Grumpy, Sam and Sammy: A Murder Mystery and Thriller Read online

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  Where the Girls Are Buried!

  A Mystery Novel

  Featuring:

  Grumpy, Sam and Sammy

  By

  A. J. Newman

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  This book is dedicated to my beautiful wife of over thirty one years and to all people who struggle with right and wrong in our screwed up society. Thanks to my editor Carole Lewis for making up for my poor typing and grammar skills. Special thanks go out to Michelle Butler and Carole Lewis who have been a major positive influence in my life and demonstrate doing the right thing every day. They were the ones that I bounced the plot off and gave me guidance. I must also thank Nora Newman, my granddaughter for helping me translate Adult speak to Teen speak.

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  Copyright © 2014 Anthony J Newman. All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-0-9912334-4-1

  This book is a work of fiction. All events, names characters and places are the product of the author’s imagination or are used as a fictitious event. That means that I thought up this whole book from my imagination and nothing in it is true.

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  Prologue

  This novel is the first in a series of suspense filled mystery novels with a Christian based theme staring flawed characters solving mysteries. Grumpy and Sam are either blessed or cursed with the ability to encounter and solve murders and other crimes. This series shows the development of a young teenaged girl into a young woman crime fighter.

  What would you do if you saw another car run off the road and roll over with the driver trapped underneath? What would you do if you saw a young girl and her dog, homeless and about to be trapped in the child welfare system? The girl has many troubles and has been abused. The dog is a tiny Shih Tzu who has the heart of a saint and courage of a lion. The girl is 15 and thinks she’s a detective. The couple in this story has major losses in their lives, but knows what they should do. The man, Grumpy, has lost his faith in God, but the girl and dog help restore his faith while she finds God for the first time.

  Taking the girl and dog into their home results in them being attacked, shot at and having to solve a murder mystery. Most people would run away from a girl who brings this much baggage. Grumpy and Mary need Sam and Sammy, just as much as Sam and Sammy need them.

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  Chapter 0

  The young girl was chained to the wall in the basement of a cabin in the woods. It was cold, dark and musty in the room. One window let a little light in during the day; she hated the dark cold nights. She had a pillow and one blanket to help her sleep on the floor. The bed was on the other side of the room. There was a case of bottled water and packages with enough food to last until her kidnappers returned each time. The men took turns visiting her and always wore masks. She fought at first and hoped that they would let her go free if she resisted. They beat her with their fists until she gave up fighting and resigned herself to the ongoing abuse and degradation.

  After she stopped resisting, one of the men was gentle and treated her like she was his lover. He talked with her and told her how beautiful she was. The other was out of control and sometimes passed out while attacking her. He beat her if she didn’t please him.

  On the fifteenth day, the out of control man came down the stairs and turned on the lights. He wasn’t wearing a mask. She instantly knew that this would be her last day on earth. She thought about her parents and little brother until he was on top of her. She knew that he was going to kill her and she was full of rage. She kicked him in the groin and bit his arm. Before he could get free, she scratched his neck. He pushed her off him, came back with a baseball bat and started beating her until she stopped moving.

  As he drug her out to the woods he said to himself, “I like the fighters.”

  He found a nice spot beside the others and started digging.

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  Chapter 1

  Bill worked for United Metal Stamping Co for thirty-five years, was tired of working and looked forward to retiring. He knew that he would get the “watch” and a cake but a catered luncheon, cake, watch and a roast surprised him. The roast was not a meat roast, but a roasting of Bill by his fellow workers. There was a lot to roast! Bill’s nickname at work was Grumpy. While many of Bill’s co-workers liked him, he was disliked by just as many and loved by few. He was the best at his job and respected by everyone in the company.

  Bill hired in as a janitor in the stamping department on the third shift. He swept floors, cleaned bathrooms and picked up after 110 press operators. The pay was not great but he had no bills and lived at home so he lived a good life. He worked for a year as a janitor and then moved up to stamping press operator. The operators were on a bonus plan so he could double what he had been earning as a janitor. He soon started setting records for production and excellent quality. Over the next five years, he learned how to operate every stamping press in the plant. He had stamped out everything from car to airplane parts. The department supervisor watched him develop and encouraged him to sign up for a maintenance job. He did, and got a third shift maintenance apprentice job.

  Tim was Bill’s supervisor and began to notice that Bill was a very opinionated man. He was always in the middle of every heated discussion about politics, sports or religion in the break room. No one complained and no blood was spilled, so there was nothing to do but laugh at some of the stupid arguments.

