Not Quite a Murder Read online

  not quite

  a murder

  a lily wilkins medical

  cozy mystery

  Book 4

  Liz Turner

  Copyright © 2020 by Liz Turner.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Contents

  Prologue The Living Dead

  Chapter 1 An Air of Romance

  Chapter 2 The Death of Romance

  Chapter 3 The Secret Millionaire

  Chapter 4 The Hated Millionaire

  Chapter 5 Love Strikes Again

  Chapter 6 A Family Affair

  Chapter 7 Broken Hearts

  Chapter 8 The Crossroads

  Chapter 9 The Love Letter

  Chapter 10 Rest in Peace

  Epilogue The Compromise

  Prologue

  The Living Dead

  Lily felt like her lungs were on fire. Gasping for breath, she stopped to support her weight against a tree, her ankles throbbing from the unexpected and repetitive impact. A fellow jogger ran past her, casting a judgmental look as he went while Lily held her breath and pretended she’d just stopped to enjoy the view of the early morning park. Once he was out of sight, she collapsed on the grass, sweaty and exhausted.

  Her grandmother was to blame for this.

  Lily Wilkens had reached the conclusion that she’d spent enough time mourning her grandfather’s death, and her time for moping around in her room, living on fast food, and rarely seeing sunshine until noon was over. She needed a fresh start on life again—a new focus that would drag her out of her deep, dark pit and breathe purpose back into her existence.

  Of course, it wasn’t Lily so much that had reached this conclusion as her grandmother.

  Grace Wilkens had sat Lily down and explained that sweatpants were no longer suitable when leaving the house. When Lily protested that sweatpants were the only thing she felt comfortable in, her loving grandmother, a little less gently, pointed out that living on lasagna was making Lily fat.

  Lily had taken the death of her grandfather badly. As a result of having two entirely useless parents, she had been taken in and raised by her grandparents. Consequently, her grandfather’s death had left a gaping hole in her life, and was a part of the reason she’d tossed away med school in favor of barging her way into the homicide division at the local police department.

  Working with the detectives brought action into Lily’s life. But since there had been a lull in murders around Douglasdale lately, the extra time on her hands had caused her to slip back into her depressive, detrimental habits again.

  Lily rolled herself off the grass and stretched her calf muscles, deciding to take a slow walk home, rounding the lake and enjoying a late breakfast; she felt she’d earned some left over lasagna, and nothing her grandmother could say would change her mind.

  As Lily rounded the bend in the pathway, she expected to see the stunning still waters of the park, reflecting the golden rays of the rising sun—a still and quiet peace that Lily savored when she was up early enough to do so. Instead, however, the edge of the lake was cornered off with yellow police tape, and a swarm of officers bustled around trying to establish order.

  Panic flooded Lily’s system as she realized exactly who she might be coming into contact with. She hastily tried to smooth down her sweaty tendrils as she limped closer to the scene of the crime, self-consciously aware that she was drenched in sweat and covered in grass stains. Lily reasoned that perhaps it wasn’t a murder scene, and maybe detectives Garcia and Ryan wouldn’t be here, and so she had nothing to worry about.

  “Lily?” a confused voice yelled from the middle of the throng of officers.

  It seemed that everyone stopped and turned around, their eyes scanning wildly until zoning in on the disheveled and sticky Lily.

  Ryan Scott made his way under the tape and towards her. “We were just trying to call you,” he said, his eyes studying her face. “There’s been another murder… Why is your face so red? Are you okay? You look like you’re about to have a heart attack.”

  “I’m fine,” Lily snapped as she tried to wipe the mist of sweat from her forehead with a sleeve. “I just had the stupid idea of trying to get back in shape.”

  “You don’t need to work out though,” Ryan began before awkwardly stopping himself and averting his gaze.

  “Tell that to my grandmother,” Lily retorted under her breath as the pair turned and walked back towards the murder scene. Ryan raised the tape, and she walked under. “So, what happened?”

  “See for yourself,” Ryan said grimly, gesturing to a nearly blue body that had clearly been pulled out of water. “He was found around five in the morning by a jogger who was obviously much faster than you.”

  Lily shot an eyebrow up at Ryan, delivering a reprimanding look before waving off his insult and averting her gaze elsewhere. “Morning, Dr. Banks,” she said with a grin.

  Lily had developed an odd relationship with the strange man. Max Banks was the pathologist who worked at the local police department. Douglasdale was a small town, so Banks was often called upon to exercise skills in ballistics, graphology, and other crime forensics. Due to the high pressure and demand this often placed on him, Banks appreciated having Lily around to help run tests and figure out forensic mysteries with him. While Banks usually kept to himself—preferring the company of the dead to the living—over time, he’d grown a soft spot for Lily. And though he would never admit it, he recognized and respected her brilliant mind and its ability to adapt in the world of forensics almost faster than his own.

  Lily felt she’d learned more in her year with Banks than in her whole time at college, so they shared a quiet and sarcastic friendship that no one else in the police department quite understood.

