As the Crow Dies Read online

  Advance praise for As the Crow Dies

  “Beginning with a body face down in the river, As the Crow Dies flies from one unexpected development to another. A pair of unlikely detectives work to find a missing scientist and keep up with a case that threatens their lives and their sanity. Animals with super powers, street musicians, the U.S. president and first lady, and a roller derby matchup all add to the novel’s strength and quirkiness. Few authors can combine murder and humor as well as Kenneth Butcher.”

  —Anne Hillerman, New York Times best-selling mystery author

  “As the Crow Dies is a charming, vibrant mystery filled with intrigue that hooks the reader from page one. Kenneth Butcher tells a fascinating tale of murder, animal intelligence, and human foolishness in this wonderful novel that brings the city of Asheville to life. A page-turning follow-up to The Dream of St. Ursula. I love this book.”

  —Christy English, author of The Queen’s Pawn and Waking Sarah Ann

  “In As the Crow Dies, Ken Butcher creates an intriguing mystery that combines a fresh, charming detective duo, the free-spirited vibe of Asheville, NC, and an original plot following a trail of bodies in a race to prevent a crime of international consequence. As the Crow Dies takes readers on an exciting ride with more twists and turns than the mountain roads of its setting.”

  —Mark de Castrique, author of Murder in Rat Alley, Secret Undertaking, and Hidden Scars

  “No living author writes police procedurals that are sharper or funnier than Kenneth Butcher and As the Crow Dies serves up madcap mystery at its most gripping. He sets loose his two military-trained detectives in the foothills of Western North Carolina where they encounter would-be assassins, international intrigue and a menagerie of uniquely gifted animals. Who other than Butcher can introduce cigarette-rolling raccoons, lothario crows and alphabet-reciting mule deer into a murder investigation—and never have readers doubt the truth of every word? As the Crow Dies proves as suspenseful as it is entertaining, Appalachia’s rollicking rejoinder to Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade: A novel as brilliant and rare as the zany animals that populate its pages.”

  —Jacob M. Appel, author of Millard Salter’s Last Day

  “Kenneth Butcher’s As the Crow Dies gives us a crackerjack mystery that begins, like all good murder mysteries, with the discovery of a body—an apparent accident. But the plot then takes us into remarkable territory in which the fantastical becomes true and the detectives find themselves confronting a deadly conspiracy that spreads far beyond the picturesque mountain town of Asheville, NC. Segal, the seasoned lead detective, is recovering from a gunshot wound. In a turnabout of the usual roles, it falls to his partner, Dinah Rudisill, to handle the rough stuff. One of the joys of this fast-paced mystery is watching their friendship develop, as Segal regains his old confidence and Rudisill sharpens her skills, rising to an extraordinary challenge. Both detectives live into the honorable tradition of restoring justice and meaning to a world often lacking in both, and doing so with style and humor. The perfect book to get a smart reader through the pandemic.”

  —Philip Gerard, author of Cape Fear Rising and The Last Battleground

  AS THE CROW DIES

  Kenneth Butcher

  An Asheville Mystery

  Pace Press

  Fresno, California

  As The Crow Dies

  Copyright © 2020 by Kenneth Butcher

  ©2020: Kenneth Butcher, Hendersonville, North Carolina

  www.kennethbutcher.com

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Pace Press

  An imprint of Linden Publishing

  2006 South Mary Street, Fresno, California 93721

  (559) 233-6633/ (800) 345-4447

  PacePress.com

  Pace Press and Colophon are trademarks of

  Linden Publishing, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-1-61035-361-8

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual people, places or events is coincidental. Whenever real celebrities, places or businesses have been mentioned or appear in this novel, they have been used fictitiously.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine or newspaper.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

  Contents

  Acknowledgments and a Note of Thanks

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Vortex

  Chapter 2: Morning Shift

  Chapter 3: Creatures 2.0

  Chapter 4: Eggs and Bacon

  Chapter 5: Aunt Mary Moses

  Chapter 6: The Wedge

  Chapter 7: Dr. Gold

  Chapter 8: Boss’s Office

  Chapter 9: Raccoons

  Chapter 10: Perfect Brown Shoes

  Chapter 11: Aerial Combat

  Chapter 12: Freeze Frame

  Chapter 13: Biltmore Estate

  Chapter 14: Dinah on Skates

  Chapter 15: Tobacco and Mint

  Chapter 16: Second Crime Scene

  Chapter 17: Rules of Recovery

  Chapter 18: Like a Rolling Stone

  Chapter 19: Nature Center

  Chapter 20: Vampire Movie

  Chapter 21: Just Like the Night

  Chapter 22: Montford Avenue

  Chapter 23: Redeployed

  Chapter 24: Again with Dr. Gold

  Chapter 25: Foreign Correspondent

  Chapter 26: Court Order

  Chapter 27: Comfort Food

  Chapter 28: The Eleventh Rule

  Chapter 29: Nasty Fox

  Chapter 30: Call of the Dog

  Chapter 31: Protective Custody

  Chapter 32: Den of Thieves

  Chapter 33: We’re Going In

  Chapter 34: Grove Park Inn

  Chapter 35: Spring the Trap

  Chapter 36: Chicken Little

  Chapter 37: Ascent of Mount Pisgah

  Chapter 38: A World of Trouble Now

  Chapter 39: A Brace of Kinsmen

  Chapter 40: Punch and Counterpunch

  Chapter 41: Plan B

  Chapter 42: The Jammer

  Chapter 43: All In

  Chapter 44: Epilogue–Six Months After

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments and a Note of Thanks

  I am deeply indebted to many people for encouragement and help during the writing process, including the whole population of Asheville who make it such a fun and vibrant place.

