Storm Cell Read online

  More often than not, authors dedicate novels to those

  who assisted in their writing.

  Sometimes, though, authors dedicate novels to those

  who assisted in something more dear and closer to

  home. With deep thanks, gratitude, and affection,

  this novel is for:

  Dr. Roderick S. McKee, FACS

  Dr. Kimberly Marble, FACS

  Denise Smith, PA-C

  Susan LaFlamme, MA

  CHAPTER ONE

  Testifying inside the third-floor courtroom at the Wentworth County Superior Courthouse was the state’s deputy chief medical examiner, a plump balding man with a habit of taking a short breath each time he paused between his sentences. He was sitting in a witness box to the left of the judge, and next to him on an easel was a large color photograph of a well-dressed dead man sprawled out on a kitchen floor, with another, inset photo showing a close-up of the rear of his bloody head. Earlier the defense attorney for the accused murderer had argued emphatically and with some emotion to block the medical examiner’s exhibit—saying it was inflammatory and prejudicial to his client’s case—but the young woman representing the state of New Hampshire argued otherwise, and the judge had agreed with the state.

  So the easel and the bloody display remained in place, within easy view of the twelve jurors and two alternates, who were paying keen attention this March morning, as a resident of their county was on trial for first-degree murder.

  The courtroom was New Hampshire plain, with light brown wood and two sections of four rows of benches for the spectators to keep watch on the proceedings, which had so far been straightforward but filled with excruciating detail. Behind the judge’s bench was the large round seal of the state of New Hampshire, and the bench was flanked by American and New Hampshire flags. There were also large old oil portraits of judges past on the surrounding wooden walls.

  The easel displayed the mortal remains of Fletcher Moore, the chairman of the Tyler board of selectmen, local businessman, philanthropist, and married father of two daughters. Just over two months ago, in a third-floor apartment in the city of Porter—about a twenty-minute drive north of Tyler—Fletcher Moore was murdered with two shots to the back of his head.

  I was sitting in the first row of the spectator benches, on the section to the right. The section to the left was mostly full of friends and relatives of the murdered selectman—including his wife and two daughters, who sat stone-faced and holding hands with each other during the day—and a rough sort of division had begun last week, during the very first day of the trial. Those with a connection to the deceased went to the left, and everyone else—including, as far as I could see, only one friend of the accused—sat to the right. But these rows weren’t necessarily empty, for I recognized two faces here today: Paula Quinn, assistant editor of the Tyler Chronicle, and Steve Josephs, detective for the Porter Police Department. But there were other reporters here as well, including one each from the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe, and one from the Porter Herald, the direct competition to my friend Paula’s newspaper.

  Not many murders take place in New Hampshire, and they are usually related to family or to the ongoing scourge of whatever popular drug is in fashion that year. This one was different: a popular and well-known businessman and local politician was somehow lured to an empty Porter apartment, where, according to the nice lady from the state attorney general’s office, he was suddenly and brutally murdered in cold blood by the man sitting about six feet away from her.

  Beyond the railings in front of us were tables reserved for the lawyers and the accused. A deputy sheriff stood by a door that led to a holding area for the prisoner, who was being kept at the Wentworth County House of Corrections, about a ten-minute drive away from this courthouse, when he wasn’t on trial. The state had a table to the right, where the assistant attorney general and her co-counsel—a gangly young man who seemed to be all of fourteen years of age—sat with piles of documents and files.

  About five feet away from the representatives of the state was an identical table, where the defense attorney and his client sat. That table, too, had piles of documents and file folders.

  It was all so clean, orderly, and civilized. In the years since I had moved to Wentworth County, I had probably driven past this courthouse scores of times, not once thinking of all that was going on within the brick and granite building, not once thinking of the men and women who trooped in, day after day, and who had justice imposed upon them by their fellow county residents.

  It was an odd feeling, sitting in this clean and tidy courtroom, and hearing the clinical and dispassionate voice of the medical examiner describing how the two 9mm rounds from a semiautomatic pistol had penetrated the rear of Mr. Moore’s head. There was also a discussion of stippling, meaning that gunpowder had burned into Mr. Moore’s skin, meaning he was shot with the muzzle end of the pistol very nearby. It was like we were all inhabiting a parallel universe: in one world where you went about your daily life with little or no concern that you might end up arrested or dead, and in another world where life was on the edge, where the car wouldn’t start, bills couldn’t be paid, and your desperate actions—performed out of fear, hate, or ignorance—slid your life into the slowly moving gears of the justice system contained in this big building.

  The assistant attorney general kept on asking the deputy chief medical examiner technical questions about his examination of the selectman’s remains, and I had the feeling she was taking her time with her questions, knowing that every second that passed meant an extra second that the bloody display still rested on its easel, before the eyes of the jury.

  Again, the questions and answers went on and on, but there was neither boredom nor restlessness for those watching. There was the overriding sense of grief from those across the aisle, and also a sense of a man’s life in the balance, the man accused of this hideous crime, because the state had made it plain and clear in its opening statement that if the defendant was found guilty, the state would seek the death penalty.

