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    True Crime
    True Crime
    True Crime
    Ebook168 pages2 hours

    True Crime

    By Geoffrey A. Feller

    ()

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    Natalie Dvorak #14:

    Twenty years have passed since the sensational March Madness murders Natalie Dvorak worked as a State Police detective in Vermont. Now the subject of a true crime network TV show, Natalie is allowed to watch an advance copy of the episode. Natalie is retired from the force and living in the desert southwest in the wake of a personal loss. She is critical of the program at first, talking back to the TV screen and recording rebuttal remarks for relatives who will be watching it later. But Natalie gets caught up in the memories of this case, two murders connected with a program meant to help troubled teenagers. Some of the kids got involved in illegal activity that may have put themselves and others in extreme danger. Natalie solved the case in 1987 and now watches it unfold all over again after the turn of the century.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGeoffrey A. Feller
    Release dateOct 5, 2021
    ISBN9781005548056
    True Crime
    Author

    Geoffrey A. Feller

    I was born fifty-seven years ago in the Bible belt but grew up in a Massachusetts college town. I am married and my wife and I have moved frequently since we met. We've lived in Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New Mexico, as well as a brief residency in Berlin, Germany. I have worked peripherally in health care, banking, and insurance. In addition to writing, I have done a bit of amateur acting and comedy performances. I am afraid of heights but public speaking doesn't scare me. My wife and I live in Albuquerque with our chihuahua.

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      Book preview

      True Crime - Geoffrey A. Feller

      TRUE

      CRIME

      by Geoffrey A. Feller

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2021 by Geoffrey A. Feller

      CHAPTER ONE:

      TWENTY YEARS LATER

      It was March, 1987, in an age before the internet; cell phones were gadgets the size of a brick; the average price for a gallon of gas was under a dollar. Ronald Reagan was President and he was facing the Iran-Contra crisis. The drug AZT was approved by the FDA to treat AIDS. The band U2 released The Joshua Tree album. Platoon was named Best Picture at the Academy Awards. In the NCAA March Madness basketball championship, Indiana won the final round against Syracuse. But in the state of Vermont, the State Police were faced by a different kind of March Madness…

      The final two words uttered in a dramatic male voice appeared on the screen in white block letters under the program title, The Felony Files, which were in blood-red. The image froze on the screen, silencing the voice and the music because Natalie Dvorak had pressed the pause button for her DVD player’s remote control.

      Natalie smiled to herself with embarrassment and got up from the reading chair in her home office. The digital, handheld recording device was sitting on her desk farther back towards the wall.

      I’ll need that after all, Natalie thought.

      Her desk was made from finished pine and painted forest green. It was the only piece of furniture left from her move five years earlier. The desk top was neat and organized. A plastic in-box, a desk telephone, and a personal computer monitor with a keyboard occupied most of the space; the PC tower was on the floor next to the desk and a printer was sitting on a small table nearby.

      On the wall above Natalie’s high-backed brown upholstered office chair were framed portraits of friends and family members, dead and living. Two official documents were also framed and mounted, one expired and the other active. The older one confirmed Natalie as a deputy in the Obregon County Sheriff’s department, issued twenty-two years ago. The newer one was Natalie’s State of New Mexico license as a Private Investigator.

      For now, Natalie left the digital recorder where it was and went past her partner’s desk into the hall. It was a smaller desk with cluttered with books and papers. There was another array of framed pictures on the wall behind that desk and another official document, this one confirming her partner as a licensed attorney.

      It was why Natalie called him mi abogado, even though he hadn’t practiced law for several years. Then, too, Natalie’s detective agency was strictly part-time.

      He was more also more than a business partner; Natalie whispered "mi abogado" to him in bed. His proper name was Esteban Vigil.

      He was asleep in their bed right now; it was before dawn in Silver City. Natalie tread softly past their bedroom in her slippers and pajamas. Her dog, a red dachshund named Sol, trotted after Natalie, hoping for an early breakfast. He sat patiently in the kitchen as she made a pot of tea.

      Natalie’s hair was long and white, flowing halfway down the back of her pajama top. She had been compactly muscular since her late twenties after divorcing her first husband and becoming a policewoman in Burlington, Vermont. Because Natalie was barely over five feet tall, her strength had always surprised people who didn’t know her. It was even more amusing now that she was a sixty-four year old woman. Using an array of free weights in a home gym allowed Natalie to refuse help from people wanting to carry her grocery bags, suitcases, and—once—a new car battery.

      Of course when weather permitted Natalie to go sleeveless, such unsolicited aid was not so common.

      She was much stronger than el abogado but he’d been left a paraplegic following a stroke three years ago. His mind remained sharp and his left arm was functional yet greatly inferior to his right. Natalie’s weight training gave her protection against osteoperosis; the frequent need to lift her boyfriend in and out of his wheelchair also made strength training mandatory. At least Esteban had always been slim, even when she’d first met him during the case she worked as a temporary deputy.

      Sol emitted a soft woof. Natalie let her tea steep and went to get the dog’s leash and collar. A few minutes later, she was outside to give them both a walk. For early March, Natalie needed a light jacket and Sol was in a little knit sweater. This time of year, Natalie couldn’t have walked around outdoors in Vermont without putting on a much heavier coat.

