Little Girl Blue, a Seth and Ava Mystery Read online

  Little Girl Blue

  A Seth and Ava Mystery

  Claudia Hall Christian

  Cook Street Publishing

  Denver, CO

  by

  Claudia Hall Christian

  StoriesbyClaudia.com

  Abee Normal, Paranormal Investigations

  The Case Book of Abee Normal, Paranormal Investigations, Volume 01

  The Case Book of Abee Normal, Paranormal Investigations, Volume 02

  Alex the Fey Thrillers

  The Fey

  Learning to Stand

  Who I am

  Lean on Me

  In the Grey

  Finding North

  About Face

  In Deep (coming 2019)

  The Denver Cereal

  The Denver Cereal Fort Lupton

  Celia’s Puppies Fort Morgan

  Cascade Fort Collins

  Cimarron Olney Springs

  Black Forest Manitou Springs

  Fairplay Idaho Springs

  Gold Hill Poncha Springs

  Silt Hot Sulfur Springs

  Larkspur Glenwood Springs

  Firestone Pagosa Springs (2019)

  Grand Junction (Denver Cereal V1-10)

  Fort Garland (Denver Cereal V11-13)

  The Queen of Cool

  The Queen of Cool

  Seth and Ava Mysteries

  Tax Assassin

  Carving Knife

  Friendly Fire

  Cigarette Killer

  Little Girl Blue

  Billie’s Bounce

  Suffer a Witch

  Suffer a Witch

  Copyright © Claudia Hall Christian

  ISNI: 0000 0003 6726 170X

  Licensed under the Creative Commons License:

  Attribution – NonCommercial – Share Alike 3.0

  ISBN-13 : 978-1-938057-66-3 (print)

  978-1-938057-67-0 (digital)

  Library of Congress: 2019941704

  Cover credit: Amanda Walker, PA

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  First edition © May 2019

  Cook Street Publishing

  ISNI: 0000 0004 1443 6403

  PO Box 18217

  Denver, CO 80218

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  The Tax Assassin

  About Claudia Hall Christian

  One

  Ava O’Malley pushed open the door to her husband, Seth’s hospital room. His childhood friend Claire looked up from the magazine she was reading when Ava opened the door.

  “What’s the word?” Claire asked.

  “They’ll give us the contract only if . . .” Ava nodded toward Seth.

  “Let’s wake him,” Claire said.

  Piano prodigy and world-famous detective, Seth O’Malley had been shot a few days before. Now, he’d been confined to a hospital bed until he was stable enough to return to his home in Denver. His wife, Ava, was a forensic specialist who ran a forensic laboratory at the Denver Crime Lab.

  Not one to stand on ceremony, Claire gave to Seth’s shoulder a little shake. He opened his eyes and looked at her. She nodded to Ava, who was standing at the end of the bed.

  “The state says that they’ll give us the grant — you know the one to review cold cases in rural Colorado . . .” Ava started.

  Seth’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment before he nodded.

  “They’ll give us the money only if you agree to be the lead detective on the cases,” Ava said. She flushed and began speaking quickly. “I know the timing is awful, but this grant will give counties precious forensic resources and investigative attention they don’t and won’t otherwise have. Families are waiting to learn about what happened to their loved ones and . . .”

  Seth’s eyes drifted closed. Ava looked at Claire. She scowled and shook Seth awake again. His eyes flicked to Claire and then to Ava.

  “Just nod,” Claire said.

  Seth nodded and collapsed back to the pillow. Claire sat back down.

  “That’s the best you’re going to get,” Claire said.

  “I need his signature,” Ava said.

  “Is that it?” Claire asked.

  Claire held out her hand for the piece of paper. Ava gave her the sheet and a pen. Claire signed it quickly and gave it back to Ava.

  “It’s likely that I’ve signed more of his signatures than he has,” Claire said with a chuckle.

  Ava gave her an unsure look.

  “When my mom started running the apartment building, women weren’t allowed to have their own checking accounts,” Claire said. “He wasn’t married to my mother, so she didn’t have access to the rental account. She couldn’t even deposit the checks without his signature! She had me sign his name on checks to pay workmen or whatever bills came up.”

  “Wow,” Ava said. “Seth knew she was doing it?”

  “Of course,” Claire said. “It was common practice at the time. It’s good that some things have changed.”

  “You think he’ll be mad — you know, when he wakes up?” Ava asked.

  “No more than usual. The man is mad as a hatter,” Claire said with a grin. Turning more serious, she looked at Ava directly. “He’d do anything for you, and he loves figuring things out. I’m sure he won’t mind at all. You’ll probably have to fight to keep him from taking over.”

  Ava nodded and practically jogged out of the room. If she hurried, she could fax the form to the Colorado State Department of Public Safety before they closed for the day.

  “It’s about time!” a male voice said as he answered the phone.

  “I saw that you called,” said the elderly judge known to be tough on crime. “I had to wait until I could respond in private.”

