The Blackmail Club Read online

  The Blackmail Club

  A Jack McCall Mystery

  by

  DAVID BISHOP

  This book 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, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental or within the public domain.

  The Blackmail Club, A Jack McCall Mystery

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you’re reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  Copyright © 2012 David Bishop All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Cover Designed by Telemachus Press, LLC

  Cover Art:

  Copyright © shutterstock/US Capitol Congress House Representatives Senate Night Reflections Washington DC/28532185/Bill Perry

  Copyright © shutterstock/Sexy Woman’s Legs/47123824/Nejron Photo

  Published by Telemachus Press, LLC

  http://www.telemachuspress.com

  Visit the author website:

  http://www.davidbishopbooks.com

  ISBN# 978-1-937698-77-5 (eBook)

  ISBN# 978-1-937698-78-2 (paperback)

  Version 2012.03.19

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Epilogue

  Note to Readers

  About the Author

  Novels by David Bishop

  For current information on new releases visit:

  www.davidbishopbooks.com

  Current Titles:

  The Beholder

  Who Murdered Garson Talmadge

  The Woman

  The Third Coincidence

  2012 Releases:

  The Blackmail Club February, 2012

  The Original Alibi Summer, 2012

  Future Titles:

  Empty Promises

  Murder by Choice

  The Red Hat Murders

  The Schroeder Protocol

  To be notified when each of the above titles are available,

  send your email address to:

  [email protected]

  For more information on books and characters visit:

  www.davidbishopbooks.com

  Each forthcoming novel will have a new list of titles and dates.

  Dedication

  This novel is dedicated to my loyal readers. It is for your enjoyment that I write. The Blackmail Club is also dedicated to my first son, Todd David Bishop. And to all my other relatives and loved ones whose faith in me was critical to my surviving the early writing years, including my sister, Diane Kilby, and the love of my life, Jody. And no thanks could be complete without remembering my unselfish and talented editors: Kim Mellen, John Logan, Jamie Wilson, Jerry Summers, and the talented and sincere people at Telemachus Press who have done so much to further the success of my novels.

  The Blackmail Club

  A Jack McCall Mystery

  Prologue

  Dr. Christopher Andujar was swimming in a sea of fear, confusion, and hopelessness. His life had unraveled.

  As a psychiatrist he understood the gloom of depression, the danger. But his detached clinical knowledge made no difference. He was lost. Swamped by the very forces he had controlled just a few days before—or thought that he had. His prayers had gone unanswered and nothing any longer seemed worth the effort.

  Suddenly his hand jerked and the air ripened with gun stink.

  His head recoiled, then flopped forward, a softened thump on the desktop, his cheek wrinkling against the drag of the blotter. His hand, still cradling the gun, made his final sound, a thud on the mahogany desk, his finger, protruding through the trigger housing, pointed at the ceiling.

  A lifetime of accumulated ink stains, and one stubborn spot of mustard, disappeared as the green felt pad sopped red.

  Then the door to his study clicked shut.

  Chapter 1

  The official record stated Jack McCall’s wife, Rachel, had been dead four months, but for Jack it had been the kind of time you couldn’t find on a watch or a calendar.

  He also knew it was time to get back to work. His friend and father figure, Dr. Christopher Andujar was dead. The police had closed the case with the label, suicide. But Chris’s widow, Sarah, believed her husband had been blackmailed prior to taking his own life, and that made the blackmailer a murderer, or so she said.

  After Jack and Rachel had closed a government case known as The Third Coincidence, he resigned from the CIA and she left the FBI. They remained in Washington, D.C. and, after their honeymoon, opened McCall Investigations, partnering with Nora Burke, a former DC homicide detective. A few months later, Rachel had been killed and Jack traveled throughout Europe and the Middle East trying to ascertain if his wife’s death might be blowback from his counterintelligence work. Finding no linkage, he had flown home from Egypt. His first order of business would be getting to the bottom of the death of Chris Andujar.

