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    Nick Storie; A Sudden Silence
    Nick Storie; A Sudden Silence
    Nick Storie; A Sudden Silence
    Ebook194 pages3 hours

    Nick Storie; A Sudden Silence

    By CD Moulton

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    About this ebook

    A very popular man, the neighborhood wailing wall, is murdered on the street. There isn’t a single clue to grab onto except one of those sudden silences that happened when the shot was fired. When Nick solves that one, it really gets hairy.
    Nick meets another set of powerful gangsters, who he befriends. He solves the case, being shot at in the final arrest.
    Then he gets a call from the gangsters. This one isn't over. There could be a gang war.
    Nick has to be pragmatic to a degree he never wanted to appear.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCD Moulton
    Release dateAug 11, 2010
    ISBN9781452358727
    Nick Storie; A Sudden Silence
    Author

    CD Moulton

    Born in Florida, travelled the world as a rock guitarist with some big names in the late sixties, early seventies. Been everything from a high steel worker to longshoreman, from musician to bar owner, and much more. Educated in botany and genetics. Now living in paradise (Panamá!)

    Read more from Cd Moulton

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      Book preview

      Nick Storie; A Sudden Silence - CD Moulton

      Nick Storie

      Book 9

      A Sudden Silence

      © 1994 by C. D. Moulton

      All rights reserved

      Smashwords Edition

      © 2011 & 2013

      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 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 persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental unless otherwise stated.

      A very popular man, the neighborhood wailing wall, is murdered on the street. There isn’t a single clue to grab onto except one of those sudden silences that happened when the shot was fired. When Nick solves that one, It really gets hairy.

      Critic comment

      In some ways, better than Deadly Operation – and in some, not. One thing I can say is that all of the Nick Storie mysteries I’ve read are worth the money at worst. This is up to par. – JDM ***½

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter one

      Chapter two

      Chapter three

      **Interim

      Chapter four

      Chapter five

      Chapter six

      Chapter seven

      Chapter eight

      Epilogue

      About the author

      CD was born in Lakeland, Florida. His education is in genetics and botany. He has traveled over much of the world, particularly when he was in music as a rock rhythm guitarist with some well-known bands in the late sixties and early seventies. He has worked as a high steel worker and as a longshoreman, clerk, orchidist, bar owner, salvage yard manager and landscaper – among other things.

      CD began writing fiction in 1984 and has more than 115 books published as of this time in SciFi, murder, orchid culture and various other fields.

      He now resides in Bocas del Toro and David, Panamá, where he continues research into epiphytic plants. He loves the culture of the indigenous people and counts a majority of his closer friends among that group. Several have adopted him as their father. He funds those he can afford through the universities where they have all excelled. The Indios are very intelligent people, they are simply too poor (in material things and money. Culturally, they are very wealthy) to pursue higher education.

      CD loves Panamá and the people. He plans to spend the rest of his life in the paradise that is Panamá

      - Estrelita Suarez V.

      A Sudden Silence

      Prologue

      Eddie Hastings, 1922 Milford Place, Apt. 6, looked into the muddy grey overcast, sighed and pulled his London Fog tighter around his shoulders as he stepped out onto the wet sidewalk. The fog/drizzle of the early January morning may be Just this time of year, but it was also miserable and just plain depressing.

      And cold. The kind of sharp cold that penetrates even the good padded expensive trench coat he'd paid half a week's salary for.

      Florida was the coldest place on Earth at 37 degrees with a 12 MPH wind and a hundred percent humidity. Even the palms looked depressed.

      Why the hell was it so damned noisy? Six fifteen on Sunday morning and this noisy?

      And so rank? Why did the air smell of rotting fish and seaweed this far from the bay?

      It was the wind, amplifying the sounds of traffic out on 41, adding it to the screech of seagulls and terns riding the gusting blustering winds over the gunmetal, dreary bay, with its dirty whitecaps smashing off the seawall to deposit the detritus of the tide on the mildewed wide sidewalk that bordered the curve of the shallow estuary added to the flap and wail of hinged metal signs protesting the salt rust eating their very fiber away.

      Everything came at him. The streets from the bay to 41 behind and ahead carried it all to where the swirl of the wind bounced the cacophony at him from both sides. He was at the center of a vortex of unpleasant sounds, winds, smells, temperatures, light and dirty water.

      What a mood!

