Answering Machine Knew Read online

  The Answering Machine Knew

  A Renee Brown Mystery

  Book 1

  Fay Risner

  Cover Art

  All Rights Reserved 2015

  by author Fay Risner

  Copyright (c) 2015

  All Rights Reserved

  Fay Risner

  Published by Fay Risner At Smashwords

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to the actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locals are entirely coincidental. Excerpts from this book cannot be used without written permission from the author.

  Booksbyfay Publisher

  Author, editor and Publisher

  [email protected]

  Fay Risner's books

  Nurse Hal Among The Amish Series

  A Promise Is A Promise Doubting Thomas

  The Rainbow’s End Hal’s Worldly Temptations

  As Her Name Is So Is Redbird

  Emma’s Gossamer Dreams The Courting Buggy

  Amazing Gracie Historical Mystery Series

  Neighbor Watchers Poor Defenseless Addie

  Specious Nephew Will O Wisp

  The Country Seat Killer The Chance Of A Sparrow

  Moser Mansion Ghosts

  Locked Rock, Iowa Hatchet Murders

  Renee Brown Mystery Series

  The Answering Machine Knew

  Westerns

  Stringbean Hooper Westerns Tread Lightly Sibby

  The Dark Wind Howls Over Mary The Blue Bonnet

  Small Feet’s Many Moon Journey Coffin To Lie On

  Ella Mayfield's Pawpaw Militia-Civil War

  Christmas books

  Christmas Traditions - An Amish Love Story Christmas With Hover Hill

  Leona’s Christmas Bucket List

  Fiction

  Listen To Me Honey Robot Grandma

  Children Books

  Spooks In Claiborne Mansion

  My Children Are More Precious Than Gold

  Mr. Quacker

  Nonfiction about Alzheimer’s disease

  Open A Window - Caregiver Handbook

  Hello Alzheimer’s Goodbye Dad-author’s true story

  Cookbook

  Midwest Favorite Lamb Recipes

  Books published by Booksbyfay Publisher

  Romance

  Sunset Til Sunrise On Buttercup Lane by Connie Risner

  Military-nonfiction-Vietnam War

  Redcatcher MP by Mickey Bright

  The short story version of this book – The Answering Machine Knew – I entered in the 2009 Arkansas Writers' Conference in the category Crime Fiction. The story was awarded first honorable mention.

  Prologue

  Plop down and take a load off your feet while we get acquainted. I'm Police Detective Renee Brown from Wedgewood, Minnesota. I was born twenty miles away in the county seat's area hospital thirty years ago and have lived in Wedgewood ever since.

  I was raised in the average small town, Father Knows Best household. Dad owns Brown's Shoe Store on Main Street, having inherited it from his father. He's average looking, medium built and just getting a paunch with middle age.

  Mom was a looker in her younger days. Now she has gray streaked black hair and spreading hips, but she's still pretty. She chose to stay home to raise me and my sister, Diane, whose two years younger than me. Of course, married women were homemakers in those days if they had a husband making a good living for the family like my dad has.

  My hair is dark like my mom's. My eyes are dark brown, almost black. When I was little, Mom called me the spitting image of her mother's mother, a Chippewa Indian princess. I I said I didn't want to be related to an Indian, so I suspected Mom added the princess title to impress me.

  Mom even showed me pictures of my great grandma to prove we looked alike. I couldn't see the resemblance, but just in case others did, I refused to wear pigtails. No way did I want to end up mistaken for an Indian and get carried off to the Chippewa Indian Settlement to live.

  Then there's my sister, Diane. Well, what can I say about her? To me, she's just my little sister. She looks like my father's side of the family with fair hair and skin. Just like Dad, she's serious natured to the point of being boring, but she has a real nice husband.

  We have always been close, but since we've grown up, we don't spend much time together. Diane and her husband, Paul Logan, bought an older ranch style home in the housing development constructed back in the sixties on the north edge of town. They're busy with their own life as I am mine, so we mostly meet up on holidays at my parents house.

  Wedgewood is in the middle of farm country. Was a time we knew everyone that lived in town, and they knew my family. You know how that goes.

  Only two churches in town, Catholic and Lutheran. My family is Catholic. Mom and Dad are civic minded volunteers on several church committees. Dad makes the effort, because it might help his shoe store business.

  My senior year of high school, I mulled over what I should choose for a career. I guess I took too long to speak up. One night, Dad folded the Wedgewood Weekly Newspaper and laid it in his lap. When he focused on me, I knew something was on his mind.

  He asked me which college I would like to attend. One for nursing or one for teaching? Of course, it's not hard to see how he'd think that way. Those were the only two choices single women had for respectable work back then.

  By the time Dad asked me, I'd already decided what I wanted to do. I just hadn't gotten up the nerve to tell him. You see I've always been something of a dare devil, and I knew he wouldn't be pleased with my decision.

  Mom listened quietly, with interest, to our conversation while she crocheted on a doily to give as a gift. She's made many over the years in all shapes and sizes. When she didn't have anyone in mind to give the doilies to, she stocked piled a bunch just for a way to spend her evenings productively.

