Justice for All

Courage Bay Sentinel

Avenger Linked to Latest Murder

Courage Bay’s serial killer appears to have struck again.

Businessman Bernie Brusco, who survived a recent murder attempt at a private fundraiser for the Courage Bay Hospital, was found dead Sunday night at the base of a cliff backing onto his home in the exclusive neighborhood of Jacaranda Heights. Brusco’s death has been labeled a homicide by police, but so far Chief Max Zirinsky will not confirm that this case is being treated as yet another killing by the Avenger.

Brusco, who moved here recently from Los Angeles, collapsed from an apparent heart attack at the society fundraiser last Friday night. Chief of staff Callie Baker, who was also in attendance, applied CPR on-site until the ambulance arrived. Doctors at Courage Bay Hospital discovered Brusco had been given a drink laced with the drug ephedra. Once Brusco was released from hospital, it appears that his killer came back to finish the job.

Chief Zirinsky keeps assuring the public that there is no need for alarm, but the citizens of Courage Bay can’t help asking the question “Who will the Avenger hit next?”

JOANNA WAYNE

was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, and received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from LSU-Shreveport. She moved to New Orleans in 1984, and it was there that she attended her first writing class and joined her first professional writing organization. Her debut novel, Deep in the Bayou, was published in 1994.

Now, dozens of published books later, Joanna has made a name for herself as being on the cutting edge of romantic suspense in both series and single-title novels. She has been on the Waldenbooks bestseller list for romance and has won many industry awards. She is also a popular speaker at writing organizations and local community functions and has taught creative writing at the University of New Orleans Metropolitan College.

Joanna currently resides in a small community forty miles north of Houston, Texas, with her husband. Though she still has many family and emotional ties to Louisiana, she loves living in the Lone Star State. You may write Joanna at P.O. Box 265, Montgomery, Texas 77356.

Dear Reader,

The world is always in need of heroes. That’s why I was so excited about participating in a series that concentrated on the heroic efforts of firefighters, police officers, medical personnel and other citizens of Courage Bay. Max Zirinsky and Callie Baker are the epitome of true heroes to me, in that they risked extreme danger to themselves to do what had to be done to stop the Avenger.

And I especially liked that the series was set in California. As a Southerner, I don’t get to the West Coast nearly often enough, but I was fortunate enough to spend several summers there a few years back. Many moments stand out in my mind from those visits, but some of my favorites involve sunsets and moonlit walks on the beach—as romantic a spot as I could ever wish for. I could almost feel the sand between my toes and hear the roar of the surf when Max and Callie took their first walk along the beach. I hope you do, as well.

I love to hear from readers. Please visit my Web site at www.joannawayne.com.

Happy reading,

Joanna

In memory of my good friend Linda West,

I aka Linda Lewis and Dixie Kane,

I who warmed many a heart

I with her tales of love and laughter.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

THE GALA WAS IN FULL SWING, as glitzy an affair as socialite and heiress Mary McGuire Hancock, III, was known for. White canvas canopied the spacious grounds, strands of miniature lights twinkled like stars in every tree and music from a jazz combo played backup to conversations and laughter.

And like all gatherings of the Courage Bay elite, fashion was on parade. Sequined gowns clung to gorgeously slinky bodies and stretched across paunchier ones. Men in tuxedos lined up at the open bars, while waiters in stiff white shirts and creased black pants wandered the crowd with trays of recherche hors d’oeuvres.

It was a night for visiting old friends and making new ones, a night for schmoozing and soliciting checks for impressive sums of money.

A night for murder.

His pulse quickened at the thought, but he was careful not to show any sign of his excitement. This had to be just another charitable function until the perfect moment presented itself. The night had just started. He had plenty of time.

But once he struck, justice would be swift and merciless. Most importantly, justice would be served.

CALLIE BAKER FINISHED a conversation with one of the councilmen and turned to find District Attorney Henry Lalane at her elbow.

