The first book of my Nathan March Investigations series is titled Jaded Justice. These novels will be presented episodically twice a week, for a six week run.
In this novel Nathan’s visit with Judge Elliot Sheridan, a college friend, ends in the death of the judge’s only sister.
Agreeing to investigate her death, Nathan March Investigations’ staff, soon realizes that the case is far more convoluted than first thought. Nerves are frayed as long-held secrets are exposed, and things get dicey when it is feared that the perpetrator of these horrendous events may be planning on Nathan’s client occupying an expensive bronze casket of his very own!
Book 1
Jaded Justice
Episode One
Nathan March, owner of N.M.I., Nathan March Investigations, was the passenger in the back seat of the sleek two-toned Rolls Royce Phantom which was heading back toward the summer home in Manchester, Massachusetts where both he and his driver, Mickey Stone, had just departed a short time ago.
Having acquired an enviable professional reputation, March was also the perfect reflection of a flawlessly attired successful male. Today he was dressed in a grey linen suit that fit his 6’6” medium frame to perfection enhanced by his pale blue shirt and navy pinstriped tie. Completing the look, were his trademark black Ferragamo leather slip-ons.
His handsome sculptured face, with his salt and pepper hair cut shorter than he normally wore it, and his silver-rimmed Dolce & Gabbana eyeglasses worn over his very penetrating hazel eyes, made him appear more like a banker than a private investigator. However his smile, when he flashed it, was the asset that often gave him access to people, places and situations, usually prohibited to others.
As personal assistant, to this ‘legend’ in law enforcement circles, Mickey Stone had been privy to Nathan March’s discipline and genuine talent in determining the sequence of events, in some pretty gruesome homicides around the globe.
All the intimate details that he knew about his boss he’d learned during conversations he’d been privy to while at the March manor house in rural Guilford, Vermont, where he lived for seven years now with March and his housekeeper, Dina Perry.
He learned that Nathan and his older brother Ethan were raised by their parents Leonard, a financier, and Ava, his mother, an anthropologist, with several books to her credit, who like her husband, was born into enormous wealth. An eighteenth century nine-bedroom, twenty-one room manor house, build by his ancestors and later passed on to Leonard March, was the family home.
With both parents consumed by their careers, his older brother Ethan’s friendship and adulation was the bright spot in Nathan’s life. Ethan, who would go on to become a popular writer, could tell a story better than anyone and was the perfect repository of all of Nathan’s secrets, from the time they were young boys growing up together. Theirs was a friendship that Nathan took for granted would be available to him, for the remainder of his life.
Decades later, it was the loss of his niece Connie, Ethan’s daughter that eventually led Nathan March, to change the direction of his entire life.
The shock of Connie’s senseless murder had reduced Nathan’s widowed brother to a bitter and antagonist man. Ethan’s rage was exacerbated by the lack of interest he met with every time he went to the police to inquire about the status of their investigation into his daughter’s murder.
After eighteen months had passed without so much as a completed chapter from his newest book, for which he’d already received an enormous advance, Ethan’s publishers finally requested that he get some help, or his contract would not be renewed.
Also weary of Ethan’s total isolation, Nathan phoned him, insisting on the two of them stepping out for dinner together by week’s end. Ethan’s jovial manner that entire evening, reassured Nathan that his brother was moving passed the overwhelming grief that had everyone so concerned about him.
A week later, Nathan got word that his beloved brother had perished, by his own hand. He learned from Ethan’s note, that his despair was the reason he’d taken his life, and Nathan agonized. If he wasn’t so engrossed in acquiring another firm and all the future acquisitions that were sure to follow as a result, Nathan felt he wouldn’t have missed the signs of Ethan’s suicidal plans which were all in front of him.
The sudden resurgence of Ethan’s sense of humor, the gift of several first editions he’d anxiously passed along to Nathan during dinner after years of coveting them, and he’d missed the fact that their conversation was all about their youth and all the plans they had shared with each other. The odd grasp of his hand by Ethan every so often, coupled with all the other hints, now revealed to Nathan that Ethan was using the occasion to say goodbye.
Burying the last member of his immediate family was what it took to end all Nathan’s endeavors in corporate America.
With each disappointing visit to the police inquiring about his niece’s case, Nathan realized that the same skills that made him successful at investigating which companies to bail out and which to simply acquire, made him amply qualified to take apart all the evidence in his niece’s case, and concentrate on finding something that might have been missed.
He’d faced angry people who felt threatened by him in the past so that the attempts by police personnel from desk sergeants to captains, to make him feel inadequate in searching for the truth, just encouraged him all the more to keep on digging.
