Trigger Happy - Strange Fish: Det. Lt. Nick Storie Mysteries, #13

By C. D. Moulton

Two stories. Trigger Happy, a woman from Mexico is trying to move into mob business that could ruin the Olympics. A sketch artist is killed, leading to the investigation. Strange Fish, a man is murdered on a fishing wharf.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. D. Moulton
• Release date: Jun 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201657338

Book preview

Nick Storie

Book 13  2 parts

Trigger Happy/Strange Fish

© 1997 & 2022  by C. D. Moulton

all rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any other information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder/ publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This is a work of fiction. any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental

Two more that were too long for shorts, but too short for books

Critic comment

Average for Moulton – which is good.  JDM ***

Contents 

Part one

Trigger Happy

A Sketch  

The Investigation Begins

Progress

Knowing is not Proving

Listen to Yourself!

A Working Theory

Moments to Remember

Mind Games

Sneaky Snakes

Good Company, Good Food

Part two

Strange Fish

Waiting on the Wharf

Murder Report

That’s the Rub

Motivation

Mission Accomplished!

The Note

About the Author

CD Moulton has traveled extensively over much of the world both in the music business, where he was a rock guitarist, songwriter and arranger and in an import/export business. He has been everything from a bar owner to auto salvage (junkyard) manager, longshoreman to high steel worker, orchid grower to landscaper, tropical fish farmer to commercial fisherman. He started writing books in 1983 and has published more than 250 books as of January 1, 2015. His most popular books to date are about research with orchids, though much of his science fiction and fantasy work has proven popular. He wrote the CD Grimes, PI series and the Det. Nick Storie series, Clint Faraday series and many other works.

He now resides in Puerto Armuelles, Panamá, where he writes  books, plays music with friends, does research with orchids and medicinal plants – and pursues his favorite ways to spend his time: beach bum and roaming the mountain jungles doing his botanical research. He has lately become involved in fighting for the rights of the indigenous people, who are among his closest friends, and in fighting the extreme corruption in the courts and police in Panamá.

He offers the free e-book, Fading Paradise, that explains what he has been through because of the corruption.

CD is the discoverer of the Chadam Protocol ror curing cancer: Facebook page Ambrosia peruviana for cancer

A Sketch

Trigger Happy

Hal Jest showed the couple the charcoal sketch he'd made of them sitting at the table. The man gave him five bucks for it. He thanked him and went back to his corner spot, drank a sip of the horrible coffee, made a face and started a sketch of the couple at table six. They were in some kind of intense, somewhat heated conversation.

The man noticed him drawing the sketch, looked a bit wary, then shrugged. If he was with someone else's wife or something, he'd probably buy the sketch and tear it up or whatever. He looked slightly familiar. Hal was used to that kind of thing.

Hal never could understand why people who felt they must not be seen with someone else would so often come to a public place with them, then worry they might be seen. People were stupid.

A sketch took him about ten minutes and was accurate as a photograph. He was a sometimes fixture around a number of the local restaurants and bars. There was never any trouble because he didn't pressure anyone to purchase the quick sketches. He was good and he knew how to make these drawings flattering without making them look like someone else. Some people would ask him to draw them so he'd get ten or more for those.

He'd almost finished the table six couple when he noted a bit of excitement toward the entrance. He looked up to see the most striking couple he'd ever seen being led to table two. The man looked like one of those famous Greek or Roman statues and the woman was easily as beautiful. She had a figure other women would kill for and used little makeup. Her hair was a dark auburn red and her eyes were a clear green a man could lose himself in. The bone structure in both of them was exceptional and wouldn't allow them to turn into hags later in life. They'd both age well.

Hal was fairly used to beautiful women, if not to quite the standards of this one, but this was the first man he'd ever seen he would describe as being beautiful. He wasn't pretty beautiful, but remained totally masculine with it. That the two were a perfect match and very much in love was beyond question.