  Jack felt that had he been less self-absorbed, he might have saved Christopher. He couldn’t undo the death of his friend, but, by God, he was determined to find out who killed Chris or what drove him to kill himself. It would be far less than Jack owed the man, but it was all he could do, and he would not rest until it was done.

  After unpacking, he called Sergeant Suggs, the DC homicide detective who had handled the inquiry into Chris’s death. Suggs wasn’t in. Jack left a message, made a drink and sa
t down at his piano. After trying several tunes, all of which sounded like the woman-gone blues he pulled the cover down over the keys. He stood at the window watching the light rain which had been falling off and on most of the day. Then his cell phone rang; he recognized Nora Burke’s voice.

  “Hi, Jack, welcome back.”

  “It’s good to be home. I’m unpacked and raring to go. Have you heard from Sarah? We need her take on the death of her husband. It’s a reasonable place to start.”

  “I set it up for Tuesday. That’ll give you tonight to get settled at home and tomorrow to get re-acquainted with your office. You do remember where we are?” she asked, “eighth floor?” Jack deserved the remark. He hadn’t been to the office even once since Rachel died. After a polite laugh, she went on. “I told Sarah we’d be at her home around noon. She said you knew how to get there. You want me to call Sergeant Suggs?”

  “I’ve already left a message for him. I briefly met the man once so it’s probably a good idea I touch base with him.”

  Jack poured two more fingers of Maker’s Mark and headed upstairs while listening to Nora bring him current on a few minor matters MI, the acronym she had given McCall Investigations, had going.

  At the top of the stairs he paused to read a framed engraving he had brought back from Europe. The passage was from A Tale of Two Cities, and it summarized the last year of his life.

  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness. It was the spring of Hope, it was the winter of Despair.

  Just when he thought Nora was winding down, she said, “There’s another matter. You have an appointment Monday at four in the afternoon.”

  “I don’t really want us taking on anything else. Chris’s death gets our full attention. This one’s personal.”

  “Let me call you back on my cell. I’ve got a date so I need to get out of here. We can talk while I’m driving home. Okay?” Jack grunted. Then Nora said, “Sometimes calls get dropped in the underground parking so it’ll be after I get up on the street.”

  With the drink in hand, Jack stepped out onto the small patio off the second-story bedroom where he and Rachel used to sit and watch the Potomac River. He ignored the soft hypnotic rain falling from a sky flexing between dim and dark.

  Some nights, when the wind was just right, the sounds from Georgetown drifted close enough to be heard, but not tonight, not in the damp air. He leaned on the wet rail and listened to the gentle sounds of leaves swaying in an easy wind, periodically punctured by the deep songs of distant frogs.

  He had lived so many places during the past twenty years of foreign intelligence service, but he was beginning to consider Washington, D.C., home. It was a beautiful city, at least on the surface. A closer look revealed a city in which some people had way too much power, arrogant and corrupting power, while most struggled to sustain economic equilibrium. The seat of the most powerful government in the world, and yet a city that each year was looking more and more like a fortress.

  After a few minutes he heard the cooing voices of a couple walking on the far side of the street. The woman reached beyond their umbrella to point at the lights twinkling off the river. The very lights Rachel always said made the river seem alive.

  The man tilted back the umbrella. The couple kissed, giggled, and moved on leaving Jack with his memories and diluting whiskey. Then his phone rang again, and Nora picked back up with what she had been saying.

  “The Monday appointment at four, you’re interviewing Max Logan. Now before you say anything, there’s a story to this. You’ll be getting me out of a hole. One I dug for myself.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You remember my ex-homicide partner, Frank Wade? Well, before me, Max Logan had been Frank’s partner. When Max retired, Frank tapped me.”

  “How does that get me an appointment to interview Max?” Jack asked as he went inside, pulling the sliding door closed and wandering back downstairs.

  “I run into Max here and there, sometimes he stops by the office to say hi. He tried being retired, but had no real hobbies. He works some as a security guard and doesn’t like it. He wants back in the game, part time. I kept telling Max I had nothing, that maybe when you got back and things got cooking. Listen, I dug the hole and I can get myself out of it, but Max is a first-rate detective. Frank always said he could read the streets like a child reads a popup book. And Max is a good guy. The job never corrupted him or jaded him. I know we don’t need him, but if we ever do need someone, well, Max would be a good choice. The man knows everybody in this town, and is well liked.”

