No Stranger to Murder

By Gerrie Ferris Finger

A Moriah Dru, Child Trace mystery
The Appalachian Trail is 2,200 miles long, passing through 14 different states ... Plenty of distance for two young women to go missing. Several days later, their mutilated bodies are discovered near the Wohali-Mama Shelter.
Soft-drink tycoon Alistair MacDunnich hires Moriah Dru, Child Trace, to learn the truth about their deaths. Was the homeless vagrant, long since executed, actually the killer? Could the murderer still be alive and planning to wed MacDunnich’s daughter?
The victims may not have been innocent. Jaclyn Long and Callie May could have gotten more than they bargained for. Moriah Dru embarks on the most physically taxing case of her career. One wrong step, literally and figuratively, and it’s a long way down ....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bold Venture Press
• Release date: Oct 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005275822

Gerrie Ferris Finger

Gerrie Ferris Finger writes: "I grew up in Missouri, then moved south to join The Atlanta Journal-Constitution staff. I researched and edited the columns of humorist Lewis Grizzard and co-wrote a news column with another reporter for three years."Lewis became my mentor, and when he passed away, I joined the newspapers’ Southern Task Force. As a reporter, I traveled the Tobacco Roads of Georgia, Virginia and Alabama, and the narrow, historic streets of New Orleans. I wrote about Natchez, Mississippi’s unique history, Florida’s diverse population, and the Outer Banks struggle to keep the Cape Hatteras light house from toppling into the sea. Also, I served on the National News Desk and on the City Desk’s City Life section."Since I covered crime for the newspaper, I turned to crime fiction when I retired. In 2009, I won The Malice Domestic/St. Martin’s Minotaur Best First Traditional Novel Competition for The End Game, released by St. Martin’s Minotaur in 2010."Real crime is sordid, with no romance or redeeming features. Justice often doesn’t prevail. Real people go back to miserable lives. In writing fiction, I can make the good guys winners and the bad guys get what they deserve.

Book preview

Copyright

Dedication

No Stranger to Murder

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

About the author

Copyright ©2020 Gerrie Ferris Finger. All rights reserved.

First publication: September 2020

Electronic and print edition

Published by Bold Venture Press

www.boldventurepress.com

This is a work of fiction. The names, places, and incidents are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

To our girls:

Paula Ferris Eichler, Mary Jane Fields

Angela Roszowski and Victoria Ferris

No Stranger to Murder

1

Too often her summons meant inconvenience.

It was nearly eleven o’clock and the May sun played hell with my deodorant. That meant arm pit soak since Judge Portia Devon required jackets in her chambers. Because her skinny body was always cold, her black robe did double duty as a symbol of justice and served as a buffer against the courthouse chill. Be that as it was, it had been a warm winter for Atlanta, and the month of May had steamed in like a crab pot on the boil.

Portia’s clerk, a new staffer name of Paul, trim and groomed as smartly as a Schnauzer, smiled and told me Portia was engaged in conversation. He couldn’t say with a client because judges don’t have clients. Especially juvenile judges that handle dicey situations involving children and their (most times) errant parents.

Okay if I use some courthouse juice for my cell? I asked Paul.

He gave me the Schnauzer smile. Just remember to airplane the cell before you enter.

He didn’t need to tell me that. I’ve missed important calls because of Porsh’s archaic dictum of no cell use whatsoever in chambers, or the court room, or in witness quarters, clerks’ offices, even the restrooms in the hall between chambers and the jury rooms. None. Nil. Never. One had to leave the offices of the judge and use the public restrooms. To say Judge Portia Devon was demanding was to cheapen the meaning of the word. But she was my friend from childhood and we understood each other.

Finally it was time to be admitted to the august chamber. Apparently her last visitor was let out the back door, through a private stairwell to the back elevators where no one would know where the individual or individuals came from. Having snuck from the secret antechamber, you could be coming from the law library, the recorders’ offices or the marriage license bureau. The secrecy of the juvenile court was always uppermost in Porsh’s mind. And rightly so. Of late she’s been even more peeved by the legislature’s proposal to open up the juvenile court—and its historically secret records. Hope I didn’t have to hear more of that on this visit, which by her imperious summons suggested that the end of the world was upon us.