  The defendant in question was a well-muscled and well-coiffed man, who for the past three days had sat quietly next to his lawyer, occasionally leaning his head in to talk to him. The defendant had mostly kept his eyes front, avoiding any eye contact with any of us behind him. I wasn’t sure if he avoided us all out of shame, guilt, and puzzlement, since even I couldn’t believe he was here, on trial for murder.

  For he was one of my best friends, Felix Tinios of North Tyler, New Hampshire.

  I’ve known Felix for several years, ever since I moved to Tyler Beach after an unfortunate Department of Defense training accident had left me the sole survivor of my intelligence unit. Felix used to work for a number of family-based organizations in Boston and Providence before going solo. Once I said I didn’t believe him when he told me his official occupation was “security consultant,” and he went to his home office and pulled out a copy of his most recent IRS 1040 filing. He said at the time, “If you can’t believe the federal government, who can you believe?”

  Based on my own experiences with the government, I said that was a pretty good observation.

  And speaking of experiences, he and I had been through a number of them over the years, some of them edging right up to that mysterious and shifting line separating law from lawlessness. Some of those experiences resulted in both our arrests and temporary detention at various law enforcement agencies in New England, but not once had either of us gone to trial for an offense.

  Which made his presence here a disturbing and troubling case, like seeing the current pope attending a United Atheists meeting. It should not happen. It did not make sense. It was not right. Felix had done a number of criminal acts over the years, and I know that he’s
not above committing a homicide when the circumstances warrant it, and it usually involves guilty members of the criminal class.

  But an execution-style murder of a businessman and politician? With two bullets to the back of his head? A man who two years ago was named Citizen of the Year by the Tyler Beach Area Chamber of Commerce?

  That wasn’t Felix.

  Yet the evidence—that which the state had currently admitted it had in its possession—was pretty compelling. Fletcher Moore’s iPhone had a calendar notification indicating he was meeting “F. Tinios” at an address in Porter, on the day and at the time he was murdered. The apartment was owned by a real estate company that Felix had done business with last year, a bit of security work. A 9mm SIG Sauer owned by Felix had been recovered at the scene. And his fingerprints were on the weapon. And in the apartment.

  A pretty slam-dunk case, in my humble opinion, but it was all wrong. Felix wouldn’t be that sloppy, wouldn’t have left such a trail behind, wouldn’t have been caught.

  That wasn’t Felix.

  I continued staring at the back of his head, wondering what he was thinking, and knowing I had no idea.

  But not for lack of trying.

  Yet for being among my small coterie of best friends, Felix hadn’t returned the favor.

  Ever since his arrest, he had refused to see me.

  That I couldn’t believe either.

  When the assistant state attorney general was finished with her cross-examination, she said, “Thank you, Dr. Brown,” and she started to her table and nodded in Felix’s direction, at his attorney.

  “Your witness, Counselor,” she said, slightly smirking, as she sat down.

  Felix’s lawyer stood up, and he was another odd mystery. For years Felix had depended on the services of an attorney from Boston, Raymond Drake, who had the magical ability to slip Felix free from the surly bonds of law enforcement agencies all through New England. But not this time around. Hollis Spinelli was from a small criminal defense firm in Cambridge, just outside of Boston, and he stood up and adjusted the jacket to his dark blue suit. A hand also went up to the top of his necktie, and he strode out from around the defense table and stood in front of the witness box.

  “Dr. Brown,” he said in a soft voice.

  “Sir.”

  “Your testimony and technical briefing were most impressive.”

  The medical examiner nodded.

  Hollis said, “A few questions, then.”

  He clasped his hands behind his back. “Was there anything in the evidence you collected and evaluated that tells you who fired the fatal shots?”

  “No.”

  “None whatsoever?”

  “No.”

  “In the entire realm of everything you saw and measured, was there anything linking my client to the death of Mr. Moore?”

  “As I said earlier—”

  The state was having none of it. She stood up and said, “Objection, Your Honor.”

  The judge—Cecelia Crapser, a woman in her early sixties, who had a carefully coiffed black haircut, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, and a white lace collar over her black robe—didn’t wait for the state to explain its objection.

  “Mr. Spinelli,” she said, “do move on. You’ve made your point.”

  Out of the courtroom, supposedly, the judge’s nickname was Cece, though I doubted anybody within walking distance had the bravery to call her that to her face, unless they were related to her.

  “Absolutely, Your Honor,” he said. He turned his look to the deputy medical examiner and said, “No further questions.”

  He went back to the defense table, the judge cautioned Dr. Brown that he was still under oath and was subject to being called back as a witness, and that he shouldn’t discuss the case with anybody else, and the doctor—no doubt a veteran of hundreds of such warnings—nodded with boredom and left the courtroom.

  The judge checked her watch and said, “It’s four P.M. Time to adjourn. We’ll see everyone at ten A.M. tomorrow.”

  She struck her gavel, gathered up her papers, and stood up, and a court bailiff called out, “All rise,” and as one, we did just that.