      Oh, well. Just eight and a half hours and he'd be off for what served as his weekend. Mondays. He also was off Thursdays, the slowest two days at Art in Dining, the classy restaurant where he managed morning/lunch shifts. Six thirty was a hell of a time to have to be at work, but Eddie liked the idea of being home by four. It left several hours to enjoy the day, especially in the summer, with daylight stupid time.

      Who came up with that one? Change the clocks? Why not just go to work or school or whatever an hour earlier and leave the damned clocks alone? Too complicated for the political idiots running the country?

      Politicians were society's morons, one and all. It was as much as a prerequisite for their job descriptions. Lawyers and bureaucrats. Parasites. No purpose served.

      The wind suddenly stopped. Like throwing a switch. The gulls, signs and other noises simply ceased, except for a loud, sharp Crack! from the dark entrance to the Leeds Building parking garage to Eddie's left.

      Eddie started to move on and felt a hot wetness on his side. It was a sharp contrast to the bitter cold. He felt the spot and looked down to his hand.

      Blood? He was bleeding?

      Then nothing.

      Mildred, better known as Millie, Moody got off of the elevator at the eighth floor of the Leeds Building at 1919 Milford Place, went along the hall to 814 and pushed the vestibule door open to Dr. Conant's office. He wasn't there today, of course, but she always left the packages on the nurse's window shelf right beside the Please Sign In sign with its arrow pointing straight down to the clipboard.

      This one was from some big medical equipment company in Hammond, New Jersey. Probably all those scalpels and blades doctors used. It was too heavy to be bandages and gauze and such.

      6:13. She was right on schedule. Her only other delivery here was to the building manager, himself. She'd get that one on the way out.

      He was always grumpy this early in the mornings, but he also insisted on signing for all packages. He'd caused all kinds of trouble once because of a lost package. He wasn't pleasant sort of person anytime and he'd really been a jerk then. It turned out the package hadn't arrived because the ZIP code was wrong on it, so it went to Alabama or somewhere.

      6:19, back to the green NPS truck to pick up the heavy little package from Armory, West Virginia.

      What or where was Armory, West Virginia?

      She just delivered the things.

      Mark Haslit answered her ring in an undershirt and dirty khaki work pants, looked startled at seeing her for a second, used a hand to push back his damp, shaggy, graying hair from his wide forehead, griped at the hour, signed the electronic pad, griped that, as usual, the damned thing came a day late, griped about the sorry weather, griped about all the noise, griped about the smell of the air and closed the door in her face. Her last glimpse of him was of his beer belly hanging over the worn black belt.

      Have a nice day! she said to the door, got into her truck and drove out, wondering why people were so rude. Life was so much easier if you kept your bad moods to yourself.

      Working Sundays for special deliveries was bad enough, but why couldn't people all be like Dr. Conant, who hadn't had a day off in years (Sickness doesn't take any days off, so why should I?) and that always pleasant nurse, Jean Bell? People who gave a lot in life generally got a lot more out of life.

      Her headlights flicked across a tangled mass of silver-gray cloth across the street on the far sidewalk, but she didn't pay any attention to it.

      Then.

      Alfred Kittle's Harrummmph! as he turned onto Vesper Lane served to describe the short, fat, balding, impeccably dressed Englishman better than any photo could. It included his attitude as well as the neat navy pinstripe suit and shiny black patent leather wingtips, pince-nez on an elastic band to the coat pocket with the perfectly arranged white handkerchief and sooty brown Meerschaum pipe, which no mere picture could.

      The explosive expletive seemed to hold all that information in odd little nuances. It also perfectly expressed his disdain for the morning's offering of depression in the air.

      It was downright bloody chilly, what with the wind off the bay and the damned drizzle. Leaden days and a leaden mood. Bloody depressing. Might as well have stayed in bloody London!

      Well, he couldn't, what with all that trouble when his wife died like that. Murdered in her own home while he was away in Brighton on a business trip. They'd as much as accused him of bumping her off! Bloody cheek, that was! No evidence, just that the spouse was always the first suspect? What kind of bloody justice was that? Hound a man to the grave, then find they had the wrong one all along! That's what it amounted to! Bloody farce!

      It would be in the eighties by day's end. He knew it! Thirty-bloody-seven degrees at ... what? Six thirty AM?

      He took out his old gold pocket watch to check the time. 6:14 exactly. He was a bit ahead of his regular schedule (he left the C out when he thought or said the word. Bloody Yanks pronounced it skedule – but he said skool instead of shool – what the bloody hell!) and the bloody weather had him in the ruts. Bloody depressing, that's what it was!

