Baptist DISTINCTIVE: An Adam Mykonos Mystery (The Adam Myknonos Mystries)

  Baptist DISTINCTIVE By Thomas C Gillen

  An Adam Mykonos Mystery

  Baptist Distinctive by Thomas C Gillen: Gillen Publications 2014

  Copyright: Thomas C Gillen 2013

  To: Marcia. Slim I love you so much my heart hurts. And for those who planted the seeds that lead me to salvation. One Soul still does matter. And most of all for God, who so loved me that Gave His own Son as a ransom for my sins.

  Chapter One:

  For years later I would wonder if it was the Lord or the adversary that caused me to pick up the phone that night. Normally, I am pretty firm about not speaking to any one after ten pm, but my wife was still at work and the still small voice of worry that lives inside the left corner of my brain made me answer the ringing intruder.

  “Mykonos” I said while pausing the O’s on the TV. They were losing two zip to the Yankees, which pleased the New Yorker in me to no end.

  “You’re gonna want to come and meet me at the State Police barracks”, said a silky voice that I knew far too well.

  “No I am not”, I replied.

  There was a puff of air and in my mind, I could see Christina Denmark blow the short piece of hair that perpetually hung in front of her eye up and then with a quick wave of her finger move it over.

  “They’ve arrested Ivy Lexington.” Countered Denmark.

  I was suddenly more awake then I cared to be. “What for?”

  “They claim she killed Joshua and McKenzie.”

  If it had been any one else but Christina I would have figured they were pulling my leg, but while the Lord had given Christina many gifts: a working sense of humor was not one of them.

  “I should go and be with the family”, I said, not really thinking as I spoke.

  I heard Christina puff once again as she said. “She asked for you as soon as I got here.”

  At least she had the presence of mind to call an attorney I thought. I let out a sigh that my Irish Mother would have said was from the West of Ireland and my Albanian father would have called the Balkans Breathe. “I’m on my way.”

  I stumbled to the bathroom threw some water on my face and reintroduced my teeth to the toothbrush. I changed from the shorts and t-shirt I had been wearing to a pair of faded black khakis and a light green Ralph Lauren shirt. I debated a tie for a heartbeat, it was July in Maryland and as hot and muggy as one could ask for even at, I glanced at my watch 11:00PM. My neck, a little on the thick side, as it was did not want the tie, but I felt that I needed the air of formality, after all the woman was the wife of my former Pastor and because nothing in life is ever easy, he and his girlfriend were the people she was accused of killing. So with no small regret, I flipped on a darker green tie and then threw on an old black sports coat that seemed to have lived on the hook behind our bedroom door for more years then we had been married.

  As I plodded down stairs to the garage I slid on a pair of black and gray Merrill’s not the most fashionable of shoes but by far the most comfortable.

  Before I started the car I grabbed my cell and called my wife.

  “Lighthouse Diner guiding people to good food since 2007”, said the woman with the most amazing accent in the world. Rita Thompson-Mykonos, my ever incredible wife, had been raised by her Jamaican born parents in the mountains of Western Maryland just outside of Clear Spring; as such she had much of her Mother and late Father’s thick Jamaican cadence but also the local blend of West Virginia redneck and Pennsylvanian farmer.

  “You’re stealing the tag line from the church now?” I asked.

  Rita laughed, I could see her big brown eyes light up with glee. “No, at church we guide people to Christ here we guide them to good food.”

  “I am the bread of life.” I countered.

  “And there is that.” She said with a sigh. “I was just getting out of here, what’s up?”

  I told her.

  “Wowsier”

  “Yep”

  “I won’t wait up, but wake me when you get in.”

  “Love you.” I said knowing that it would be far too late when I got home and that I would let her sleep.

  “What’s not to love? She said, trying to sound light and breezy but already processing what I had told her. “Be safe.”

  It took me less than ten minutes to reach the Washington County Sherriff’s Office barracks, what we back in New York would have called central booking. Inside was the swirl of a chaos that I both loved and loathed. Washington County and its largest city Hagerstown are not exactly crime free but fall far short of the Precincts of the NYPD, tonight however there was a buzz of excitement that just screamed big case. It was not every day that the former wife of a prominent pastor is arrested for his murder and the murder of his girlfriend, not in Hagerstown heck not even in New York.

  I sauntered over to the front desk.

  “Evening Ray.” I said to the unsmiling deputy who glared at me with the same contempt that the high school quarterback uses on the nerd picking the wedgie out of his pants.

  “Adam, whatta ya want? And whatever it is go peddle it somewhere else.” Ray said.

  He was a short squat cop. One of those of the type that even if he were not in uniform you would know he was a cop. The way he carried himself and the donut powder on his shirt sleeve would give him away. His contempt for me showed in his eyes and the dismissive wave of his hand.

  I should in the interest of fairness stop and explain Ray’s dislike for me. Truth is most cops dislike me. Once upon a time, I was one of them, a member of the NYPD for more than ten years. Then I was arrested on bribery and corruption charges and did six years in federal prison. Was I guilty? I am a sinner saved by grace is all I will say. When I got released I was no longer welcomed nor did I feel at home in my beloved New York. My life as cop was obviously over and I was at loose ends. Not a good place for an ex-con to be. My baby sister Leda had married a local web designer in Hagerstown, so I moved, more for something to do than for a purpose.