Hal flipped the page and began sketching the couple, taking much more time and care than he was used to taking. This was something he'd never expected to see in an out-of-the-way Mexican restaurant in South Naples!

Time stopped. He finished the drawing, didn't think he had it quite right, flipped the page and started another.

This one was perfect!

He walked over and presented the drawing. The woman thought it was as good as any she'd seen and handed him a ten dollar bill. She said she was Serena. Her husband was Lonnie and this was their first wedding anniversary – and could they do anything to stop the smearing of the drawing, somehow?

Hal rummaged in his old backpack and got the aerosol can of clear epoxy enamel to spray the sketch. She could wash it if she liked. It would harden completely in less than five minutes.

They chatted for a few minutes. Hal liked them. They were as natural and friendly as they were beautiful. They had a son who was almost six months old, she was a nurse, he was a landscaper.

He soon excused himself and apologized for intruding into their anniversary. He wished them many more and went back to his table.

The couple at table six was gone so he wouldn't get that one, but he had the one he could feel good about. He wouldn't be able to do anymore tonight, not after that!

Not too much else happened. He stayed around until most of the customers left, sighed and stood to throw the backpack over his shoulder. He slipped the two sketch pads into their pocket and told Gina and Holly, the waitresses, he'd see them late tomorrow – and what did they think of the god and goddess?

I'll dream of him for the rest of my natural life! Holly cried. "I didn't ever think anything like him actually existed! God! He was so nice on top of it! You'd expect any guy who was that goodlooking to be a real asshole, but he was so nice!"

He was in once before, before you started here, Gina said. "I've certainly had my share of dreams about him!"

I thought I'd been shifted to Olympus, Hal agreed. They were both nice. She's the head nurse at IC at Mercy. It would be worth stepping in front of a bus if she was going to nurse you back to health!

What does he do? Holly asked.

He has a landscape and yard care business, Hal said. "He works over in the Greenmeadow section. I've seen a few places there that are as good as any anywhere – and I'm fully qualified to say that. He did the Garrison place. I've sketched it because it's so perfectly done.

"They're both smarter than most. I was almost hoping he'd be a jerk and she'd be an airheaded bimbo, just to restore my lack of faith in the human race, but they're everything we mortals only wish we could be.

They have a kid.

Usually those goodlooking types have really ugly kids, I think, Gina said. Nature's revenge!

Not that one! Hal laughed. "You can figure which ones are going to turn out like that by comparing the bone structures of the parents. I've done sketches of how kids will probably look and, believe me, kids of those two will be at least as goodlooking as them.

"Maybe I'll do that tonight. Draw what their kid will look like in ten and twenty years.

"What a rush!

Well, have a good one! See you tomorrow!

They waved goodbye and he went out. It was less than a minute later when they heard the shots. Two. Right out front and by the parking lot entrance. Wilt, the bartender, raced from the lounge as they headed for the front door. There was another shot and Wilt dropped in the doorway. Holly screamed and Gina grabbed her and drug her to the floor. As Gina crawled toward the phone to punch 9-1-1 Holly crawled to Wilt. She peered out over him to see a shiny black and silver Lincoln Town Car roaring away from the curb. Hal was laying on the sidewalk, twisted into an odd tangle.

Holly sobbed and pulled at Wilt. There was lots of blood on the front of his coat. He groaned. A customer ran to bend over him, saying he was a medic for EMS and that Wilt had a pretty good chance of not being too seriously hurt. Holly was told to hold his head up and he would stop the bleeding, but the bullet would have to be removed as soon as possible.

Gina came to tell them the police and an ambulance were on the way. Holly pointed to Hal and Gina went out. She was no doctor, but he sure looked dead to her!

The Investigation Begins

Nick! Line two! Vic yelled from the front desk.

Lt. Nathanial Nick Storie sighed. Vic just wouldn't use the station intercom. He picked up the phone. Yes? Storie, homicide.