Nathan’s painstaking investigation led to the assailant’s arrest and conviction. It was one of his niece Connie’s married professors at her college, who had murdered her. There had been a lengthy love affair and Connie had fussed about his failure to keep his promises to her and his upcoming sabbatical which she had to learn about from her friends. Her assailant simply couldn’t afford his wife to learn about the affair.
The police had never questioned him because the professor, along with his wife and four children left on that sabbatical for two years in England on the same day Connie’s body was found. They never questioned him even when he returned to the college and retook his post, two years later.
It more than bothered Nathan that it took five years before he correctly identified and apprehended his niece’s murderer. Therefore, presuming on several new friendships with high-placed law enforcement officials, he was allowed on scene for many homicides, kidnappings, and suicides on both coasts and throughout Western Europe. On each occasion while he expanded his knowledge of the duties of all the personnel involved in crime scene investigations and the protocol to be maintained at all times, he amazed veteran investigators with his keen powers of observation and his uncanny intuition.
A new career emerged as strangers contacted him, as well as some well-known public figures asking for his assistance in solving murders that despite law enforcement’s best efforts remained unsolved. He found he couldn't dismiss these requests for his intervention and therefore he didn't. Achieving his license in Private Investigation in several states wasn’t difficult once his talent in the field helped law enforcement’s upper echelon with several more difficult cases.
Nathan could read people and he often made Mickey’s job easier by sharing his insight about proposed clients after taking their phone call. At first Nathan’s accurate assessment made the hair on Mickey’s neck stand up because in the course of an investigation Mickey would learn about the evidence that validated Nathan’s uncanny foreknowledge about each case.
It had taken him by surprise when Nathan on becoming more comfortable with his number one, admitted to Mickey that the JUJU he was said to possess was obtained through prayerful insight which he believed was a gift that had enabled his successful business ventures, years earlier.
Flooded by imagery and ideas, Nathan no longer drove a car so that the insight he gained about any situation was not lost while struggling with other drivers. He held fast to his deeply-rooted spiritual beliefs and stood tough no matter how tightly some law enforcement authorities closed ranks around him, to keep him out of an investigation which might shed light on the less than perfect police methods employed and the more effective ones possibly ignored.
Sometimes however, even the great ones suspend their wisdom when it comes to matters of the heart as Mickey learned. According to Dina, Nathan would have served his own liver with onions to Josephine Caldwell if she’d asked him to but after a lovely wedding ceremony and a long honeymoon when they returned home and back to reality, married life became quite a challenge.
The attention of so many women who didn’t seem to care that she was on her husband’s arm, continued to feed Josephine’s jealousy and undermined Nathan‘s patience with her accusations, which were never-ending during their three-year marriage.
After an adulterous affair reported to him by the wife of Josephine’s partner in the act, Nathan declined counseling and still every inch as deeply in love with her as he was when they first met, he divorced her.
That was twelve years earlier, and in the following five years there had been four very frustrated chauffeurs came and went, before Mickey Stone’s arrival.
Before they left the Sheridan summer home earlier, Mickey had spent the previous few days quartered in the wheel house with the Sheridan’s hired help. Six other guests along with Nathan had spent the entire weekend in the main house in the company of one of Nathan’s dearest friends, Judge Elliot Sheridan from Nathan’s college days.
Skeet shooting, swimming, horseback riding, water skiing and tennis kept the Judge’s guests entertained each day. The gastric delights presented at meal time, as well as the stirring conversation which Nathan always shared with Elliot, made Nathan willing to be fawned over by the judge’s thrice-divorced sister Tina Bach, who made it quite clear to Nathan that he was welcome to a more intimate knowledge of her at any time.
A frequent weekend guest, Elliot’s sister Tina was a tiny wisp of a woman with waist-length black hair and a figure that she enhanced with new breast implants and liposuction every few years. While she had her choice of escorts over the years, despite her best efforts, she could not get the serious attention of Nathan, who genuinely stirred her body and soul, every time they met.
Both Judge Sheridan and his sister Tina were blessed with enormous trust funds provided by their parents that would last them both for the rest of their lives. Nathan was certain Elliot at least had invested it and most of his salary as a judge quite wisely, adding significantly to his financial portfolio over time. Neither brother nor sister could complain about the good looks and natural regal bearing that drew the opposite sex to them all their lives.
Nathan had personally witnessed that before Miriam Godfrey had entered Elliot’s life. Elliot, at six foot three inches tall with jet black hair and soft blue eyes, was very charming and enjoyed the company of many young women, just as Nathan himself had throughout their college years.
Miriam Godfrey changed all that years later. She was a natural beauty, ten years Elliot’s junior with eyes as deep and dark as midnight, and the kind of body that seemed to get better with age. As ambitious as he was, Nathan was shocked when Elliot threw caution to the wind by risking his reputation to share a home with Miriam, for six years before they married. It was Miriam who didn’t want marriage until a pregnancy made it necessary. In her seventh month, she lost the baby and her chances to have another were taken away, by an emergency hysterectomy.
