Murder on the Lake of Fire Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  MOURNING DOVE MYSTERIES: MURDER ON THE LAKE OF FIRE

  Copyright ©2017 by Mikel J. Wilson.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover design by Damonza.com.

  Author portrait by Dave Meyer at DaveMeyerDesign.com.

  Mikel J. Wilson

  555 W. Country Club Lane, C-222

  Escondido, CA 92026

  MikelJWilson.com

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-947392-06-9

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-947392-07-6

  First Edition, December 2017

  Printed in the United States of America through Acorn Publishing at AcornPublishingLLC.com.

  Dedicated to my BSM.

  Contents

  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

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  BRITT HADN’T BEEN able to even look at her skates since the embarrassment of her last competition, and now as they dangled from her shoulders, she faced the frozen lake like it was a pervy ass-pincher about to get slapped. Knowing someone had drugged her didn’t soothe the humiliation of that night and didn’t make returning to the ice any easier.

  “I can do this,” she chanted while her shins cut through the crouching morning fog and her boots crunched a path onto the snow. As she unburdened her shoulder at the lake’s bank, the blades clinked against each other like engaged sabers, shocking the silence to attention. She changed her footwear and stepped onto the frozen water, prepared for battle.

  Britt plowed through the thin layer of snow atop the ice and warmed up with minor moves of little friction that evolved into grander displays of gifted athleticism. From a Y-spiral she leapt into a butterfly jump and followed it with a double Axel. When she landed, she spotted something protruding from the ice in her path. Branch! She shuffled her feet and averted a tumble, but the back of her blades scraped each other, which caused a slight spark.

  Composure regained, Britt twisted into a purposeful spin. As she drew in her arms to increase her speed, her visible breath encircled her head like the arms of the Milky Way. She couldn’t focus on the white and grey world that whirled around her, but she noticed that the sun had risen and was now warming her face.

  The sun, however, was still in its place, hiding behind the snow-covered pines.

  Fire surrounded her petite frame and spread across the lake. Britt tried to scream, but the smoke she gasped in gagged her throat.

  She continued spinning, unable to stop, as the blaze engulfed her body. In a fiery vortex, Britt plunged through the melting ice.

  With the confidence of a man who loved his job, Emory Rome entered the Knoxville Consolidated Facility of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Dressed in a battleship-grey suit, the twenty-three-year-old special agent glided past rows of desks in the auditorium-sized office, nodding and half-smiling at the occasional co-worker who made eye contact with him. Without stopping at his own desk, he continued to the back of the room until he stood in front of a desk that was askew from the others, just outside the door to the only private office.

  The fiftyish woman tapping on her computer keyboard smiled with genuine sweetness when she saw the handsome man and greeted him with her usual, “Mornin’ Emory.”

  Emory matched her smile. “Good morning, Fran.”

  “I have something for you.” She handed him a large thermos. “Sassafras tea. It’ll help you sleep.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble—”

  Fran looked like she was swatting at an invisible fly as she brushed off his concern. “Lord, it’s no trouble.”

  “Well, thank you. I appreciate it.” Emory locked his brown eyes on the closed door. “I got a message she wanted to see me first thing.”

  “Wayne’s already in there.”

  He held up the thermos. “Can I leave this here until I come back out?”

  “Of course.”

  Emory placed it on Fran’s desk and took a deep breath. He rapped on the door a couple of times before entering the office and closing it behind him. Seated at her desk, Eve Bachman glanced at him without breaking from her conversation with Wayne. Like a tic that spasms once a day, her eyes darted to the red digital clock on her desk. Emory was never late, but she checked the time whenever she saw him. He didn’t know why.

  Bachman was the special agent in charge of this TBI division, and she left no doubt to those in her purview that she was, in fact, in charge. Humorless and direct, she had two tones to her voice – informative and invective. When she paused for breath, Emory greeted them both, removed the wool satchel strapped to his shoulder and took a seat next to his partner. “…You must be at the courthouse at 1 p.m.

  “I’ll do it, but it’s a total waste of a work day,” Wayne Buckwald grumbled. He had been partnered with Emory when the younger agent started more than a year ago, and while their working relationship clicked for the most part, they were not friends and did not socialize together. Any personal conversations they had on the job revolved around Wayne’s life only, as Emory was a master of deflection.

  Wayne’s response evoked clenched lips from Bachman before she redirected the conversation. “Both of you take a look at these.”

  Wayne reached his stubby fingers across the desk for the photos she produced from a file, and he handed each to his partner after he viewed them. Emory tried to conceal a wince when he saw the first one – burned human remains on a bed of snow at the edge of a lake. The blackened parts of the skin glistened with a sickening sheen formed when the body was pulled from the lake and the clinging water froze before it could evaporate. Another picture looked to be a yearbook photo, and it revealed just how beautiful the victim had been.

