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  The C.T. Ferguson Private Investigator Mysteries

  Books 1-3

  Tom Fowler

  Tom Fowler Writes

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  The C.T. Ferguson Private Investigator Mysteries: Books 1-3, by Tom Fowler

  Published by Tom Fowler Writes. Silver Spring, MD

  The C.T. Ferguson Private Investigator Mysteries: Books 1-3 is copyright © 2019 by Tom Fowler. Individual novels are copyright © 2017-2018 by Tom Fowler. All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at [email protected].

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Editing by Chase Nottingham

  Cover design by Earthly Charms

  For Lisa and Isabel

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  The Reluctant Detective

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  The Unknown Devil

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  The Workers of Iniquity

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Afterword

  The Reluctant Detective

  Novel #1

  The Reluctant Detective

  Chapter 1

  My father tossed a section of folded newspaper at me. It landed on my parents’ garish coffee table. “I’m sure The Sun appreciates you,” I said, “along with their dozens of other subscribers.”

  “Open it,” my father said.

  I looked at the section he had thrown toward me. It was the classifieds. I knew what was coming and didn’t want to open the paper.

  “Page three,” he said.

  “You actually ran the ad,” I said.

  “You were supposed to do it.” My father pushed his glasses up on his nose.

  “Who still reads the newspaper?”

  “We expected you to do more of this kind of thing yourself,” he said, ignoring my reasoned objection. “Do you have a case yet?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Have you even talked to anyone?”

  “No.”

  “You’d better start.”

  I started by looking at the ad.

  C.T. Ferguson

  Licensed Private Investigator

  The P.I. who helps the little guy

  Individual clients only (no corporations)

  No fees: all services provided pro bono!

  Office: 410.555.6733

  My parents have a lot of talent when it comes to investing, playing the markets, inheriting money, and things like that, but they are devoid of both skill and taste when it comes to anything creative. Block letters, no graphics, plain text . . . I shuddered when I saw it. If my computer skills lay more with graphic design, I might have wept.

  "What's wrong, son?" my father said.

  "Two thousand two called and wants its half-page ad back," I said.

  "It doesn't have to be flashy. It just has to advertise the business you said you’d start running."

  I cringed at the tagline. "The PI who helps the little guy?"

  "What?” my father shot back. “Everyone needs a slogan. I think it's catchy."

  "So was the plague, Dad,” I said.

  “Coningsby, you shouldn’t fuss so much,” my mother said. “If you want any money from us, you need to do the work you said you’d do.”

  There she went, reminding me of our devil’s bargain already. I had set the over/under at ten minutes. Pay the unders. “I know, Mom,” I said.

  “If you’d found something else to do . . .”

  “I volunteered at the Esperanza Center a few times.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “Mostly how rusty my Spanish is,” I said.

  “You could just work with them, Coningsby. They could use the help.”

  “No,” I said. “I need to do something that lets me use what I know. I need to do it my way.”

  “This could work out very well,” my mother said, beaming. “This ad will allow you to help people who need it. Maybe we’ll make a philanthropist out of you yet.”

  “I think I’d rather be a philanderer.”

  “Coningsby!”

  “Just being honest,” I said.

  “Yes, well,” my mother said, sniffing like she did every time I offended her sensibilities, “I think our publicity campaign is off to a wonderful start.”

  “I guess we’ll see how many calls I get.”

  “I’m still surprised you settled on being a detective,” my father said.

  This would be good. “Why?” I said.

  “Well, it seems . . . different than what you did in Hong Kong.”

  “I helped some people in Hong Kong, Dad. Now I get to use a lot of the same skills here. Hackers are the new detectives.”

  My father rolled his eyes. “You can’t solve everything sitting at a computer.”

  “I’m sure I can’t. But I think I can do a lot of the legwork there.”

  “What you’re talking about is just as illegal here as it was overseas,” my mother said. Her tone evoked the one she used to scold me as a child. “That crowd you fell in with had you do all sorts of criminal things.”

