Murder on the Lake of Fire
Mikel J. Wilson
(Mourning Dove Mysteries, #1)
Published by: Acorn Publishing
Publication date: December 1st 2017
Genres: LGBTQ+, Mystery, Romance
At twenty-three and with a notorious case under his belt, Emory Rome has already garnered fame as a talented special agent for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. His career is leapfrogging over his colleagues, but the jumping stops when he’s assigned a case he fought to avoid – to investigate an eerie murder in the Smoky Mountain hometown he had abandoned. This mysterious case of a dead teen ice-skater once destined for the pros is just the beginning. In a small town bursting with envious friends and foes, Rome’s own secrets lie just below the surface. The rush to find the murderer before he strikes again pits Rome against artful private investigator, Jeff Woodard. The PI is handsome and smart, seducing Rome and forcing him to confront childhood demons, but Woodard has secrets of his own. He might just be the killer Rome is seeking.
Excerpt:
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. The 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.
Author Bio:
Mystery and science fiction author Mikel J. Wilson received widespread critical praise for his debut novel, Sedona: The Lost Vortex, a science fiction book based on the Northern Arizona town’s legends of energy vortexes and dimensional travel. Wilson now draws on his Southern roots for the Mourning Dove Mysteries, a series of novels featuring bizarre murders in the Smoky Mountains region of Tennessee.
Murder on the Lake of Fire, the first novel in the Mourning Dove Mysteries series, will be available December 1, 2017.
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3 comments:
Congratulations on your new release Mikel the book sounds intriguing and is now on my wish list.
Sounds Awesome.
Congrats
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