The time he spent this weekend with the Sheridans had convinced Nathan that their harmonious relationship was staged for him and their other guests. It hurt Nathan to witness Elliot’s attempts at domestic bliss fall flat, leaving his friend grasping for a love that to Nathan at least, had already run its course.
Additional weekend guests Tom and Audrey Mason, looked like they belonged on a billboard. He was a dark and dashing young man, barely able to keep his hands off his beautiful and shy blonde wife who was a spoiled trust fund baby. Tom was Miriam‘s nephew who along with Audrey, begged for a chance to meet Nathan.
Mr. Lincoln Aubrey, a self-invited weekend guest, rounded out the group. Nathan pretended he didn’t notice that an immaculately groomed Aubrey seemed very uncomfortable, whenever Nathan was present. The lanky gentlemen several inches shorter than Nathan, with deep set dark eyes and a noticeably receding hairline, took great pains to remain innocuous leaving the group early each night, and seldom taking breakfast with the others. The only one Aubrey seemed to connect with was Miriam, and he only spoke when she interjected travel stories or society gossip into the conversation.
Two and half days had always been Nathan’s established limit for visits, and close friends knew that about him, and therefore planned accordingly. Before he left, the Mason’s had questioned him incessantly to the embarrassment of Miriam Sheridan, who finally reminded them that Nathan was there to relax, not to entertain them. Nathan did not suffer fools well at all, and suggested that the Masons read some books on real-life investigations so they could understand the process he always underwent while investigating a troublesome case.
The entire weekend Elliot Sheridan simply watched things brew and observed how expertly Nathan extricated himself from the attentions of Tina, his over-sexed sister, and the questions from his wife’s curious young week-end guests. When it was time for Nathan to take his leave, Elliot felt as he always did, privileged to have spent time with his friend even if he had to rescue him most of that time. They made plans privately to meet at the Parker House in Boston in a few weeks and then said goodbye, never knowing how soon they’d meet again.
The request for Nathan to return meant trouble, very serious trouble had happened in the space of minutes after his original departure. While the afternoon sun still shone, the enormous summer vacation home was in sight.
“Bring us around back Mickey,” Nathan said.
“You’ve got it,” Mickey responded.
The black sedan was waved through the large rod iron gates bypassing the security shack out front. The car continued passed the front entrance of the seventeen-room brick mansion, and traveled the asphalt road to the rear of the main house. In moments Nathan was stepping out of the sedan and heading purposefully toward a back doorway, followed closely by Mickey.
When he arrived inside the main house once again, Elliot thanked Nathan profusely for returning and then led him and Mickey through the main house, toward the alcove that was the entrance to his office.
All three could hear the movement coming from somewhere above them and the muddled voices of those involved in doing the investigation of the scene where a yet undisclosed event had occurred. Mickey concentrated on what his boss would ask of him and prepared to be dismissed, if details were too intimate for him to overhear.
Elliot looked stricken as he sat down behind his enormous desk then lifting his gaze to Nathan, he began to speak. “She wasn’t a bad sort Nathan, I mean Tina’s always been out there, but she could be sweet and gentle at times, as well,” he said.
From his seat beside Mickey, Nathan said nothing allowing Elliot enough time to gather his thoughts and continue.
“The police are up there with her now,” said Elliot as he leaned into his high-backed-leather chair.
“What’s happened to her Elliot?” asked Nathan.
“Suicide. They weren’t up there five minutes when they said it looked like an apparent suicide,” answered Elliot.
“Has the medical examiner been sent for yet,” asked Nathan.
“He just arrived before you did. It seems he was close by, at Doggin’s Lake examining a body some kids found early this morning,” said Elliot as he drifted away from Nathan and Mickey to somewhere less chaotic where his mind could cope with everything.
Reaching to touch his hand Nathan said, “Tell me what happened from the moment I left, can you Elliot?”
Stillness filled the room for a few moments as Elliot took his hankie from his breast pocket and wiped the silent tears now rolling down his face. His coloring frightened Nathan and Mickey picked up on his signal and found an open decanter of Merlot on a side table. He poured some then allowed Nathan to hand the drink to his friend, while he retook his seat.
Elliot took two deep swallows of the wine and the throbbing vein in his neck seemed to slow its motion as he placed the glass on his desk and sat up erect, the color rapidly returning to his face.
“Within minutes of your departure, Miriam and I returned to the patio where the others were still seated. They told us that Tina was upstairs with a headache, acting like the “spurned woman” according to Lincoln Aubrey.
