The Fall ~ E&M Investigations Prequel: E&M Investigations, #0.5

By LJ Bourne

A gripping Mystery/Crime Novella by USA Today Bestselling Author Lena Bourne. 

 

The local butcher in a small Italian town fell to his death during a hike. Most likely an unfortunate accident, but his mother cries murder. By a member of the US Military no less. Enter Mark Novak, the Military's Special Investigator and not the detective he used to be. 

 

An old lover works the case alongside him. She's still as enticing and willing as ever.  As the case unfolds, Novak uncovers mostly new questions, not answers. Soon, the accident looks more like murder.  And she only adds to the confusion.

 

Novak must either find a way out to trust his skill and intuition again, or a murderer walks free.

 

For fans of puzzle mysteries and twist endings.

 

Note: This is a mystery/crime story and NOT a Romance novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Waterside Dreams Press
• Release date: Jun 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393918820

Book preview

1

The cargo plane landed in an early springtime morning in Northern Italy, dew still clinging to the grass and other green things, the sun not fully up yet, but already coloring the sky silver grey and purple. It’d been too long since he’d visited this part of the world. Too long since he enjoyed just the beauty of a place and nothing else. A huge field of deep green grass stretched out beyond the fence surrounding the airbase, all the way to the low, undulating hills that dominated most of the horizon. The tall Alpine peaks of varying heights rising behind the hills were all still capped with at least some snow and they shone in the dazzling first light of the day. Winter still had a hold on the land, but soon those fields would be covered with wildflowers.

Even the severe grey metal-roofed hangars lining the impeccably paved runway couldn’t deflect from the beauty stretching all around. The hangars faded into the background successfully, having been designed that way, just as fatigues are designed with precisely the same thing in mind.

The trouble was that the beauty and freshness, the perfectness of this place faded fast too, just got sucked up into the grey mass that’s been Special Investigator Mark’s Novak thoughts these last couple of weeks. The benches in the windowless cargo plane were hard, and the flight was long. His back and thighs protested when he got up to disembark and he tried not to feel like an old man as he waited for the younger soldiers who flew in with him to jumped down to the tarmac. They all did it with an ease that suggested they hadn’t just spent the whole night cramped in a tight, airless space and sitting on a hard as rock bench. Not that he actually cared. Not really.

The grey mess in his head also brought numbness. Besides, thirty-five was too young to feel this old. Something else was at the root of it. Something he recognized well enough but didn’t want to focus too hard on. It would pass like it always did. He just had to trust the process.

His own disembarkation was less graceful, but the awkwardness was swept away in the breeze that carried the scent of dewy grass, wet earth, misty forest, and even a touch of snow, but that last was faint, almost non-existent. If he could, he’d stand here all day, just taking in the beauty, categorizing it, and storing it away for easy retrieval. Then he might escape the greyness of these thoughts for a day. But, as usual, there was no time for that.

Up in Northern Germany, where he’d just flown in from, it was still winter, but nothing was jarring about walking into this spring morning here. Nothing out of place, nothing to worry about. Nothing that would last. Already the sun was making its way upwards over the rolling hills in the distance. The freshness of the morning wouldn’t last and his reason for being here wouldn’t wait.

The men he’d flown in with were already performing the tasks associated with or prescribed by their arrival here. That’s what he appreciated about the army. You always knew what you were supposed to do, in what order and at what time, because someone else made those choices for you. Order, rules, regulations, and commands. Peace. Weird, that, since their whole purpose was war. Not that he’d seen much of war. Or much of the rest of it. There was never any real order in the work he ended up doing in the army, the calling that pulled him so far away from the reasons why he enlisted in the first place, he hardly even thought of himself as a soldier anymore.

But the clean-shaven, slightly breathless boy standing in front of him sure did. His uniform looked like it came straight from the factory right before he put it on this morning. He saluted with the precision of a drill sergeant.

They’re waiting for you in the command building, sir, he said. I’m to escort you there.

The boy’s cheeks were red from the cold, or more likely from shaving too vigorously.

