The
Brandt Dodson File:
Original Sin by Brandt Dodson
Colton Parker was just fired from the FBI, has a teenage
daughter who blames him for her mother’s death, and now that he’s
hung out his shingle as a P.I., his first paying client—Angie Howe—has
enough money for only one day’s worth of investigating. But Angie
looks like she could use a friend, so Colton has his first case.
CHAPTER ONE
Two days after I was fired from the FBI and five days before I opened for
business as a private investigator, I was told that the best way to build a clientele
was by word of mouth. That’s probably true if you have enough mouths
to spread the word. I didn’t. So when Angie Howe came into my office
early one morning and asked if she could hire me, I wanted to dance on
my desk. Instead, I offered her a cup of coffee.
She sat in one of the chairs opposite mine and held the mug with both hands. She sipped from it slowly. When she lowered the mug, I noticed tears in her deeply set eyes.
Maybe the dance on the desk would have been the better way to go after all.
“Too strong?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Would you like cream or sugar?”
She sniffled and pushed a thatch of stringy blonde hair away from her face. “No thank you,” she said. “This is fine.”
I eased back in my chair and sipped from my own cup as I studied the woman in front of me. She was young, probably in her late twenties, and thin—almost emaciated. She was wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a hooded sweatshirt under a nylon jacket. There was no jewelry.
“This is good,” she said. “It’s cold outside.”
Cold wasn’t the word for it. Mid-October in Indianapolis, “the crossroads of America,” rarely produces temperatures that fall into the low thirties, making the past several days exceptional.
“What can I do for you, Miss Howe?” “Angie, please.”
“Angie,” I said.
She sipped the coffee again and looked around my office. It was a one-room affair with a simple wood desk, a desk chair that squeaked, and two ladder-back chairs opposite mine. I had two file cabinets, one for the files that I hope to have someday, the other for coffee supplies and paperback novels. A small half bath opened off to one side of the door, and a radiator behind my desk provided heat in the winter. Air conditioning came from an open window that looked down onto the street, three stories below.
“I’ve never hired a private investigator before,” she said.
“Most people haven’t,” I said.
“How much do you charge?” I told her my daily rate.
“I’ve only got, like, enough for one day,” she said.
“Sure,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me about your problem and then maybe we can work something out.”
She thought about that for a moment and then nodded as she sipped from the cup. “Yeah. That sounds good.”
I pulled a notepad from the drawer. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here and then we’ll figure out how I can help you.”
The hair fell back in front of her face. She pushed it away with one hand. “My fiancé…well, he’s not really my fiancé, but he’s more than a boyfriend, you know?”
I told her that I did.
“He’s been arrested.”
“For what?” I asked.
She rolled the mug between her hands. “For murder,” she said.
I leaned forward in my chair.
She focused her eyes on the cup. “They think he killed his aunt, but he didn’t do it. He loves her. She was the only family he had.”
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“Billy. Billy Caine.”
I wrote the name down. “And what is…what was his aunt’s name?”
“Emma. Her name was Emma Caine.”
I made another note. “Why do the police think Billy killed his aunt?”
She pushed the thatch of hair from her face again. “They say he has her credit card and that it was missing from her house. They say they have proof that the card was used after she was murdered.”
“How was Emma killed?”
“Her head was caved in,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Was a weapon recovered?”
“I don’t know. They say that he was there about the time she was killed.”
“And you’re telling me that the police are basing their entire case on a credit card?”
She didn’t say anything but continued to keep her eyes downcast on the cup between her hands.
I shook my head. “There has to be more than that. A credit card isn’t enough. They must have something else. How do they know that Billy was there? Are there witnesses?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Some people say they saw him.” She rolled the cup between her hands and sniffled again. “He didn’t do it though,” she said, more to herself than to me.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
She kept her eyes diverted to the cup.
“Does he live with you?”
“Yeah.” She looked up. “And I know what you’re going to ask. And the answer is no. He wasn’t home.”
I put my pen down and stood. “My coffee seems to have gotten cold. How’s yours?”
She shrugged.
“Would you like a warm-up?”
She nodded and held out her cup. I took it and refilled both cups. I handed hers back and sat down. My chair creaked under the sudden load.
“Angie, if Billy has the card and witnesses can put him at Emma’s house and you can’t say that he was with you, why do you think he didn’t kill her?”
Her deep-set, red-rimmed eyes seemed to recede even further into her head. “He’s no angel, Mr. Parker.”
“Few of us are,” I said. I eased back in the chair and blew on the coffee before drinking.
“He’s been in trouble before.”
“What kind of trouble?” I asked, setting the cup down and picking up my pen.
She shrugged. “DUI, possession, stuff like that. But when he gets work, he works hard.”
I made a note of his record. “Does he have work now?”
She shook her head. “He can’t read, so he does odd jobs like hauling trash, deliveries, things like that. But those jobs don’t pay much, and when the job is over he gets laid off.”
I wrote motive across the page. “So he doesn’t have any money coming in?”
She shook her head.
“From anywhere?”
She shook her head again.
“And he had a credit card in his possession.”
She nodded.
“A card,” I continued, “that belonged to his murdered aunt and that was used after she was murdered.”
Her eyes fell back to the mug as she began rolling it again between her hands.
“And the police have eyewitnesses who can place him at the scene?”
She raised her head from the cup and looked at me. “He isn’t a killer, Mr. Parker. I know him. I know him good. He loved his Aunt Emma. He looked out for her. She was all the family he had.” She lowered her eyes again. “And he’s all that I have.”
“Is that why you’re here? Do you have any reason for your belief in his innocence other than your feelings for him?”
Her head snapped up. A flash of anger flickered in her eyes. “Isn’t that enough? Wouldn’t you do the same if he was yours?”
“Probably,” I said. “I would at least want to know.”
“I already know, Mr. Parker, and I want the world to know. Billy did not kill Emma.”
“Okay. But there are some things that you need to know. First, I am not an attorney. That means that I am not your advocate. I won’t spin the truth. I go where the evidence leads. Understand?”
She nodded.
“Second, if I find anything that may help your case, I will give it to you. But I can’t and won’t ignore evidence, regardless of who it implicates.”
She remained motionless.
“If the evidence points to him, I will tell you.”
“Okay,” she said.
I paused to pick up my cup and down some of the coffee. I wanted time to gauge her reaction. “If you can accept that, I can take your case.”
“You don’t believe me,” she said. “So why are you taking my case?”
“I didn’t say that I don’t believe you. In fact, I’m impressed that you admitted to facts that could incriminate your position.”
She pushed the hair out of her face again.
“Let’s just say that I’m intrigued enough to want to look into it. But I do have another question.”
“Okay,” she said.
“If Billy is out of work and you have no money coming in…how are you living?”
Her eyes diverted to the cup again.
I rephrased my question. “How do you pay the rent?”
“I can pay you, Mr. Parker, if that’s what you’re worried about. But like I said, I’ve only got enough for—”
I held my hand up. “We can work that out later. My question has more to do with Billy.”
She gave me a look of confusion.
“I’m curious about how you two live if he’s only working on occasion.”
She looked at me with unfocused eyes as she continued to roll the cup between her hands. “I sell my body, Mr. Parker.”
Taken from: Original
Sin. Copyright © 2006
by Brandt Dodson.
Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR. Used by permission.
