Murder in the Extreme, page 1
Murder in the Extreme
MIRANDA MARQUETTE MYSTERIES
BOOK TWO
J.T. KUNKEL
Copyright © 2024 by J.T. Kunkel
Layout design and Copyright © 2024 by Next Chapter
Published 2024 by Next Chapter
Cover art by Lordan June Pinote
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
About the Author
Acknowledgments
To Donna Eastman Pudick at Parkeast Literary Agency. Thank you for continuing to make me a better writer and not allowing me to produce work that is less than you believe I can produce. To me, in many ways the second book was significantly more challenging than the first. I have learned a lot in the process, and I look forward to working together again to get book three in publishable shape.
To Veronica H. (Ronnie) Hart my editor helping Miranda come to life and having the vision to push me to develop her character. I believe that we have only scratched the surface, and I look forward to many more books in Miranda Marquette Mystery Series.
To Miika Hannila, CEO of Next Chapter Publishing I am aware how many authors there are out there and how many books are published in a year and I have been honored to be published under the Next Chapter name. I hope we have a long association.
To my readers. I have been humbled by your praise of Blood on the Bayou and hope that Murder in the Extreme and the books that follow in the Miranda Marquette series, bring you as much joy as they have brought me, writing them. Thank you for your support. Please visit me at jtkunkel.com for news and information.
I dedicate Murder in the Extreme to my gorgeous wife, Susan, the Love of my life. When we met over twenty years ago, we have no idea what our journey together would be like, but we both jumped in with both feel and I have never had a day of regret. I look forward to at least twenty more years and an eternity thereafter. I will Love You Forever.
One
MAY 2008
The hair rose on the back of my neck. I could hear only the rush of air at 60 meters per second as I plummeted toward the outskirts of Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, the base-jumping capital of Europe. After deploying my parachute, the resistance of the opened canopy billowed over me and tore at my arms and shoulders with what felt like a thousand pounds. When fully inflated with air, I floated peacefully downward, awed by majestic snow-covered peaks and lulled into tranquility by bleating sheep on the hillside below.
A scream from above grabbed my attention. Tara, our final jumper, dropped from the sky and plummeted past me. I struggled in vain to change direction, a cold sweat covering my skin despite the cool Alpine temperatures. But I could only watch as she fell. Down, down until there was no sky or wind. Only the cold hard ground.
It felt like hours before I finally landed. I struggled to rip the pack off my back and sprinted to my two other teammates, Annika and Patricia, who had jumped first. They held one another, sobbing with their eyes closed. After a glance, I couldn't look either, at Tara's broken body, the deadly result of a seven- hundred-and-fifty-meter free fall.
Relying on the name on his press pass, I screamed at the cameraman, “Stop filming now, Rocky!” and ran over to join my teammates. The stench of blood mixed with salty tears made me gag with the reality that Tara was dead.
Our three-person survival grip ended when Patricia pulled away. With ashen skin and a blank expression, she sank to the ground. She sat holding her knees, rocking back and forth, moaning quietly. Annika, nearly as pale, stood unmoving, her eyes fixed on Patricia. The police academy training from my former life kicked in. I fished the cell phone from my pocket and dialed 112.
I took a moment before the first responders arrived to breathe deeply, attempting to calm myself. My anxiety had improved considerably since I was acquitted of a murder charge last year, but symptoms of an impending anxiety attack were overtaking me. My ears were ringing, and my vision blurred. I knelt on the ground so I would be close to the ground if I lost consciousness. That had only happened once, but it was frightening and disorienting.
After I shivered in the cold sun for ten agonizing minutes, I started to come out of it. I opened my eyes to see an ancient ambulance chugging into the field where we waited, each in our own thoughts. It was followed by a black and white 1940s Mercedes with the familiar two-tone siren blaring. The first of two officers, who sported an Oktoberfest-worthy beer belly and a brush cut with graying temples, swaggered over to where we stood.
He asked with a heavy German accent, “Which one of you is Miranda Marquette?”
I raised my hand as if in grade school and flipped my long blonde hair out of my face. “I am.” I sounded weaker than I had planned.
The other officer spoke up. “Do you want to sit down, Fraulein? You look very pale.”
I refused to be a victim. “I'm fine,” I spoke louder and clearer, and he looked convinced even if I wasn't.
“Gut, then we will take your statements,” the first officer barked in broken English. “You,” he said, pointing to Annika, “and I will go this way.” He turned to me. “You speak with Officer Brecker,” and then to Patricia as if he saw her for the first time, “Are you all right, Fraulein?”
