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  A Commission on Murder

  An Eastern Shore Mystery

  Cheril Thomas

  LIES, MORE LIES, AND

  A LITTLE BIT OF TRUTH

  A COMMISSION ON MURDER

  One waterfront property for auction and three buyers — then someone narrows the odds.

  Until the morning Garrett Bishop is murdered, Grace Reagan only has to worry about the house she can’t sell and a business sliding into bankruptcy. She has four months left on her agreement to manage Cyrus Mosley’s law firm, a plan that sounded easy enough in September when the weather was warm and she was optimistic. But Grace barely has time to regret the decision she’s made before the man who can guarantee her success is killed.

  Was the flamboyant, loud-mouthed Bishop shot by a hunter with bad aim — or by one of the many people who want him gone from Kingston County and don’t care how he leaves? Grace knows that in some parts of the Eastern Shore strangers are guilty until proven otherwise. A near stranger herself, she must prove not one, but two of her clients are innocent of murder.

  Welcome to Mallard Bay, Maryland, the little village where everyone has an opinion, but the truth is in short supply.

  Also by Cheril Thomas

  Squatter’s Rights

  A Commission on Murder

  Bad Intent

  Contents

  Quote

  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

  Before You Go

  Coming Next in Mallard Bay

  BAD INTENT

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For Ronald Hohman Thomas

  and his sweet girl,

  Gracie Mae

  “For he has been reported killed more than a score of times, yet his bloody corpse became reanimated through some witchery peculiar to himself.”

  Obituary of William ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok

  St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  15 August 1876

  Prologue

  Friday Morning

  November 10

  The rifle was heavy.

  Slippery, wet leaves and tree roots made slow going and weak sunshine did nothing to dispel the cold. It was a perfect day for correcting mistakes, clearing accounts. A perfect day for hunting. Too bad the hunter hadn’t planned better, but some things couldn’t be helped. When life hands you the perfect opportunity, you take your shot. So to speak.

  Overhead, south bound Canadian geese called to each other in a crashing chorus, but the hunter wasn’t tempted. Five minutes later, the desired target came into view, still far away but well within range.

  Turn around. Let me see your face.

  So. Not the perfect opportunity, after all. The bastard wouldn’t turn around.

  The hunter took the shot anyway.

  Perfect.

  Chapter One

  “He can’t be dead,” Grace Reagan said.

  “Looks dead to me.” The police officer standing beside her sounded pleased. Corporal Aidan Banks hated being bored and a murder guaranteed excitement. Much better than writing parking tickets and wrangling drunk tourists.

  “Maybe I didn’t do CPR long enough. I should try again.”

  “He’s gone.” Banks kept a wary eye on the tall woman who stood next to him, shivering in the brisk autumn breeze. He’d put his uniform jacket over her shoulders when he’d found her pumping the dead man’s chest in a frenzy. “You did what you could,” he added, but only because he didn’t want her to freak out until someone who outranked him arrived to take over.

  “He was fine when I talked to him a couple of hours ago,” Grace insisted.

  “Not fine now.”

  There was no denying it. The man lying on the scraggly grass behind a decrepit house in the middle of nowhere was dead.

  “Look, Aidan, I know I need to stay here, but could you check his pockets? He should have a contract with him and I have to get it.”

  Banks didn’t bother telling her ‘no.’

  She knew better, but she had to try. “Sorry. I know you can’t. I’m just going in the house to wash my hands.”

  “No.”

  They heard sirens, still far off but getting closer.

  “I’ve got blood everywhere. I’m a mess. Look at me!”

  Ordinarily, Grace with her curly dark hair and wide blue eyes wasn’t hard to look at, but today wasn’t ordinary. Unable to produce a response that wouldn’t cause trouble, Banks remained stoically silent. He’d sacrificed his almost new jacket to a blood-covered woman and that was as far as he’d go. Tact was beyond him.

  “Fine,” she said when he didn’t answer her. “I’ll wait in my car.”

  “Stay where you are, just like the Chief said. He’ll be here soon with the State Police.”

  Grace gave up and tried not to fidget as she waited for Banks’ boss to arrive and tell her what she already knew — her ticket out of Mallard Bay, Maryland was officially canceled. She wanted to feel horrified, or at the very least bad for the dead man, but Garrett Bishop had been difficult from the first moment she’d met him. In the last week he had more than lived up to his notorious reputation, and now he’d gone and gotten himself killed, probably without signing the bid he’d offered her. If only she could get her hands on the papers he’d taunted her with this morning, she’d know if she still had a deal.