“You look lovely tonight, Callie.”

“Thank you, Henry.”

“This must be a big event for the hospital’s chief of staff.”

“Bigger for the children who’ll benefit from the donations we raise,” she said. “The money’s earmarked to purchase new equipment for the pediatric wing.”

“It’s a great turnout.”

“You have to love that about Courage Bay. Rich or poor, the residents are always ready to support a worthy cause.”

“There’s not a lot of poor people here tonight.”

“No, but there have been so many other fund-raisers across the city. The latest was sponsored by the students at Jacaranda High. They raised over a thousand dollars for the hospital at their spring carnival.”

“So I heard. My niece goes to school there.”

And his daughter probably would have been a student there, too, if she hadn’t been killed a few years before in a random drive-by shooting. No one was ever apprehended for the crime. Callie was sorry she’d mentioned the school now, though Henry didn’t seem upset by the comment. Still, she knew how devastated he and his wife had been at the loss of their daughter.

Henry sipped his drink. “Bernie Brusco seems to be enjoying himself,” he said, letting his gaze settle on the man who was laughing and tangoing across the portable dance floor with their hostess.

“Not the best of dancers,” Callie observed, “but he’s generous. I hadn’t met him before tonight, but he wrote out a very substantial check for the hospital.”

“He should. He’s probably one of the richest men here.”

“Really. I wouldn’t have guessed that. What does he do?”

“Owns a string of convenience stores in L.A. Yet here he is crashing our little social scene.”

“Mary said he bought a house in Courage Bay.”

“Lucky us.”

“And that must be another new face in town,” Callie said, nodding toward a very handsome man standing beneath a palm tree a few yards away, looking exceedingly bored. “I’ve never seen him before.”

“Looks like an aging surfer to me. I hate those new T-shirt looking things that pass for dress shirts.”

“It’s the style.” Callie had no idea if the stranger surfed, but she thought he was aging quite nicely. Probably near forty, he was still lean and sun-bronzed, with short sandy hair and a great body. The kind of guy Callie’s best friend Mikki would classify as a hunk.

Too bad Mikki hadn’t been available to attend the party. She’d have made certain the guy wasn’t bored, unless he happened to have a ring on his finger. Mikki’s claim was that every good-looking guy in southern California was gay, married or divorced and carried more baggage than a 747. Callie wasn’t totally convinced she was wrong.

“Think I’ll go introduce myself,” Henry said. “Then I’ll have to search for my social butterfly wife. It’s getting late, and I’ve got a full day tomorrow.”

“Are you working on Saturdays now?”

“Too many of them, but not by choice. The workload seems to have doubled over the last year. Unfortunately our staff hasn’t.”

Callie nodded and finished her second glass of champagne as Henry walked away. She spent the next few minutes chatting with various guests, then decided she was too tired to make small talk. It was nearing midnight, and like Henry, she was feeling the strain of a long, busy week. Most of the doctors on staff at Courage Bay Hospital who’d attended the event had already called it an evening.

Callie headed toward the area where she’d seen Mary and Bernie a few minutes earlier, wanting to thank her hostess one last time before cutting out. She stopped short when she heard a ruckus break out beneath the canopy to her left. She spun around just in time to see Bernie Brusco fall against one of the small tables. Another guest tried to break his fall, but the table collapsed, and both men fell on top of it.

“We need a doctor,” someone yelled.

Callie rushed over, along with everyone else in hearing distance. She ordered the anxious crowd back and knelt in the grass beside Bernie.

“Can’t…breathe. Chest…hurts.”

“Call 911 for an ambulance,” Callie ordered, directing her comment to Mary. She reached for Bernie’s wrist to check his pulse. It was dangerously accelerated.

“Do something.” Bernie’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

Callie put the flat of her hand on the man’s chest and felt the rapid, irregular beating of his heart. “Has this happened before?”

“No.”