  Now that Dad had brought the subject up, I didn't have a choice but to discuss my future. I told him I didn't want to go to either of those colleges. I was going to the Police Academy.

  You should have seen Dad's chin drop as he eyed me over his glasses. Mom's reaction was more subtle. That might have been the only time, she dropped a stitch and had to tear out a row make a correction.

  “You don't want to do that,” Dad said earnestly.

  “Actually yes, I do. A policeman job is more interesting to me than the other two choices.” I folded my arms and looked him square in the eyes.

  Mom glanced at me while her crochet hook flew in and out of the stitches in the last row. With a quick smile and a wink she always used when she didn't agree with Dad and wanted to side with us girls,” she said, “Dear, it is your life. If that's your choice, go for it.”

  Dad knew he'd been ganged up on when Mom expressed an opinion different from his. He picked up the newspaper, shook the folds out and held it in front of his face to signify our conversation was over. Safely behind it, he muttered, “Ornery little cuss.”

  Mind you I didn't take offense. In fact, I figure there are times when he's on the golf course with his friends, he's sharing wife stories about something Mom did that irritated him. I'm sure he calls her an ornery cuss, too.

  That's his favorite by word for anyone he's mad at. The only one in the family he doesn't get upset with is Diane. She has always been the sweet, good natured baby of the family to hear Dad tell it.

  After high school graduation, I moved sixty miles away to entered the Police Academy. I graduated pretty close to the top of my class.

  I moved back home to live until I decided where I wanted to put in applications. I figured I'd have to leave Wed
gewood for a larger city to find a job.

  As luck would have it, Mom came home all excited two days after I moved back. That afternoon, she'd played in the Bridge Tournament with the senior citizen group at the community center.

  Mom said Mrs. Brookwood told her Mrs. Swanson said a position for police officer would be opening up soon right there in town. Mrs. Swanson's husband, Gene, was ready to retire.

  Mom suggested working in a small police department like Wedgewood's might be a good way for me to get my feet wet so to speak. The job would give me experience that would look good on a resume if I moved on later. The idea had merit, but Mom didn't fool me. She hated to see me move to a large city with a more dangerous crime rate than Wedgewood.

  The next morning right after breakfast, I drove to the police station. Frankly, I didn't think I had a prayer of a chance for the job. I'd already checked around to find out about the Wedgewood Police Department. The force was an all male one. It always had been, and I had the feeling it always would be.

  There were two women that worked as emergency operator/police dispatchers on twelve hour shifts. The two policemen, Gene Swanson and Mike Johnson had the same twelve hour shift deal. Only they swapped days for nights at the end of each month.

  Police Chief Olaf Tollerton, balding and pot bellied, had years on the job. He carried around a lot more weight than he should. So unfit was he, I suspected he probably couldn't chase down a perpetrator if the runner had only a two feet head start.

  Goes to show you how much I knew about the chief's decision to pick a new police officer. The mayor had been paying attention. When Gene Swensen put in for retirement, the mayor said the police station had to be an equal opportunity employer and become diversified.

  I can't say how many applications were submitted, because I never heard. What I do know is the chief figures he only has a few years left to work so he might as well hire a white woman. That was as equal opportunity and as diversified as he's going to get.

  So for two years it was Officer Mike Johnson and me controlling crime on the streets of Wedgewood. Our town was growing by leaps and bounds with added jobs in the Industrial Park. With all the newcomers in town, the police department saw an increase in crime.

  When the government handed out money to add policemen on forces in all the small towns, the mayor's next idea was spend the money by adding a police detective to the force.

  A bright light went off in my head. The job was from eight to five. I'd be on call by the night officer on duty only if he needed me for back up.

  I lucked out when I applied for the promotion. The chief went for the idea. It was easier to hire a rookie fresh out of the police academy for patrol duty and move me into the detective slot. No seasoned male detective, in his right mind, would want to be stagnating in a small town police station for the wages I'd get.

  My promotion is how I got stuck with Jeff Briceson from Rochester, Minnesota every other month. A fresh faced young man professional enough to keep his uniform neatly pressed. That the best I can say for this green rookie, and the chief thinks I'm just the one to teach him the ropes.

  Women, his age, notice when the fellow is all dressed up in his spiffy uniform. So Briceson has his choice of women to date. From what I've heard from him, he takes advantage of the night scene when he's working day shift. The man is so young looking I imagine he's I. D. every time he tries to buy a drink. That must be embarrassing for him in front of his dates.

  Now you have an idea what it's like where I live. Join me now while I tell you about Briceson and my joint effort in the investigation of our first murder case together.

  Chapter 1

  As it happens, I've become a person with a stagnate routine. Each morning, I park my shiny, unmarked, black sedan in the Wagon Wheel Cafe's parking lot right next to the wooden wheel lined walkway to the door.

  This particular early summer Tuesday looked like it would be a keeper. Brightly sunny enough to make me squint and promising to be warm once the heavy night chill wore off.