      Her house in Silver City was on a quiet lane, surrounded by sagebrush and one cottonwood tree. It was a territorial-style structure as opposed to the faux-adobe design more typical in the state. That meant a gabled metal roof and a long porch with wooden posts in front. Although some territorial houses were two-story, Natalie’s was a rambler, all the better for el abogado yet she had bought the house a year before his stroke.

      Natalie’s car, a two-door Jeep Wrangler, was parked in a car port off the kitchen. There was no lawn, just rocks and sand along with the sagebrush and tree.

      Natalie carried a flashlight in her right hand and the dog’s leash in her left. She’d put on a pair of hiking boots and crunched over the dry earth as Sol followed his eager nose along the road. The dog had been a stray when Natalie found him seven months earlier. Someone had either lost or abandoned the little dachshund nearly two hundred miles to the north. Driving along US 60 after a stop in Pie Town, Natalie had spotted the animal at the roadside. He was verge of collapse from heat exhaustion.

      Natalie carried him into the Jeep, providing water and air-conditioning. Later, she brought the dog to a veterinarian in Silver City. There were no health issues yet he lacked a microchip or tags to determine ownership. So Natalie named the dachshund Sol, after the sun that had threatened his life.

      Sol had a sweet disposition and got affection from both humans at the rescue home.

      Walking a dog was a good way to make thoughts flow. Natalie had been in Pie Town on a whim, stopping at a restaurant for an apple and green chile pie, going well out of her way home from the airport in faraway Albuquerque. Having been at her older brother’s funeral a couple of days earlier Natalie had been in a mood to wander through the wide-open desert. So she’d exited Interstate 25 at Socorro and gone west for pie.

      Death had taken other people close to her since the turn of the century, the biggest loss being Natalie’s second husband Dan. It was going to be six years since heart failure took that big, kind man from Natalie and left her a widow. It had seemed so ridiculous, impossible, that such a fate could kill Dan. He protected Natalie and gaver her refuge when life got difficult; none but the dearest people in her life knew Dan met those needs.

      She moved from Holbrook, Vermont, down to the Land of Enchantment to escape physical reminders of Dan, such as their house on the hill and the Town Hall where Dan had been the one-man police force. She had been content to be on her own for a long time, not even dating anyone despite having many requests.

      Gradually, Natalie had rediscovered physical pleasure during casual encounters with a few appetizing men. But she neither sought nor encouraged any sort of commitment.

      Natalie tried a dating website and found a profile that seemed interesting. The one drawback was that the man didn’t live nearby. Still, Natalie decided to make a road trip two hours southeast to the town of Mesilla, next to Las Cruces, the largest city in southern New Mexico.

      The man was mature in years but not in behavior as it happened. Over drinks in a saloon at Mesilla Plaza, he was rude and presumptuous. Natalie ditched him with more annoyance than regret and took a short stroll to La Posta, a landmark restaurant inside a building that had once been a stagecoach stop. Still hungry for a good dinner, Natalie was fine keeping her own company.

      But there was Esteban Vigil, standing at the hostess station by the big cage holding live parrots and cockatiels. Natalie recognized him although the man was now gray and wrinkled. He was wearing a tan linen suit with a red tie.

      Mr. Vigil! Natalie shouted at him across the brick floor.

      He looked up, squinted at her through thick-lensed eyeglasses and slowly broke into a smile.

      It can’t be, Esteban said. Natalie Dvorak, Vermont State Police!

      It is, Natalie confirmed as she walked over to him. Retired Lieutenant.

      My God, Esteban said as they shook hands. I’m retired, too.

      You look well.

      Ah, getting older, aren’t we all? You look so fit, Sergeant. Sorry, Lieutenant.

      Just Natalie. I live in Silver City now.

      Esteban chuckled at Natalie’s blue denim, western-cut shirt, long, red-and-black skirt, and tan cowboy boots.

      You’ve gone native! he exclaimed. Well, Vermont’s loss is New Mexico’s gain.

      Thank you. Are you meeting someone here?

      Just about to order some takeout.

      Bringing it home to the wife?

      Hah, no wife. Eating alone.

      No, you aren’t. Join me at a table with me and we’ll get all caught up.

      You’re here alone?

      Natalie grinned and nodded.

      "Long story, mi viejo amigo. But yes, and I’d rather not be if you’re available."

      Oh, I’m available, Esteban grinned back.

      They were seated far back in the restauarant. The room had a tin ceiling and a Dia de Muertos skeleton statue against a wall. None of the other empty tables were occupied; Natalie and Esteban had some quiet privacy for their food and conversation. Before dessert, Esteban was praising Natalie’s eyes and hair. She kissed him goodbye in the parking lot.

      Been waiting for your kiss since 1985, Esteban told her.

      Because el abogado was charming and handsome, Natalie allowed him to pursue her. He courted Natalie with patience and thoughtful gestures. She rewarded him with affection and allowed herself to feel romantic love once again.

      And he became her buisness partner, too…

      Now Natalie thought about how Dan would have enjoyed seeing the DVD, sent to her by the production company ahead of the episode’s scheduled premiere on the Law Enforcement Channel. Based on the lurid standards of reality television, Dan would surely have enjoyed teasing his wife about it. Maybe it would be best to watch the episode in that spirit.

      Modern technology allowed Natalie to record her impressions on a device like the micro-tape recorders she’d used on the job. Only the digital memory would hold far more recording time than a physical tape would have. Her niece Melanie had sent the thing to her by FedEx and wanted it sent back so she could hear Natalie’s commentary, rebuttals, and so on. Twenty years

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