      It would turn into a beautiful day. This was a typical cold front in Naples, Florida. Looked like he'd bloody well learn to live with it. It would last a few hours here, not a few bloody months, like in bloody London.

      He went to the corner of Vesper Lane and Milford Place, put his four quarters into the dispenser slot and took out a paper. He should subscribe, but what the bloody hell? He could use the exercise, but preferably on better days.

      Why the bloody hell was it so noisy when the wind was from the northwest? Bloody signs could use a spot or two of oil. It was bad enough when that punkie next door chose to play that bloody rap trash all afternoon on Saturday. Why the bloody hell did even the bloody damned weather have to conspire to make a shambles of the peacefulness of his bloody Sundays? It wasn't bad enough the whole bloody damned world was on its way straight to hell in a bloody handbasket or what?

      There was a sudden silence, shattered by the sound of a car's backfire in the Leeds Building garage. No one else but some bloke up on Milford was yet about.

      Alfred Kittle turned back up Vesper Lane to return to his neat cottage on Landesburg Drive as the wind resumed, along with its noise. He shoved the newspaper under his coat out of the drizzle. Last bloody thing he needed was a soggy bloody newspaper.

      He didn't see Eddie drop to the sidewalk.

      You did NOT look like such a great prize last NIGHT! Eunice Rankin, 1920 Milford Place, directly across the street from the Leeds Building, accused her husband, Frank. "You made a total FOOL of yourself!

      THAT, I can forgive! You didn't have to bring me into it! If you can't hold your booze, then don't DRINK it!

      Please, Dear God! Frank pleaded to the ceiling. "Don't let me kill her! It's too early in the morning and I can't STAND this anymore!

      "Listen, Eunice! Get it clear! I'M not the one who got drunk last night! YOU are!

      "I'M not the one who tried to take George Whoever's pants off right there in the middle of Winnie and Ted's game room, YOU are!

      "I'M not the one who let her big mouth get so filthy it even embarrassed that Mark Whoever jerk who supers the Leeds Building, YOU are!

      "I'M not the one who's going to have to explain to whatever friends she has left why she can't handle booze OR her need to crawl all over anything in pants, YOU are!

      I'M not the one who's hung-over and guilty this damned morning, either! YOU are!

      You lousy bastard! she screeched. "I'm sick! Why did you make me get up at midnight with the whole damned house freezing and the windows open and the whole damned city's noise right here in our bedroom!

      "I'm freezing!

      You're crazy! I can't take this noise!

      Yeah, right! Maybe it'll even wake you up and sober you up enough to understand me! Frank snarled. I'M the one who's not taking anymore, capich?

      She went to the window, just as a sudden lull in the winds made sound seem to evaporate, except for a loud snap from the garage across the street.

      Any sound seemed like a hydrogen bomb to her this morning. The explosive crack seemed almost in the room with her.

      She noticed that very attractive fellow from the apartments next door on his way to work as she slammed the window. She turned back to Frank half a second before he dropped to the sidewalk. Frank had his back to her, putting something in the top bureau drawer. She saw the clock that said 6:15 and screeched, I want a divorce! I don't have to stand for anymore of your shit you lousy stinking bastard! I can make it on my own – probably a lot better than with you, you hear me?!

      I see I don't have to explain things to you, after all! Frank snarled. I was going to suggest that very damned thing! After last night, you won't get a damned thing! You won't get a dime from me, you nympho damned bitch! You'll be free to sleep with every man on the block – assuming you've managed to miss anybody within five miles of this dump....

      It's along here, somewhere, Manny Gregory said to his wife, Arlene. "Nineteen twenty two Milford Place. Their building's supposed to be stucco and across from the Leeds Building.

      "That's the Leeds Building. Lew and Fran expect us at six, so we're already late.

      "I didn't think Florida was supposed to be cold, but I'm even colder than back home! I'll be glad when we're inside. You won't have to remind me to have the heater core fixed. If we had it we wouldn't have to open the window to see ... and there it is!

      "We're to drive right along the right side and can carry the stuff into the delivery door. Lew said it would be open, so we can carry the stuff right up.

      Why is everything so loud?

      Arlene grinned at him. He babbled on and on when he had to drive in these conditions. Nerves.

      It's just a quarter after six, she answered. They expected us between six and six thirty, so we're right on time.

      She looked at her watch. 6:13.

      Manny parked the car and they got out. It was quiet in the lee of the building, but the noise could be heard in a displaced sort of way. Manny opened the trunk and was taking things out

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