  I routinely arrive for my morning coffee and breakfast about fifteen minutes to eight each morning rain, snow or sunshine. I'm always hopeful I'll get served early before the cafe becomes crowded. If I wolfed down my scrambled egg breakfast, I'd come really close to making it to work at eight bells or shortly there after without anyone noticing.

  I glanced again at my wrist watch. This morning, I might even have time for a piece of toast slathered with the cafe's spring offering of homemade strawberry rhubarb jam.

  Simultaneously, my mouth watered at the thought of homemade jam on toast, and my red cell phone blared the The Sex and the City ring tone. Dang it anyway! I forgot to turn off the phone.

  I snatched my cell from the passenger seat and looked to see who the heck the call was from this early in the morning. It wasn't quite time for me to come on duty, and early mornings were usually the quietest time of the shift.

  I didn't intend to page in until I was good and ready. I hadn't even turned on my radio to find out if anything interesting had happened over night. I figured on doing that right after I'd satisfied my sweet tooth and caffeine fix.

  The first thing that went through my sharp, analytical mind was how did this month's first shift cop, Jeff Briceson, always sense when and where I was going to take a break so he could keep me from it?

  I didn't radio the dispatcher when I stop for breakfast since I'm pretty much this creature of habit. If I started notifying the dispatchers where I ate breakfast, they would soon realize I always eat at the same diner.

  Normally, I kept my cell phone off before I came on duty and during breaks. The dispatcher knew that and would have the gall to call me on the diner phone and interrupt my breakfast.

  Since I never have been really alert before my first two cups of coffee, when the dispatchers grumble about my cell phone being off my excuse is I forgot to turn it on.

  Sure enough the number on the screen was the police station desk phone. I poked the on button and said dully, “Hello.”

  Briceson's voice was urgent. “Officer Briceson here, Detective. Just now got a woman DOA report for you to investigate.”

  “Oh, goody, Briceson. That news is a dasher to my breakfast appetite,” I quipped dryly. “Am I the only lucky one available to go to the scene before I'm suppose to come on duty?”

  “No, ma'am. I'm on my way as soon as I hang up the phone,” he said crisply.

  “Suppose you tell me where I should go before you hang up,” I said disdainfully, thinking the man should have furnished the information without being asked.

  “Oh yeah. Sure. Glad to share, Detective Brown. Go out in the country on the blacktop east of town a mile and take the county road Hummingbird Road north three mile. The house number is 1728.”

  “Is that even in our jurisdiction?” I groused. “I'd sure hate to think I missed my breakfast for a wild goose chase that the county lawmen should have been notified about if you've goofed up.”

  “Actually, the scene is three miles north of the city limits, and you're right as you always are. The incident is in the county jurisdiction.” Briceson said smoothly, trying to butter me up.

  “I usually am. Right I mean,” I said with cocky assurance, knowing that irritated Briceson. He was pretty easy going. It took a lot for me to get his hackles up. “Next question. If I'm so right why the heck are you bothering me with this?”

  Briceson spoke calmly and quietly like he had to spell it out for the dense detective woman. “The sheriff says he has all his men busy on a breaking and entering case that broke in the night on the opposite side of the county. He asked for our assistance with this case.” I imagined him with his eyes shut as he explained.

  “Fine, see you there.” I started to push the off button then thought I better remind him of investigation rules. “Oh, Briceson, if you get there before me, keep onlookers away from the body, and don't touch anything without gloves on that looks like evidence. You got that,” I barked.

&n
bsp; “Yes, Detective.” He added wearily, “I know the drill.”

  I imagined his eyes rolling toward the ceiling. That made me grin. It was fun to bedevil the young man. I figured it kept him from getting cocky. Hopefully, he lived to be an experienced cop with a little help from me. If Briceson quit the force, I'd rather it was to take another job instead of getting killed on my watch.

  My smile dried to a frowned at that unpleasant thought. In the rearview mirror, I glanced at my slick, short , dark hair and what my mom always calls my dark, Indian eyes. It wasn't fair to me to have to start a DOA case before breakfast.

  I had my mouth set for a good breakfast. By golly, I was going in and get my coffee, scrambled eggs and jam covered toast before I started my shift. After all, I'm a detective. I'm entitled to a few privileges.

  So what if Briceson got there before me. A few minutes one way or the other in my arrival time wasn’t going to make much difference to the corpse.

  Anyway, there was more than a fifty fifty chance the corpse died of natural causes. In the middle of farming country, the majority of the crimes tended to be vacant house trespassing which was teenage drug related and keg parties.

  Sometimes, burglaries happened when a farmer and his wife went on vacation, but the cases of suspicious deaths were far and in between out in the sticks. Besides, that was the sheriff's bailiwick.

  It was procedure to investigate an unattended death. Usually, the Pike County coroner, Ross Klink, examined the body, gave his findings as natural causes, and the case was closed.

  Deputy Briceson got overly excited about everything, but he was young and just learning the ropes. I tried to explain to the chief the kid was an accident waiting to happen. Chief Tollerton said to give the guy a few years. He might be as unflappable as I am once he had experience under his belt.