  Bill learned the maintenance job, kept his 20 presses running better and with less downtime than any presses in the plant for two years. Bill was promoted to Lead Maintenance Mechanic. He was given responsibility for all of the stamping presses in the plant. He also started taking night classes to get a better job with an aircraft manufacturer. He was still living at home with his parents but paid rent, washed his clothes and cleaned up after himself. His room was at the back of the house and had a door that opened to the deck so he did not bother his parents coming and going. He and various women were almost caught when he snuck them in for a sleepover but luck had always been on his side.

  He met Mary Linton in his American History class but did not get to know her until they had a project during a Poly Sci class the next year. She was eight years younger than he and just as opinionated. She had the “Irish” temper and could throw back a beer or two with the best of the guys. They soon became inseparable. She called him Billy and soon fell deeply in love with him.

  Bill started applying some of the ideas he learned in school to how he managed and motivated his mechanics. He mostly succeeded by listening to his team, implementing their ideas and giving them the credit. Soon the stamping presses were far outperforming the welding, bending and warehouse departments. The mechanics and the press operators earned more money and were much happier than the other departments in the building. He was promoted to Maintenance Supervisor over stamping and spread his methods throughout the entire department. The production supervisor rarely got out of her office and was happy to take the credit. She did have to get after Bill every now and then because Bill was constantly arguing politics, religion and about anything else possible to argue about.

  Some one or the other was always complaining that Bill took things too far and hurt some of the team’s feelings. Clinton’s second term was a devastating blow to Bill and he was on a mission to get everyone to vote Republican. His fellow workers started calling him “Grumpy” because if he couldn’t get people to agree with his views, he was terse with them for a day or so.

  All was going well for the factory until union authorization cards had been found in t
he break room and then a union representative was handing out authorization cards in front of the parking lot. This brought the corporate HR and union avoidance teams to the plant to see what was wrong.

  Roger, the plant manager, noticed the large improvements over the last year and was under pressure from corporate to get the rest of the plant on the same path. Roger was a plodder and only had his job due to family connections with the owner. He barely kept his job and HR was constantly after him to improve morale. He was not a people person and could care less about his workers as long as the plant was profitable.

  One day Roger disappeared and Lee Grant was announced as the new plant manager. HR and Lee immediately started meeting with the hourly team members and soon noticed the major difference between the Stamping department and the other departments. He promoted Bill’s department manager to Operations Manager and Bill’s boss to Stamping Superintendent and Bill to Stamping Supervisor for all presses. The rest of the building started to improve and in a year, it was a great place to work. Bill kept being promoted until he was the Operations Manager. He was recognized as the best in the business but not promotable to a higher position because he had no clue about office politics and was not politically correct on any topic.

  He would still argue politics with anyone who would argue with him. He argued too much and said a couple of things that HR could not overlook as they had in the past. Senior HR managers told the COO that he could either offer early retirement or fire Grumpy.

  “Lee, enough is enough. We know that Bill is great with keeping the machinery running and is liked by 80% of the team, but the other 20% want a union to keep him off their backs about politics, religion and general BS. He has to go!”

  “I think you HR types are overly sensitive about this. Grumpy, err Bill, has done more to make this a profitable facility than the whole management team. I think this is a big mistake.”

  You can even make it look like it was Grumpy’s idea. God knows the poor guy had been thorough more tragedy than most encounter in their lives.

  The party started with a barbeque lunch while a slide show of his promotions and accomplishments were shown to all. The company gave Bill a nice watch and a plaque commemorating his time and service. His team gave him an expensive fly rod and tackle box. Then various members of his team told stories about “Grumpy.” Some were heartfelt, some were funny and a few were downright embarrassing but true. Grumpy had a good time and tears came to his eyes as he left the building for the last time.

  Neither Bill nor Mary was ready for his retirement since it was thrust upon them five years earlier than they had scheduled. They had plenty of money with Bill’s pension from the company, 401K, Social Security and their investments. Bill had bought forty thousand shares of Ford stock when it dipped down to a dollar a share. This scared Mary then, but Bill looked like a superhero when it passed ten dollars a share. Bill had invested wisely.

  Mary had also inherited a little over two hundred thousand dollars when her mom passed away. While her family was poor throughout their lives a big retail company had been trying to buy their small farm for years. The land was now in the city limits and was hot property. None of her brothers or sisters wanted the family home so they sold it for a couple of million dollars.

  The big issue was what to do with their time, not money. They were both healthy and got bored too easily. They blamed themselves for their kids' deaths and fought a lot. Mary sought relief in her church but secretly blamed God just as much as she blamed herself for the kids' deaths.

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  Chapter 2

  “Sammy, just look at Mom and Jack. Passed out on the couch and half naked again. Well, at least, they left some cold pizza on the coffee table. Watch out for Jack. If he sees you, he’ll hurt you.”