  Bachman explained, “These photos were taken in a little mountain town sixty miles southeast of here called Barter Ridge.”

  Emory perked up at the town’s name. Did she say Barter Ridge? Aloud he asked, “ID?”

  “Her name’s Britt Algarotti. She was a figure skater shooting for the Olympics. According to her father, she left the house at five-thirty in the morning to practice her routine at the lake before school. Th
e local sheriff fished her out yesterday evening. Their prevailing theory is that someone attacked her when she arrived yesterday, burned her and dumped her in the lake. No known motive.”

  With his dark brown hair now dipping over his eyes, Emory looked up from the photos. “Could be sexual assault.”

  Wayne proposed with a smirk, “Maybe someone Nancy Kerriganed her.”

  “What’s that?” Emory asked.

  “Not what. Who. Nancy Kerrigan. That skater who was clubbed in the knee by her rival so she wouldn’t be able to perform.” He looked at them both, but neither responded. His attempt at humor was lost on his youthful partner and stoic boss.

  Examining the photos, Emory pointed to one of the lake. “It’s not frozen over.”

  Wayne scoffed at his observation. “Of course not. The killer wouldn’t have been able to dump her body in the lake if it was covered with ice.”

  “Why would she go to the lake if it weren’t frozen over? She’s not a water skier.”

  “She could’ve been killed somewhere else and taken there.”

  Emory turned his attention to Bachman. “Any tracks in the snow?”

  “Plenty. The sheriff had half a dozen people all over the area before anyone thought to preserve the crime scene.”

  Wayne snorted. “As much as I’d love to help clean up their mess, couldn’t someone else handle this one? We just closed the Danner case yesterday and haven’t even finished our report, and now I have to prepare for a court date.”

  “I’m with Wayne on this.” I can’t believe I just said that.

  Bachman interrupted their protests to say in her most invective tone, “Well, Emory, the sheriff asked for you by name.”

  Wayne joined Bachman in glaring at Emory, whose face turned bright red.

  CHAPTER 2

  DURING THE NINETY-MINUTE drive to Barter Ridge, Emory kept the conversation focused on Wayne – asking about everything from his daughter’s school grades to the renovations on their house, but listening to none of the answers. In Bachman’s office, he had said he didn’t know the reason behind the sheriff’s request and left it at that.

  A few miles from Barter Ridge, the dispirited shades of hibernating flora gave way to landscapes brightened by fallen snow – the result, Emory figured, of the same storm front that had dropped an inch of rain on Knoxville two days earlier. To his relief, the roads had already been cleared, along with many of the driveways. With each mile added to the odometer, his grip on the steering wheel tightened, as did his breathing.

  He hated Barter Ridge, and he hoped all the emotions regurgitating inside him wouldn’t cloud his thinking. He needed to solve this case in a day or two and get the hell out again. After all, it was one murder in a small town. How many suspects could there be? He brushed a hand against his jacket pocket to ensure he had indeed brought his pill bottle and relaxed when he felt the bulge on his chest.

  Almost as soon as Emory’s white crossover passed a sign welcoming visitors to town, they arrived at the short driveway to the sheriff’s station, which was nothing more than a double-wide trailer on a foundation of cinder blocks. Instead of turning into the driveway, Emory pulled the car to the side of the road. He looked at Wayne as if he were dropping him off at home.

  “Aren’t you getting out?” Wayne lifted his eyebrows at his partner, his hand on the door handle.

  Emory shook his head once. “We’d make better time if we split up.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “I don’t like the cold. I’ll interview the parents while you talk to the sheriff.”

  Wayne snarled at the change in plans, pulled his body from the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. He stamped toward the station but slipped on the slushy driveway.

  Once out of sight of the sheriff’s station, Emory pulled over to the side of the road long enough to take a pill and wash it down with a gulp from his bottled water.

  A town of eight thousand people, Barter Ridge offered a secluded retreat for non-fussy tourists and the occasional black bear. The town poured from the eponymous ridge connecting two Smoky Mountains, as if it had spilled over from the valley on the other side. Its least elevated border was outlined by a tributary of the Little Tennessee River, where Crescent Lake used to be.

  If there were a rich section of Barter Ridge, the Algarotti family would’ve had the right side of the tracks all to themselves. The only local residence that could be deemed a mansion, their twenty-one-room house was fronted by six Doric columns, and it offered an unrivaled view of the town, as well as a peek at the valley beyond the ridge.

