Morality Play: Det. Lt. Nick Storie Mysteries, #7

By C. D. Moulton

A man who owns a plastics plant that employs troubled youths who have had trouble with the law is murdered. Nick identifies the killer, then the killer is murdered.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. D. Moulton
• Release date: Jun 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201152376

Book preview

Prologue

All right, relax! Take a deep breath, hold it, exhale. That's better!

Dale A. Jordan, owner and CEO of Jordan Florida Plastics Specialties, looked across his desk at the stern, matronly, middle-aged woman sitting there and sighed. Again.

Mrs. Littleton, please stop to think before you repeat what some gossip is trying to spread about me and about the program. I assure you, none of this has any basis in fact whatever. It's merely spite. This isn't something one runs around the community making accusations about unless that one has some kind of proof.

Hah! I have all the proof I need! she replied haughtily. The very suggestion of this kind of thing demands that we concerned parents take immediate strong action! I'll see you out of here and away from our children!

He sighed again. "The suggestion, as you say, very definitely demands immediate action. I agree fully.

"I suggest the first action is to determine if there's any truth to the accusations – a step you and your little group have seemingly decided not to take.

He picked up the little booklet, made a sour face, and waved it a few inches under her nose, then dropped it carelessly on his desk.

That makes it libel. You leave me no choice. I am forced by your refusal to determine the truth or lack of such before saying and printing scurrilous and malicious attacks on my character to defend myself. In a court of law!

Every word in that paper is true! she spat. "I heard every word directly from Sarah Milkins' own mouth and you did suggest exactly, word-for-word, the things we're telling concerned parents that you suggested!"

Sarah Milkins. Thank you very much. He smiled. "Perhaps you'd be far better off to check up a bit on Sarah Milkins and the reputation she's already earned before you take anything she says as gospel.

I suggest you leave. Now. You'll be hearing from my attorneys. So will Miss Milkins.

Ha! Sarah will testify in court that it's true! she snarled. You're some kind of animal!

Sarah Milkins has a bit of a reputation herself, he replied with a little snort. "One of the little things you didn't bother to check on, hmmm? Maybe she's testified in court before.

"Did you ask yourself – or anyone else – what she's doing in the program? What all of them are doing in the program?

You might have your own attorneys investigate how much her word's worth in a courtroom, Mrs. Littleton! Goodbye!

"Hah! We'll see what a court has to say!" she said, drawing back to sneer at him.

Get out!

She snorted and stamped out, slamming the door. June Ralston, his secretary, came in with a raised eyebrow.

Sarah Milkins, he said simply. This idiocy's listed their idiotic complaints from three girls, but now we know where it came from.

What does she have against you? June asked, taking the tape from the recorder that was sitting on the desk.

Probably only that I told her the next time she sneaks out of the plant for a couple of hours I'll see her dropped from the program. What the hell..!?

There was a loud crash in the outer office and the sound of breaking glass. He and June ran out to find a large man in blue jeans and a tee shirt with Abortion is Murder! Abortionists are Murderers! across the front, standing over the hot-cold water dispenser, which he'd apparently thrown through the fish tank.

June squealed. Dale picked up the desk phone, punched 0-0, and said, Security! Main office! and put it down to continue, And you are?

The man glared and snarled, I'm Harold Robert Manners, the father of Gloria Jean Manners! I'm gonna blow your lousy head off for you, you sleazy child molesting bastard!

Anytime you feel froggy, leap! Dale replied, coolly. He kept himself in prime condition and wasn't a too small man himself. The difference was, he was hard muscle, not flab and fat. I'll warn you I can take on any three of your type of...! He ducked as the paperweight flew at his head, stepped sideways and forward and let fly with a right hook that jarred Manners off his feet, dropping him onto his knees as Goodman and Flynn from security burst into the room.

"Detain Mr. Bad Manners until the police arrive! June, call the police and see that this mess is paid for. It's that or charges.

