The Meistermann Family: The Devil’S Revenge

By Peggy Jean Cramer

The Meistermann Family: The Devils Revenge introduces Buddy Burke, a down-to-earth sleuth with a talent for understanding human behavior. He developed these skills as the middle child of seven children. For him, these were the survival skills that got him enough to eat at the supper table, kept him out of fights with his older brothers, and gave him a discerning heart to recognize when he was being conned by the younger siblings.
Can the law guarantee justice? Buddy Burke, Connecticut State Marshal, decides that when the law is not clear, common sense, fairness and understanding can determine justice. Balance the Good vs Evil in this mystery and see if you agree. How would you have handled the information Buddy gathers about the death of Adolf (Meistermann) Masters? Revenge can be sweet, but not always.
This story is the sequel to the first place, contest-winning novella Adolf Meistermann: The Devils Legacy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504918008

Peggy Jean Cramer

Peggy Jean Cramer got hooked on writing fiction when her first novella won Carl Reiner’s Novel Beginnings contest in a joint promotion with AuthorHouse. She enjoys “relaying what her characters tell her” as they lead her through perilous journeys and creative problem solving. Between novels, Ms. Cramer, a marketing communications consultant, says, “I write proposals, brochures, web sites, and project descriptions. Everything is non-fiction except for the team resumes,” and adds a wink and a smile. This spring she had first-place recognitions in Henderson County’s Silver Literary Arts Essay and Autobiographical competitions. Originally from New Jersey, the Cramers lived in Massachusetts and Connecticut for forty years before moving to Hendersonville, North Carolina, in 2013. They enjoy the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains and the lively arts community. An avid duplicate bridge player and enthusiastic choir member, Ms. Cramer sees great potential for future mystery novels involving these activities.

Book preview

Chapter I

Thursday, June 9, 2005

Brass Valley Times-News, Waterbury, CT

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Waterbury Factory Owner Found Dead

Police Suspect Foul Play

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by Shannon Burke Reilly

Brass Valley Times-News Staff Writer

WATERBURY – Adolf Masters was found dead early this morning with three bullets holes in his body. Masters, owner of the Masters Brass Manufacturing Co., was discovered slumped over his desk just before 8 a.m. by Elsa Landwehr, the cleaning woman who has worked for the company and the Masters family for twenty years. In her statement to police, Landwehr said she was beginning her morning cleaning schedule in the third floor executive offices when she noticed the door to Mr. Masters’ office was open. Mr. Masters appeared to be sleeping at his desk. She called his name and walked slowly toward the desk but stopped when she saw what looked like dried blood coming out of holes in his shirt and forehead. She screamed for help.

Waterbury Police Department’s 911 emergency logs show a call coming in at five minutes after eight this morning identifying Aimee Masters, daughter of the deceased, as the person reporting the emergency. According to Ms. Masters, she had just stepped off the elevator when she heard Landwehr’s screams which she followed to her father’s office. His head and arms were resting on his desk. She touched his cheek and hand. They were cold to the touch. She noticed what looked like a round hole in his forehead and holes in his shirt with dried blood around them.

Ms. Masters stated she led Landwehr out of her father’s office, sat her in a chair in the reception area, and dialed 911 from her desk then waited for the police and an ambulance. She said they were too shocked to talk.

The Waterbury Police and EMT squad arrived at 8:11 a.m. examined the body and called the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Farmingdale. The Chief Medical Examiner, Seth Joseph, MD, arrived 30 minutes later and pronounced Adolf Masters dead at 9:05 a.m. According to Dr. Joseph, the cause of death is not determined. He did not elaborate further except to say that because Mr. Masters is a prominent figure in the Waterbury community, an autopsy will be performed to find the cause and manner of death. He expected the results to be available next week.

Masters immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1958 with his wife and infant son. Shortly after arriving in Waterbury, the family name was changed from Meistermann to Masters. He worked in the Connecticut Brass Foundry Works for 22 years and then bought the factory from the Luckner family in 1980. He renamed it Masters Brass Manufacturing Co.

Master Brass, as it is called locally, is one of the few remaining active factories in Connecticut’s industrial Naugatuck Valley. Under Masters’ leadership, the brass factory increased production and sales by creating new product lines. He convinced the big box stores, like Home Depot, Lowes and Wal-Mart, to carry his modern brass knobs, drawer pulls, and ornaments. Today, Master Brass is one of the Valley’s largest employers.

Shortly after buying the factory, Masters initiated a rent-to-own program that allowed factory workers who rented factory-owned housing to buy their home from the company during a three-year window. The predominant neighborhood triple-decker homes became condominiums. At the end of three years, the new condo owners were guided into forming the self-governing Riverside Homeowners’ Association.