  She took a step back and then another. And then heard tires crunching over oyster shells as vehicles pulled into the driveway at the front of the property. Banks was right. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  First, the Maryland State Police, then the coroner and finally the MSP crime scene technicians claimed command of the old Morgan farm.

  One man stood apart from the swarm of activity, but he knew all too well what was taking place. Violent death had been a part of Lee McNamara’s working life since he’d first worn a uniform in the Maryland State Police thirty years ago. Now that he was the Chief of Police in the small waterfront village of Mallard Bay, the human carnage which came his way usually involved vehicles, the occasional domestic battle, and in increasing numbers, opioid overdoses. While he didn’t share his corporal’s thrill at having a shooting to perk up the workday, he was relieved the victim wasn’t a loss to anyone local.

  Garrett Bishop had been stirring up trouble since he arrived on the Eastern Shore and McNamara was happy to have him gone by whatever expedient means available, but he didn’t like seeing Grace Reagan involved. He’d grown fond of her over the last year and as the first person to find the body, she was already being questioned by the MSP team which had followed him out to the secluded waterfront property. Grace wasn’
t helping herself by asking everyone if they were sure Bishop was really, truly, dead.

  The question wasn’t as inane as it sounded. Garrett Bishop was wealthy, eccentric and prone to headline grabbing stunts which gave him fleeting fame and boosted stock sales in his video game empire. He’d been lost in an avalanche, hijacked from his corporate plane and held hostage by mysterious kidnappers. After each death defying event, Bishop’s publicity team would say he’d managed to survive by his own cunning and skill. News commentators and comedians ripped him up, but the public loved it. Even if the farmhouse was creepy enough to host a murder scene, dying in a remote area of Maryland was anti-climactic for the flamboyant Bishop.

  The Morgan Creek area wasn’t in Mallard Bay proper, and the only role McNamara would play in the investigation would be to support the MSP as they saw fit. His professional instincts shouted instructions but he stood still, hands clasped behind his back. He was behind the fluttering neon yellow tape that ringed the crime scene perimeter. Ten years ago, Captain McNamara of the Violent Crimes and Homicide Division of the Maryland State Police might have been under the tent, his back turned to the local cops who were on the outside looking in. Today, Chief McNamara of the Mallard Bay Police Department stood watch, on duty but far from the action. His only assignment was to keep the growing crowd of onlookers away from the investigation. He knew his place. He and Aidan Banks were a two man department with limited resources.

  The first civilians to arrive had caught the emergency calls on their home police scanners. Smartphones notified everyone else. In a rural area where neighbors helped neighbors and volunteer fire departments were the best line of defense, both old and new technology were necessary. But sometimes, it wasn’t only the emergency workers and volunteers who showed up to an exciting call. The crowd was gathering within sight of the official activity. Garrett Bishop’s death wasn’t only shocking; the aftermath was noisy. Cries of ‘Over here!’ and ‘Tell us something, Mac!’ were starting to erupt and McNamara knew his corporal was having a hard time. Not that Banks ever made anything easy.

  With a signal to the MSP’s lead investigator, McNamara left to lend Banks a hand with the agitated group. Corporal Banks had little empathy and less patience for his fellow human beings. The expression on his face as he aimed a glare over his shoulder at McNamara made the Chief speed up. One homicide was enough for today.

  The standard ‘no comment, active investigation’ speech did nothing to settle the crowd. Neither did the Chief’s down-home, ‘Come on, folks, you know I can’t say anything, but I need your cooperation’ plea. For once his sympathies lay with the hot headed Banks. Both were substantial men, McNamara just shy of six feet and barrel chested, Banks shorter, but gym fit. None of which had any effect on the people who were arguing with them. McNamara was known for his companionable nature, and most of the crowd had watched Banks grow up.

  “This is private property.” The change in McNamara’s tone worked where politeness had failed. He pointed north, where the narrow country lane wound out of sight. “If you don’t want to wait up there at the turnaround, then move off to the other side of the road and quit heckling Corporal Banks. We’re doing our jobs here. When I know something, I’ll tell you what I can.”

  The grumbling people moved back to a clearing opposite the driveway entrance. Only one person ignored him and continued to take photos with her cell phone. McNamara stepped up to her and leaned in, hoping the others assumed he wanted to talk to the lone dissenter.

  “Avril, seriously, what are you going to do with a hundred shots of an ambulance?”

  “You don’t know what I’ve captured with this.” The tiny, arthritic woman ignored McNamara and the nearly apoplectic Banks and started walking around them, the artificial clickclickclick of the phone’s camera punctuating her steps.