Call Forrest, Kline, and Roberts. I'll be in my office.

Two women and a man came to the door from the parking lot to stare in at the scene. One of them said, Harold? What happened?

You'll be Mrs. Manners, Dale stated. You? He looked at the other pair.

What's going on in here? the man demanded. Harold, what's going on here? Did he attack you?

"Quite to the contrary. Mr. Manners first attacked me, then I defended myself.

I take it you're one of the Littleton group?

We're Larry and Mildred Owens, the woman answered. We're members of the Concerned Parents Morality League. Martha Owens is our daughter. I'm sure you know who she is!

"No, quite frankly, I don't! Quite as frankly, I don't care! This has gone too far! You people should find a way to pass your time that doesn't involve malicious slander, libel, defamation of character and physical violence! In case the Littleton bitch didn't tell you, I'm suing the piss out of the lot of you!

"Get out of this office! Get off my property or, by all that's holy, I'll personally throw the bunch of you out!

That doesn't include you, Manners. You pay for this mess or you face other charges!

He turned and walked back into his office where he got the shakes for a few minutes. When he lost his temper that happened – and he'd lost it this time!

How in the hell could all this be happening?

Mr. Roberts is on line two, June said over the intercom. Don Botts and Bill Vore are here to see you.

Tell Don to come back in an hour, please. Tell Bill to close down the program line and send them all home. He can hire some people to run that project. So-called community service by this company is over!

He picked up the phone and punched line two.

Joy Littleton stormed from the office, marched to the parents waiting in Harold's waiting mini-van and announced that Dale Jordan was sitting in there pretending innocence and was going to try the old Attack-is-defense ploy, threatening to sue them!

She didn't wait for any reply, just went to her car and got in. She was so furious she couldn't see straight! That animal had the gall to try to pretend he didn't know what was going on!

He'd been found out! That’s what was going on! Sweet little Sarah Milkins was only sixteen! She'd been crying very real tears and had been in very real distress when she'd told of how that animal had pinched her breasts and suggested those ... disgusting things! No sixteen year old child would even know anything about that kind of depravity!

It was true the program was for people, young people, actually for mere children who were in trouble of one sort or another, but Sarah was NOT making up such minutely described things! A sixteen year old child had never even heard of those things.

Well, they were daily on the news and in the papers, but these children didn't watch the news or read any newspapers.

Maybe she should have checked on what Sarah had done to be in the program, but Joy was sure it couldn't be anything serious. Sarah was only a child!

Still, if she actually had a reputation for telling fibs would Jordan really stand a chance of suing the league?

Harold was furious. He had a temper. He was pretty big.

Oh, good lord! He was going to go in there and confront Jordan now! He'd probably beat him up!

Joy started to jump out and yell to let the police handle it, but it was too late, now. The others were going to follow Harold, so she probably couldn't do anything to stop them anyhow. There was going to be trouble.

She was getting one of her migraines. She didn't need this tension!

Joy Littleton started her car and backed out. As she drove off she was thinking how someone like Dale Jordan deserved hanging. Somebody was going to shoot a person like him right between the eyes! It was inevitable!

Could he really sue them for anything and collect? Could that kind of insult actually be added to the injury he had already inflicted on god-only-knows how-many innocent little girls?

He deserved getting shot! So far as she was concerned, every single one of his type should be stood against a wall and shot square between the eyes! That would be the lord's vengeance!

Harold Manners listened to Joy explaining how that miserable bastard sat there and actually mocked her after demanding she come to his office to justify the pamphlet exposing just what kind of degenerate animal he was.

What? He was going to sue them!?

Joy was livid. She marched to her car and got in.

Well, Harold Robert Manners wasn't going to wimp out and sit there on his fat lazy ass while some two-bit scumbucket made those indecent proposals to his own daughter!

His Gloria Jean was certainly no angel and it was true she'd been sleeping with that Bond boy since she was fifteen, but he was her age, not some thirty year old letch!

