Mother - of - Pearl Dagger

By Victor Uribe

An intriguing mystery revolving around murder and the use of a valuable antique dagger to commit a crime. Excellent characterization and a thrilling conclusion you won't see coming. A private-eye investigates, while his client sits in jail, accused of the crime.

ISBN 978-1-59431-861-0 Mystery / Suspense

Also Available in HTML and RTF formats.

CHAPTER 1

Mario De Las Torres had no idea a most interesting case was about to engage his talents when he arrived at his office that dull rainy Good Friday afternoon. Mario had trained as a physician in his native Spain. After coming to America, he specialized in psychiatry, psychoanalysis and forensic psychiatry at Harvard. Yet now he followed another path. After the death of his wife, he had begun to feel restless, as if he needed a change. Before long he left his psychiatric practice, trained as a private investigator, and moved to Chicago.

Good Friday fell in March that year, and the Midwest Center was all but empty when Mario arrived. As the rain let up, the sky took on the color of vanilla ice cream, flat, a little dingy, but almost white. That day was a holiday for many, but his good friend, Josefina Colina, was also working so he felt a bit at loose ends and turned on the TV just for the sound of another human voice. He leaned back in his tan, leather, office chair, sipped his favorite Jerez wine, and puffed a Havana cigar, doing his best to ignore the case folders on his desk.

He stroked his Vandyke beard, and then, passed his hand over his baldness.

The documentary on television was proceeding as expected, with Jesus promising absolution to the thief beside Him, when Mario heard footsteps racing down the empty hall, followed by a loud hammering at his outer door. A moment later, he led a worried-looking man into his inner office. “Please, you have to help me!”

“Oh?” Mario noted the man’s desperation, dismissed all thought of an easy day, and waved his visitor toward a chair.

“I’m Peter Wooden.” The stranger took a chair. The private investigator saw a man in his midforties, a little too round to be in really good shape. His mouth looked slack and his forehead was puckered with worry.

“What happened?’

“My wife was murdered two days ago. The police think I did it. I expect they will arrest me at any time. They’re not even looking for anyone else.” Wooden brushed his thinning hair back with a trembling hand and straightened the tailor-made jacket that had been expertly cut to conceal his burgeoning waistline. “I didn’t kill her. I swear it.”

“Why did you choose me?” Mario took his own chair.

“I checked you out on the Internet. Looked up your old cases in the newspaper archives. You’re the best.”

The conversation between Peter and Mario was suddenly interrupted by an endless knocking on the entrance door of the office. “Open up. This is the police. We know you’re in there, Wooden!” Mario opened the outer door.

Two men carrying.38 police specials ran into the inner office. They moved in on the wordless, trembling Peter. “Freeze!” One man flashed a detective’s shield. “Peter Wooden, you are under arrest for the murder of your wife. Don’t move.”

Mario recognized the police detective as Angus McAllister, a red-haired lieutenant, whom he knew from other investigations. McAllister’s new partner was younger, a blond, whose name was Olson.

“You’re wrong,” Peter said in a faltering voice.

“Put your hands in the air, face the wall, and spread your legs.” McAllister patted down Peter’s body, searching for a weapon. When he found none, he grabbed the man’s hands and moved them down snapping the handcuffs behind him while Olson read the Miranda rights off a card from his pocket. Peter’s face was white and he looked as if he were in shock.