  Lily squatted next to him, helping herself to the spare latex gloves he always kept in his back pocket.

  “You got here fast for a change,” Banks mumbled under his mask.

  “Good to see you too, Banks,” Lily said. She dropped her gaze to the victim, a frown spreading across her forehead as she examined the body.

  “Cause of death is pretty obvious,” Banks declared matter-of-factly. “Fatal drowning. So there’s hardly any need for an amateur’s help on this one.”

  Lily prodded the victim’s skin with her gloved finger. “Something’s not right.” She bumped Banks out of the way to get a closer look at the victim’s face. “Our victim is not a victim,” she concluded, looking up at Ryan.

  “What do you mean?” Ryan asked, puzzled. “You think this was a suicide?”

  “It couldn’t have been a suicide,” Banks pointed out again, clearly annoyed with Lily’s input. “The victim has a blunt force wound at the back of his head. Someone clearly administered the injury, rendering the victim unconscious before pushing him into the water, where he later drowned.”

  “I agree with Banks about the head trauma and that someone was definitely trying to kill this man, but I don’t believe they succeeded,” Lily said, unbuttoning the man’s shirt.

  “Are you insane?” Banks drawled.

  “No, I’m not.” Lily braced her ha
nds against the victim’s ice-cold skin in preparation for chest compressions.

  “Uh, Lily?” Garcia’s nervous voice floated over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  Shutting out all sound around her, Lily began compressing the victim’s chest and administering mouth-to-mouth at regular intervals.

  Banks turned away, his face turning green. “This is disturbing…” he said, exchanging concerned looks with Garcia.

  “Get thermal blankets,” Lily yelled in between breaths at an officer staring down at her with his jaw dropped and eyes bulging.

  The officer looked at Garcia for confirmation, who nodded affirmatively in return.

  “Lily, he was under water for hours,” Banks shouted. “He’s dead!”

  As if by a miracle, the victim coughed.

  Lily lowered her ear to the victim’s mouth. “He’s breathing!” she announced, rolling the man onto his side and tilting his head forward.

  The man coughed and spluttered, water flowing out of his lungs as he gasped for air. A paramedic then joined Lily, helping her remove the man’s ice-cold clothes. Afterwards, they quickly rolled him onto a dry stretcher and covered him in warm blankets while rubbing his limbs, trying to stimulate blood flow.

  Banks stared in shock, his eyes practically popping out of his head as a man he had declared dead coughed. He watched in disbelief as the paramedic began administering oxygen, and the man was whisked away into the back of an ambulance.

  Garcia slapped Lily on the shoulder in approval before chasing after the paramedic. “I’ll follow the… uh… victim to the hospital. You and Lily finish bagging clues,” he yelled at Detective Ryan Scott.

  “Don’t feel bad, Banks,” Lily grinned while rubbing off the chilled water and mud with a towel. “He had all the signs of a fatal drowning victim. The swollen abdomen, ice-cold skin—not to mention the fact that he didn’t appear to be breathing.”

  “How did you know he was still alive?” Ryan asked, stunned.

  Lily shrugged. “A hunch, I guess. He didn’t look swollen enough, and his eyes weren’t glazed over. I think the cold water and chilly early morning air created the impression that he was dead, when really, he was just in hibernation mode. His body shut down everything in an attempt to reserve oxygen and energy supplies.”

  “Will he be okay?”

  Lily and Banks shared a troubled, knowing look.

  “He may not be any help in the case,” Lily explained with a downcast expression. “In fact, he may never recover beyond vegetable state. It depends how much damage was done to his brain. But we must stay positive. The body has an incredible ability to heal itself. And perhaps he was only submerged for a couple minutes before he washed ashore.”

  “Well done, Lily,” Banks said stiffly as he thumped Lily on the back and disappeared to busy himself elsewhere.

  Lily accepted Banks’s acknowledgement as high and rare praise. Smiling to herself, she started rifling through the victim’s soaked pockets.

  Ryan bent down to help her. “I’ve got his wallet,” he said hopefully, pulling a brown leather wallet out of his jacket pocket. “His name is Douglas Radley, and he’s fifty-three. His cards and money are all here, so this was no mugging gone wrong. Something else was going down in the park last night.”

  “I agree. I found this.” Lily carefully pulled out a sodden piece of folded paper. She carefully peeled the page apart and unfolded it into a big A4 page with jumbled letters.

  “What do you make of this?” Ryan asked, tilting his head and trying to figure out the scramble of seven letters.

  “It looks like a letter of some kind,” Lily said, trying to rearrange the sticky letters. A single word formed. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “Yeah,” Ryan said gravely. “It says cheater.”

  “It looks like our victim was being blackmailed,” Lily said, her eyebrows raised in alarm.

  Ryan sighed. “Let’s hope our victim recovers well enough to tell us what the heck he was involved with.”

  Lily studied the letter again. “Do you think he was here last night to meet his blackmailer, or whoever gave him this threatening letter?” she asked.