  That was six years ago. Nearly five years ago, Leda and her husband guided me to the Lord and I have never looked back. It sounds like a cliché but Jesus came into my heart and my life changed. Now I am still rough around the edges, but in my heart of hearts I know that I know that I know that Jesus died for my sins and that in His resurrection I am born again.

  That same year, I opened a small comic book-sports card store near the Valley Mall and across the street from the Lighthouse Diner which was, and is, owned and operated by Rita, who attended church with us at Calvary Baptist, where Joshua had been Pastor.

  A year after the store opened The Lord lead Rita and me to each other and we married, that was the second best decision I ever made. For a while life was good, the fact that I was an ex-con and a crooked cop seemed to never register on anyone’s radar, then last year Christina Denmark, a family friend asked me to help her investigate an allegation of brutality against an officer of the Hagerstown P.D. needless to say I am now not a fan favorite around here.

  “I’m looking for Christina.” I said to Ray, trying hard to smile sincerely and subserviently.

  “She and the preacher killer are down the hall; holding room” Ray was going to say more but got cut off by a fist slamming against the top of his desk and an irate cry:

  “I demand to see my Mother.” Said a high pitched shrill voice that was trying to sound deep and commanding.

  I took a step back as Joshua Lexington Jr., continued his harangue of Ray. “You people have no business keeping me from my mother. Do you have any idea who I am?”

&nb
sp; Ray and I shared a moment of bounding, as we exchanged the look that only middle age men can share when someone twenty years younger than us poses the imperial question ‘do you know who I am.’ Yep kid, we know, you are some little snot-nosed brat who was in diapers when we were fighting wars, falling in love, building careers and challenging the world; you’re the tail of end of a story that we do not even care about and the generation that will dismantled everything we worked to build. Yep kid, we know who you are.

  “Josh, take it down a step.” I said firmly as I gripped his arm below the elbow.

  Joshua Lexington Jr., shared his father’s piercing blue eyes: but other than that he was his Mother’s child. Tall and thin, his face was elongated like a bad caricature of Dick van Dyke, the shirt he wore hung so loose on his shoulders that the phrase ‘wire coat hangers’ crossed my mind.

  “Brother Mykonos, what are you doing here?” His voice still held too much disrespect.

  “Your mother asked Christina Denmark to call me. I was just going down to speak to them.”

  “I’ll go with you.” He demanded.

  I did not want him there. He was wound to tight at the moment and would slow down the process of helping his mother.

  I did one of the things that I tend to do, and often regret, then need to ask forgiveness for; I made up a new rule. As I did Pastor Joshua’s words “Sometimes it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission”, rang in my head.

  I did my best to look avuncular. At fifty with a shaved head and thin mustache and goatee along with my broad shouldered five foot eleven frame it was actually kind of easy to look like the kid’s uncle. Though he was a few inches taller than me, his thin frame was puny compared to my two hundred and twenty some odd pounds and while I was far from being in the best shape of my life, years as a cop and con had given me a solid built, there was some fat around the middle and my arms had always tended towards thin, but my hands were large and my knuckles show the wear of one to many blows to some poor fool’s face.

  “No sorry kid, rules say only attorneys and their staff can go back and see a suspect.” I glanced at Ray and hoped that his instant dislike of this boy would overrule his long time dislike of me.

  Ray nodded tightly. “Mr. Mykonos is correct. Grab a seat young man I am sure Ms. Denmark will come and speak with you shortly. Adam, they are in conference room seventeen, down the hall and hang a right.”

  I stood in place till Josh sulked over to the bench, gave Ray a fast glance of thank you and headed down the hall.

  One of the most amusing things in the world of political correctness is police departments calling the room suspects are held in a conference room. They are interrogation rooms and sixty years ago I would have found Ivy Lexington handcuffed to a chair while two cops shone a bright light in her face. The style may have changed but the overall physiological effect of being locked in a room, even with your attorney is still the same. I told the cop standing outside the door, who I was and why I was there. He took his keys out and let me. “Ms. Denmark is expecting you.”

  The two women inside the interrogation room… sorry conference room were a study in contrast. One was tall, nearly my height, and stately with deep brown eyes and a prominent noise and chin, her hair was elegantly coffered. She wore a long black skirt and a deep blue top, over which she had on a small black blazer. Pearls adorned her ears and her glasses hung from a chain around her neck. Her shoes my wife would have noted were from nine west.

  The other woman was lucky if her head reached my chest, her mousy blond hair was badly cut and her bangs hung in front of her eyes, her ears seemed to have been borrowed from someone else. She wore a loose fitting sweater and some type of polyester slacks of a color that may have once been purple. Her glasses, held together by tape, hung from the bridge of a nose too small for her face. Her sneakers had a noticeable hole in the side and she looked as if she was perpetually out of air. As she saw me she shot out an elfin hand.

  “Adam, glad you could make it.”