Portia stood when I entered. Those times she didn’t were few, but unlike her usual abrupt self, today tension riffed through the room.

Leaning on her knuckles, she said, Moriah, we’re running late.

It was your pet Schnauzer that made me wait.

Well, she said, sitting. Couldn’t be helped. Sit.

I sat in my usual place, an expensive Eames brown leather chair I’d like to have in my own office.

This case I got now is a blister on my ass, she said, lip in a snarl. Those dumb-asses in the legislature have no common sense. It’s at my discretion to close the hearing which I’m inclined to do, but I have to plead my case. Me!—having to beg some down-state hick who doesn’t know his ass from first base. She folded her hands and landed them on the desktop. Now.

Portia has been described as looking like an erudite hawk. It’s the glasses on her long nose, her dark-countenance furthered by her black hair pulled back in a bun, and her intense ability to seem like she’s always on a tree branch ready to take off.

I said, Your summons this morning sounded end-of-days.

Really? Her grin was as sheepish as she could get it. Hope you’re up for a hunt.

Half the work of Child Trace, Inc., my agency, comes from the juvenile court, so I knew it would be a hunt.

It’s a cold case, she said. You and Lake would describe it as such.

I stifled a groan. Lake, an Atlanta police detective, was at times a partner in my hunts. I asked. How old?

Almost three years. Two years, seven months to be exact.

Murder, kidnapping?

She wagged her head. Murder most definitely. Kidnapping’s problematic, as it always is. How did victims get TO where they met their doom? She paused, Actually not that cold.

I agreed. If it’s an Atlanta Police Department case, it’s still on open books.

It’s primarily a state case, she said. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation with a helping hand from the FBI. Atlanta PD’s Major Crimes lieutenant, Richard Lake, made the apprehension of the wrong suspect.

Hmmmm. GBI. FBI. Lake making a wrong arrest?

I first met Richard Lake when I was a cadet assigned to a senior uniformed officer. He was divorcing his wife, or maybe it was the other way around, but it was amicable. I had just lost my cop fiancé in a drive-by while he handed out Big Brother invitations for cops who wanted to mentor underprivileged kids in bad neighborhoods. We made good cop partners—efficient, knowledgeable, justice-loving. Preordained, I suppose, that Lake and I would fall in love. When he was promoted to detective, I left the force and started my specialty PI agency. We’ve been lovers ever since and working cases together when we could. It’s convenient for a PI to have an inside with a police department. Likewise it was convenient for him to have me as a pseudo partner on his cases—cases that needed ex-official handling. Our successes were greater than our failure-to-solves, and some of those were for Portia Devon. Her abrupt Good work! was much appreciated.

Luckily, I had a valid reason to run from Porsh on this as yet un-discussed cold case. I told her, I can’t get involved right now. I’m on Benjamin Adams-Barr, one of Lake’s cases. Evidentiary squabbles right now.

Portia picked up her Cross pen and bounced it on the point. That Adams-Barr mess. She shook her head, meaning that case was a waste of jury time. Any idea where you stand on the witness list?

There is none now. In spite of iffy evidence, the assistant district attorney, who happens to be Lope Aguirre, is hot to forge ahead. Cynthia Aguirre acquired her nickname Lope for the leader of the Conquistadors, Lope de Aguirre.

Adams-Barr has shitty forensics, Portia said. Always is with hair and blood evidence involving husband and wife murders.

True, I agreed. Lope needs more than Adams-Barr’s actions that night as he tried to revive her—he says.

Futile, she said shrugging. What I’ve got for you is up your alley.

No use to reiterate.

Flattery doesn’t mean I have the time. Actually it’s the court’s call. I hesitated, then said, But not your court.

Staring at me thoughtfully, she said, I know you don’t do what you do for money, but this case will enhance your back account–considerably.

I quoted, ‘If money go before, all ways do lie open.’

"The Merry Wives of Windsor, Porsh said. Although Shakespeare uses money to complicate things in his works, he was wise to show that money can make life easier."