  I shook my head. “They were a useful crowd, Mom. You’ve told me before you think everything happens for a reason.” She frowned at me but finally gave a nod. “Maybe going overseas and learning what I learned happened so I can be a detective now.” I didn’t know if my mother would believe that—I didn’t—but if it placated her, it would be good enough.

  “Getting you out of Hong Kong
wasn’t easy, son,” my father said. “We just don’t want to see you wind up in trouble again.”

  “I won’t. Look, you both want me to get a job helping people. Hell, you’re forcing me to. I need something to do after . . . after China. I can use my skills to help people in ways the police can’t. There’s value there.”

  “Richard doesn’t see it that way,” my mother pointed out.

  Of course he didn’t. My cousin Rich is a Baltimore police officer. I imagined he found the idea abhorrent. “He’ll come around once I work some cases,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I can’t control what he thinks, so I’m not going to worry about it. I need to get back home. The media blitz continues.”

  “At least it’s starting,” my father said.

  I looked at my parents. They hadn’t aged much since I left after finishing my master’s. My hair was the same dark brown as my father's, though gray encroached on his temples and the back of his head. It also infringed on his stubble on the rare occasions my mother didn't tsk him into shaving. My mother yielded to vanity years ago and dyed her hair blonde. It wasn't the exact shade I remembered from my youth, but it came close. They didn’t decorate their house elaborately or have a live-in housekeeper, though they could afford both. They put a lot of their money into causes they believed in. I had become one of those causes, and an employee of their foundation. I owed them an honest effort, regardless of my feelings about this blasted new career.

  “Maybe I’ll get a case today,” I said.

  “Good luck, son,” said my father.

  With the ad they placed for me, I would need it.

  The light glared down at me, bright and hot, just like it had in the Chinese prison. Heat hit my face. I closed my eyes. A harsh voice interrogated me, asking me the same question over and over. My chest tightened. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. Instead of Chinese prison guards, I saw Jessica Webber.

  I pushed the lamp on my end table back a few inches, changing the angle. The tightness in my chest eased. Jessica looked at me with concern. “C.T., are you okay?” she said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You didn’t seem fine a minute ago.”

  “Really, I’m good.”

  “I had asked you about China.” Jessica looked at her notes. “You started talking, mentioned your arrest, and then . . . I don’t know; you got a little PTSD on me there.”

  “I’m fine, Jessica,” I said.

  Jessica, a local reporter, constituted the second part of my parents’ publicity campaign for my nascent operation. I told her I'd be glad to talk to her, both because I needed the publicity and because she had to be the prettiest reporter I'd seen since arriving back in the States. Maybe her easy charm compelled me to open up. Maybe it was the extra cleavage exposed by leaving a button undone. The clincher had to be the fact she got me talking about my favorite subject.

  Myself.

  We began the interview talking about the pro bono private detective service, as planned. “Got my credentials two days ago,” I told her. The phone company just connected the landline I expected not to use. If the media blitz stopped with Jessica, I would be OK with it. Jessica had long blond hair, stood almost six feet tall in heels, and her legs suggested she wore heels often. She had curves but her sleek arm muscles revealed she knew her way around a gym. Once I started talking about China, something somewhere told me to shut up, but I didn’t listen.

  Thoughts of what happened after I got arrested assaulted me again. I pushed them down. I needed a breath. Hell, I needed oxygen a long time ago, and should have stopped then. But what's said is said. I took those necessary breaths and tried to forget my experiences with my Chinese jailers. Jessica kept looking at me for a few seconds before she spoke. "Were you scared?"

  "Yes,” I said after a few seconds. “I speak the language, but I didn't want them to know, so I just played dumb."

  "You speak Chinese?"

  "I lived there for three and a half years. I couldn't get by without speaking it. Besides, it makes the Chinese restaurant experience over here so much richer."

  "What do you mean?"

  I smiled at her. She smiled back. "Do you know what they say about you in the kitchen?"

  Jessica gave a light, airy chuckle. "I don't think I want to,” she said.

  "You don't."