Patricia, still ghost white and rocking forward and back, like a headbanger at an AC/DC concert, didn't respond. He motioned to the paramedics to assist her. I stood watching as he and Annika walked through a meadow of daisies, purple salvia, and wild strawberries—a stark contrast to the gory scene behind them.
Officer Brecker and I walked in the other direction, toward the mountains. Twenty minutes prior, I had been in awe of the majestic snow-covered peaks, but as we approached them, I shivered with fear.
We strolled in silence for several minutes when he finally said, “What brought you and your friends to our country?” He read from a black and white college essay notebook.
I spoke, and my voice sounded to me as if reading a press release. “We are the First Extreme All-girl Sports Team or FEAST, four young, successful and independent women seeking fame, fortune, and an adrenaline rush. We participate in several extreme sports, such as BASE Jumping, beach sailing, skydiving, street luge racing, and all types of motorcycle racing, including on- and off-road racing.”
I lowered my head when I realized we were no longer a team of four. He touched my wrist and nodded. I flinched and pulled away. At that point, no stranger was welcome in my personal space, especially a cop. My disdain for the police had never vanished since I left the force nearly eight years ago after being ambushed and shot in the face. It remained unclear who had set me up, but several of my co-workers remained under suspicion.
Blinking back more tears, I continued. “This was our first BASE jump together. The other three of us had lots of experience, but Tara had only skydived a couple of times, and that was several years ago. I had recently done some ground training with her. She insisted she was ready for this. Now . . .” I sobbed and buried my face in my hands, wishing I could disappear. I had never been good with people seeing me cry, especially men. I pulled a tissue from my pocket, blew my nose, and was ready to continue the interrogation.
He waited a minute, then looked at me with kind blue eyes and continued in a heavy German accent. “Why do you do this jumping if you know it is dangerous?”
“Extreme sports, for us anyway, are a means of building self- esteem and taking control of our lives. Some believe that simply having financial success is the cure-all for emotional issues. That isn't true. Taking risks is a kind of therapy for us. I've needed therapy since my mid-twenties when I quit my first job on the police force after an unfortunate accident. I don't know how you do it. I couldn't do this every day anymore, living with other people's tragedy.”
Ignoring my comment, he reviewed his notebook. “Is there anything else you can tell me about the deceased?”
It took a second to realize he was asking about Tara. “The four of us took a trip to Aruba three months ago to relax and get to know one another. I had recruited them for the team through a nationwide search, and we wanted to make sure we could get along for long periods on the road. So, what better way than traveling together?” I smiled fondly, thinking back on the time we spent together.
He waited patiently while I thought back for a minute and tried to remember specific details about Tara that might be important. “I know that she got some text messages that she found disturbing while we were in Aruba, but she didn't go into any detail about them when I asked her about it. She is a very private person. Or she was.” My stomach churned when I corrected myself to acknowledge that she was dead.
“Did she ever mention being threatened by anyone?” He tried to make the interrogation sound like a casual conversation. I continued, “I know her ex-husband was very unhappy about their break-up, but she didn't mention that he had been in contact.” I provided the officer with his name. “Do you suspect foul play here? Tara's death was just an accident, right?” “I must ask these questions. It is routine.”
I wasn't convinced.
After the officers wrapped things up with Annika and me, they spoke to Rocky. I didn't know him or the other cameraman at the top of the mountain. Two of the girls had come for a few days before the jump, so I felt a little out of the loop. I decided to talk to the others later about whether they had gotten to know either of the cameramen before I arrived. The agency had provided them with instructions to film every possible moment of our adventure from Bernie Weinstein, our publicist. Bernie never missed an opportunity to get our faces in the news.
It seemed like overkill to me when they threatened the cameraman with handcuffs until he gave them his camera as evidence. He stomped around and threw down his hat as if he were a manager arguing a call at a baseball game, but they did not relent.
They received a call on their radio and left with sirens blaring and without interviewing Patricia. She lay on the ground with her feet elevated on a stone in the meadow under a blanket the paramedics had provided, advising her to rest for another half hour. They had treated her for shock as a precaution. But the reality of Tara's death hadn't even begun to sink in.
Annika and I sat on either side of Patricia, each lost in our thoughts. Mine was about the moment just before the jump. The other cameraman had been shooting most of our pre-jumping activities before we plummeted off the cliff, but he and Tara had been in deep conversation before we jumped. It had looked as if he was helping her with her pre-jump checklist, but they could have been talking about anything. With his long stringy hair and mangled beard, I wondered if she was attracted to him. I was going to ask her about it when we landed safely at the bottom. I suddenly realized that he had never come down from the mountain after we jumped. He had disappeared.