Greasing wheels and such, I said. This enrichment of which you speak comes from whence?

It comes out of the monied streets of Buckhead. Old money.

Old Buckhead money has murder lurking in its deposit boxes?

We’ve—you’ve gotten us off track, she snapped.

Tell me about murder most expensive. Let’s start with who?

Alistair MacDunnich.

I about laughed. That jolting name had the largest single-family mansion in Atlanta popping into my head. The MacDunnich family’s story was known to me and most of the Southeast, especially to those who had lived in Georgia at least six months. You do not drink Pepsi in Atlanta. You drink Coca-by-God-Cola. But the present day MacDunnichs did not come by their extravagant Coke fortune from its founding in the 1880’s. At that time they were into mining and manufacturing iron and steel.

If I looked curious to Portia it’s because I was. I told her, "I just saw Alistair MacDunnich at the Intown Playhouse last week. Shakespeare. Lake ducked Richard the Third, and Pearly Sue went with me."

Pearly Sue was one of my staff of excellent investigators.

Portia’s sly look set me to wondering what she was up to. What’s up with Alistair and murder? I asked.

He wants to tell you himself, she said.

The MacDunniches might have been involved in murders as the powerful clan built its empire. But nothing so soon as almost three years ago. Does he now, I said.

From their railroad and tobacco beginnings in Georgia before the War Between the States, the MacDunniches built their vast wealth by founding and buying into and improving upon ideas and companies that showed promise. They led the way for America’s Industrial Revolution. Right up to and including the computer and internet boom. Ali MacDunnich—the third, I think—founded his router equipment company in the early 1970s right here in Atlanta when everyone else was founding computer companies in California. He sold the company, if I remember off the top, for a billion or so—a relatively small fortune to add to the family coffers.

I shook off the momentary lapse and asked Portia, The MacDunnich family members seem to have a life expectancy of a hundred years. To my knowledge their scandals don’t include murder. Is it about Lennox? He seems to have dropped off the social map.

Portia had gone to college with Lennox, brother of Alistair. She also hobnobbed with the high-born family, herself being high-born.

She said, As you implied, their genes seem unyielding to illness, most likely due to brutal Scottish weather, sheep farming and swilling Scotch whiskey. Their temperaments don’t tend to murder, but to making money and keeping it. Alistair, the high priest of the clan, would like to see you about the murders up at Wohali-Mama shelter.

The Appalachian Trail murders? I said, thinking back. Being in the north Georgia mountains, it wasn’t an Atlanta homicide case, although a suspect-at-the-time was arrested by Lake when he fled to Atlanta. As you pointed out.

That’s all I’m going to tell you, Portia said. Alistair has insisted he acquaint you with his requests—to you and you alone.

Mysterious case. Not exactly my kind, at first glance.

You’ve met Alistair, she stated as fact.

I have.

I recalled that Christmas party. Lake and I were just getting to know one another when Alistair Moncrieff MacDunnich and Paisley Caelan MacDunnich invited us by thick vellum invitation to the societal gathering. Lake is no slouch when it comes to good graces and good looks. He had married an Atlanta socialite. As a wife, Linda turned out to be not his cup of tea, but they are still friends by way of their daughter, Susanna. Linda’s socialite ways rubbed off on Richard Lake, the son of a cop who became a cop.

It was Lennox, Portia’s college classmate, who ruined that particular holiday gala.

Portia intuited my recollection and said, Don’t count that.

Oh I won’t. Lake has made many problems go away for Lennox’s boys.

Just enabled them, Portia grouched.

2

It was nine o’clock in the morning when I dressed in a dark blue pencil skirt, white silk, long-sleeve blouse, silky stockings—figuring old money liked an old look—three inch black patent heels, a gold choker and two authentic small rings of rubies and pearls, a slim diamond bracelet, also genuine, and solitary gold earrings. My hair, I could never get my hair to style so I let it have its way and put on a red and navy striped silk jacket—with its specially-made top button.