  The elderly judge looked around his large, wood-paneled office. The room had been his father’s private sanctum. For the last forty years, it had been his. He unconsciously ran his hand over the desk. He felt safe here.

  “You have to stop this,” a familiar male voice said.

  The caller’s American accent indicated his wealth and Ivy League education. The slight tremor in his words indicated his age.

  “She’s a child,” the elderly judge said. “What can she possibly do?”

  “She’s twenty-six,” the man said. “She can do plenty.”

  “She is no danger to us,” the elderly judge said.

  He cleared his throat of cancer-related phlegm before repeating his party’s campaign slogan.

  “The rural counties in Colorado have long been ignored,” elderly judge said. “Their cold cases deserve justice just as much as any case in Denver or Boulder or . . .”

  “Sure,” the man said, cutting the elderly judge off. “That’s why we’ve been able to get away with . . .”

  “We have to give the grant to someone,” the elderly judge said. “Mrs. O’Malley is Aaron Alvin’s daughter. Anything she exposes will serve only to expose her own father.”

  “Her dead father,” the man grumbled. “You can’t shame him anymore.”

  The elderly judge cleared his throat and took a long drink of his single-malt scotch.

  “She’s married
to O’Malley,” the man said. “You couldn’t control him before. You certainly cannot control him now.”

  “O’Malley is currently in the hospital fighting for his life,” the elderly judge said. “If he recovers — and that’s a big ‘if’ — he won’t be at full capacity for at least a year. By that time, she’ll be deep into some intrigue in some backwater town.”

  “Anything to support the rural communities,” the man said, wryly.

  “You know that bringing justice to rural Colorado is my one true passion,” the elderly judge said, with a snort of a laugh. “It says so right on the website.”

  They laughed.

  “Don’t panic,” the elderly judge said.

  “Easy for you to say,” the man said.

  “You already destroyed the case files?” the elderly judge asked.

  “Twenty-five years ago,” the man said. “But there’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

  “I know that,” the elderly judge’s voice rose with irritation. “Would you rather the board give the grant to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation?”

  “No, no,” the man said.

  “This woman — child — really, is no threat to us,” the elderly judge said with a derisive sniff. “Just keep your mouth shut and this will blow past us. We’ll get the win for supporting the rural counties and no one will be the wiser.”

  The man grunted and hung up the phone. The elderly judge set the receiver down. He looked at the phone for a long while. Then, he closed his eyes and took a labored breath.

  The doctor had told him six months ago that it would be a miracle if he lived out the year.

  The closer he got to death, the more he heard her screams. Every time he closed his eyes, his mind flooded with the sensation of her blood and tissue splashing onto him. No matter how many times he washed, he couldn’t seem to get bits of her flesh off his skin.

  He was going to hell, and soon. That was clear.

  His only chance at salvation was in the hands of the daughter of that scoundrel Aaron Alvin and Seth O’Malley, a man he hated with every cell in his body.

  He took a ragged breath and made the slow progression to bed. Maybe, just maybe, he would not hear her screams tonight.

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  Two

  Four months later

  As she did every morning, Ava sat at the kitchen counter and drank her cup of coffee.

  Her husband, Seth O’Malley, was usually out for his run. Their housekeeper, Maresol, was typically moving around the house to see what needed her attention. Bernie, Seth’s father, normally would be sitting in the front room, reading through no less than six international newspapers. Her friend and their handyman, Dale, wasn’t awake yet.

  For about twenty minutes, Ava sat at the counter in the company of her own thoughts.

  Although the details were a little different, today was no exception.

  Recovering from being shot, Seth was downstairs in his piano room rather than running. Seth would rather play the piano than do almost anything. If she listened carefully, she could hear him run through scales to warm up his hands for the day. Having gotten Seth to his piano room, Maresol was having breakfast at a local diner with her girlfriends. Not about to change, Bernie was reading his newspapers, and Dale was asleep.

  Relishing the quiet, Ava sighed and took a long drink of her coffee.

  Somewhere in the near-silent house, a cell phone rang.

  Ava spent most of her day at the mercy of her telephone. For these few minutes, she had nothing to do with any kind of phone, text, email, or computer.

  She heard their ancient elevator make a groaning journey to the basement. A few minutes later, she heard it make its way back up to the first floor.

  In an effort to steal just one more moment of still quiet, she closed her eyes.

  She felt her husband sitting in his wheelchair at the edge of the room. Ava opened her eyes and smiled. She knew that she should be a good feminist and hold the line with “her time,” but Seth’s most recent brush with death still held purchase in her heart. She turned to him.

  Even in a wheelchair, Seth radiated energy and light. His eyes were bright with laughter. The only sign of his ongoing healing was the wheelchair and the soft blanket that rested across his lap. Her eyes fell on the blanket before looking at him.

  “What’s up?” Ava asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Seth said. “I know this is your quiet time, but . . .”

