The
11,600-word novelette, "The Body in the Parking Structure", was my
first book written in a shorter format than the traditional novel. This very fast-paced mystery story
features characters from the author's popular South American mystery series
working on a murder case at home in Los Angeles. The book can be purchased from Amazon for $1.99, and
is free to borrow by Prime members. Just
click on the appropriate link below or the book cover image on the right. Can you figure out whodunit before Roger
does?
Here’s an excerpt (950 words—8% of the story) from the
beginning of the book to get you hooked:
Chapter 1. Suzanne finds the body
For the
first time since we had met, Suzanne discovered a dead body without me being
there. She was collecting her car at
twilight from the UCLA parking structure after a quick trip to the laboratory
to change the samples on a DNA sequencer.
The structure seemed to be deserted except for her and a large lump
lying lifeless between her car and the garage wall. She called 911 to report the body then called
me.
The police
and I arrived at the garage at about the same time. While she was waiting for us, Suzanne took a
closer look at the corpse and got her second shock of the night. She not only counted at least five bullet
holes in the body but she also recognized the victim from one of our previous
cases. It was Eugenio Vasquez, a
biochemist from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, who we had met the previous year in Lima,
Peru. We had spent a pleasant afternoon
with him and his cousin Rogelio, at a couple of museums, eating ceviche for our
first time and drinking Peruvian beer.
The
responding police officers took her name, address, asked about her reason for
being there, and checked her car registration.
Suzanne was asked to stay out of the way and wait for the detectives to
question her. I identified myself as her
husband and a former LA Police Department homicide detective who had just
arrived on the scene. They were OK with
me keeping her company while we waited for the detectives to arrive.
The first
chance we had to be alone Suzanne slumped against me, using my body to support
her, and very quietly brought me up to date.
"Eugenio had a slip of paper in his
pocket with my name and UCLA address on it.
The same slip of paper also had the name of a small local Biotech
company, Plantacur, on it."
I asked her
how she knew this.
She
admitted to having gone through his pockets after recognizing the body during
the time before the police arrived.
"I was
working with RNA in the lab, so had a few pairs of plastic gloves in my
pockets. I couldn't have left any
fingerprints or DNA on Eugenio's body or the note, so I put the note back in
his pocket. Do you remember who Professor
Vasquez was, Roger? We met him in Lima
last year."
"Yes,
I remember him from our day at the Incan Museum. He studied in Australia so was fluent in
English and told a lot of Foster Beer jokes.
I liked him, both as a person and because most of the locals didn't
speak English, so I hung out with him a lot that first day. Do you remember what he did at the university
in Santa Cruz?"
"He
was what we call an Ethnobotanist. He
studied local exotic plant species that the Shamans and Curanderos from the
indigenous tribes used for curing local diseases as possible sources of new and
novel drugs for the developed world. I
wonder if that's his link to either me or to Plantacur. All of this raises the question of what
should I tell the police when they question me."
"They're
going to find your name in his pocket.
So, you answer all of their questions truthfully, but don't volunteer
any additional information. You don't
have any idea why he had your name in his pocket and you don't think you've ever
heard of Plantacur. Tell them anything
you remember from that day in Lima, but they don't have to know you were there
for anything other than a scientific meeting where you were an invited
speaker."
The
detectives arrived and quickly separated us and started questioning
Suzanne. They treated her politely as a
witness rather than as a suspect and finished with her after less than 20
minutes. We drove home in two cars and
got busy with our normal routines, Suzanne feeding Robert, our 9 month old son,
and bathing him while I started cooking dinner for Suzanne, Robert's nanny
Bruce, and me.
Over our
very late dinner served at 10:30 PM, the normal time for supper in South
America but not for us in California, the main topic of discussion was
tonight's murder. Suzanne described
finding the body for Bruce's benefit.
The questioning by the detectives was perfunctory at best. They confirmed that she was a Professor at
UCLA, that she sometimes stayed late or returned to the lab from our nearby
house, and that she always parked her car in the parking structure when she was
at work. She had met the victim casually
a year earlier at a scientific meeting in Peru.
That was it. She frowned and
fiddled with her food.
"I
have a bad feeling that this killing is going to go into the police files as
just another Hispanic killed in a drug deal that went bad. If that happens, there's no way it's going to
be solved. That is, unless we solve
it. Do you have some time to
investigate, Roger? Bruce and I can
help."
"I
liked Eugenio and shouldn't be all that busy for the next week or so. Vincent
can cover for me if any new cases come calling. Sure, count me in."
I
volunteered to cover the Plantacur angle tomorrow, and also to see whether
Eugenio's name cropped up in a quick computer search of recent patents on
potential new drugs. Suzanne would talk
to people in her Biochemistry Department to find out if anyone had seen or
heard anything unusual the previous night.
Bruce would look after Robert and serve as the reserves if needed.
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