Killing Frost Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Previous Titles by Ronald Tierney

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  25th Anniversary Appreciation

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Previous Titles by Ronald Tierney

  The Deets Shanahan Mysteries

  THE STONE VEIL

  THE STEEL WEB

  THE IRON GLOVE

  THE CONCRETE PILLOW

  NICKEL-PLATED SOUL *

  PLATINUM CANARY *

  GLASS CHAMELEON *

  ASPHALT MOON *

  BLOODY PALMS *

  BULLET BEACH *

  The Carly Paladino and Noah Lang

  San Francisco Mysteries

  DEATH IN PACIFIC HEIGHTS *

  DEATH IN NORTH BEACH *

  * available from Severn House

  KILLING FROST

  A Deets Shanahan Mystery

  Ronald Tierney

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2015 in Great Britain and the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  Trade paperback edition first published 2015 in Great

  Britain and the USA by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2015 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2015 by Ronald Tierney

  The right of Ronald Tierney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Tierney, Ronald author.

  Killing frost. – (The Deets Shanahan mysteries)

  1. Shanahan, Deets (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

  2. Private investigators–Indiana–Indianapolis–

  Fiction. 3. Murder–Investigation–Fiction. 4. Detective

  and mystery stories.

  I. Title II. Series

  813.5’4-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8477-0 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-583-4 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-631-1 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  To all the souls who have escaped or are about to

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Killing Frost was made possible by all of the usual suspects, brothers Richard and Ryan, Jovanne Reilly and David Anderson.

  25TH ANNIVERSARY APPRECIATION

  On this 25th anniversary, thanks go to the readers, librarians and bookstore owners. I also want to thank family and friends for their support and encouragement, Ruth Cavin for giving me a start, Otto Penzler for providing a bridge to a new publisher when I needed one, and Severn House’s Edwin Buckhalter for taking me in.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Deets Shanahan books haven’t broken any new ground in the mystery genre. However, from the beginning, Shanahan wasn’t standard issue. He was old. He lived in a mid-sized city, one that didn’t have the dangerous, exotic feel of New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco. I should note, though, there were other fictional private eyes of advanced age, and Indianapolis was home to Albert Sampson before Shanahan moved to the city’s East Side. Sampson is the famous Indianapolis PI penned by Michael Z. Lewin, who is also credited with establishing the concept of regional mysteries. Lewin opened the door for many crime writers. Publishers, who lived and worked in New York, could be a little provincial. Someone had to break the rules so the rest of us had a chance. Shanahan was one of the lucky ones.

  St Martin’s Press held onto my first attempt at a mystery novel, Stone Veil. It was probably in a stack of papers in a dusty corner of the Flatiron Building for the two years before I finally called and asked whoever answered the phone to return it. The guy asked me to be patient. They had just hired a new editor and the voice was sure she would like it. The late, legendary Ruth Cavin liked it enough to publish it.

  The book did well. It received an encouraging review from the New York Times, was nominated for a Shamus Award for Best First Novel from the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA) and was serialized in an Eastern European magazine. I might have preferred French, but I was happy as could be. There was, as it turned out, a significant Latvian population in Indianapolis who might have enjoyed it. Sadly, I had no idea my book had been nominated for a national prize. No one told me, so I was spared public defeat when Walter Mosley won the Shamus that year for Devil in a Blue Dress.

  I have to confess, I had no idea what I was doing in those days. I knew very little about the genre. I was, of course, familiar with Hammett and Chandler, mostly through the movies. In fact, just about all my exposure to mysteries came through black-and-white double features when, as kids, my older brother and I spent weekends in the dark environs of the grand old movie houses in downtown Indianapolis. Later, I read The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and several books by Graham Greene, as well as all the very slim volumes of James Bond’s adventures, but I had no idea how many great mystery writers would have enthralled me had I only known about them.

  There was something forbidding about those tough, dangerous-looking paperbacks in the squeaky, swiveling metal stand in the drugstore. I had the sense that they were as forbidden as the little bottles of whiskey on the wall behind the cash register. Unfortunately the pharmacist knew my mother, so my glances at the rack were fleeting. There was a history of the pharmacist and the barber and the grocer telling parents about their wayward children. I learned of their secret network and adapted.

