Early Retirement (An Arturo Nash Novel)

Ch. 2

Nash walked into his small two-room apartment and sat down on the rocker his grandfather had given him. He looked at the photo of his wife and daughter, leaned back and just thought.
   His in-laws had been discovered dead two years ago and his wife blamed him and his occupation. She’d taken their daughter and moved back home. It was the one crime that Nash could never find a clue about, his most difficult, yet also his most important case.
   Nash set the picture down and made his way to the refrigerator. He reached in and pulled out a beer. He opened it, took a sip and sat it down on the counter. He walked back into the living room toward the TV remote, but just before he could pick it up his phone began ringing.
   “Nash here,” he said into the phone
    “It’s Mike in the tech department,” the computer tech answered
    “Were you able to retrieve the messages?” Nash asked
    “Just the ones from her husband,” Mike answered
    “Well thanks anyway,” Nash said clicking off.
                               ……………………………………..
“Coming, coming,” Margie Watson said to whomever was knocking at the front door.
She reached the door, unlocked it and was shoved up against the wall.
“No. Wait. What do you want?” Watson asked fearfully
“What did Bridget Galdenbaum tell you about “the wall”” the raspy-voiced man asked
“The wall, I don’t know what wall you’re…”
“Don’t play stupid with me lady. I know she mentioned something to you.” The raspy voiced man said holding her even tighter against the wall.
“All I know is that she was doing some kind of research about a wall in the school.” Watson answered.
“Thank you,” the raspy-voiced man said. “Now to take care of you”.
“No! Please I told you what you wanted to know. Don’t hurt me.” Watson begged.
“Sorry but I can’t afford to have you alive,” the raspy-voiced man said.
Watson kneed the man in the stomach and ran toward the phone which was sitting on the coffee table. The man jumped up, ran after her, and tackled her to the ground.
“You had to make this hard lady,” the raspy-voiced man said reaching into his pocket.
Watson grabbed her work bag and swung it at her assailant’s head. He fell backward and she started crawling toward the table. The raspy-voice man managed to get to his feet and pull his gun out of his pocket. Watson had just about reached the phone when the first bullet entered her back. She crumpled to the floor as her shirt became stained crimson. The next one entered the back of her head. The raspy-voiced man fired three more shots as he backed out of the house.
                                 ………………………………………..
Nash thought back to the chilly day in January when he and his wife walked into his in-laws house to find his father-in-law beaten to death and mother-in-law strangled on her couch. He closed his eyes and tried recounting every detail of the scene. The blood spatters all over the carpet, the broken lamp, the hole in the wall. Suddenly his silence was shattered by the ringing of his phone.
   “You’re joking right Steve?” Nash asked pretty sure that Blanco was for real. “I’m on my way.”
  Twenty minutes later Nash pulled up to the same house with the same small garden that he’d been in front of only twenty-four hours earlier. He walked up to the front door, but was not greeted by the tabby but by Blanco.
  “So what’s the rundown?” Nash asked staring at the lifeless corpse of Margie Watson.
  “It’s pretty self-explanatory. The victim was shot five times. Twice in the head.” Blanco said
  “Was there forced entry” Nash asked looking around the room.
  “Not that we could tell.” Blanco said.
  “It’s very strange that somebody she knew would shoot her that many times.” Nash observed.
  “What are you getting at?” Blanco said.
  “Did any of the neighbors hear or see anything?” Nash asked
  “The lady next door said she saw a Mercedes pull in as she walked to her mailbox then heard some gunshots.” Blanco said.
  “Did you say a Mercedes?” Nash asked staring at Blanco.
   “Yeah.” Blanco said confused.
   “What color?” Nash asked
   “Silver.” Blanco said reading from his notebook. “What’s with all the car questions?”
   “A silver Mercedes cut me off yesterday. Send a couple of officers out and see if anyone got a license plate number.”
   “Do you really think that that’s necessary?” Blanco asked.
   “I’m in charge here Steve; now please send those officers out.” Nash said.
Blanco left and Nash began walking around the room. He knelt down and looked at Watson’s work bag and noticed a small rip at the bottom.
   “She must have hit him with it.” Nash said. “Right on lady.”
Nash stood up and walked back toward the front door and stopped at the wall across from it. He peered at the medium-sized hole..
  “I take back what I said earlier, she didn’t know him and this hole says so.” Nash said to Blanco.
  “So it was a complete stranger.” Blanco said
  “Yeah, but what are the odds that two teachers from the same school would be killed twenty-four hours apart?” Nash asked exiting the house.
  “About slim to none.” Blanco said following Nash.
Nash and Blanco were walking towards their respective cars when a piece of paper flew by.
  “What’s this?” Nash said stooping to pick the paper up.

“I don’t know, probably just trash.” Blanco said
“Well it’s got the victim’s name on it so I think it’s worth taking in.” Nash said.
                                ……………………………………
“Now I have to go to that old woman’s house and get her computer.” A raspy-voiced man said. “I’ll have to trick my way into the house.”
“The question is what kind of trick I could use?” he pondered.
“I got it.”
The raspy voiced man walked from the place that he was pacing and up to his closet door. He opened the door, reached in and pulled out a blue shirt with red embroidery. The shirt was a little tight but the raspy-voiced man didn’t care.
  “I’m sure glad I never got rid of this stupid shirt,” the raspy-voiced man said.
  He slipped on a new pair of jeans and a baseball cap and left the house.
  ……………………………………
Darren Galdenbaum sat his glass down on the table as he rose to answer the door.
  “Yes. May I help you?” he asked to the man on the other side of the door.
  “My name is Riley and I’m with Empire Electronics. I was called by a Bridget Galdenbaum.” The man said in a raspy voice.
  “I didn’t know my wife called you. What is that needs repair?” Galdenbaum asked.
   “A laptop computer.” The man calling himself Riley said.
“Come in.”