  Thanks to William Greenleaf, who read a very early version of this story and made many helpful suggestions. Also, a very special thanks to Steve Kirk, who not only steered me in the right direction after reading an early draft but also applied his special brand of editing near the end. His patience, thoroughness, and insight have surely made this a stronger book.

  Thanks to Marge Cotter for her proofreading and encouragement. Marge passed away last year and is missed by many including myself. Also, thanks to Jen Butcher for proofreading and all kinds of help, including putting up with this whole process.

  Finally, thanks to Kent Sorsky and CJ Collins et al at Pace Press for turning this story into a real live book.

  To the Princess of Asheville, Lilah Grove

  Prologue

  Abbottabad, Pakistan

  The boy trotted down the narrow lane between cementblock buildings, kicking a worn soccer ball with remarkable control. The sun was just coming up and a heavy dew had formed, settling the dust. It was his favorit
e time of day. The air was cool and the bigger kids were not up yet. He had the street to himself. He could be who he wanted to be. He practiced a quick sideways kick, a shot on goal. The ball lodged in a niche between two buildings, forcing him to interrupt the rhythm of his trot to pick it up. When the ball was in his hands, he looked at the words written in a language he could not understand. His sister said it was English. The words said, “Made in China,” but he had no sense of that.

  He thought he was lucky to have the ball at all. Last week, one of the older kids had kicked it over the wall that surrounded the large compound of buildings two blocks away. He did it on purpose, for spite. In less than a minute, a door in the wall opened just enough for a man to roll the ball gently out. The boy had snatched it up and headed home.

  Now, he dropped the ball again to continue his solitary practice. A shadow flashed, and the call of a bird made him look up and gasp. It was a large black crow. He watched as the crow glided and then flared its wingtips to settle on the parapet of a building a block away. The building was taller than any nearby and easily visible even from the narrow lane.

  As he watched the crow bobbing on the wall, he saw a man approach. Against the red light of the morning sun, it was a silhouette only, just the head and shoulders, but the boy could tell without doubt he was not a local man. It was the shape of the hat that told him this, a smooth cap close to the head with a long bill in front. It was the kind of cap the boy had seen in pictures of American ballplayers in the magazines downtown.

  The crow did not fly away but bobbed its head even more and cawed with excitement. The man gave the bird something to eat, and the bird allowed its head to be stroked. The man held up his arm, and the crow hopped on. As the man turned to leave, he stopped suddenly. The boy could tell the man had just spotted him, and he caught his breath. The man held his gaze for a few seconds and then nodded as if to tell the boy that it was okay. The boy could see the man better now in the gathering light. He could see the letters on the man’s cap. The boy nodded back, and then the man and the bird were gone.

  The boy would remember the man and the crow in days to come, but he would keep his memories to himself. He would remember the letters on the cap, too. Asheville.

  CHAPTER 1

  Vortex

  Asheville, North Carolina

  Early on another morning a young woman—a true athlete, short in stature, large in hair—skated, perfectly poised and balanced and at peace. Her eyes were barely open. This was a form of meditation, practice, and physical workout blended together, all in one. She called it “feeling the glide.” It was an unscripted series of variations on the basic art of roller skating—fast, slow, glide, dip, high on the outside of the oval, low on the inside, all by herself in the cool of the morning around the vortex of the roller derby track. Her name was Dinah Rudisill. To fans of the local roller derby team, she was “the Dinosaur”—Dinosaur Rudisill.

  The sound of her cell phone broke the trance. She looked at the screen. It was a call from dispatch, even though she was not yet officially on duty. To the Asheville Police Department, she was Sergeant Rudisill.

  The dispatcher described the problem quickly. He ended by saying, “Thought you and the lieutenant might want to go directly there instead of coming in first.”

  “You think I’ve got time for a quick shower?” Dinah asked.

  “I don’t think the guy is going to get any deader than he already is,” the dispatcher said, and hung up.

  The parking place exactly in front of Vortex Doughnuts was empty, a rare and fortuitous event. Dinah slid her car into it with the ease and accuracy of all her physical movements. As she got out, she did a quick scan of the block, a completely automatic reflex developed from her years as a cop and, before that, her time in the military. She had a reputation for not missing much, and this was one of the habits that accounted for that.