  Sammy was Sam’s only friend; she found him wandering the streets half starved. He was only about six months old when they started playing together behind the school. She snuck part of her lunch out to him after school every day and they became best friends. She took him home one day when she knew Jack wouldn’t be there.

  “Sammy, that’s my Mom asleep on the couch. She drinks a lot and takes those pills. She says they make her feel good. I guess sleeping is a good escape.”

  She took Sammy to the kitchen sink and gave him a bath. He looked much better and smelled like lemon dishwashing soap. She got a pair of scissors and trimmed Sam’s hair. Now he looked like a fancy dog like the one she had seen on those dog food commercials. She searched the kitchen and could only find a small jar of peanut butter and some half-eaten bread scraps left on the table. She made some small peanut butter sandwiches and shared with Sammy.

  “You need a name. What do you think about Sammy? Sam and Sammy sound good together. I love you Sammy.”

  Sammy licked her face and sat down in her lap. She stroked and petted him for about 15 minutes when she heard a deep rumble coming from the side of the house.

  “Sammy, Jack’s home! We have to hide. I hate him. He tries to hurt me when Mom isn’t around. He’s a perv.”

  She took Sammy to the basement and put him in a box behind the furnace.

  Sam had somehow managed to hide Sammy for six months, but barely had enough food to spare for him. She would sneak him in and out of the house when they were gone or passed out.

  “Sammy, be quiet. I’ll come back down with some food and water after Jack passes out.”

  Sam went back upstairs and acted as though she was just coming in the kitchen door.

  “Mom, I’m hungry. Can you fix some supper before you go out tonight?”

  “We’re not going out tonight. Jack wants to stay home and watch the game. He ordered some pizza. He wants to stay home and spend some quality time with you. After all he’s going to be your new father and he loves you.”

  “Mom, you said that about the last three bums you brought home. This guy is a pervert and he is mean to me.”

  Sam’s mom slapped her and shoved her down to the floor.

  “Look, you had better be nice to him; he has lots of money and can take care of us. Be nice to him.”

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  Chapter 3

  William Jackson Jones was born in Newton, Kentucky, just south of Louisville. He was the only child of a Methodist pastor and a high school science teacher. His Mom and Dad raised him in a religious home but allowed him to explore his world and make some mistakes along the way. His Dad did not cram religion down his throat but rather set a good example and knew in the end a child had free will and the best a parent could do was to set a good example and teach them right from wrong. Both had passed away a couple of years ago.

  Bill was an average student and mostly stayed out of trouble in school, but was always challenging his teachers. He loved to read about the old west, WWII and politics. He did not have an off switch on his mouth; if he thought it, he said it. His teachers did not like the interruptions and arguments about what they were trying to teach their students.

  Bill was good at sports and played at least one sport all of the time. He was never great at any one of them but everyone wanted him on their team because he always gave 110%. He played point guard in basketball, halfback in football and catcher in baseball. He lettered in all sports and that helped him have a good choice of the eligible girls in his class. His mom had given him the lecture about sex and he took it as a challenge to have as much sex as possible before he got married. Thank God, she had stressed protection and never caught him in the basement with any of the dozen girls that he experimented with over the years.

  His dad taught him to hunt and fish but they were never avid outdoorsmen. Bill liked to shoot guns, but did not like gamey tasting meat so he never hunted but he did love guns and the military in general. He joined the Army and served three years in an armored division. He really got a kick out of the M48 and M60 tanks; there was nothing better than firing the main gun or 50 caliber machine guns. He missed serving in Vie
tnam but did spend a year each in Germany and Korea. He had a lot of fun and met some beautiful women. He almost married a beautiful blonde German girl but her father put a stop to it and sent her away. He found out later that she was only seventeen and he was lucky her dad hadn’t shot him.

  After arriving back home, he bought a new truck and spent his time drinking with his high school friends on the weekends. After about two months, his parents sat him down and asked him what he planned to do with his life. He told them that he had no idea what to do and that he was running out of money and needed a loan. His Dad told him that he had to get a job and stop drinking his money away. While he was careful not to show it, he was mad at his parents and wanted to get away from them as fast as he could. He woke up the next morning in jail with a hangover, a totaled out truck and a potential jail sentence hanging over his head. He couldn’t remember what had happened but the Mayor’s daughter and Bill were found in his truck passed out after it went through the Newton City Park and crashed into a water fountain.

  He could not remember any details about that night but he did find out that the judge did not have a sense of humor. Luckily, the judge was an Army vet also. He gave him a year’s probation and told him to go to United Metal Stamping Company and they would put him to work. There would be a $25 deduction from his paycheck each week until the damage to the fountain was paid for in full.