  She nodded. "Back to Hong Kong, C.T. What happened after they hauled you off to jail?"

  I focused on inhaling and exhaling. I felt I should tell her something but wanted to stop well short of everything. "They didn't care if I was an American from a wealthy family. I heard them say it enough times. My cell was dark, and they brought the same food all the time, so I don't know how long I was there. When I got sent before the judge, he ordered me held over for trial. When I finally got out, and they told me they were deporting me, nineteen days had gone by."

  "Wow." Jessica leaned forward in the seat. I resisted the urge to inspect the cleavage her unbuttoned buttons invited me to look at. "That's almost three weeks."

  "The longest almost three weeks of my life."

  "And now you're here and setting up a free PI business."

  "Yes,” I said.

  "I don't get it,” said Jessica. “A doesn't really lead to B there."

  I shrugged. "A man must maintain a little mystery.”

  "Your potential clients may not agree," she said.

  I winced. Now I would pay for my love of talking about myself. “I did a lot of babbling,” I said. “Some of what I said wouldn’t help me if it found its way to print."

  "Is that so?" Jessica flashed an amused smile. She had an angle here.

  "I think it would reduce my potential client pool."

  "I think you might be right."

  "Can I talk you out of putting the information in your story?" I said.

  She gave me her enigmatic smile again, but it lingered on her face longer this time. "We reporters don't believe in compromising the integrity of our stories, Mr. Ferguson."

  "Is that so, Miss Webber?" I said.

  "At least, not without a nice dinner,” Jessica said. “And I mean a nice dinner."

  "I know what a nice dinner means. When?"

  "Tomorrow night. I'll come by at 7:30. We can discuss the terms of my omission of several important facts over dinner."

  "And dessert."

  She smiled again. "And dessert."

  After Jessica left, I switched on the ringer on my business line. I felt weird living in an apartment and having an office there. A house would come in time. Right now, I didn’t have a spare hundred grand floating around. Asia can tax a fellow’s resources, especially when said fellow is bankrolling a group of hackers, pirates, and thieves.

  After I turned the ringer on, I got calls from two local TV stations. Someone opening a free detective service apparently counts as big news. Maybe the chill in the air accompanying Novembers in Maryland chased all the evildoers inside for a day or two, allowing yours truly a moment in the spotlight. The reporters surmised I hadn’t answered the phone yet because I had already been working. I let them think what they wanted. I spoke to the reporters for a few minutes each, went out for dinner, and called it an uneventful night a few hours later.

  The next morning, I woke up at the beastly hour of 8:40. I stepped over a few newspapers as I went out for a morning run in the brisk November air. Five days ago, it had been sixty degrees. Then the temperature plummeted by half in two days, and we got an early snow. Welcome to Maryland, where fall and winter live in sin. By now, all but the last bits of compacted black snow had melted. I made a circuit of the nearby Fells Point streets and ran alongside the Baltimore Harbor. I smelled coffee and pastries from nearby bake shops. Had I waited a couple hours, I could have started and ended my run with the smell of seafood. Just over a half-hour after I set out, I walked back to my building, picked up a paper, and went inside.

  I saw my parents’ ad as I perused the paper. If the bloody thing turne
d out to be effective, it would be worth it in the end. I cringed as I read the tagline again. I set the paper on my kitchen table and got a shower. When I wandered out some 20 minutes later, my business line rang. Could this be my first potential client? I hoped so. I felt an unfamiliar nervous tingle in my chest as I picked up the phone. “Hello?” I said in the most professional voice I could muster.

  “Yeah, I saw an ad in the paper,” a man said. He spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. I had to increase the volume to hear him. “Are you the guy running the free detective business?”

  “I am,” I said. “What do you need?”

  “Someone’s following me.”

  “Do you know who it is?”

  “Yeah, man.”

  Were I the type to believe in regrets, I would have regretted asking my followup question. “Who is it?” I said.

  “The government,” he said.

  “The government?”

  “Yeah. And they spy on me through my TV, too. Saw it on the news. I had to get a really old one to stop that shit.”