According to the Masters family, the factory will be closed today and only at minimal production for the rest of the week and weekend. Master Brass will reopen at 8 a.m. Monday morning and resume the normal working schedule. Molten furnace shift workers should contact Bill Howe or Raul Sousa for the temporary shift scheduling during production reduction.

The family will announce funeral arrangements once the body is released by the Medical Examiner’s office.

The police tried to reach Matthew Masters, son of the deceased and VP of Procurement at Master Brass. He left the country for a business trip to India several weeks ago. It is believed he has returned to the United States. Police are asking anyone who has any information on his whereabouts to please call the Waterbury police hotline at 203-555-5555 and ask to speak to Lt. Buddy Burke.

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Chapter II

Thursday, June 9, 2005

Shit, Matt Masters said aloud as he read the banner news story on his electronic subscription to the Brass Valley Times-News, Shit! Shit! Shit! He knew the police would be looking for him. That’s why he was holed up in the Marriot Courtyard in Newton, MA, using the name and altered ID of his deceased brother Rudy. He needed time to assess his predicament and rethink his plans to flee the country. Things had changed and he wanted to consider all his possibilities.

He turned on the evening news and was startled to see Aimee’s pale and drawn face looking right back at him. Her short ash blonde hair, usually styled in that every-hair-in-place look, was tousled, giving the impression she hadn’t combed it yet. Her clear blue eyes were red-rimmed and overflowing with tears that streamed down her gaunt cheeks. They appeared to be sincere tears. A reporter from Connecticut’s local affiliate of the USBC national network asked her about finding her father dead at his desk. Aimee choked, I can’t talk now. We will issue a statement after the Medical Examiner’s autopsy report. She turned away from the microphone.

Matt was impressed with her poise under pressure. This disheveled but sympathetic creature on the TV was a side of Aimee he hadn’t noticed before. In so many ways, she was like Papa, self-absorbed, shrewd, and malicious. But, in order to keep the peace at home and at work, both siblings maintained civil behavior to each other and outsiders – most of the time.

That thought made Matt smirk and shake his head back and forth. Civil behavior most of the time, if you don’t count killing your father! Where would murder fall in the list of family legacies? Right at the top, it appeared, at least for now.

Matt’s thoughts returned to his dilemma. He knew the police would be looking for him because he made no attempt to conceal his identity last night on the security cameras at the factory. It was quite the opposite. He made sure he was seen on camera wearing the latex mask crafted to look exactly like him. The mask was used to conceal the extensive cosmetic surgery he had during his recent trip to India. But, even the best plans have a few snafus.

After putting three bullets into his father’s already dead body Wednesday evening, Matt drove from Waterbury, CT, to Framingham, MA, where he stayed overnight in a cheap motel under a false name and paid cash. Midafternoon today, he drove to Boston’s Logan Airport for his first class flight to Zurich under the name of Rudiger Meistermann, his dear dead brother’s German birth name. Everything was billed to his established Swiss bank credit card. The overnight flight began boarding at seven o’clock. That’s when snafu #1 occurred.

Just as Matt was entering the jet way, his name was mentioned over the airport’s loud speaker system. It gave Matt an ominous feeling. The announcement said, Matt Masters, please call home. There is an emergency. How did anyone know where he was? He shrugged off the cloud of doom he felt surrounded him and boarded the plane with the other first-class passengers. He held his head high and told himself, I’m Rudy now.

As he thought more about it, he concluded that Aimee convinced the major international airports within the greater New York City metropolitan area, including Boston’s Logan, to make an emergency announcement. Aimee knew he usually returned from India using Kennedy International Airport where he actually returned this past Monday using Rudy’s name. He hadn’t told anyone he returned. He went to the factory office to kill his father on Wednesday night and thought it was a brilliant stroke of planning to use Logan International to leave the country this time. Apparently, it was not brilliant enough.

Aimee was a crafty one. Ever since the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, airlines would not divulge arriving or departing passenger information. He had not counted on Aimee’s resourcefulness to get what she wanted.

Just after that emergency announcement, snafu #2 reared its ugly head. There was a bomb threat. The Boeing 767 was half-way into the boarding process when everyone had to quickly deplane. Logan’s International Terminal E had to be evacuated. Matt took snafu #2 as an omen to get out of Boston and rethink his options.

While sitting on his bed in the Marriott, he thought one option was to go back to Waterbury, reveal his new plastic surgery, and claim his inheritance. Surely Papa left everything to him. Another option was to do just the opposite; continue his plans to walk away from his family and factory and begin a new life in a foreign country as Rudy Meistermann. His brain was racing through the pros and cons of his situation. Intermittently interrupting these whirring possibilities was the question, Who the heck killed Papa and took that satisfaction away from me?

Shit! Matt groaned out loud. After months of planning finally culminated in a crescendo of excited anticipation, Matt had calmly walked into Papa’s office with murder in his heart. In his mental rehearsal, he