  It’s probably still the case, PI books (pulp fiction) are rarely taught in high school or college literature courses. I remained uninformed until I decided, at forty-something, to start writing them. This separates me from many of my peers who write crime fiction and who were schooled in it much earlier in their lives. This ignorance on my part wasn’t entirely negative. I was able to skip the new writers’ mimic phase altogether, allowing me to find my own voice very early on. On the other hand, there is a valued tradition to uphold.
And there was and is much to learn from veterans in the field.

  One of the things I learned I could have only learned by doing. Just because a writer creates characters doesn’t mean he or she can tell them what to do. When I created Maureen, I had no idea she would play such a meaningful role in every adventure. Although the books are called ‘Deets Shanahan Mysteries,’ Maureen is not a supporting player. As I got to know her, I realized she would never have permitted it. She is smart, funny and strong. A few readers have written me to suggest I knock off Shanahan and let her take over the business. I couldn’t split them up. It is a genuine love affair that began in the first book. Though they never married, they became a team. I’m convinced that the series’ success is based on the way they relate to each other.

  The two of them have had harrowing adventures. They have had fun. So have I – from their odd and awkward meeting in Stone Veil to the political mystery, Iron Glove, the bizarre comedy of Nickel-Plated Soul and the scary and suspenseful mystery Asphalt Moon to this tough thriller, Killing Frost, and all the others.

  The truth is I’m surprised and grateful for the durability of the series. Even so, I still feel like an interloper. There are so many great writers out there, many who started earlier, wrote more, sold more and are more highly regarded. Still, a quarter of a century for old Shanahan isn’t bad, and I am pleased to present this particular story – Killing Frost. This is the eleventh and perhaps last book in the series. It is a little shorter than the others. However, I do not apologize. It is simply the way Shanahan told it.

  We are getting late in his life. What I wanted to relate is a continuation of his character – dogged determination, eyes-wide-open loyalty and protector of those he loved and believed in – even as age, infirmity and overpowering danger threatens it.

  ONE

  Even a cautious sort plays the odds. We’re all gamblers. We have to be. Cross the street, get hit by a car. Take a shower, slip in the tub. Have dinner in a restaurant and choke on a bone. The odds may vary. But every moment of existence is a gamble. All a guy has to do to flirt with death is just sit there, minding his own business. A vein can burst and it’s all over in seconds.

  Deets Shanahan sat in his usual chair in the living room, staring out of the window, waiting, thinking about death. It would have been welcomed not so long ago, before he met Maureen. Before she came into his life, he was a man who sat, night after night, on a stool in a dim bar that smelled of ammonia and urine, patiently waiting for death to overtake him.

  Because of Maureen, living became a generally good way to pass the time. But lately, thoughts of death intruded as they did now while he waited for a knock on the door. Death could, he imagined, looking at his watch, come before the dreaded appointment with Mrs Alexandra Fournier. The odds in this case favored the arrival in his life of Fournier, a potential client and a woman not easily put off, though he had done his best to do so.

  He looked again out the window. He closed his eyes. At seventy-two he embraced the notion that he had a few more years left. However, it appeared his change of heart about checking out early wasn’t necessarily shared by a contrarian universe.

  After the tumor was removed from his brain and a second surgery to relieve the swelling and inflammation not only failed but cut into his motor nerves, he had decided to turn his retirement from semi to full. His left hand and arm were left somewhat unresponsive. Using his left hand like a claw, he could hook around or grip something like a flashlight in a rudimentary way, but couldn’t turn a page in a magazine or pick up a penny off the floor. Or tie his shoes. He had a slight lurch to the left when he walked. It was a slow metamorphosis, he thought – turning into a crab – though he appreciated the humor in God’s, or an indifferent universe’s, choice of symbol.

  Perhaps a demonstration would convince Mrs Fournier she should find a newer model of PI to handle her case, whatever that turned out to be. He checked his watch again, 11:06, went to the window and looked down the slope of his leaf-covered lawn. Sometimes it was difficult to find the house. There was a Pleasant Run North Drive and a South Drive, one on each side of a tree- and bush-lined creek. Though Shanahan lived on South Drive – on East South Drive to make things worse – he could see both streets from his window. No one seemed lost.

  Mrs Fournier wouldn’t say what she wanted on the phone. And he would have discouraged her even more firmly, except that she had been referred by Jennifer Bailey, an old friend of Shanahan’s, a highly respected former Indiana state attorney general. The battered old PI had to at least hear the woman out.