  Emory parked in front of the house, beside a red sports coupe. As he turned off the ignition, he saw a tall man exit the front door and hurry off the porch. With a brown messenger bag draped from his shoulder, the man wore black jeans and a blue, slim-fit pea coat with the hood resting between his shoulder blades.

  The man – who was about the same age as Emory, give or take a year – walked around the front of the red car and dipped his head to make eye contact with the special agent. Raising his eyebrows into his thick, wavy brown hair, the stranger offered a smirk that made Emory’s eyes ping-pong about before settling on him again. The man nodded and continued to the coupe, plopping himself into the driver seat.

  Emory kept his eyes forward as he pulled on his parking brake. Why hasn’t he started his car yet? He cranked his head to the right so he could peer through his passenger window at the other driver. The man seemed to sense it because he shot his eyes toward Emory and flashed a cocky smile.

  Emory’s eyes retreated to the windshield once more. He clenched the door handle and waited until the coupe’s engine purred to life. Finally! Emory emerged from his car. As he walked in front of the coupe, he could feel the stranger’s eyes on him, but he refused to look back.

  Emory ascended the seven steps to a front porch furnished with a wrought-iron dinette set and a veranda sofa glider, behind which was parked a blue bicycle. Once he stood before the green door, he pressed the button at its side, eliciting an elaborate tolling of bells within the house. Half a minute later, a woman dressed in a maid’s uniform with a grey face and no muscle or fat to keep the skin from gnarling over her bones, answered the door. Her red eyes rolled up to him as she asked in a meek voice, “Could I help you?”

  “Emory Rome from the TBI. I’m here to talk to the parents of Britt Algarotti.”

  “Mr. Algarotti isn’t home.”

  “And his wife?”

  The maid opened the door wider. “Come inside.”

  Emory glanced over his shoulder to see the red car had not yet moved. What’s he waiting for? He walked into the foyer, and the maid closed the door behind him.

  “She’s in the parlor,” the maid informed him. She waved toward a doorway to the left of the stairs and led him there.

  They had yet to reach the room when a woman’s voice from inside beckoned, “Margaret, where’s my protein drink?” The maid quickened her pace.

  When Emory entered the parlor, he was struck by a shock of long platinum hair against the wood-toned room, bathed in amber lighting. The thirty-something, athletic and attractive – thanks to experienced makeup application – woman lounged on an antique fainting couch, reading something on her computer tablet.

  Every piece of furniture looked to be antique except for a leather-padded bar in one corner. Hung at random spots along the paneled walls were a few family pictures featuring the blonde woman with whom Emory assumed to be Mr. Algarotti, Britt and her little brother. A rather macabre painting of the foursome in a hunting lodge watched over the room from above the fireplace, and it looked like a colorized version of a mid-nineteenth century photograph with serious expressions focused on the artist. A single frame hanging above a roll-top desk was covered with a black cloth. Emory assumed it to be a portrait of Britt.

  “I’m sorry,” the maid replied. “I had to answer the door.” She hurried to the bar to mix one scoop of protein powder from a ceramic bucket,
ice, a little water from a reusable glass bottle and a shot of Tennessee honey whiskey into a blender.

  The blonde looked up from her tablet. “Who the hell are you?”

  Emory had never been comfortable shouting, but the sound of the blender gave him no choice. “Emory Rome!” he yelled as he handed her a business card. “I’m a special agent with the TBI!”

  “Do you have a badge?” she asked, as if perturbed at having to tell him how to do his job. Emory showed it to her, and she barely glanced at it before yelling at Margaret, “It’s blended enough!”

  Margaret turned off the blender, poured its contents into a crystal goblet and stabbed it with a pink straw.

  “I’m here to talk to you about your daughter.” Emory pulled out his phone to type notes of the conversation.

  She sneered. “I thought you were a detective.” Margaret placed her drink on a ceramic coaster atop the nearby Pembroke table before leaving the room. “Do I look old enough to be her mama?”

  “You’re not Mrs. Algarotti?”

  She siphoned a generous amount of the protein drink through the straw. “Just call me Pristine, and for god’s sake, have a seat and stop hovering over me. I feel like I’m taking a quiz.”

  “My apologies.” Emory sat on the nearest available option – a burgundy-upholstered, giltwood settee. The illogical positioning of the ill-padded piece forced him to crane his neck to the left to face her.

  “I’m the second Mrs. Algarotti.” Pristine’s face hardened, but her eyes belied fragility. “A ranking they never let me forget.”

  Emory noted the information on his phone. “Okay. Christine—”

  “No!” She slammed the goblet onto the coaster so hard that Emory was surprised neither broke. “Pris-tine, as in ‘pure.’ I hate when people do that. It’s not a difficult name.”

  Emory masked a snarl with a polite half-smile. “My apologies. Where is your husband?”