Zero Island (Blessid Trauma Crime Scene Cleaners Book 2), Chris Bauer [best ebook reader ubuntu TXT] 📗

Frank reached the headless body, stood over it. A husky male in gym pants, with a heavy winter coat and Air Jordans. His dark, meaty hands and arms had been folded over the banjo neck, to hold it in place. The banjo’s head reached above the man’s shoulders, covering the space where his own head should have been. Its tan, stretched cover bore a crude frowny face drawn in black marker.

Frank hustled back between the cars, out of the middle of the street, and returned to the sidewalk. He punched numbers into his phone, quickly retracing his steps.

The man Frank called picked up. “This better be good, asshole.”

“Sorry, Diz, something happened—”

“Otherway? That you? It’s fucking two a.m., O. I was about to bust a nut with the old lady. And what am I’m hearing on your end? A siren?”

“Yeah. Siren, ambulance, cops, I don’t know what, but something’s on the way.” Frank breathed hard, finally stopped his stride, peering through the fog his breath was making, now focusing on the dead armored car guards in the street. “You’re never gonna believe what just went down—”

Three bodies, two of them for sure black males, the third maybe black, maybe not, with meaty hands and a banjo where his head used to be. Dizzy Pungitore heard Frank Tisha describe all of it, the armored car, the guys in camo jumpsuits, the cross streets, 2 Street and Mifflin. Five minutes ago, ten minutes tops…

But no mention of the canvas bag Frank had kicked under a parked car. He had a good idea what was in that bag, and a better idea of what he was going to do with it.

2 Street

ChrisBauerAuthor.com

BINGE KILLER

**National Indie Excellence Award Finalist**

A FEMALE BOUNTY HUNTER TRACKS A SERIAL KILLER TO A RURAL MOUNTAIN TOWN

A town with its own dark secret…

After serial killer Randall Burton is diagnosed with a terminal disease, he decides to jump bail and go out in a blaze of glory.

One woman stands in his way.

Her name is Counsel Fungo, and she’s an exceptionally talented bounty hunter, if a little eccentric. Officially, her two canine companions are therapy dogs. But she considers them partners. Counsel will do anything to stop criminals from preying on the vulnerable, and she’s intent on stopping Randall Burton.

Randall’s trail leads to sleepy Rancor, Pennsylvania.

Named one of the “Safest Towns in America,” it’s a quiet town tucked away in the Poconos. Its citizens are mostly widowers, bowlers, and bingo players.

But there’s a reason no one in Rancor has reported a major crime in the past 50 years.

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BINGE KILLER: June 1962

Rancor, Pennsylvania, the Poconos

Maurice Prudhomme stood in line at the bank with a gentle hold on his young son Andy’s shoulders, his pay envelope jammed into his coal miner’s uniform shirt pocket. Andy, five and three-quarters years old, had dressed himself this morning with no prodding from his mother. Today he’d picked out a striped polo shirt, paisley shorts, white socks, and black high-top PF Flyers. An oversize blue baseball cap rested above Andy’s eyes, covering the tops of his ears. Maurice, like the other coal miners in line, was dirty from his Friday night shift, his pale face blackened by coal dust and dried sweat. The other men cracked wise with each other as the line advanced, made suggestive eyes at Kitty, Maurice’s sister, a few places ahead of them. At 9:15 in the morning young Andy was working on a wad of baseball card bubble gum that had secretly grown since they’d entered the bank. He snuck another stick into his mouth.

“Andy, kiddo, that’s enough,” his father said. “Give me the rest.”

“Aw, Daddy…”

Three men in Army surplus fatigues with canvas backpacks, leather gloves, and rubber Douglas MacArthur masks stepped inside the bank’s double-door entrance. None of their skin was visible, but their weaponry was: two handguns, a sawed-off shotgun, and a Thompson submachine gun.

“Good morning, folks,” the one with the Thompson said. Heavyset, his gloved hands rested the gun across his protruding belly. He gave orders in an elevated but calm voice.

“This is a robbery. Now is the time to remind yourself that it’s only money. Everyone put your hands behind your heads.”

The thug with the handguns left the lobby with the bank manager, a gun to the manager’s back, their destination the vault, the robber barking at anyone in his way to either move or get shot. The gunman with the sawed-off shotgun hopped the counter and commenced physically and verbally manhandling the tellers.

Which left the thug with the submachine gun to start at the beginning of the lobby line, forcing people at gunpoint to drop their cash into an open backpack he slid along the floor with his foot.

Andy’s dad pulled his son closer and focused on the guy with the Thompson. Andy poked his head out, prompting his dad to firmly guide him behind his legs. His father raised his hands, put them behind his head, and kept them there as instructed.

The gunman moved down the short line. He reached Kitty, a coal company secretary in her late twenties, who mouthed “you bastard” when told to drop her pay into the open backpack. The gunman slid the canvas pack forward then gestured with his weapon to Maurice to make it snappy. Maurice removed his pay envelope from his shirt pocket and dropped it into the bag then returned his hands behind his head.

“That’s my daddy’s money,” Andy said to the gunman. “Give it back, mister.”

“Andy,” Maurice was stern, “be quiet.”

“I’m just borrowing it, young man,” the gunman said, a flip assurance with a hint of amusement. He jabbed the Thompson at the next person in line to hustle him up.

Andy