His shallow gasps weren’t getting much oxygen to his lungs, so she slipped her arm beneath him and placed his head at an angle that should have made breathing easier. He clutched her arm and held on tight.

“Don’t let…me die.”

“I won’t.” Not if she could help it. “Try to take a deep breath.”

“I’m…trying.”

He gasped then went limp.

“Is he dead?” an onlooker asked.

Callie didn’t bother to answer, just leaned over and gave a sharp whack to Bernie’s chest with the side of her hand, then pressed his heart between the sternum and the spine with rhythmic motions. Thankfully the heart responded and started beating again on its own. The pulse remained high, inconsistent with a typical heart attack.

The ambulance arrived in short order. “His pulse is near 180,” Callie told the paramedics as they loaded him onto the stretcher. “Squirt some procardra under his tongue when you get him in the ambulance. I’ll call the E.R. and alert them you’re on the way and to have an IV setup for a nipride drip.”

Bernie managed to murmur his thanks to Callie as the medics hurried him to the ambulance.

Mary was waiting at Callie’s side when she finished the phone call to the E.R. “Will he be all right?” she asked, her voice shaky.

“The hospital E.R. is one of the finest in the state. He’ll get excellent care.” It was the best she could promise.

Mary blinked and flicked the back of her hand across her eyes. “Poor Bernie. One minute he was really enjoying himself, wolfing down hors d’oeuvres as if he hadn’t eaten for days and drinking some kind of specialty cocktail the bartender had mixed for him. The next he was gasping for breath.”

“Which bartender mixed his drink?”

“One of those young men,” Mary answered, motioning to the portable serving area set up at the back of the tent.

“What was he eating?”

“The seafood canapés—you know, the ones served on the shrimp-shaped crackers. He’d piled a dozen or so on his plate. Couldn’t stop raving about how good they were.” Mary slapped her hand against her cheek. “Oh, dear. You don’t suppose they made him sick, do you? My caterer insists on the freshest ingredients. I’m certain the seafood wasn’t tainted.”

“If it was tainted, we’d have a lot more people than Bernie affected. But it’s possible he had an allergic reaction to one of the ingredients.”

“It looked like a heart attack to me,” Mary said, “but then he’s only forty-five, and he seemed perfectly healthy before he collapsed.”

Callie scanned the immediate area for his glass or perhaps a half eaten seafood canapé but found neither. No doubt both had been removed by one of the attentive waiters.

“I guess I’d better get back to the guests and try to salvage what’s left of the party spirit,” Mary said, clasping and unclasping her hands. “I don’t feel much like it, though. I thought Bernie was going to die right here in the grass. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here.”

“But I was here, and he didn’t die,” Callie said, taking one of Mary’s hand in hers and giving it a comforting squeeze. “The party was lovely, and what happened to Bernie wasn’t your fault.”

“Will you call me as soon as you know something? I can come and stay with Bernie if you think he needs me.”

“I’ll call, but he’s probably better off without company tonight.”

Callie waited until Mary walked away, then went to the large serving table, took a couple of the seafood canapés and wrapped them in a paper napkin. She stopped and had the young bartender write out the ingredients he’d used in Bernie’s special drink, as well.

Avoiding as many of the guests as she could, Callie walked to the front lawn of the sprawling estate and waited for one of the attendants to get her car. The bored stranger was waiting for his as well.

“You were impressive,” he said, stepping closer. “I noticed you earlier but would never have taken the beautiful woman in red for a doctor.”

“Difficult to recognize us when we’re not wearing our white coats,” Callie said. “I don’t think we’ve met.” She extended her hand. “I’m Callie Baker, chief of staff at Courage Bay Hospital.”

“Jerry Hawkins.”

“Are you new to the area?”

“Visiting my mother, Abby Hawkins.”

“I didn’t know Abby had a son.”

“I’m the black sheep of the family. Mother usually keeps me hidden away when I come to visit, lest I embarrass her in front of her friends.”

“Then she should be proud of you. You behaved quite appropriately tonight.”

