gave him a look that challenged him to try to stop me. I was tired of answering questions and I just wanted to go home.

Okay, he said as he flipped his little notebook shut. "Just don’t leave