Murder in Miami

Merle Norman

Description

Did someone actually get away with the perfect murder? A prominent Miami attorney was discovered dead in his office and the medical examiner couldn’t determine the cause of death? Detective Robert Henderson was haunted in his dreams every night by the one case in his entire career as a homicide detective that he couldn’t solve, a case that consumed him. Even in retirement, the detective kept going over all the facts, all the evidence and every possible scenario but the end result was always the same until that fateful day when he happened to walk into a certain Cuban Paladar.

Sujets

• Detective
• Mystery
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Outskirts Press
• Date de parution: 06 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781977256690
• Langue: English

Extrait

Murder in Miami All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2022 Merle Norman v3.0 r1.1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-9772-5669-0
Cover Photo © 2022 www.gettyimages.com . All rights reserved - used with permission.
Outskirts Press and the "OP" logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Six Months Later
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
I wish to acknowledge my sister, Mindy Christiansen, without whose help this book would have never been published.

I also wish to acknowledge my companion, Dee, who has taken care of me throughout this entire endeavor. Without her support and encouragement, I would have given up on this task a long time ago.
Chapter One
It was 8:30 Tuesday morning following a three-day weekend when Carla pulled into her designated parking spot in front of the converted house on the east side of Little Havana, a small suburb of Miami. The two-story house had been converted into law offices 10 years ago which is when Carla began working as the office manager for Mr. Francisco Alfonso de la Carta, a high-powered criminal defense attorney. She was proud to be part of the two-person operation that had rapidly grown into a powerful law firm of 5 full-time Associates and several administrative employees. Carla was always the first one to arrive as it was her job to open the office, turn on all the lights, set the office thermostat to a comfortable working temperature before the rest of the staff arrived at 9:30, check the phone messages, start the coffee brewing, in addition to pulling the daily court cases and placing them on Mr. de la Carta’s desk.
After unlocking the front door, Carla stepped inside, turning to her left to quickly punch in the alarm code and then headed down the hall toward the kitchen. After she started the coffee, Carla continued with her morning routine, noticing that the offices were unusually warm and there seem to be a faint, foul odor throughout the office. Walking down the hall flicking on the lights, Carla passed the beautiful glass-encased conference room, formerly the house’s dining area and realized the odor was getting stronger as she approached the stairs leading to the second floor.
It was definitely an odor stronger than someone’s leftover lunch thrown away in their wastebasket to rot over the long weekend, especially as Maria, the law firm’s cleaning woman of three years, took great pride in her work, never missing a day and would have diligently cleaned all the offices as always.
As Carla climbed the stairs, wondering all the while what was causing the awful odor, the stench became so strong, Carla had to cover her nose and mouth before continuing up to the second floor.
Arriving at Mr. de la Carta’s office door, the odor was so putrid that even with her nose and mouth covered, it caused Carla to gag and her eyes to water. Even so, Carla entered the unlocked office, which was odd, since Mr. de la Carta always kept his door locked when out of the office and instantly saw a figure sitting in her boss’s chair bent over with their head resting on the desk. At first glance Carla didn’t recognize the person at the desk nor did she realize that the slumped body was the source of the now extremely nauseating odor. Wiping her teary eyes, while still keeping her nose and mouth covered, Carla stepped a few feet closer to the desk, suddenly freezing in place. She now saw the body clearly, a bloated, pale, DEAD body!
"Oh, my God!" As Carla became more focused on the corpse in front of her, the realization that it was the dead body of her boss felt like she had just been punched, making her week in the knees and extremely light-headed. Staggering to her office outside of Mr. de la Carta’s, Carla picked up the phone to dial 911, however she was trembling so hard, it took several attempts before she was successful in reaching someone.
"911, what is your emergency?" A voice asked, sounding far off in the distance.
"Hello, this is 911. What is your emergency?" The far-off voice repeated.
"Dead." Carla finally responded. "He’s dead!"
"Who’s dead?" And that was the last thing Carla heard before her body collapsed into a heap at the foot of the desk, with the phone still in her hand.
"Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?" the operator asked, not realizing her voice was falling on deaf ears. Fortunately, the 911 operator was able to trace the phone call since the line was still open and dispatched two patrol cars to the law firm. Four officers arrived within minutes not knowing what to expect. One officer went to the rear of the building, another waited at the front entrance, while the remaining two entered the building with guns drawn.
The two officers immediately recognized the stench of a decaying human body. They slowly sidled through the bottom floor, clearing each room before heading cautiously up to the second floor not knowing what they would be walking into.
Just past the top of the stairs, they saw the body of a woman lying on the floor. Methodically proceeding, the officers reached Mr. de la Carta’s office, where a second body was discovered.
Using his radio, Officer Cruz called in to report what the officers had discovered at the scene and requested a medical examiner be sent to the law firm immediately. Officer Cruz then sent his partner outside to secure the building as a crime scene and await the arrival of the medical examiner. With the smell starting to nauseate him, Officer Cruz decided to greet the soon-to-be arriving homicide detectives outside also. The Medical Examiner arrived first with the crime scene investigating team arriving shortly thereafter.
"What do we have?" Medical Examiner Olsen asked Officer Cruz.
"Two bodies on the second floor. By the smell, I would guess that they have been dead for several days. The building has been secured and no one has touched the bodies."
"Any idea who they are?"
"To be honest Olsen, I didn’t check either one of them for identification. One female, one male is all I know."
"Okay, thanks. Be sure to keep everyone out of the building for now." And with those instructions, Medical Examiner Olsen entered the Law Offices of Mr. Francisco Alfonso de la Carta to examine the bodies.
As Officer Cruz strolled toward the now barricaded parking lot, he saw a woman driving one of those small hybrid cars pull to the side of the road, exit the vehicle and walk purposely toward the taped off law firm.
"Excuse me ma’am, you can’t go in there."
"Yes, I can! I work here!"
Officer Cruz found it curious that the woman avoided any kind of eye contact and that she didn’t even seem curious about what was going on. The parking lot of the law firm was now filled with quite a few squad cars, a medical examiner’s van, two CSI units, not to mention yellow police tape around the whole perimeter, yet she doesn’t even ask a single question and tries to strut past everyone like she owns the place?
"You say you work here?"
"Yes, I work for Mr. de la Carta."
"What type of work do you do?"
The woman responded unemotionally and without any curiosity, "I am a lawyer."
"What’s your name?"
"Abigail Arnold. Why do you ask?"
Chapter Two
Abigail Arnold, or Abbey as she preferred to be called, had sent out hundreds of resumes and went on just as many interviews since graduating from Harvard Law School a year ago. Unfortunately, Abbey suffers from a debilitating shyness causing her to avoid eye contact and speaking in a quiet, almost inaudible voice which keeps her from interviewing well and therefore, despite her stellar resume, not to mention graduating second in her class, the interviews never resulted in a job offer. Despite years of trying to overcome her shyness, Abbey was never able to conquer the issue and as graduation approached, it became quite evident that since she was a straight A student and seemingly first in her class, she may be chosen as the class valedictorian, meaning she would have to give a speech in front of the entire school. The very thought of speaking in public made Abbey physically ill.
During her last semester at Harvard, the school administrator met with both her and Trevor Taylor, another straight A student. And just as Abbey had feared, they were advised that they were both in the running for class valedictorian and should Abbey and Trevor end up with the same grade poi