Maybe she didn't always tell the truth, but neither did he.

Okay. At first he'd thought she was making it up because she didn't like Jordan always being so strict with her at the job, but the Sarah Milkins girl had convinced him. She was a true innocent if he ever saw one – and built! Sixteen, and built like a brick shithouse!

That's what made him believe. He could see how any guy would want a piece of that, young or not!

Harold jumped out of the van and strode to the office. No one was there, but the door to the back office was closed and he could hear the faint sounds of voices, one female. The son of a bitch probably had some young girl back there right now! Somebody ought to put a bullet through the bastard's head for him! If he had his gun he'd do it right now!

Harold picked up the water cooler and threw it at the fancy fish tank in the wall. That would get the bastard's attention!

The office door flew open and Jordan ran out, followed by a pretty woman in her late twenties. She had that ratty blonde hairstyle, but was really nice looking – and he didn't have any idea Jordan was so damned big! It was almost instinctive for him to grab the paperweight and throw it.

Jordan was as fast as he was big. The lights went out for a minute. He was on his knees. It was all confusion. He'd have to pay for the fish tank now and he didn't have any spare money for that kind of thing.

It was so confusing!

Julie and the Owens were yelling about the girls or something. Two men were holding him up. Jordan slammed into his office.

He should have gone home for his gun in the first place. The only way to settle that bastard's hash was a bullet right between the eyes!

Julia Manners stared in horror as Joy described the meeting in Jordan's office. She was never actually convinced the girls had told the truth about what happened at the program. Gloria Jean didn't bother with the truth all the time.

On the other hand, something had happened.

Gloria Jean knew the basics about sex and had been using the pill from the first with her boyfriend. Julia knew she'd been lucky when she and the Miller boy, the preacher's son, had been so intimate at her daughter's age. She made sure Gloria Jean had the knowledge and means to protect herself so she wouldn't have to depend on luck.

What convinced her the girls were doing something with someone were the extremely detailed descriptions of things only someone experienced with sex would know. She didn't know some of it and she'd had a normal amount of experience herself.

The horror to her in Joy's tirade was that Jordan was going to sue them. They had no money for lawyers! If the girls had been lying about it being Jordan who taught them all ... that he would take everything they had!

Harold stormed out and toward the office. His childish temper would only make things worse!

Julia argued for a minute, then she and the Owens went to the office just as they saw two burly men run in.

They were really in for it now! Jordan would have enough added to really take them to the cleaners. Somebody ought to shoot him!

At times like this, she wouldn't much care if somebody shot Harold at the same time.

The Owens listened to Joy and nodded to one another. Just as they thought! He was going to, not only get away with it, he was going to sue them on top of it!

Martha hadn’t quite gotten her story straight. They were sure somebody else was involved, but Jordan was the only one she named. She wouldn't meet their eyes, so there was more to it.

Larry was the quiet type. He'd be all for going to the home of Dale Jordan and putting a bullet in his head and getting out. No clues. He wouldn't even be suspected.

Come to that, Mildred would handle it exactly the same way!

Mark Goodman and Jimmy Flynn ran for the office as soon as the call came in. Some jerk had smashed the aquarium and had attacked Dale.

Stupid! Dale could take any five like that bum!

There was something going on about the rehab program. That was behind it somehow.

Dale said to make the asshole pay for the tank and to clean the rug or to bring some felony vandalism and assault charges against him. Things calmed right down. The wife agreed to pay for the fish tank and to stay away from the property. They explained the charges could be brought for two years, in case the agreement was broken, and let the ass go.

Stupid crud said he'd like to blow Dale's brains out for him! Mark told him that was a threat they'd make note of. If anyone took a shot at Dale Jordan – ever – they'd know right where to look for the idiot, wouldn't they?

Jimmy told him how he'd now put himself into a position where, if somebody else croaked Dale, he'd go up for it, sure as sunset!

Stupid crummy asshole jerk!

Don Botts and Bill Vore looked around the office. Mark