“I have my moments.”

The attendant drove up with his car. Jerry started to walk away, then turned back to Callie. “The world would have been a better place if you’d let him die.”

“Excuse me?”

“You do know how Bernie Brusco makes his money, don’t you?”

“I heard he owns a chain of convenience stores.”

“To launder the cash he makes supplying drugs to half of southern California.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Not a matter of thinking it. It’s fact.”

“Even if what you say is true, it wouldn’t have mattered. I took an oath to save lives. All lives, not just the ones I deem worthy.”

“Too bad. You probably sentenced a few hundred adolescents to death by keeping Brusco alive.” He turned and walked to his car, leaving the sting of his accusation hanging in the still night air.

MAX ZIRINSKY BIT the end off a cold French fry and stared at the names he’d scribbled on the napkin. Dylan Deeb, Bruce Nepom, Lorna Sinke and Carlos Esposito. Four unsolved murders in one year. Different MO in every case but with one common factor. They were all suspected of having committed a criminal act.

Max reviewed the evidence in his mind, the way he did dozens of times a day. Deeb had made one hit movie, which was preceded and then followed by a string of marginal successes and a few bombs. He’d bought a home in Courage Bay after the box office hit, claiming he’d wanted a place where he could flee the Hollywood publicity circus.

More often than not, he’d brought the circus with him, to the disdain of his privacy-loving neighbors. Deeb was known for his wild parties and a parade of very young, big breasted babes who came and went, frequently in groups.

He’d been brought up on charges of soliciting sexual favors from underage female actresses in exchange for parts in his movies. But all Deeb had to do was give his unhappy starlets the promise of a role in one of his movies, and they merely smiled and refused to testify. Deeb was scum, but he’d walked away from the charges a free man.

Someone had changed that by paying a visit to Deeb’s Courage Bay house in the midst of one of the worst series of rains to hit the area in years. Warnings had gone out for everyone in the area to evacuate.

Deeb’s house had been swept away in a mud slide with Deeb still inside it. Severe bruising on his neck indicated foul play, and an autopsy revealed that he’d been strangled before his house had taken the plunge.

Then there was Bruce Nepom. An unlicensed contractor, Nepom was taken to the E.R. at Courage Bay Hospital after his roof collapsed on him during the storm of the century back in January. Nepom died while in hospital, and an autopsy showed his injuries stemmed from trauma to the base of his skull with a blunt instrument. He’d been facing possible charges in the death of an elderly couple after the roof he’d built for them collapsed, but the case was dropped due to lack of evidence.

The third case involved an aide to city council named Lorna Sinke. The woman had escaped prosecution in the death of her elderly parents when evidence was ruled inadmissible after an improperly executed search warrant. Sinke had been shot in a hostage situation at city hall and died later in the hospital.

And finally there was Esposito, a scumbag who abducted Mexican children from their families and put them to work as migrant workers. Esposito had died instantly when his small plane had crashed into the ballroom of the Grand Hotel. An investigation had found evidence that someone had deliberately tampered with the plane’s engine.

Bottom line was that some damned avenger was creating a crime wave of his own and he was doing it right under Max’s nose. That would have been tough if he was still just a detective on the homicide squad. But now that he was chief of police, it was driving him over the edge.

“Want another beer?” Jake asked, wiping a wet spot off the bar just left of Max’s elbow.

“Nah. I’ve had enough.”

“You’ve only had two. It’s Friday night. Live a little.”

“I’m living, hip hoppin’ big time. Just keeping a low profile so it doesn’t make everyone else jealous.”

Jake leaned over the bar and stared at the names Max had printed on the napkin. “If you were living, those would be foxes’ names and phone numbers on that wrinkled old napkin, not victims.”

“Victims are easier to deal with. They don’t expect flowers.”

“But women have curves and don’t smell like those sweaty cops you were talking to earlier tonight.”

“Could be, but the cops will still respect me in the morning.”

