Reaper Walks the Garden: Ray Irish Mystery Case File, #2

Thorn Bishop Press

2019

Text Copyright © 2019 Shannon G Brewer

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

This book is a work of fiction.  Any references to historical events, people, or real places are used fictitiously.  All characters in this book are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Edition

Thorn Bishop Press

Cover Illustration Art: https://www.fiverr.com/oliviaprodesign

ISBN-10: 1-945590-51-3

ISBN-13: 978-1-945590-51-1

Visit the series website at

www.gordonbrewer.com

Introduction

The Ray Irish Mystery Case Files follow a hard-boiled private detective with a chip on his shoulder and a flask of Irish whiskey in his top right desk drawer. 

In the late 1940s, the shamus lives and works in the rough and tumble world of his adopted hometown, Oyster City. Irish has a reputation for his short temper and hard-headed luck. He’s a relatively honest private detective who finds himself with cases involving deadly racketeers, seductive grifters, or the wealthy and corrupt ruling elite.

While he’s no angel, Irish still believes in things like honor and justice. However, he doesn’t let his beliefs overrule the need to make a buck, especially if it means letting corrupt souls hang themselves. In a dingy city controlled by crooked politicians, wealthy crime lords, and colorful grafters, Ray Irish understands his fate always comes back to one thing.

He must discover the truth behind a facade of lies and deception.  

Chapter 1:  Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Her body fell across the top steps, splattering the stone steps with blood. Silence covered the area under the treed canopy while the killer carefully avoided the spreading blood to place the object in his hand upon the step. Then, the person turned and stepped back to look over the sprawled body. With a sigh of satisfaction, the shadow went behind the body and knelt before lifting the dead woman’s dress. The stillness around the patio drifted away with the increased volume of nearby frogs croaking their nightly serenade as darkness settled.

On the far side of the garden, a door suddenly opened. As two people stepped into the dusk, the opening released the noises of the party going on inside that end of the mansion.

A quiet curse escaped from the killer who quickly finished the final insult. The sound of the shadow’s footsteps hastily crossed the bricks, moving back into the shadows by the massive mansion. The click of a doorknob followed by the soft grating noise of a door opening and closing confirmed the escape of the killer into the building.

The easy conversation between a man and a woman overcame the night sounds as they walked along the garden path. When they came underneath the overhang of a second story terrace, a single orange eye of a lighted cigarette above them increased in intensity, then ebbed. The orange glow slowly moved as the person behind the cigarette silently kept a watch over the couple.

The couple wandered past the landscaped box cedar on the moonless autumn night, unaware of the observer who looked through the open curtains of the French doors leading outside.  As the couple talked, the smoker could only make out parts of the conversation.

I don’t know why you sent for me, Ray Irish told the girl whose arm was linked with his. I’m not in the same league.  You’re in a wealthy family with plenty of suitors.  Even the newspapers back in Oyster City have articles about you and your new beaus in the society pages.

Oh, you’re such a sweet innocent, darling, Raquel Monroe replied with her polished Virginia drawl. You told me the same thing before you left Williamsburg. Don’t you know that most of those articles are nothing more than rumors?  The Monroes and the McCabes are just like any other family. When did the Navy give you a complex about rich families? Her blue eyes were alight as she beamed a smile.

I’m nowhere close to innocent, he growled. I’m just saying, it’s been a few years, and I’ve changed. I’m not the same guy you remember.

Well, I’m still the same, she reminded him as she leaned against his arm. After you left, I really missed you. You only sent me a few letters, then nothing. Didn’t you receive my letters telling you I wanted you to come back to me? 

Listen, I remember what we talked about that last night we were together. Marriage was never in the mix. You pointed out that I had to work my way into the family. I’m even less the type of guy now. Ray looked at her in the moonlight. Her confident beauty always made him wonder what she saw in him.

Well, people don’t have to be married. We had a lot of fun, and we can still have a great time together, Raquel laughed, then she feigned a pout. You could have sent me a letter.

Where I was I didn’t get those letters. Besides, I can guarantee you that I wasn’t worth seeing in the last couple of years, Ray said flatly. Things change for some people.

And you won’t tell me about the past, is that it?  Raquel stopped them, looking up into his eyes. Alright, I won’t talk about it, but I know you missed me. I can tell by the way you looked at me when you arrived. I can read your mind. We’re still great together. She slipped both arms around his waist and lifted herself to kiss him.

Ray wasn’t enough of a gentleman to resist such an offer. He pulled her close, and their lips met.  Locked together, he tasted the sweet nectar of champagne on her tongue.  He remembered the nights together, where she taught him more than a few tricks. When they unwrapped, Ray turned her along the path around the back terrace of the large home.  

Alright, I missed you as well, he admitted. You’re a hell of a kisser and even better in the sack. After I washed out at Camp Peary, we both knew the government wasn’t going to let me hang around.

You didn’t have to leave; you let your temper get the best of you.  My uncle would have helped, she purred. The woman brushed her blonde hair back over her bare shoulders. The blue dress Raquel wore was expensive, and she had the body to fill it out just right. 

Yeah, probably so but a few years in the jungles did me a world of good. Ray couldn’t help the sarcasm. It was his nature.

Raquel nodded and leaned against him.

And now you’re a private detective. You know that’s how I found you. The local paper carried an article about Ray Irish and those jewels you recovered for Naomi Collins, she explained. It happens that Victor knows the Collins family. You really should talk to my uncle. He’s got connections that could help your work. Lord knows he’s helped Julia and me.

Ray frowned. She meant well but growing up with a silver spoon had a way of blinding her at times. From what he understood, Raquel’s bloodline included ancestors like James Monroe along with other powerful and famous families from Virginia all the way back to England. Her family was gone, and she lived at the McCabe estate.

He had major misgivings in the first place.  Raquel’s letter came out of the blue about two weeks earlier. She was still bell of the ball with plenty of suitors. While Irish still had a hunger for her, he was not deluding himself that he could keep up with her expensive tastes. During his trip by train, Ray kept debating the wisdom of returning to mingle within her social circle. He didn’t fit in before, and he most certainly wouldn’t fit in now.

It was Ray’s first time to Colonial Beach, just across the Potomac River from Oyster City. Only a couple of hours away by plane, expensive family estates were a world away for a shamus like him who could only afford the cheapest train ticket. His dinner jacket was borrowed from a lawyer friend.  

Raquel brought him to the estate for the engagement party for her cousin, Julia Crockett and her fiancée, Willis Cooper. Ray met the couple briefly during his wartime excursion with Raquel. When she picked him up at the train station and drove to the estate earlier that day, Irish immediately knew he was out of place. She explained that most of the guests were business associates of McCabe and his company. Still, when Raquel took his arm and led him to the house, he felt strangely at home. She had that way with him.

His eyes focused on the shadows along the path in front of them, Ray brought them to a stop. He didn’t like what appeared to be lying along the walkway in front of them.

Stay here! he growled out the order.  I’ll be right...  Ray was already moving forward.

Raquel placed her hand on her hips while she watched his dim long-legged figure moving quickly ahead. He was still the tall and burly man with rough edges that first attracted her. However, the war had changed him. She knew he’d been injured which was confirmed by his pronounced limping gait. But, like nearly every man who returned, Ray wasn’t about to talk about what he went through. Still, she recognized darkness behind the eyes that weren’t there when they dated for those few weeks. The look showed her that he