The MacDunnich estate had been built around 1920, a time when Buckhead was a small village in Atlanta. Nevis Tay MacDunnich, father of Alistair and Lennox, made sure he built in an expansive area complete with barns and horse pastures. Really old money was where Atlanta’s nobility passed down their estates through generations, land that was guarded by stone walls and black iron fences. No for sale signs were outside the gates on Blairgowrie Lane. Or any other lanes in a five-square-mile area. New money was miles away on Paces Ferry where the governors took turns living.

The exclusive Capital Driving Club had built a golf course that was only a fence and tall trees away from the woodsy part of Blairgowrie Lane and which was the subject of Lennox’s attack upon Lake at the Christmas Party. As if Lake had anything to do with buildings, codes, subdivisions, golf courses, and the city council that made the decisions without consulting the elite who were too stingy to grease their palms—or the cops.

I pulled off Blairgowrie onto a paved entryway and waited for the gate keeper to notice and ring the phone in a little black box on a post. However, the iron gates, each with a rampant lion icon in the center, parted. The rampant lion appears on the unofficial flag of Scotland. The fierce lion is shown in profile, standing upright on hind legs, the forelegs raised, the claws unsheathed as if to strike. The metal icon on the gates served to symbolize the family well. But did it signify murder?

I drove along the curving lane, passing three beautiful horses munching grass in what looked like a manicured pasture. The houses were well buffered from the street by trees, shrubs, and hillocks. Should anyone wander onto Blairgowrie Lane, they could only get a peek at homes although they would see a bounty of manicured vegetation and fountains and statuary.

Soon I would be in the presence. Even before the ill-fated Christmas party, I’d met Alistair and Lennox twice at The High Museum of Art. The family liked to host their Evening’s With at The High. That kept the riff-raff away from their houses and grounds. The last time I saw Alistair, I’d taken Susanna to the museum and lo and behold ran into the tall man looking like a weary old man in baggy khakis, no belt, and a workman’s denim shirt. The rich can get away with dressing down. He fawned over Susanna and treated us to a Coke and cheese straws, but when Susanna eyed a teddy bear with a Coke sweater on it, he told her little girls today were too spoiled, had too many toys and should not covet more than they needed. Still stingy after all those billions.

At the lofty entry atop a pair of cascading stone steps, a butler stood at the open door, awaiting me. In the May heat and humidity, my blouse and jacket wilted together. I kept my hand from fanning my face or wiping perspiration seeping onto my forehead.

The butler smiled and bowed. I followed him inside. A team of Clydesdale could enter the twenty-feet high, triple wide doors with room to spare. I said, Wow! and the butler looked over his shoulder with a smile. I like a smiling butler.

I scanned the palatial entry. I’d been here before but man-oh-man this main foyer defied description. In ways it was sparsely furnished. Along one wall sat a rose couch in case someone felt faint, and across the room was a long marble chest that looked like a sarcophagus. The centerpiece was a massive fountain with statues of comic druids playing instruments under the water. I counted six doors leading from the circular room that rose three stories to a domed ceiling. The art on the rotunda’s walls rivaled rooms in The High. Picassos and more Picassos. I knew Alistair loaned his collection of Picassos to the museum when the time came to show off that dizzying painter/colorist/sculptor. Same with the French impressionists that adorned the walls of other rooms.

Leading on, the butler invited me through a French door on the left. The Morning Room. It was sunny as befits morning rooms. Yellow silk draped the floor-to-ceiling windows and sets of several French doors led outside. I walked across the room to a door with gold handles and looked at the spectacular spring garden. I turned and said to the butler, Love this room and the garden.

Yes, ma’am, he grinned. Ladies do.

He gestured to a loveseat in front of a coffee table holding drinks, cold or hot.

Coffee? Tea? Coke? Water? he asked. A morning tipple maybe? His suggestive tone implied liquor.

That made me laugh and him, too. Too early for champagne and orange juice, but tea would be good. I’ve already had my coffee quota.

Very good.

A maid entered quietly, dressed in a sunny yellow dress to the knees with a white pinafore apron over it. White shoes, of course. It was past Easter.

I said, Oh don’t fuss over me, I can pour myself.