  “I know what I’m gonna capture, you old —” Banks stopped when he saw his chief’s face.

  McNamara said, “I need a favor.”

  “You’ll get my photos when I’ve seen them and not before,” Avril Oxley said, but she turned to face the officers and looked past them to the curious crowd. “Vultures! Nothing to do and no brains to do it with. Just glomming onto whatever shiny object comes their way.”

  Banks gave McNamara a questioning look, but the Chief shook his head. The mixed bird metaphor wasn’t worth it. Avril wouldn’t appreciate the comparison to her fellow crime scene bystanders and when she was angry, it was impossible to schmooze her.

  McNamara said, “Not the photos, although I’ll need them.”

  The old woman gave him her attention and as always, he thought what an uncomfortable thing it was to be the subject of that sharp, if ancient, brain. He said, “I need to learn everything I can about Garrett Bishop.”

  A quick intake of breath and bloom of color on her wrinkled cheeks were the only signs Avril gave of the impact of his words. She sounded casual as she said, “Oh, so it is him?”

  “I didn’t say that. And I expect you to keep my request to yourself.”

  She ignored the underlying insult and said, “They already know.” Again her gaze moved to the crowd. “How do you think I found out? Rory Bailey told the new clerk at Baldy’s and she was running her mouth to everyone in the checkout line.”

  Bailey owned the neighboring land, a farm which ran north to the state highway a half mile away. He and others had been vocal about their dislike for Bishop. McNamara scanned the crowd for the farmer.

  “I got shots of everyone, just in case, but the killer isn’t over there,” Avril said.

  “And you know that how?” Banks asked.

  “Oh, pay attention. They’re just background noise. Little Nosy Parkers who show up at the scent of excitement. Not one of them lives nearby or is truly concerned about Bishop. You check out Rory and see what he says. That’s what you want to do.”

  Rory Bailey. McNamara made a note of the name and earned a brief smile from Avril. He felt sorry for whoever had to investigate every bit of local gossip and run down every neighbor versus neighbor grudge. He was suddenly glad it wasn’t going to be him.

  Chapter Two

  Until Garrett Bishop’s death, a business sliding into bankruptcy, feuding employees and an incontinent dog formed the boundaries of Grace Reagan’s life. She may have stumbled into a murder, but she still had the other three issues to deal with.

  When the State Police finally released her, she went to her office and walked into a new war between the secretaries. Friday afternoon or not, they still had work to do, and she would tell them so right after she answered the phone. She caught the call on the fifth ring and tried to sound professional.

  “Kastner and Mosley, how may I help you?”

  “I’m gonna kill Mom if you don’t get over here!” Her cousin Niki was trying to yell and whisper at the same time and sounded demented.

  Grace closed her eyes and allowed herself a blissful moment imagining a homicide at the other end of the phone. Niki’s mother was not Grace’s favorite person.

  “I’m not kidding!” Niki’s volume went up. “You put her up to this and now there’s a free for all in my living room. Your precious bidders may kill her before I get a chance to.”

  It was too much. Grace wanted to scream, but she only said, “What wrong with the bidders? Have they heard about Bishop?”

  “What about him? He’s the only one who isn’t here, thank God. The rest of them are in a fight, though, and Mom’s in the middle of it.”

  Of all the adjustments Grace had made over the past year, being nice to Connie Delaney for Niki’s sake was the one which grated the most. It wasn’t hard to imagine that wherever Connie was, there’d be trouble.

  But Niki wasn’t finished. “Dad’s in Atlantic City, so he’s no help. Besides, you promised to take Leo, remember?”

  “I will, it’s just —”

  “Too late is what it is. That dog’s lucky to even be in the garage considering his toileting hygiene. Get. Over. Here.”

/>   “I’ve been a little busy with a possible murder,” Grace said to the dial tone in her ear.

  On her way out of the office, she took a second to appreciate a sudden silence in the mostly empty suite of rooms which had once been a healthy law firm and real estate office. Even if the two secretaries — the only remaining staff — had stopped arguing, Grace knew it didn’t mean they were working. She should talk to them and tell them about Bishop. Tell them it was time to pull together while they all still had jobs. But the day’s events had drained her, and she had to get to Niki’s inn. Monday, for sure, she’d put her foot down and straighten everyone out.

  Just as she reached the lobby, she heard the arguing start up again. She pushed the button for the elevator. When it arrived, she stepped in, then leaned out and called, “Have a good weekend!” before stabbing ‘close’ and ‘down’. The god of old elevators smiled and she made her escape.