McGill's Short Cases 1-3, Three Jim McGill Short Stories Read online

  McGill Short Cases 1-3

  Also by Joseph Flynn

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Found Money

  Lost Dog

  Pins and Needles

  About the Author

  McGill Short Cases 1-3

  Three Jim McGill Short Stories

  Joseph Flynn

  Stray Dog Press, Inc.

  Springfield, IL

  2013

  Praise for Joseph Flynn’s novels

  “Flynn is an excellent storyteller.” — Booklist

  “Flynn keeps the pages turning.” — Houston Chronicle

  “Flynn propels his plot with potent but flexible force.” — Publishers Weekly

  Digger

  “A mystery cloaked as cleverly as (and perhaps better than) any John Grisham work.”

  — Denver Post

  “Surefooted, suspenseful and in its breathless final moments unexpectedly heartbreaking.”

  — Booklist

  “An exciting, gritty, emotional page-turner.”

  — Robert K. Tannenbaum, New York Times Bestselling Author of True Justice

  The Next President

  “The Next President bears favorable comparison to such classics as The Best Man, Advise and Consent and The Manchurian Candidate.” — Booklist

  “A thriller fast enough to read in one sitting.” — Rocky Mountain News

  The President’s Henchman

  “Marvelously entertaining.” — ForeWord Magazine

  Also by Joseph Flynn

  The Concrete Inquisition*

  Digger

  The Next President

  Hot Type*

  Farewell Performance*

  Gasoline, Texas*

  The President’s Henchman, A Jim McGill Novel [#1]*

  The Hangman’s Companion, A Jim McGill Novel [#2]*

  The K Street Killer, A Jim McGill Novel [#3]*

  Part 1: The Last Ballot Cast, A Jim McGill Novel [#4 Part 1]*

  Part 2: The Last Ballot Cast, A Jim McGill Novel [#4 Part 2]*

  The Devil on the Doorstep, A Jim McGill Novel [#5]*

  McGill’s Short Cases 1-3, Three Jim McGill Short Stories

  Round Robin*

  Nailed, A Ron Ketchum Mystery [#1]*

  Defiled, A Ron Ketchum Mystery [#2]

  War Party, A John Tall Wolf Novel [#2]

  One False Step

  Blood Street Punx

  Still Coming

  Still Coming Expanded Edition

  Hangman, A Western Novella

  Dedication

  To my dozens of cousins. You know who you are.

  Acknowledgements

  Catherine and Caitie helped refine the raw texts of these stories.

  Any mistakes that were so wily they escaped their notice are strictly my fault.

  Copyright

  McGill Short Cases 1-3

  Joseph Flynn

  Published by Stray Dog Press, Inc.

  Springfield, IL 62704, U.S.A.

  Copyright Stray Dog Press, Inc., 2013

  All rights reserved

  Author website: www.josephflynn.com

  Flynn, Joseph

  McGill Short Cases 1-3 / Joseph Flynn

  32,231 words eBook

  ISBN 978-0-9887868-3-7

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Publisher’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously; any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  eBook design by Aha! Designs

  Found Money

  McGill Short Case #1

  Inigo de Loyola stood on Pennsylvania Avenue outside the wrought iron fence surrounding the White House. He remained there long enough to get on the nerves of the uniformed Secret Service officers watching him. Twilight on that mild April day was about to yield to night and, though the grounds of the Executive Mansion were well lighted, the men and women charged with protecting the president knew that crazies always felt more empowered by the onset of darkness. Adding to the tension, the man outside the perimeter had his hands steepled, his head bowed and his eyes closed as if he were praying. The question was, praying for what?

  Faith was a wonderful thing, but too many people who claimed to be the Almighty’s personal confidants forgot all about his sixth commandment: Thou shalt not kill.

  Two uniformed officers were about to head outside the fence and interview the pious figure in his hand-me-down clothes when SAC Elspeth Kendry appeared. The special agent in charge of the White House Security Detail had noticed the man while doing a routine inspection of the grounds from the roof of the mansion.

  She told the uniformed captain on duty, “I’ll handle this one.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  While following her order without quibble, the captain still positioned his two best marksmen to take the man outside the fence down, should his intentions prove more diabolical than divine. SAC Kendry was smart enough to give them a clear field of fire.

  She stopped ten feet away from the man. She looked at his face. Having grown up in Beirut during dangerous times, she’d looked into the eyes of more than a few fanatics. The religiously inflamed, the politically fanatic and the mentally unhinged. She didn’t get any of those vibes from this man.

  As if he was not only aware of her presence — with his eyes still closed — but also knew what she was thinking, he told her, “I mean no harm. I came only to pray for the president, for her well being and for all those who live and work here.”

  The man opened his eyes, looked at Elspeth and introduced himself by name.