She smiled politely and looked at the butler. He shrugged and left the room.

Miss Moriah Dru, am I correct? she asked.

Yes. And what is your name?

Doris.

Nice name. Nice outfit.

Smiling, she nearly curtsied, then confided, We are all Doris. I’m downstairs on this wing. Dorises here wear yellow.

I’ve heard of the—uh—peculiarities of this household.

Yes, ma’am. She poured my tea and asked if I took sugar or cream or milk or cinnamon. I told her I liked it without anything.

She went to a sideboard and lifted a silver tray almost bigger than she was. On it were donuts, cookies, scones, southern biscuits, and coffeecakes. Butter, jellies and honey, too. Small plates with gold rims were ready to receive whatever I wanted. She placed it on the coffee table

Once the fuss was over, I buttered a biscuit and looked around the room. Parisian floral and fauna watercolors hung on the near walls. However, on the far walls were photographs. No matching 8x10 or 14x17 frames hung there. It was a glorious hodgepodge of photographs from tiny to large, to plain and ornate, and they were all of children. I picked up my tea and walked to examine and admire the photography. These were not portraits of children, but snaps, and the photographers were excellent.

They were in chronological order starting with mountains—large hillocks really with grazing sheep. I’d been to Scotland so I knew the setting. The earliest photos were black and white sepias of two boys and two sheep dogs, the boys in their kilts, buskins held up by garters at the knee. A small gold plate on the frame told me the boys were Errol and Erskine. There were several more of the twins growing up, then there was another of a baby sitting on a sofa between the twins. The three of them were photographed as they matured and years went by. Then there were photos of Errol and Erskine at Harvard. I’d been to the college so I recognized the iconic building.

A door opened behind me. It was the butler.

Mr. Alistair will see you now. Doris had refreshed my tea. He took the cup and saucer from her and I followed him out the broad window onto a wide stone verandah. Glorious, I said and he agreed with a smile. Smiling away, we descended into a garden that rivaled the famous Versailles. We took several paths and since I like to know how to get back to my beginnings, I needed to remember where the viburnums and azaleas left off and the crape myrtles and mimosas began.

When I was growing up, I walked a mile to Christ the King from my house to school and this was farther, or so it seemed. We had walked through acres of an ancient long leaf Southern pine forest, then came to a stone fence and behind it was a neat cottage painted or whitewashed with a thatched roof nearly as tall as the stone building itself. The roof line looked like eyebrows covering the tops of tall mullioned windows. Straight from the English countryside, I thought. It had an ancient aspect about it although the narrow door was painted straw yellow as were the four casement windowsills. Window boxes on the ground floor sported gaily petunias. Who was in charge of keeping the pine straw out of the thatch, I wondered.

The butler opened the door. Inside, brown leather and brass gave a comfortable but elegant ambience to the spacious rectangular room. Once my eyes accustomed to the oblique lighting, I saw him sitting behind an ornate desk, reading what looked like a stack of papers cased in a leather binder. He was frowning, but when he looked up and saw me he flashed his trademark grin.

Walking toward him, I smiled and said, How did your architect manage to make the lighting mellow and brilliant at the same time?

The butler put my tea and plate on a table by a chair facing the desk. Then he left the house.

Alistair purposefully walked around the desk, came up to me, held out his arms and I acquiesced for a hug. He seemed brittle yet strong. Juxtaposes and contrasts, I thought. His hair was white and mop-like as if he’d run his hands through it his entire life. His face in repose would make a good bust like Robert E. Lee. Jaw strong, nose straight, nostrils evident, eyebrows trim and thick and black. It was his front teeth that got you. They were square and out-sized for his mouth. Like blocks with a space between the two front teeth. With a broad smile he went from stern-looking to boyish.

Sorry to keep you waiting, he said returning to his leather seat. Please sit.

I sat with my tea at my elbow. I enjoyed checking out the children’s photos in the morning room. Then I said, Boys.

He folded his hands and made a sound in his throat, like a chuckle without merriment. We MacDunnich men managed to slip in a girl every once in a while. Not often, though.