Sir? he said imploringly after Mark did not comment, too transfixed by the effort to remember whether he ever looked that fresh and proper. Probably not. As per regulation, he wore his uniform today, but it was rumpled and crumpled from the uncomfortable flight. And from Mark not caring for it properly. It’d been months since he last even thought about it and he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn it. But at least it looked brand new because of that.

No, he decided as he glanced at the name tag on his breast, he never looked as fresh and proper as this young man.

At ease, Private Evans, Mark said in a voice that sounded hoarse and croaky from disuse. Lead the way.

Private Evans did just that, turning sharply on his heel and leading the way to a roofless jeep parked just off the runway. Mark threw his duffel bag in the back and climbed in the passenger side.

Evans took the wheel and the engine rumbled to life, the smell of exhaust now mixing with the fresh scents of nature waking up. Not out of place, but not fitting in either. He hoped the case he was heading towards would be like that too. Just a small ripple in an otherwise normal, beautiful, peaceful spring day. But they never were.

The command center was inside a container-like building, long, wide, rectangular and identical to all the other buildings around it. Grey metal walls, slightly darker metal doors—all of which closed tight this early in the morning-and brilliant white roofs. All bases anywhere in the world looked the same, at least the parts of them Mark saw. The buildings that housed the cinema, rec center, cafeteria, or high command were always indistinguishable from each other. Though here, he could see the residential area in the distance, comprised of burnt orange apartment buildings which were also identical. The simplicity of army life always appealed to him, and sometimes, in his darker moments, he regretted the career choice that led him so far astray from it.

The front door of the command center opened into a narrow hallway, lined with doors to offices, some closed, some open. The open ones showed him nearly identical rooms with identical desks, file cabinets, and chairs. The view through the windows showed the hills and snowcapped mountains he admired earlier and even that seemed identical from one room to the next. The interior of the building was cool in that way only temporary structures can be cold—little better than being outside.

Private Evans opened a door at the far end of the long corridor and stood aside for Mark to enter.

Inside he was greeted by an older officer—a Colonel—with a half-inch buzz cut of thick dark grey hair and a neatly trimmed mustache of the same color. He looked to be fast approaching the wrong side of fifty years old, but he still somehow managed to look as fresh and enthusiastic as Private Evans who was now standing in a salute to the side of the closed door.

Belatedly Mark saluted too since the man outranked him. He was wooden and out of practice in this aspect of army life too.

At ease, the officer said, somehow managing to make his voice echo off the thin walls without resorting to excessive loudness. A true soldier. A natural.

I’m Colonel Harrison, he added in a more conversational tone, extending his right hand. Welcome to the base.

Mark shook his hand and thanked him, then took a seat when offered. The room was dominated by a dark wood conference table lined with identical, rather hard and uncomfortable fake black leather chairs. There were no windows in the room and the wide wall where a large panoramic window might have been was covered by a huge, gleaming whiteboard. Mark would rather be looking out at the hills and mountains, much rather. Instead of the fresh scents of nature waking, he now smelled the chemicals that must’ve been used copiously to give this table that new thing shine. That and the slight, tangy smell of metal. Poor trade.

Thank you for coming out on such short notice, Harrison said, taking a seat across the table from Mark.

A tan, rather thin folder lay on the gleaming desk in front of the Major. Judging by its size, this case he had flown in to solve couldn’t be all that complicated. So why did they fly him in? Mark checked the thought. He knew he had a reputation, he knew his solve rate very well, as did most of his colleagues. But it wasn’t something he took pride in. How can you take pride in other people’s worst misery?

Of course, Mark said.

He didn’t have much choice in which cases were assigned to him, and when his commanding officer asked him personally to take this case, Mark had little choice but to accept. But he’d still be here even if that wasn’t the case. Berlin was a large city, but lately, it had begun to feel like an underground cell to Mark. Complete with the walls closing in effect. Not that he expected it to be any better here.

I thought I’d start by briefing you on the case, Harrison said his gaze searching Mark’s