Two
A week later, I arrived at Logan Airport sweaty and jet- lagged from the six-hour flight from LA. Typically Boston was one of my favorite cities to visit, but I hadn't been looking forward to this one. Annika and Patricia's flights had landed within a half-hour of mine, and we reunited after I found my suitcases in the baggage claim area. As usual, mine were the last two off the plane.
As I waited for my bags, I pondered how we had ended up here. Tara, Annika, and Patricia had been hand-selected to join FEAST through a nationwide search less than a year ago. We represented different parts of the country to improve the likelihood that we would attract a broad audience when we launched our reality TV series. Bernie, our publicist, had opened my eyes to the possibilities, and I was pursuing them aggressively.
I had learned to keep one eye on Annika, our Texas girl. Her strikingly tall figure and auburn hair was everything big and brassy. She was as likely to pick up an eligible man while she struck up a conversation at the airport as she was to be on the floor with a two-year-old or a puppy. Everything endearing about her could also be incredibly frustrating if you had a deadline or an agenda. I loved her dearly, but she tested my patience much of the time.
Patricia was the polar opposite of Annika, sleek, with porcelain skin and jet-black hair, people often took her quiet demeanor as snobbishness, but she was shy and reserved at least until you got to know her. She hailed from Denver, and we dubbed her the ice queen but not to her face. She was as likely to be doing the New York Times crossword puzzle as to have her nose buried in a hardcover mystery. Patricia tended to second guess most of her life decisions, which made her a problematic cat to herd.
Tara had been my favorite and our East Coast representative. Her Boston accent and quick wit made her instantly likable by both sexes, but men were particularly fond of her. She had a way of making a person feel like he or she was the only one alive when she gave them her full attention. The team lost a huge asset when she plunged to her death in the Alps. It was still hard to believe she was dead.
Minutes later, I gathered my thoughts, my bags, and my teammates, and we piled into the shabby vinyl back seat of a yellow cab. “First to the Ritz Carlton then to 187 Dorchester,” I read from the note I pulled from my jacket pocket.
The cab driver had the leathering skin and the yellowing fingers of a life-long smoker. He coughed, “Dauchesta? Second ride up to Caspa's today. Must be a big shawt's funeral today up theya. Yessa.”
Rather than trying to decipher what he had said with his heavy Boston accent, I said, “Guess so,” and we all sat quietly the rest of the way as we hung on for dear life.
My feet had never been happier to touch the ground after an exasperating cab ride to the hotel where we hurriedly checked in. Since we were almost late to the funeral, they stored our bags while we jumped back into the waiting cab.
Casper funeral home was in South Boston, an ethnic array of smaller homes and businesses, seemingly a lifetime away from the Ritz Carlton where we were staying, which bordered both the theatre and financial district.
I wasn't sure what I expected, but I was not impressed by the aging storefront with a newly painted sign that seemed almost embarrassed to adorn the place. Even with all the public relations Bernie had been doing for us, I was surprised at all the activity when we exited the cab. Reporters held microphones in our faces as we ‘no commented’ our way up aging stone steps to the funeral home.
Tara's family barely made eye contact with us as we made our way through the receiving line. Her parents did not invite us back to their home afterward. An outside observer would have thought we killed her. Tara had a substantial Italian family, all speaking loudly in a language we could barely comprehend.
After we paid our respects, I whispered to Annika, “Let's get out of here.”
Patricia followed as we slipped out the door and didn't look back.
Catching a cab in South Boston turned out to be impossible, so we managed to negotiate the Red Line back to civilization. It was a gorgeous spring day, so rather than heading back to our rooms, we grabbed an outdoor table with a green umbrella at the Parish Café. It was on Boylston Street, an easy walk from the Ritz Carlton, across Boston Common. We settled in, watching drivers negotiate one of the city's busiest streets.
“A bottle of your best California Cabernet,” was all I could think to say when the host came out to ask if we had reservations, pretending I hadn't heard his question. He retreated, mumbling something under his breath as he begrudgingly motioned in our direction to a harried-looking college-aged blonde who I assumed was our waitress.
Patricia, Annika, and I hadn't talked much since Tara died.
Every time I thought about it, my stomach tied in knots.
The day before, I’d called Bernie to discuss canceling our scheduled appearance at the Street Luge Nationals in San Francisco in two weeks. Since the accident, as evidenced outside the funeral home, the press had taken an interest in our team. While it wasn't the kind of attention we wanted, he kept reminding me, “There is no bad publicity.”
