Early Retirement (An Arturo Nash Novel)

Ch. 1

"I warned you," the raspy voice said as he paced in front of the frightened Bridget Galdenbaum, "You should have left well enough alone."

Galdenbaum writhed, her hands bound behind her, and yelled as loudly as she possibly could.

"Give it up old lady, nobody's going to hear you," the voice said.

Galdenbaum ignored the voice's request and yelled some more.

"Help! Anybody hear me, please help!" Galdenbaum begged

"Since you can't seem to shut up, let me go ahead and end our little conference here," the voice said darkly.

...........................................................................

Detective Arturo Nash walked around the grizzly scene, being careful not to step in any of the enormous amount of blood that covered the floor. In his twelve years on the force this was one of the worst crime scenes he'd been to.

"Bridget Galdenbaum, fifty-two, second grade teacher, as you can probably tell, one bullet right between the eyes and out the back." Officer Steve Blanco read off his pad.

Nash kneeled next to the body and ran his eyes from left to right. He stood up and walked around behind her. The rope used to bind the victim still tied her wrists together. Nash looked up and motioned for the CSI unit to come and remove the restraint.

"Someone wanted her dead, real quick and real bad." Nash said "The only thing is why he would want to kill her at her job."

Nash stood; hand over mouth, pondering the criminal mind while the other officers started collecting evidence.

"I'm heading over to the precinct for a while. If anything turns up, let me know." Nash said to Blanco.

Twenty-five minutes later Nash was sitting at his desk looking over the crime scene photos that had just been emailed to him. Nash clicked on a photo that showed Galdenbaum's body facing him, the bullet hole very apparent in her skull. He moved onto the next photo and stared at the view of the classroom door. The picture was rather ordinary. A desk moved to the side, a coffee cup on the floor. Then something caught Nash's eye. Galdenbaum's wallet was sitting on her desk, but her purse was on the floor twenty feet away. Nash copied the picture and closed the browser. He dialed the number to the evidence collection room and waited for an answer.

"When Bridget Galdenbaum's purse comes in set it aside please, and give me a call." Nash said to the clerk.

Nash put down the phone and clicked to the next picture. In it was the victim from her legs down. He noticed that there was a small rip in the tweed skirt she was wearing. Nash clicked his way through the rest of the photos then turned away from the computer. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Blanco's number.

"Who was the last person to leave before Bridget Galdenbaum?" Nash asked.

"Margie Watson, sixth grade teacher." Blanco read into his phone from his pad.

"Looks like I'll be paying her a visit," Nash said hanging up the phone.

It was a sunny day, hot even unusually so for this part of the country. The residents of Blister Creek, California, knew however that their location, right smack in the middle of the state, meant that it would be at least ten degrees hotter here than up north. Blister Creek was a modest community named because of the calluses people developed on their hands while panning for gold in 1849. The police would want Bridget Galdenbaum's murder to remain quiet for at least twenty-four hours, but they knew it would never happen.

Nash was in his car, driving to Margie Watson's house, when a sleek, silver Mercedes pulled in front of him.

"Moron." Nash yelled.