  “That’s exactly what I think,” Ryan said, holding out an evidence bag for Lily to place the letter inside. “Shall we take a walk?”

  Lily nodded mutely in reply.

  Chapter 1

  An Air of Romance

  “So where are we walking to?” Lily asked with a small smile, matching her step to Ryan’s with her hands innocently tucked behind her back.

  “Well, I thought it would be smart to check the perimeter of the area so that we can find where the attack happened, or where Douglas met his blackmailer,” Ryan said seriously as he scouted ahead.

  “Good thinking,” Lily said softly, her head dropping a bit.

  “But mostly,” Ryan turned sideways, his blue eyes piercing into hers, “I just wanted to get you away from everyone and have a few minutes alone with you.”

  Lily hid her crimson face behind her hands for a second and peeped up at him over her fingers. “I was hoping that was your real motive…”

  Ryan chuckled softly before turning serious again. “I’ve missed you, Lily. The chief had us catching up on paperwork while the cases have been slow. It killed me not being able to see you every day.”

  Lily’s insides felt like they were dancing as she listened to Ryan. She could certainly relate to what he was saying, for she believed not being able to see Ryan every day had led to her increased lasagna consumption even more than mourning her grandfather, though she’d never admit it to anyone.

  She still felt surprised at how suddenly this had all happened, though if she’d been paying attention, she probably would have realized she and Ryan were bound to end up together from their very first argument. At the end of the previous case, he’d finally confessed to having feelings for her, and she’d finally accepted her own feelings for him. It had been a long overdue moment.

  “I missed you too,” she whispered, halfway afraid someone was listening, lurking in a nearby bush.

  “You what?” Ryan teased, putting his hand behind his ear.

  “I missed you too,” she repeated, laughing but still scanning the premises for potential eavesdroppers.

  “So, Garcia still hasn’t figured it out,” Ryan explained. Lily could see that while he was pleased their romance was still a secret, a part of him felt like he was betraying his mentor who’d risked his life for him on more occasions than he could remember.

  “When the time is right,” Lily said quietly, her hand comfortingly stroking Ryan’s arm.

  His lips twitched into a small smile and he stared at the ground moving beneath their feet for a while.

  Lily smirked. “Besides, it shouldn’t take him long. He’s one of the best detectives in the country.”

  “That’s what worries me,” Ryan admitted. “So, are you free for a date sometime this week? We haven’t really even had a chance for a real date yet.”

  “I’ll have to check my schedule,” Lily teased. “Though, I thought you’d never ask.”

  Ryan scanned their surroundings before quickly stooping his head to give Lily a kiss on the cheek.

  Lily’s legs turned to jelly, and she tripped on a branch.

  Ryan snorted a laugh as he grabbed her arm to steady her. “I think we’d better focus on the case before you pass out from the euphoria of being in my presence.”

  Lily rolled her eyes. “Did you honestly just say the ‘euphoria of your presence’?”

  “I see you’re not denying it.” He winked. “Now, shall we check this out?” They had just reached a concrete bridge that curved elegantly over the surface of the tranquil lake.

  Looking at it, Lily figured it would be the perfect place for a midnight confrontation with a blackmailer to go wrong. She stepped onto the bridge and followed Ryan to the center. It was a perfectly romantic setting on this chilly early morning for the two of them to catch up over
a cup of coffee and wait for the mist to clear off the surface of the lake. But Lily had to admit, there was something else that chilled her skin as they stood on the bridge. She pondered for a second over the tragedy of having such a serene and calm vista tarnished by violence and bloodshed.

  She lowered her eyes to the concrete beneath her feet, scanning the rough and pitted surface of the bridge that had suffered decades of rain, wind, and foot traffic.

  “See anything?” Ryan asked.

  Lily dropped to one knee, her neck craning forward. “I think so.” She pointed to a light spray of red droplets marking the surface of the bridge.

  “Looks like blood…”

  “It does,” Lily agreed, photographing the spots.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Lily pointed again. “If you look at the size of the drops and how they are almost elongated…”

  Ryan nodded. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

  “Well, that’s probably the result of Doug being slammed in the head by something, causing tiny droplets of blood to spatter out in this direction.” Lily stood. “So our attacker was probably standing here when he swung his makeshift weapon at the back of Doug’s head.”

  “And this big patch over here?” Ryan toed at a small smudge of blood.

  “That would have been transferred from the head wound to the concrete as Doug collapsed,” Lily said, demonstrating. “But the fact that the blood didn’t have time to pool shows the attacker threw him over the bridge shortly after he delivered his blow.”

  Ryan photographed the different spatters as Lily described the incident, taking swabs from each section and bagging them for the lab.

  “But over here, we have something different.” Lily stooped down to study another patch of blood a small distance away. “Do you see how these drops are different?”

  “Yeah. They’re bigger and rounder.”

  “Exactly. So judging by the distance, these drops are from Doug’s blood. I would say that this is another injury entirely.” Lily looked up at Ryan. “Possibly another person’s.”