“Everyone dismissed her absence as a mild temper tantrum, a result of your successfully having eluded her every invitation. We continued in each other’s company for about ten minutes. Then Ursula, our maid, found Tina and screamed for me and Miriam to come view the scene. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but I took pains not to allow any of us to disturb anything.
“I hate to admit it but I am so angry with Tina even after standing over her dead corpse, seeing the damage she‘d done to herself. She had so little interest in anything that didn’t benefit her in some way. I really believe this was an accident, she didn’t mean to go this far I’m certain, she just wanted some attention.
“You know Nathan I’ve been responsible for her since my parents died when she was fifteen. Since then I’ve been the one picking up the pieces after her “mistakes“ like cheating in school, smoking in the dorms, and getting caught naked with various young men. There was no difference now.
“She’d call or show up looking for help after one of her numerous relationships ended leaving her feeling betrayed. These days, the humiliation included finding that her bank account was nearly drained as well. It made her realize that her looks were no longer what attracted the men. Instead it was her trust fund that made her so appealing to them.”
Miriam’s appearance in the room was awkward as she wore a look of distain that Nathan assumed was the result of the way he treated Tina’s solicitations, which was less than enthusiastic. Miriam had continually tried to place Tina and Nathan together at dinner on two different occasions that weekend, hoping each time they‘d spend the evening together. Nathan simply skirted the obvious entrapment, by joining Elliot or announcing his fatigue and the need to be excused for some much-needed rest.
Nathan’s opinion of Miriam was paradoxically even less admirable than that the one he held for Tina over the years. He had chided himself for not being able to appear more interested in Miriam’s charitable endeavors, realizing it was difficult for Elliot knowing how Nathan suspected all of Miriam’s motives.
She committed large sums of his money to numerous charities and reaped the admiration of society’s upper echelon for it, regaling them with stories of how difficult it was to get Elliot, who she portrayed as a tightwad, to part with his fortune.
Because he loved her, Elliot always went along with the ruse and ignored her lavish lifestyle, which meant the family fortune which Elliot and Tina were born into, took some very large hits in order to keep Elliot’s spouse happy.
The final straw that destroyed any chance Nathan and Miriam would ever be true friends, was his recent discovery of her in a Boston Hotel, in the company of one of Elliot’s law clerks. Miriam never saw Nathan, but he’d seen her and learned this was not her first dalliance with the ambitious twenty-six year old law clerk. Elliot would never learn about it from him, but he in turn would never trust the wife of his former college roommate, ever.
“Do I have your permission to discuss things with the authorities upstairs, Elliot?” asked Nathan.
“I would greatly appreciate it my friend. Tina shouldn’t have come to this kind of an end, still so young and full of life,” said Elliot as his head now in his hands found the top of his desk and his sobs began.
Nathan signaled Mickey to follow him. As they left Elliot’s office, Miriam walked directly to the floor to ceiling windows staring out from Elliot’s office, as if waiting for someone, unaware both men were watching her
It was Nathan who noticed the young man arriving in the main hallway at the same time as he and Mickey had. Here was the person Miriam was waiting for. It was Mark Warren, the young law clerk now appearing practiced in his phony attempts at being of service.
Reigning in his own anger, Nathan’s body blocked the law clerk’s advancement as he stated “Mr. Warren, it’s a pleasure to meet you, and might I add that Mrs. Sheridan no longer requires your private attention. So far Judge Sheridan has not heard about your past relationship with his wife. Your position as his law clerk will be secure, after you convince her by telephone, that any pressure to continue your affair will guarantee that you serve as a witness for her husband, in any future divorce proceedings. Do I make myself clear?” said Nathan.
Mark Warren recognized that he and Miriam Sheridan were finished, and his swift retreat and exit from the Sheridan residence, acknowledged that fact to Nathan’s satisfaction.
Miriam’s approach to the foyer was slowed once she saw Nathan and Mickey.
“Mr. Warren sends his regrets Miriam, but a matter more pressing has come up, and although he will assist the judge as contracted, he regrets that his services to all others will be curtailed indefinitely,” said Nathan.
Miriam’s face went pale and then to bright red with the rage she felt for Elliot’s detective friend.
“I thought you were on your way upstairs Nathan, please don’t let me detain you,” said Miriam who swayed and then lost her balance for a moment.
Nathan instantly responded by catching her and smelled the alcohol she must have imbibed earlier.
“Miriam, if you’re going to drink you have to eat first, or suffer the consequences,” said Nathan, none too kindly.
“I beg your indulgence but there has been a terrible loss in our family, in a very gruesome manner. I would think that even a person of such indifference to the feelings of others as you are, could strain himself to offer some kindness,” said Miriam heading back to her husband’s office.
“Chief I don’t think that lady likes you very much,” said Mickey as they began climbing the staircase to the second floor.
“No argument here,” said Nathan.