  When the phone rang, he was sure it was his client asking for directions or, he thought with sudden and uncharacteristic optimism, cancelling the whole affair.

  It was Maureen.

  ‘I have to show a home on the north side at six. Do you want me to pick up something for dinner or do you want to cook?’

  ‘Those are my choices?’ Shanahan asked.

  ‘You can take me to dinner.’

  He had to be careful. Going out to dinner involved serious negotiations. Maureen usually wanted to try the newest restaurant in town. That too often meant small portions of artfully placed but largely unrecognizable food, accompanied by a sizable check. Shanahan preferred the tried and true. He needed a plan.

  ‘How about Sakura’s?’ he asked in as casual a tone as he could manufacture.

  ‘Shanahan.’ It wasn’t quite a whine, but it was a tone that preceded a complaint. It was working. ‘That means I’d have to go crosstown twice.’

  ‘I could meet you there,’ he said, again feeling the guilt. She didn’t want him driving yet. There was a question about his field of vision since the surgery, not to mention the possibility of seizures. He felt bad about the deception, but not bad enough. He didn’t want a fancy evening. He was exhausted already, and the day had barely begun.

  ‘That’s a lot of driving for you. Let’s not push it.’

  ‘Got it. How about Amici’s?’

  ‘OK,’ she said, and after a pause added, ‘but I think you just tricked me.’

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Shanahan said, watching as a frail, elderly lady emerged from a well-maintained vintage Buick parked in his driveway. Her coattails flapped in the breeze as she placed her purse on the hood of the car and raised her hands to hold onto her hat.

  Her body jerked. Her body went limp. Her hat blew away. She crumpled, dropping straight down onto the gravel below.

  TWO

  Shanahan punched 911 and moved to the door. Outside was eerily quiet. He provided the operator with his location and a description of what he saw. The lady was face down. When he knelt to one side, he saw the blood trail, followed it to the hole in the back of the neck where it met the skull. Her silver hair matted at the bullet’s entrance. He took her wrist, felt for a pulse, checked again under her chin. None. He answered ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to the operator’s questions but saw no point in continuing the conversation.

  ‘The name is Shanahan and I’ll be here when the police arrive.’ He disconnected, put the phone in his pocket as he stood. It registered. A bullet. He looked down the sloping yard to the stretch of green that divided the two parkways. He decided to get out of what was likely the line of fire, moving to the front of the Buick and grabbing her purse as he went. He wiped the straps with his handkerchief and opened it. He had only a few moments. He wasn’t sure why he was doing this. Habit. Instinct. Yes, he did know. He was going to have to know what she wanted. The police weren’t always helpful.

  Depending on who showed up to investigate, homicide detectives could be more hostile than helpful. He rummaged through her purse.

  Brush, compact, lipstick, wallet, pen, address book. He found one of his old business cards, one with the old address. That address had been crossed out and above it the current one. Twenty-three dollars cash in the wallet and a driver’s license issued to Alexandra Fournier, who lived in the Butler–Tarkington area of the city. There were also school photographs of children,
all dressed up and smiling. Credit cards, supermarket discount cards. The content included what seemed like random sheets of paper. One turned out to be a grocery list. Another, written on a torn corner of a lined legal pad, had an address. Only an address. Same writing as the corrections on his business card.

  He heard the sirens. Two kinds. Police and fire. He put the purse and its contents back where he found them. He kept his business card and the torn piece of paper.

  The medics quickly lost interest in the body. Nothing they could do. The uniformed police appeared a little lost. Two conferred with the medics. When they were finished, the slender one approached Shanahan and the other was on the phone – to homicide, Shanahan thought.

  ‘You called it in?’ the young officer with MacGregor on his nametag asked.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You want to talk me through it?’

  Shanahan gave him an abbreviated version, knowing he’d be talking people through it a number of times before the afternoon was over.

  ‘My guess is the shot came from down there.’ Shanahan pointed to the parkway.

  ‘A shot? You know it’s a gunshot?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘You an expert on these things?’

  ‘I’d take the medical examiner’s word over mine, but I’d probably be checking out where the bullet likely came from …’

  MacGregor looked unsure for a moment. Other uniforms were stretching out the yellow tape. MacGregor took a small notebook from his shirt pocket.

  ‘I saw her fall, Officer. There was no one around. She was shot from behind and from a distance.’