My remark was careless and somehow invasive. It was as though my mention of progeny was distasteful as if I’d sat at the bedside when the conception took place.

But he shrugged it off and looked at something above my shoulder. I’d seen the large glass and stone fireplace that emitted a curious light, but no fire. As I sat, it was behind my back. I did not turn around but instead looked at the art in front of me. It reminded me of illuminated manuscripts depicting biblical scrolls. He returned his attention to the desktop. By his right hand was a lawyer’s accordion red case. He brushed the pile of mail to his left and brought the red case front and center.

I forgot my manners, I said to hear my voice, to clear the air. How are you and your family? He reached for a bottle of water on a coaster by his hand. I picked up my teacup and sipped.

He waited until I’d placed the cup in the saucer. Miss Dru, for I shall not call you either Moriah or Dru, names that your intimates call you, because this is business. As to your question, we will get to my family, but as for me I am old and getting fearful. I want to live forever but that can’t be. I have loved my life and I do not want to leave it, though I’ve found that some things are not forever. Being rich has kept me alive. His hand swept the room. His chuckle had an edge to it. But there’s no going against the grave, and, so be it, all of this will soon be someone else’s.

I did not know how to respond to his morbidity, and I did not want to. Instead, I said, Well, Mr. MacDunnich, Judge Portia Devon told me you wanted to see me. Since we’re using formal names, I’ll get to it. What can I do for you?

Besides keeping me alive? He gave me his Scottish broad grin and I was happy to see it, rather than hear the edgy chuckle. Getting to the point. That’s how to make money, my dear Miss Dru. And I have a lot to offer you if you would do a bit of sleuthing for me. Oddly, he chuckled deep in a throat that needed clearing. Then I got another toothy grin.

3

He sat forward. You and I have met and enjoyed one another’s company with the exception of a Christmas gathering where that brother of mine ruined the evening with nonsense. Lennox inherited the hot head of us boys. Our father, Nevis, was like that. Lennox is fifteen months older than me so we were raised as if twins. We became mirror images. I looked on as Father and Lennox went at it from the time Lennox was ten, and kept my counsel because I learned early you can’t win with a hothead, much less come between two of them.

I smiled to agree.

Anyway, he said with a glittering in his gray eyes, I became enamored with you the few times we met at functions.

Uh-oh.

Don’t misunderstand me.

He’d read my face.

You know, my wife Elspeth died. I think she tired of seeing me acquiesce to Lennox and his argumentative wife, Annis, who has also succumbed to the grave. Elspeth, my wife, had developed high blood pressure then stroke. After a year, she gave up the ghost. I knew I would never marry again, but I had needs and wants. He looked away, then back at me. But most of all I wanted someone to escort to social affairs. Someone beautiful and full of grace. When I met you, I thought maybe, despite our ages, I could get a beautiful young girl on my arm and be the envy of the room. Alas, you were taken. That to say, I’ve kept up with your remarkable career. That shoot-out at the church with the gang bangers was first rate. His lips spread into a charming grin.

Hardly graceful or beautiful, I had to remark.

He contemplated for a moment. My ancestors were warriors, fought with Robert the Bruce for Scottish Independence. That spirit passes through generations. Of course, living here in the United States at college and onward, I missed all the wars. So did my father—too young for World War I, and for that I’m happy. Then he got too old for the second world war. He griped for years that he didn’t see action. I was born in 1935 but who knows how the war would have treated him and my chance at being born. We are a long-lived bunch, but a soldier’s bullet can end that quicker than a heart attack, which we don’t suffer. That little backstory to say, I admire you like I admire the English heroine Boudicca, the Warrior Queen.

My breath caught. Lake often called me Boudicca or Warrior Queen when we were about to enter into a fray.

So, Alistair said. you want to know what I want?

Were we finally going to get to it?

I want you to hunt down a murderer. He took papers from the red accordion case on his desk.

Then he told me a story, part of which I knew.

*****

"It was three years ago, October 8, when a father and son, Harper by name, were near the end of their hike down the Appalachian Trail, what is often referred to as the AT, when they stopped for food and drink supplies at Neels