Sam Quinton #3
Mystery
Date Published: 03-08-2022
Publisher: Camel Press
Sociology professor Felix Thayer is brilliant but hateful. A near genius in
his field, but impossible to get along with. When his colleague Michael
Hartness is found murdered in his office, it doesn’t surprise anyone that
Thayer is arrested for the crime. Everyone who knew the two men pretty much
saw that coming. But why would Thayer have committed the murder in a manner
so careless as to almost ensure his being fingered as the culprit? It’s
almost as if the guy wanted to be caught.
That’s what Thayer’s wife needs to know. She doesn’t really care whether
her husband’s guilty. She just has to know why he’d be so careless and hires
Sam Quinton, full-time gym owner, part-time private eye, and former
professional wrestler, to find out. But as Quinton investigates the crime,
he finds there may be more to the affair than the animosity of two men. And
when the local Mafia begins dogging his steps, he figures he’s on the trail
of something that someone wants kept under wraps.
Excerpt
My third stop for the day was the city jail.
After a couple of minutes of the usual song and dance of getting in to see an accused person, I was sitting down behind a plexiglass screen as they brought the supposed murderer in.
He was wearing a regulation jail jumpsuit, one baggy enough to make him seem even scrawnier than he probably was. Even in the jumpsuit and after several days in stir, he had an air about him. He walked into the room and looked down at me with a haughty expression.
He sat down in front of me, stared for a second like I was a bug under a microscope, then lifted up the black plastic phone.
“Who are you?” were his first words.
Despite his incarceration, Felix Thayer carried himself with the air of a man about to begin a lecture. He was somehow clean shaven, and his dark brown hair, hanging just below his ears, looked as if he’d just stepped out of a salon.
I guessed the guy cared about his appearance.
He looked as if he’d been in decent shape once, an avid tennis player maybe or perhaps racquetball, but had slacked off for a couple of years.
Although he wore gold-colored wire frames for his eyes, up close I could tell the lenses were clear glass, meaning he obviously wore them for appearance’s sake.
Interesting thing to note. If he was looking to play the role of entrenched academic, it could mean he was a somewhat deceptive person in other ways as well.
“My name’s Sam Quinton. I’m a private investigator.”
“You working for my lawyer?” He peered at me through the glasses.
“No. For your wife. She hired me to help you out.”
Some stretching of the truth there, but I figured acceptable under the circumstances.
Thayer leaned back in his chair and studied me, his eyes looking owlish. I guessed he wanted me to feel like one of his students who’d scrambled into class five minutes late.
“Hired you to do what?”
“I would assume prove your innocence. Dig around and find evidence that you didn’t kill Dr. Hartness.”
“That’s what I have a lawyer for.”
“A lawyer who’s a tad — young, shall we say.”
“According to you.”
“I notice he didn’t manage to spring bail for you.”
Now Thayer grinned, but there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of humor in the expression. Looking at him, I could almost envision him as the kind of guy who’d get pleasure out of kicking a puppy out of his way.
“I really don’t see how who I hired for legal counsel is any concern of yours, mister. Why don’t you go find some bar to throw drunks out of? By the look of you, that’s about all you’re qualified to do.”
And here I’d worn my nicest peacoat to come see him.
“Maybe, but as long as I’m here, and you’re here, why don’t we put our heads together. Heck, if nothing else, how could it hurt to talk to me?”
Now the man gave me a bit of a snarl. “Let’s get this straight, mister. If, or when, I go to trial, I’m going to be able to beat it on my own. I’m not going to need any lowlife to help me out.”
Under the little counter that runs in front of the plexiglass I was clenching and unclenching my fist.
“You said ‘if.’ You doubt you’ll go to trial?”
“I’m hoping that these asswipe rent-a-cops we have in this town will come to their senses before then.”
The guy was a sweetheart, for sure. I was starting to seriously wonder what a woman as classy as Susan Thayer saw in him.
With my free hand, I drummed my fingers on the counter in front of me. “How about humoring your wife, Mr. Thayer?”
“That’s Dr. Thayer.” His voice went up about half an octave in my ear. “The least you could do would be to address me with the honorific I’ve earned.”
“Yeah,” I said, unable to tolerate the guy any longer “but you earned it in sociology, so that doesn’t really count, does it?”
Thayer steamed at me for a couple of seconds, then stood up and slammed his phone on the hook, hard enough it bounced off and slammed onto the counter. One of the guards standing by the door began to edge his way.
About the Author
A high-school teacher, former college instructor, and fiction writer, Kevin
R. Doyle is the author of numerous short horror stories. He’s also
written three crime thrillers, The Group, When You Have to Go There, and And
the Devil Walks Away, and one horror novel, The Litter. In the last few
years, he’s begun working on the Sam Quinton private eye series,
published by Camel Press. The first Quinton book, Squatter’s Rights,
was nominated for the 2021 Shamus award for Best First PI Novel. The
second book, Heel Turn, was released in March of 2021, while the third in
the series, Double Frame, came out in March of 2022.
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