  Her scan included the doughnut shop itself. She took a second to check her reflection in the wide expanse of plate glass, pulling a light tweed jacket over the sleeveless white blouse. She decided she liked how the jacket was fitted at the waist and the flare over the hips helped hide her gun. She liked the feel of the new jeans, too; they had a little stretch to them that freed her to move. Her promotion to plainclothes was fairly recent. Before that, it was all uniforms, first military then police. She was learning to dress like a normal person. She lifted her hair off her collar, a mass of brown curls still wet from the shower. She thought the hair was a different story. I probably never will get this under control.

  She shifted her focus past the glass and into the shop and immediately picked up on an unusual vibe. The place was busy—no surprise for this time of day—but the people, instead of forming themselves into a neat line to look at the doughnuts in the case or ordering coffee, were all looking up and to the left, most with their mouths open. A TV screen there showed the morning news. She pushed the door open with her shoulder and looked around the room before she let her eyes drift in that direction too.

  The president of the United States was standing at a podium in the White House. The picture struck her as odd. The podium was set up in a hallway. She thought, Don’t they have rooms for this sort of thing? Also, the president was not looking directly into the camera but a little to the left, as though he were addressing someone standing by the cameraman’s shoulder. Dinah read the body language as reluctant—not completely false, but more like someone making up a story about an event that really did happen but putting some kind of spin on it.

  She pushed on in, where she knew she would find Ira Segal at his usual spot. He was there all right, leaning against the high table, not looking so hot this morning. His beloved gray sport coat was folded over the back of a chair. His clothes hung especially loose. She told herself not to worry. He was on the mend, and she was a believer. On the table was a worn paperback book. She took it as a good sign that he was reading Elmore Leonard again. When he brought Hemingway, it usually meant he was in a foul mood. She knew he liked Thomas Wolfe, too, but those books were much too big to carry around all day.

  She came up and nudged him to announce her arrival. He looked away from the TV and leaned to whisper in her ear. “They killed bin Laden,” was all he said, and they both looked up at the screen again.

  Dinosaur Rudisill reached over and picked up Segal’s coffee. “No shit,” she said, and took a long drink, not taking her eyes from the screen.

  The announcement from the president did not elaborate on details of the operation, which was something that would have interested Dinah and probably everyone else in the room. She waited another minute until the president finished and walked away from the camera. She thought that was odd, the way the camera stayed on him as he disappeared down the hallway. It stayed on him a long time, as if the TV producer was just as hungry for details as everyone else and hoped the president would turn around at the last minute and say, “Oh, by the way …” But of course, he didn’t.

  Dinah took another drink of Segal’s coffee and said, “Osama’s not the only one that died last night.”

  For the first time that morning, he turned and really looked at her. He appeared to be waiting for her to continue. His blue eyes seemed fully in focus, although they still held a tired look as well. He had that combination of brown hair and blue eyes that made a few ladies at the other tables glance his way from time to time. Women more frequently took him for a college professor than a police detective, an impression that sometimes served him well.

  “Good coffee,” Dinah said and gave him an innocent smile.

  She watched him look at her with a frown of indulgence. “I’ll get us a couple to go, and then you can tell me what’s going on,” he said.

  While he went to get the coffee, she finished off his first cup and the last half of a vanilla glazed doughnut as well. She looked at the TV, but the commentators had no further information to share. They just picked apart the president’s delivery.

  Segal returned with the c
offee. She watched him and saw no sign of a limp. His hands were steady holding the cups. She also saw him frown when he realized his doughnut had disappeared.

  When they got to her car, she watched Segal set the coffees on the top and clear a place to sit. He picked up the gym bag and a sweaty uniform from the seat and a pair of roller skates from the floor. He placed everything carefully in the backseat, handling them as objects commanding respect and reverence. That was Segal’s way.

  They drove through downtown Asheville, then down Chicken Hill and into the River Arts District.

  “Where are we going?” Segal asked as they reached the bottom of the hill.

  Dinah had failed to deliver on her promise to tell him all about it because she didn’t know anything other than that a body had been found. “To 12 Bones,” she said. “Body in the river, so I assume a drowning.”

  Segal was silent for a while. Dinah noticed him thumbing the pages of the book, which stuck out of his gray sports coat pocket, something he tended to do when deep in thought. “Coincidence,” he said.

  It was the kind of shorthand speech that partners used. Dinah knew what he meant by that one word. The president and first lady had picked Asheville for a weekend getaway awhile back and had dined at 12 Bones. Thus, the coincidence. First the president on TV, and now his favorite barbecue joint.

  Dinah knew something else, too. In the core of his being, Segal did not believe in coincidence.

  North Carolina boasted almost as many barbecue joints as Baptist churches, which was saying something. All it took was a smoker, a little knowledge of the process, and some place to mix the sauces. It was hard to stand out in this crowd, but 12 Bones did. Dinah could tell by the police cars and tape that 12 Bones was about to get more publicity—and this time, not the kind it wanted.

  Dinah parked across the street, knowing that Segal preferred to hang back from the scene at first, taking in the big picture. It was the kind of thing she was supposed to be learning from him, one of the reasons they had been paired—she to learn from him and he to lean on her for some of the more physical parts of the job, at least until his recovery was complete.