  “It’s okay,” Ava said.

  He rolled into the den area next to the kitchen. She turned around in her seat.

  “I just got a call and . . .” Seth looked up at her. He gave her a wide, toothy grin. “Did you know that I’m the lead detective on some grant to solve rural cold cases? The money just came through. And guess what? I’m making a salary!”

  Ava nodded.

  “How did that happen?” Seth asked.

  “Well . . .” Ava said.

  She opened her mouth to spew the entire guilty story, to apologize, and to beg his forgiveness. Before she could get out even a word, she noticed that he had pulled a thick file from under the blanket. She bit back her guilty automatic response.

  “Do I have any say on which cases we investigate?” Seth asked.

  Her apologies still threatening to leave her mouth, she trusted herself only to look at him.

  Seth held up the file.

  “What’s this?” Ava asked.

  “Should we get the team together?” Seth asked.

  “First, what is this?” Ava asked.

  “It’s the brutal murder of a young African-American girl,” Seth said. “Your father and his cronies killed her — maybe by accident, maybe on purpose. They buried her in Kiowa County — or, rather, attempted to bury her. I always believed they were hoping some animals would scatter her bones.”

  “How . . .?” Ava asked.

  “If I’m going to work on cold cases in rural counties,” Seth said, “I want to start with this one.”

  Ava blinked. Seth didn’t care that he’d been signed up for this duty while he was on his deathbed. As usual, he had moved past accepting what had happened and onto achieving his goals.

  “Why?” Ava asked.

  “Because I know who did it,” Seth said.

  “Why didn’t you . . .?” Ava asked.

  “I couldn’t prove it,” Seth said. “We didn’t have swanky forensics then. That’s where you and your team come in.”

  Knowing that he was pandering to her, Ava shook her head. He gave her a charming grin.

  “I didn’t get this grant to be the O’Malley clean-up team,” Ava said, in an attempt to hold her ground. “How many cases like this do you have?”

  “Five,” Seth said. “Right now. You never know who’s going to call.”

  “Who called you this morning?” Ava asked.

  “Sheriff from Kiowa County. Pete Cabrón, Junior,” Seth said. He nodded to the folder. “He’s the one who found the girl all those years ago.”

  “And now?” Ava asked.

  “He wants this off his cold-case list and . . .” Seth said.

  Seth fell silent.

  “And?” Ava asked.

  “He’s a new Sheriff,” Seth said. “Just took over from his dad, if you can believe it.”

  “Rural county,” Ava said with a shrug.

  “Exactly,” Seth said. “Pete Cabrón wants to send a message that Kiowa County is not a dumping zone for Denver psychopaths. At least that’s what he said. There’s no way to know now what his actual motives might be.”

  Unsure of how to respond, Ava simply looked at him.

  “Want to win some cases?” Seth asked.

  Smiling from ear to ear, he held up the file and wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Looks good on grant extensions,” Seth said.

  Ava laughed.

  “Come get me when you want to meet,” Seth said.

  He held out the file, and she took
it. The file was surprisingly heavy. Before she could comment, he spun around in his wheelchair and was on his way back downstairs to his piano.

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  Three

  “Seriously,” said Leslie McClintock, PhD, one of Ava’s laboratory technicians.

  Leslie’s long, curly blond hair was tucked up in a ponytail. Her nose and cheeks were covered with freckles. A tall, fit woman, she preferred the ease of clogs and wide dresses.

  “How cool is this?” Leslie continued. “We get to choose the cases we want to work on.”

  They were sitting in the den area off the kitchen in Seth and Ava’s home. Maresol had fed them a New Mexican meal made up of the magical combination of chilies, spices, cheese, and love. Maresol was wiping down the cutting boards.

  “Right injustices,” Nelson Weeks, MD, said from his spot loading dishes into the dishwasher. He was Ava’s technology forensic analyst and gunshot specialist. He had recently given up his ugly glasses for contacts and shaved his scraggly beard, unveiling a face that would compete with any model’s. He was bodybuilder fit. “It feels so Spiderman.”

  “‘Spiderman’?” asked Dr. Robert “Blood Splatter Bob” Parrish, retired FBI forensics leader, and co-team leader. He rinsed a dish and gave it to Nelson.

  Bob had easily been Nelson’s height. His black hair had turned to grey, and he still wore it executive short. With age, he’d lost some height and was a little soft around the middle. He preferred wearing dad jeans and button-down shirts.

  “Superman,” Bob said.

  “Wonder Woman,” Fran DeKay, the other laboratory technician, said from where she was wiping the counter.

  Fran had a shock of short black hair that was painstakingly maintained by her hairdresser. She was short in stature but strong in personality and physique. Her skin was the light-brown tea color from her Mexican Apache ancestors.

  “Wonder Woman!” Leslie said, holding a fist to the ceiling. She picked up the last of the dishes and brought them to Bob.