  The judge slipped through a side door and then the jury filed out—led by the same bailiff—and then the opposing forces went their way as well. The deputy assistant attorney and her boy-toy assistant left without looking at Felix and Hollis, and Hollis slapped Felix on his back, and Felix was escorted out another side door, once again without sparing a glance at me or the watchers. With the jury gone, a deputy sheriff approached him at the door and placed handcuffs on his wrists. Even with the general low conversation of the spectators, the sound of the handcuffs made a loud, ratcheting metallic sound that drove right through me.

  I caught the eye of Paula Quinn, who was leaving, reporter’s notebook in hand. There was a sign just outside the door that said tablets and other electronic devices were allowed for reporters’ use, but Paula was an old-fashioned gal, God bless her. She said to me as she passed, “Sorry, late for a publisher’s meeting, you know how it is.”

  I smiled, nodded, and knew exactly how it was. Some years ago I would have followed her out and would have sweet-talked her into doing something wild—like dumping the meeting—but those days were gone. As an assistant editor, she had responsibilities, and as a woman engaged to be married, she had another man.

  Then I almost bumped into Detective Steve Josephs.

  “Mr. Cole,” he said.

  “Detective Josephs.”

  He could have been anywhere between thirty-five and forty-five, but fine lines around his mouth and eyes said he was older than he looked.

  “Come to see your friend finally get what he deserves?”

  “I don’t think he deserves this.”

  He thrust his hands into his leather jacket. “No matter how you slice it, dice it, or polish it up, Felix Tinios is a killer. A stone-cold, contract killer. And by the end of this year or the next, he’s going to be in a hospital room at the state prison in Concord, with a needle sliding into his vein.”

  The detective stepped closer to me. “And I intend to be there and see it happen.”

  I stepped closer to him. “No offense, I hope you’ll be disappointed.”

  A smirk. “Maybe I will. Because maybe I’ll be on vacation or something.”

  “Or maybe Felix will be found innocent.”

  “Hah,” he said. “There’s so much evidence against Felix that he won’t be walking free, I promise you that.”

  “Circumstantial evidence, from what I understand.”

  “Then you don’t understand shit.”

  He turned and joined the exodus. I looked for Hollis, Felix’s lawyer, but once again, he had slipped out.

  Damn. Since the trial had begun, not once had I gotten to speak to either Felix or his lawyer.

  I didn’t like it on the first day, and I didn’t like it today.

  Out in a general lobby area on the third floor, most of the people had left, and those staying behind were a couple of lawyers huddling with their clients, and other folks bustling about. Besides holding the courtrooms for the superior court, this building also contained hundreds of years of legal and land records, wills, probate, and all sorts of county records. This meant that as I quickly headed out to the parking lot, I descended wide staircases, dodging other fine people here taking part in whatever county business they were dealing with.

  Outside the sun was shining, promising that spring would finally roll in, in a few more days, and I was eager to have this winter put behind me. The previous few months had seen a lot of fire, smoke, bloodshed, storms, snow, and travel, and I was sick of it all.

  The parking lot was emptying out quickly, and I stood on the granite steps, looking out, finally spotting a gray Audi 6000 with Massachusetts license plates that was heading down the exit road. I ran down the steps, sprinted across the pavement, and managed to catch up with the Audi. I slapped the fender twice and the car braked hard.


  The window came down. An irritated Hollis Spinelli looked up at me. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Spinelli, I’ve been trying to talk to you for the past couple of weeks,” I said, trying to get the words out and catch my breath at the same time. “My name is Lewis Cole.”

  Horns blared behind us. He said, “Yes, I know you have. Look, I’m late for a function in Boston and—”

  I lowered my head so I was at his level. “Why haven’t you returned my calls? And why isn’t Felix allowing me to visit? What the hell is going on with your defense?”

  More horns blared and Hollis shrugged. “I’ll try to get back to you tomorrow.”

  He rolled up the window, the Audi purred away from me, and I swung with my right leg to give the passing taillight a good kick, but today obviously wasn’t my day. I missed and nearly fell down, and more horns sounded at me as other cars went out in the late afternoon sun.

  Irritated with myself by now, I walked back to my dark green Honda Pilot, trying to think through what had just happened, and more important, why it had happened. How in God’s name had Felix been charged with this crime, and why had he chosen this man, Hollis Spinelli, to be his counsel instead of the reliable Raymond Drake? None of it made sense, and things continued to be senseless as two men stepped out of a black Chevrolet Impala as I got to my Pilot. The men looked like brothers, with black slacks, black cloth raincoats, and white shirts and colored neckties. They were lean, dark hair close cut, and within seconds the word “cops” whispered to me.

  “Mr. Cole?” the one on the left said.

  “You got him,” I said.

  “We need to talk to you for a few minutes.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s of some importance,” he said, while his companion on the right didn’t say a word.

  “Good for you,” I said, keeping on toward my Pilot. “Your importance doesn’t equal my importance.”

  “Hold on,” he said, now displaying a leather wallet with his photo and an identity card. I took a look and said, “Special Agent Krueger. With the Federal Bureau of Investigation. How sweet. Is this other gentleman your driver?”