  I smiled, “Wouldn’t miss a party you were throwing Christina.”

  “I am glad the two of you are amused”, Intoned Ivy Lexington, her voice carried the smell of magnolias and the hint of Faulkner darkness.

  “Ivy”, I said offering her my hand. She shook it with the same distaste she always had.

  “I recall when you called me Mrs. Lexington.” She imperiously responded.

  “I recall when you were.” I said with a smile.

  She took a step back as if I had physically assaulted her. “Now is not the time to be mean Brother Adam.”

  I ignored her and turned to Christina. “Can you bring me up to speed?”

  Christina spoke directly to Ivy. “Mrs. Lexington, I am going to advise you that I am officially hiring Mr. Mykonos as an investigator in your case, while he will be discreet and as my employee shares some level of confidentiality, he is an independent consultant and as such could be compelled to testify against you. Do I have your permission to tell him all you have told me?”

  Ivy looked puzzled and then spoke slowly. “Brother Adam would feel bound by a much higher law than yours to keep my secrets…if I had any.” She said.

  Christina puffed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Christina took a long breathe of air and then puffed the bangs out of her eyes before proceeding. “According to the police report at 6:14PM they received a 911 call of shots fired at 112-22 White Pine Road which as you know is McKenzie Daniels townhouse. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office arrived approximately ten minutes later and upon entering the house found Mrs. Lexington standing in the living room holding a 32 caliber pistol, which had recently been fired and Joshua Lexington and McKenzie Daniels dead of gunshot wounds.”

  Ivy moved to speak but I held up my hand. “One second Ivy. Were they killed by 32?”

  “Too soon to tell, apparently.”

  “Paraffin test?”

  “Mrs. Lexington admitted to firing the gun.”

  I tried to hide how startled I was as I turned to Ivy. “Really?”

  “When I arrived I found Joshua and Mac dead, there was a gun near the front door, I picked it up, and I thought I saw someone in the kitchen so I fired though the little open window thing between the dining room and kitchen.”

  “Verified?” I asked Christina.

  “Verified that a bullet landed in the kitchen yes, but given the locations of the bodies it could have been a miss at the real target.”

  “And why was she at Mac’s?”

  “Claims that McKenzie called her and asked her to come over.”

  Ivy piped in loudly. “She DID call me.”

  “Cell Phone?” I asked.

  Christina smiled. “Yes, and yes the cops have it and no I have no verification of fact, yet. You sure you weren’t a lawyer as well as a cop?”

  “I was a con as well as a cop. “I turned to Ivy “Okay from the top. Don’t leave anything out.”

  An hour later I had Ivy’s version of events from the phone call to the arrival of the police.

  “And can you take a stab at weather the person you thought you saw in the kitchen was a man or woman?”

  “I did see a person in the kitchen. I’m not sure of the sex, either a very small man or a small woman.”

  Christina puffed “Narrows that down.”

  Ivy snapped like a school teacher at a tardy student. “I am sorry that in the midst of finding my husband and his paramour dead on the floor I did not have the presence of mind to take note of the description of their killer as he or she raced out the backdoor.”

  “You’re forgiven.” I deadpanned.

  We stood in silence for a moment, just long enough for it to be uncomfortable, finally Ivy asked. “So when can I post bail and go home to my children?”

  “Josh is waiting outside.” I said “Who has Miriam?”

  Ivy shook her head and for the first time all night sobbed. “I am not sure. I need to get to her.”

  Chris
tina and I exchanged a hard look we both knew that chances of bail in a double capital murder case were slim at best. We were saved from having to tell Ivy that, at least for that moment, by a knock on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Ray and another officer entered the small room.

  “Sorry Ms. Denmark but I need to take Mrs. Lexington back through booking now. You can see her again in a few hours, right before the arraignment. Also Sheriff Welter would appreciate it if you’d talk to the people from the Herald-Mail and Channel 25 they are camped out front, he figures maybe if you give them some kind of statement to balance what the D.A. already said we can avoid a media shark feeding. Oh and he wants that crowd out of the barracks like yesterday.”

  Christina gave a tight nod. “Sure.”

  It was an empty hope and we all knew it. There was no way we were going to escape the media.

  “Could you tell the Sheriff that Mr. Mykonos will be acting as an official investigator for the defense, please cooperate with him as much as possible.”

  Ray glared; Christina had just reminded him that he hated me. “Sure.”

  “Ray, I’m going to head over to Mac’s house, can you please call ahead and make sure that I can at least glance around?”

  He shook his head. “Nope, not without orders from Welter I can’t.”

  He led Ivy out of the room.

  Christina smiled. “I’ll see what I can do about that.”

  We walked out of the room and rounded a corner into what could only be called a mob. When Ray had said a crowd I figured that Josh had been joined by one or two people, a crowd in cop terms. I was very wrong, there had to be thirty people there, all from Calvary Baptist Temple, my old church, the church Joshua had pastored, the church that had fired him. The church that hated those of us who left to form a new church, the church that had rallied around Ivy, this was not going to be fun at all.

  Chapter Two:

  As Christina and I approached they swarmed us, many speaking at once and quite a few having not so nice things to say about me.