  His English carried an accent. Spanish she thought, but with an overlay of Italian. It was an attractive combination when grafted onto a gentle baritone voice. The rest of him wasn’t hard to take either. His hair and beard could have used barbering, but both were silver and full. His brows were as dark brown as his eyes. His nose and mouth were large but well formed.

  Elspeth had also seen any number of attractive men whose souls were as vile as vomit.

  She said, “I was going to say you’ve been here for quite a while, but if you’ve been praying for everyone at the White House, that’s a big job.”

  “I have years of practice,” de Loyola said.

  “You’re a priest?”

  “I’m a Jesuit, currently without a formal assignment.”

  Elspeth looked at the man’s clothes. Resale shop, if that. Not pressed, but still clean. No holes.

  “What do you do informally, Father?”

  “I minister to the poor.”

  “Trying to save their souls?”

  “Trying to fill their bellies.”

  Elspeth had attended a Catholic school in Beirut.

  She remembered the beatitudes.

  “Blessed are the merciful,” she said.

  “For they will be shown mercy,” de Loyola replied.

  “Is there somewhere you’d like to be taken, Father?”

  “Heaven, borne on the wings of angels, but I doubt that will be my fate.”

  He gave Elspeth a smile. Had nice teeth, too, she saw. Not common among street people.

  “I am
free to go?” he asked.

  “Of course, Father. Go with God.”

  He might have taken offense, and that would have told Elspeth something.

  Namely, the guy should be marked as a potential threat.

  Scheduled for a more serious discussion should he make a return appearance.

  But Inigo de Loyola only expanded his smile and nodded at Elspeth.

  As if to say, “Good one.”

  Inside the building toward which Inigo de Loyola had directed his prayers, the president of the United States, Patricia Darden Grant, was having a conversation with her husband, James J. McGill, also known as the president’s henchman. The two were ensconced on the leather sofa in the room known as McGill’s Hideaway.

  Each of them had an after-dinner drink in hand, Remy Martin cognac for the president, Jameson Irish Whiskey for McGill. Neither of them was in a hurry to down their digestifs. They were looking at the gas flame in the room’s retrofitted fireplace. It was part of a project known as “The Greening of the White House.”

  The larger idea was to get Congress to provide low-interest loans to Americans to make their own homes as energy efficient and nonpolluting as possible.

  McGill said, “It might be environmentally friendly and all that, but give me a fireplace with some crackle and the scent of wood smoke any day.”

  Patti said, “We have to set a good example, and you might still roast marshmallows over that flame.”

  McGill chuckled. “Let’s do that, if you have a Girl Scout uniform at the back of your closet.”

  “You want to play dress up, do you? What role will you play? A forest ranger?”

  “No, a wildlife biologist, flush with the victory of saving the last mating couple of … some species worth preserving.”

  “Something small and cute?”

  “Yeah, like that. The little devils will inspire us to —”

  “Roll the wrong way at just the wrong moment. Finis for the endangered species.”

  “You’re right,” McGill said, “it would probably end badly.”

  They skipped the marshmallows and dress-up, finished their drinks and McGill killed the gas flame with a remote control. They reclined in the darkened room with the president’s back against her henchman’s chest and his arms around her waist.

  “We’re going to have to suck it up, you and me, these next four years,” Patti Grant said.

  “Why’s that?” McGill asked. “Because of the way you got reelected?”

  The president, in a three-way race, had been elected by the last electoral ballot cast. One that had been pledged to another candidate. The fate of the nation had been decided by a college professor in Indiana. More than a few people were still upset about that.

  Too bad about them, McGill thought. Nothing illegal had been done. Come to that, the president had won the popular vote. She also won a polling of the Supreme Court justices, who had voted six to three not to overturn the decision of the Electoral College.

  Of course, two of the six Supreme Court votes in the president’s favor had come from the chief justice and the associate justice Patricia Darden Grant had nominated not long before her reelection. Common wisdom had it that had the two previous justices survived another year, the decision would have gone the other way, five to four.

  McGill had rebutted that contention by saying publicly, “Goes to show you, a higher power must have been behind the way things turned out.”

  Those words had struck the president to her core.

  She’d very nearly died the same year the openings on the court had occurred. Her survival must have been part of the larger plan, too. It scared her to think she was just a bit player in some grand drama whose outcome was unguessable. Then she thought she’d been given more time with her husband, her stepchildren and the country she loved.

  So, maybe, she was more than a bit player, and she’d better make sure she did her best for all concerned.

  One more reason she told McGill, “Galia says we’re going to be in for all sorts of dirty tricks.”

  Galia Mindel was the White House chief of staff.

  It was said Galia’s intelligence network had more spies than the Kremlin.

  “That’s okay,” McGill told his wife. “That’s what you’ve got me for.”

  “Galia says you could be a target, too.”

  McGill said, “Woe betide him who messes with me or mine.”