  “Sold. Four o’clock, tomorrow. Oops, I got an incoming, it’s Suggs. I’ll talk to you later.” Jack switched lines. “Jack McCall.”

  “McCall, this is Sergeant Suggs, DC homicide. You called me.”

  “Thank you for returning my call, Sergeant Suggs. We met briefly last year when—”

  “I remember, The Third Coincidence case. The one that made you a bit of a legend in this town, but then legends around here are a dime a dozen. What do you need? And it better be important. This is Sunday, a day of rest if you haven’t heard?”

  “I’d like to talk with you about the death of Dr. Christopher Andujar.”

  “McCall, I was sorry to read of the death of your wife some months back. But let’s get something straight. I don’t like you private guys poking into my cases.”

  Jack was about to tell the violent crime’s detective where he could shove his attitude when he heard Suggs exhale. “Ah, screw it,” he said. “The Andujar case is closed. Whatdaya wanna know?” The detective’s voice sounded weary.

  “Thank you, Sergeant. I was very close to Chris Andujar. I’m going to see his widow on Tuesday. She’s asking for my help.”

  “With what? It’s over!”

  “Not in her mind, Sergeant. Whatever it is, I’ll be better equipped to help if you’ll give me a rundown on the death of her husband … Please.”

  Suggs’s voice came right out of the freezer. “The bullet entered Dr. Andujar’s head from close range. The medical examiner found powder stippling around the wound and the star-like pattern which results from a close shot into the cranium. He was holding his own gun with his smudged fingerprints, and powder traces were found on his hand. There was nothing suggesting burglary and there were no signs of forced entry or foul play.”

  No longer sounding weary, Suggs had charged through his summary like a telephone solicitor racing through a say-this-when-they-say-that script. After the detective took a deep breath, he closed with, “It was a suicide. Open and shut. End of story.”

  Jack heard the dial tone. “Asshole!” he screamed at the silent phone. Somehow that seemed more adult than hammering the innocent phone against its cradle.

  Chapter 2

  At four Monday afternoon, Nora leaned into Jack’s office. “Max Logan’s in the lobby. He and I have talked plenty, so I’ll leave you boys to bond. I’ll watch the front.”

  Jack walked out to see a fireplug of a man in his sixties with a full head of salt and pepper hair and a hint of a pot belly. He had a broad nose and busy eyes. He rose without effort and stood around six feet tall, several inches shorter than Jack.

  “Mr. McCall, I’m Max Logan. Thank you for seeing me.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Logan. Would you like some coffee or tea, maybe a bottle of water?”

  “A bottle of water, if you will. Except for a morning cup, I’m off me coffee. A large dose of water during the day, chased by a wee taste of the Irish curse at night. That’s the secret.”

  “Sounds like a recipe for eternal life. I’m Jack. Will Max be okay?”

  “It’s me name, so that’ll do just fine.” He settled into a chair and pointed toward Rachel’s picture on the credenza behind Jack. “Your wife?”

  Jack nodded. “Rachel died a little more than four months ago. Hit and run. Unsolved.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “A couple, but they only
remembered a white van, like a million others in the city. No markings. The person behind the wheel wore a white baseball cap. They couldn’t even say if the driver was a man or woman.”

  Max shook his head. “I understand the sadness in your eyes when you said her name. My wife died six years ago.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Colleen. Her maiden name, O’Grady. I called her Etain, an ancient Irish word that means ‘Goddess who married a mortal.’” Max’s face took on a sorrowful look. “We got married late, but we had twenty wonderful years together before the cancer took her.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Jack said, quietly wishing he had gotten twenty years with Rachel. They talked a while about Max’s thirty years with the DC police department, the last fifteen in homicide. Then Jack asked, “Did Nora speak with you about our not needing anyone now?”