A shooting death at a restaurant parking lot. The Camino Real, an exceptionally good Mexican restaurant on south 41. One man dead and one would be critical, but would probably survive.

Six minutes! Nick replied and punched Tiny's line. Frog answered and he gave him the address.

Tiny Menthorne, the head county coroner, stood six six and weighed over three hundred pounds. Frog was Frog Forest, the best forensics photographer in the country in Nick's humble opinion. He didn't miss an inch of a crime scene and had helped Nick several times on cases. He was quick and spotted things that would later prove important.

It took five and a half minutes for Nick to get there, to see a small knot of gawking people standing around a body crumpled on the sidewalk and an EMS truck parked on the street close outside the front entrance. They were working on a black man in his early twenties, wearing a red bartender's jacket.

The EMS driver knew Nick. He reported the wounded man was Wilt Parsons. He'd been shot as he ran to aid the DB on the sidewalk, who the waitresses said was a man known only as Hal. He was an artist or something.

Nick nodded and went to the people on the sidewalk to ask them to step back.

The man was in his early forties at a guess and seemed in good physical shape. He'd been shot twice in the chest with a large caliber, high-impact pistol. He was wearing a red flannel shirt, blue jeans, western boots and a wide belt with a silver buckle in the shape of a bull's head. There was a faded old blue canvas knapsack next to him with a couple of sketch pads and various implements scattered around.

Nick slipped on sterile latex gloves and checked the man's pockets, those that he could reach without moving the body. He found a hundred fourteen dollars in a shirt pocket in tens and twenties, so robbery wasn't the motive.

The lab van pulled up and Frog and Tiny got out to look over the scene. Frog had a camcorder carefully recording every least detail – including the various people standing around the area gawking.

After Frog finished and took the stills Tiny wanted Nick and Frog started gathering up the things strewn around, marking each item with a location number before bagging it.

Frog suddenly said, Hey, Nick! Look at this! It's Lonnie and Serena! He was holding a sketch pad. It was unquestionably Lonnie and Serena Micks, two close friends of the whole homicide department. They were shown seated at a table in the restaurant.

Nick studied the sketch a moment, then went to ask the waitresses hovering over the wounded bartender if those people had been in the restaurant tonight.

Yes. Hal drew them and talked with them for awhile. They’d been married a year, the darker girl replied. They were very nice – and they look just like that!

I know. They're friends. I'm Nick. This will be my case.

"I'm Gina Scaglione and this is Holly Roberts. We're table hops. Wilt's the bartender. He ran out when we heard the shots and they shot him!

Why would anybody shoot Hal? He wouldn't ever bother anybody!

That's one of the things I'll have to find out. Do you know his full name?

Just Hal. He signed his drawings with his initials, 'H. J.' He just drew pictures! He never bothered anybody!

He was going to draw what the baby would look like in about twenty years, Holly offered.

The baby?

"The two in the picture Hal drew. They said they have a baby and we were saying goodlooking people have ugly kids and Hal said they wouldn't because they both have good bones and he was going to draw what the baby would look like when it was twenty. Tonight's their first anniversary and they said they really liked Hal's drawing and she gave him a ten for it even though he only charges five, unless... Oh, God!.

They were so nice! Hal was so happy that he could draw two people who were so perfect! Most people are so.... Oh, god! she broke down and sobbed heavily. Gina put an arm around her.

He came in often?

Three or four times a week, Gina answered. "The best time is Friday night, here. He worked the fancier places out on the trail Saturdays, but would come in anytime.

Do you have any theory why anyone would shoot him?

No, not yet. You say Serena gave him ten dollars for the sketch? Why is it still here?

That was the first one he made when they first came in, Holly said. "It wasn't good enough. Hal had to have everything perfect or he wouldn't show it to anyone and I guess he wanted that one for himself.

"For a regular person it would be plenty good enough, but they weren't regular people, you know what I mean?

"See, Hal said he had hoped that god would be an asshole