  Inigo de Loyola, Jesuit without portfolio, spent most nights sleeping on the street, as did so many of those to whom he ministered. Sharing in their deprivations built a sense of kinship and bestowed credibility. When he told the downtrodden he knew how they suffered, they saw he was telling the truth. De Loyola also hoped that his corporeal tribulations might earn him a measure of spiritual redemption.

  Perhaps if he lived as long as Methuselah.

  Otherwise, his only hope was divine clemency.

  More likely, though, he had no real chance of deliverance. He knew his willingness to mortify the flesh was limited. Even when he spent the night outdoors, he preferred to do so in the nicest location he might find. Having arrived in Washington, D.C. two nights earlier, he found the Georgetown area to be congenial. That night, something about the white brick building on P Street near the Rock Creek Parkway called out to him.

  The building was softly lighted, seemed to glow with its own grace. The susurrus of motor vehicle traffic on the parkway was almost a lullaby to his ears. There were two café tables in front of the building, but it wouldn’t do to curl up on or even beneath one of them. A passing police patrol would certainly see him.

  He’d be forced to move on and look for a new resting place or simply arrested. He was tired after a long day of walking, praying and fasting. He tried to remember the last time he ate, but couldn’t. Tomorrow, he would have to find food.

  Now, though, what he needed most was sleep. He thought he might find a peaceful niche behind the building. It looked to be very well kept, and he didn’t think he’d be bothered by vermin or woodland creatures nibbling at his flesh as he slept. He smiled, thinking there was barely enough meat on his bones these days to make a meal for a mouse.

  His spirit, though, was still strong. There were few things in this night or any other against which he might not give a good account of himself.

  He stepped into the shadows at the near side of the building, ignoring the sign that the premises were protected by a private security company. He didn’t worry about that. He had no intentions of breaking into someone else’s property. He wasn’t a thief.

  Then there was another sign. This one warned against the grave sin of trespassing. Some assertions of evil were subject to debate, de Loyola thought. He repressed a chuckle, thinking that such debates had led him into so much difficulty with Mother Church. At the bottom of the second sign was the warning that the edict against trespass was enforced by the United States Secret Service.

  Exhausted and undeterred, de Loyola made his way to the rear of the building.

  Margaret “Sweetie” Sweeney was working late in the offices of McGill Investigations, Inc. She and Jim McGill had just wrapped up their first post-inaugural case, the recovery of George Washington’s dentures, carved from hippopotamus ivory not wood, that had been stolen from the National Museum of Dentistry in Baltimore.

  The museum was a Smithsonian affiliate and the crime normally would have been investigated by the FBI. The museum curator, Dr. Moira Moran, had sought out James J. McGill after hearing from the feds that given the ongoing threat of terrorism and the penetration of the United States by Mexican drug cartels, it might be a while before they got around to retrieving a set of false teeth, no matter what their historical value.

  McGill had listened to Dr. Moran’s story, made a phone call to FBI Deputy Director Byron DeWitt and asked if the bureau would mind a little help from the private sector in the matter at hand. DeWitt told McGill, “Go for it.”

  Dr. Moran was pleased, but she pleaded reduced governme
nt funding to the museum and asked if McGill might offer a discount on his services. Fortunately for her, he’d always had good experiences with oral health professionals and gave her half off.

  McGill and Sweetie traveled to Baltimore, interviewed all relevant staffers and examined the visitors’ log for the last day the dentures were known to be on the premises. Among those passing through the building was one P. James Preston of Los Angeles, California, who, a bit of research showed, was a movie producer currently pitching a project that hoped to capitalize on the film “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.”

  Preston’s idea for a movie was called “George Washington: America’s First Zombie.”

  The producer had commissioned a poster for his movie pitch.

  It featured a crude likeness of an undead Washington with scary-big teeth.

  Seemed like a lead to McGill and Sweetie. They showed a copy of the poster to the pertinent cluster of museum staffers, with Dr. Moran looking on, and McGill said, “Someone here took George Washington’s choppers and gave them to P. James Preston. Now, either you can rat him out or we’ll go to Preston and he can rat you out. As you know, the ratter gets less jail time than the rattee. Will the rat please step forward?”

  Sweetie had thought that characterization was a bit harsh, but they got their man.

  He hadn’t even been bought off with money.

  He’d been promised a part in the movie. Which doubtless would have wound up on the cutting room floor, as putting your partner in crime onscreen just might be incriminating.

  Preston was arrested in L.A. in possession of the stolen oral appliance.

  Washington’s dentures were returned to Baltimore. McGill Investigations, Inc. was paid with a check and the gratitude of dental professionals throughout the land. Sweetie finished making her notes on the case and sent them to the firm’s cloud server.

  The only reason she’d stayed late at work was because her new husband, Putnam Shady, was in Omaha on business and to her great surprise, Sweetie, who always been content with her own company, now felt lonely without him.

  She resolved to go home, be strong, say her rosary and go to sleep.