“That’s not funny, Max.”

And not true, either. If the department didn’t solve these murder cases, no one was going to respect him in the morning, least of all himself.

He glanced at his watch. Nearly 1:00 a.m., and he was still wide-awake. Not much point going back to his empty apartment and tossing around in that king-size bed all by himself. “Okay, Jake, one more beer.”

“You got it, Max. The night is young. And you see that table of hotties sitting over there sipping margaritas…”

Max swivelled around on the bar stool and stared at the three young women flirting with a couple of the department’s newer and fortunately unmarried recruits sitting at the table next to them.

“I see them. Now what?”

“Hell, Max. Do I have to tell you everything? Send them a drink. Go over and talk to them. You might just get lucky tonight.”

“I’m old enough to be their father.”

“But you aren’t their father.”

“If I was, I’d tell them to stay the hell away from those cops they’re working so hard to pick up. Cops make lousy husbands.”

Jake shook his head and walked away. By the time he returned with the beer, Max was deep in thought about getting lucky. Luck for him would be arresting the Avenger—before he struck again.

CALLIE FINISHED WRITING out the orders for a thorough toxicology check on Bernie, handed it to the nurse on duty and walked back to the small cubicle where the patient was stretched out on the examining table. Ordinarily the E.R. doctor who had taken charge of Bernie when he arrived at the hospital would take over at this point, but Callie had decided to be Bernie’s doctor of record since she’d treated him at Mary’s.

“So how much longer do I have to stay here?” Bernie asked, shifting his weight to his right side and sticking one bare foot from beneath the bleached white sheet.

“Only about ten more minutes in here, but I’m admitting you to the hospital.”

“Don’t even think about it.” He waved his hand as if dismissing her last statement. “I can’t stay in the hospital. My business doesn’t run itself.”

“Which makes it all the more important that you stay here long enough for us to find out what caused your problems tonight.”

“I know what caused it. Stress. And if I don’t get out of here, the stress will double.”

“Stress could have brought on tonight’s episode,” she admitted, “but it’s not likely.”

“It doesn’t matter what caused it. I’m fine now,” he insisted. “I saw my blood pressure reading. It’s 140 over 100. That’s practically normal.”

“Much closer to normal than it was, but I’d still like to run a few tests, and you need to see a cardiologist.”

“So, what are we looking at? One day?”

“Possibly. Maybe more depending on when a cardiologist can see you and what kind of results we get from the tests.”

He rolled his eyes. “I have to be out of here by Monday morning at the latest.”

“I say we discuss that after we know more. I’m going to limit the number of visitors you can have to two at a time, fifteen minutes a visit, four times a day. You need to get some rest.”

“Fine by me. I don’t want people hanging around gawking at me hanging out of this thing.” He pulled on the loose fabric of the hospital gown to make his point.

She made a few notations on his chart, told him she’d see him in the morning and stepped out the door, shedding her white lab coat as she did.

“Hey, no one told me they were filming E.R. here tonight. If they had, I would have dressed for the occasion, too.”

Callie turned to see Mikki McCallister striding toward her. “What are you doing here at this time of night?”

“One of my darlings started running a high fever and his parents were nervous wrecks. I told them I’d meet them here and check him out.”

“Have you seen the patient yet?”

“Just left them. He’s got one of those stubborn viruses that don’t realize they’re supposed to check out after twenty-four hours. He’ll be fine, just needed the special touch of Dr. Mikki—and some glucose. What about you? Did you miss us so much you had to leave the soiree and pay a visit to the emergency room?”

“You got it. I think it’s the ambiance around here I can’t stay away from. Impatient patients. Harried doctors. And that woman yelling in Room 4 because we won’t keep supplying her with pain pills for her imaginary ailments.”

“So why are you here?” Mikki asked.

“One of the guests at the party collapsed and his heart stopped beating. I had to manually pump the chest to get it going again, so I stopped by to check on him.”