One of my author friends has a new book out. I don't always post when this happens because it happens a lot. But this is a special case. Author Scott Bury has written the Lei Crime Kindle World novella, Dead Man Lying. That was the book that gave me one of the characters in my novella,
Paradise Down.
The character is FBI Special Agent Vanessa Storm. I was lucky to read an advanced copy of Dead Man Lying and learned even more about Vanessa. She is an interesting character for sure, and yes, she will be featured in a future Lei Crime Kindle World novella of mine.
Dead Man Lying
A Lei Crime Kindle World Mystery
She knows when you’re lying …FBI Special Agent Vanessa Storm is back on Maui to catch a killer.
With lush rain forests, black sand beaches, and a laid-back lifestyle, Maui offers the perfect retirement location for once-famous country singer Steven Sangster … until he ends up dead.
As the killer, or killers, strike again and again, Detective Lei Texeira and FBI Special Agent Vanessa Storm must untangle the lies spun by the singer’s associates, friends, family — and the singer himself before the music dies.
EXCERPT:
Two young women stood on an eroded, rough low platform made of volcanic rock that had been placed in the midst of the rain forest. Long fronds and branches hung low over it, weighted by rain that had only recently stopped. Yellow tape strung from tree to tree in a rough ring around the platform drooped with the weight of the rain, too, obscuring the words “Police Line Do Not Cross.”
The air was heavy with moisture and the smell of wet soil, flowers and the unique, spicy aroma of Hawaii.
The taller woman was fit, with shoulder-length dark blond hair and large green eyes. She wore the office-formal blue blazer, dress pants and shoes that broadcast “FBI.” She leaned carefully over one edge of the eroded platform, where some shifting in the earth below it had opened a narrow gully. Its bottom was littered with lava boulders that matched those remaining on the platform. More fronds reached over its edges from the forest around it, as if they were also trying to see the bottom.
“It doesn’t look that deep — maybe ten feet,” she said. FBI Special Agent Vanessa Storm’s foot slipped on the wet rock and she took a step back. The next time I come to Hana, I’m wearing hiking shoes, she thought.
She crouched down on the platform, the heels of her hands at the crumbling edge, trying not to let her pants touch the rock surface.
“It wasn’t the fall that killed him,” Maui Police Detective Lei Texeira answered. “The coroner feels he was dead before he fell off the edge. That’s his initial thought, anyway. It will have to be confirmed in the lab.”
Vanessa looked down into the narrow pit again. “There’s nothing to mark where the body was,” she said.
“The rain washed it all away,” Texeira replied. “At this time of year in Hana, it rains every day.”
“It looks like it,” said Vanessa. The forest here was very thick, and the path that led from the estate down the slope to the lava platform in the forest was like a tunnel. Vanessa could just make out the corner of one of the outbuildings far below. Hidden in the branches, birds twittered and peeped, and occasionally she could hear large drops of water hitting lower leaves or the forest floor. “Should we be standing on this? It being a historical artifact?”
“Not really,” Lei answered. “The local Hawaiian cultural organizations are going to complain about it. But this is the only way to see the death site.”
They stood on top of the remains of a heiau, an ancient Hawaiian temple. All that was left was an uneven platform of piled lava rocks, worn by rain, maybe twenty feet across. The creeping roots of the rain forest had eaten its edges. Vanessa eyed the side that had collapsed into the gully, wondering how big the ancient temple had been when it was built.
Watching where she stepped, Vanessa carefully made her way across the heiau, toward the path through the jungle back toward the house and other buildings on the estate. “Is that typical, a historical, cultural artifact on a private estate like this?”
Texeira was right behind her. “It’s unusual. This heiau was abandoned and forgotten centuries ago, and rediscovered only after Steve Sangster had bought the property. Now that he’s dead, you can bet some cultural organizations are going to be making a lot of noise for it to be turned over to the government or a museum.”
Vanessa paused at the edge of the forest to try to rub some of the dirt off her shoes. “Steve Sangster. I can’t believe I’m investigating his death. Did you like his music, Detective Texeira?”
“Call me Lei. Yeah, I love all that folksy rock stuff. I even had one of Steven Sangster’s albums as a girl. Did you?”
Vanessa could not repress a smile. “I was a big fan. I had all his old CDs — still do. I had such a crush on him when I was 16. He was so handsome.”
Lei smiled back. “The blue eyes and the square chin, huh?”
So this is the famous Lei Texeira, Vanessa thought, looking at the slender detective with her peripheral vision while appearing to study the heiau. She was small for a cop, but athletic, with beautiful big brown eyes and a sprinkle of freckles across her cheeks and nose. Her features spoke of a mixture of Hawaiian, Asian and European extraction. Her dark brown curls rippled to her shoulders, and Vanessa wondered briefly how much of the curling was due to the incredible humidity of Hana, on Maui’s rain coast.
“Is this where it happened?” said an unfamiliar voice. Vanessa and Lei turned and Vanessa’s shoe slipped again. Her knee buckled and she almost went down, but Lei’s small hand grabbed her arm, steadying her. Vanessa was impressed — Lei was stronger than she looked.
...and that is just the beginning of the fun in this fast paced mystery. I hope you will grab a copy and enjoy!
