We are delighted to welcome author Timothy Patten to Omnimystery News today.
Timothy's debut mystery thriller is Money, Family, Murder (TMP Novels; July 2015 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we are pleased to introduce you to it with an excerpt, the first chapter.
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THE ONLY PEACEFUL THING IN the elegant bedroom was the body of the victim. She looked as though nothing had interrupted a good night's sleep, but something had — the pillow next to her on the bed, which someone had held over her face long enough to put her to sleep forever. If she had awakened long enough to notice the intruder or realize what was happening to her, her relaxed expression, now fixed for all time, gave no such indication.
Everyone else in the bedroom was anything but peaceful. This was the kind of murder, in the kind of place where murders weren't supposed to happen — inside a gated community in Newport Beach, California, one of the most expensive and well-policed areas in the world, right alongside the Pacific Ocean.
Newport Beach was sometimes described as an epicenter of financial crime, but few people were actually murdered there. So the turnout from the local police department, the District Attorney's office, the Orange County Sheriff, and the local branch of the FBI was exceptional. The bedroom was awash in investigators tripping over each other, looking for evidence. Fingerprint experts, photographers, coroners, detectives, and other crime scene investigators were spending so much of this early Sunday morning getting in each other's way that it was amazing any evidence at all was collected without being spoiled.
All present paused at various times to study the victim, a woman in her early thirties who looked perfect for Newport Beach, because she would have looked perfect anywhere: long blonde hair, delicate features, a body that was great the way God had created it and even better when a local plastic surgeon had worked his magic, all set off in a filmy negligee that was all she had worn to bed.
Crime of passion?
Random murder?
A victim who knew her assailant?
A girl who had simply taken the wrong guy home from one of the upscale singles bars or Mexican joints on Pacific Coast Highway?
All was speculation. There were no facts, aside from the ultimate fact of her death, the time of which, the coroner informed the rest of the investigators, based on the state of undigested food in her stomach, was between ten p.m. and midnight. Not a typical Saturday night — at least not for this woman.
Early to bed, early dead, the Orange County District Attorney, Janice Martland thought, studying the victim's peaceful expression in the soft morning light. Martland had a reputation for creating headlines for herself. She had boundless political ambition — some said she wanted to be governor or U.S. Senator — and a willingness to cross lines to get high-profile convictions. If this included bigfooting some or all of the law enforcement branches involved in a particular case, so be it. With her reelection on the line in the fall, she had been on the lookout for one good case to keep her name in the headlines for months. And maybe this would be it.
In the law enforcement community, she wasn't exactly beloved.
"What did she do for a living?" she asked aloud.
"Bookkeeper," replied one of the Sheriff's deputies, tracing the sheets for evidence of sexual contact, of which there was none.
"For whom?" Janice asked, glancing around the lavishly decorated bedroom. "Bill Gates?"
"For a big local family," the deputy replied. "Well, Sleeping Beauty didn't have sex last night, I can tell you that much. Earlier this week, judging from the panties in her laundry. But nothing tonight."
"They must have paid her a fortune," Janice said, noticing an Atmos clock on a shelf by her bed that alone must have cost $5,000. "This condo costs three million at least. Maybe I should have gone into bookkeeping. Or did you say bookmaking?"
"She's legit," an FBI agent assured her. "We've spoken to a dozen of her contacts on her cell phone. She took care of some trusts for a high-net-worth family. Nothing out of the ordinary."
"Except maybe her pay," Janice said, looking around again. "How does a bookkeeper afford a condo overlooking the ocean in Newport Beach?"
The question brought the entire investigation to a halt. Everyone glanced at the beautiful body on the bed. No one said a word.
Janice sighed. "You people," she said, shaking her head. "If she's got this kind of place, you figure she must have sold her body to get it. Is that what you're all thinking?"
No answer.
A lab tech came in from the living room.
"No sign of forcible entry," he announced. "She must have known her assailant."
"No sex last night," the FBI agent added, somewhat gratuitously.
"No sign of a struggle," added the Sheriff's deputy.
"She probably never saw whoever killed her," Janice said. "Someone must have let themselves in. Someone who knew the gate code for the complex and had a key. Someone already in her world."
No one spoke.
"And someone who wanted her dead," Janice added. "Get me a name. That's all I ask."
She headed out of the bedroom and then out of the condo, stepping quickly past the tech guy who was wiping down the door for prints, leaving the investigators behind to figure out the how and the why, and especially the who, of this woman's death.
"I found something," another tech guy suddenly said.
Janice stopped in her tracks and looked back into the living room. The tech guy had taken down a painting and found a wall safe.
"Can you open it?" Janice asked, stepping quickly back inside the condo and toward the safe. A handful of investigators from the bedroom drifted into the living room to see what the fuss was all about.
"It is open," he said. "I need to dust it for prints —"
Janice cut him off.
"Let me see," she said, and to the astonishment of the investigators, she simply reached into the safe and pulled out a sheaf of papers. She began riffling through them.
"What are you doing?" asked the lead FBI agent, shocked. "That's evidence! You don't want to touch it!"
"I don't want to leave it for you," Janice snapped. "I'll never see it again."
"You can't —" the agent began, but Janice cut him off as well.
"I don't need some FBI jackass telling me how to run a case," she said heatedly. "I don't take this, I'll never see it again. I know how you guys operate."
"You've gotta be —" the FBI agent said, shaking his head in disbelief.
It didn't matter to Janice how he felt.
She took the sheaf of papers and strode out of the condo into the morning sun.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Timothy Patten
Timothy Patten is retired, grew up in Highland Park, Illinois and graduated from University of Miami, Florida with a BBA and MBA in marketing. He volunteers and supports a few local charities in Orange County, California. Tim and his wife, Kathy live in Irvine, California for over twenty-seven years with their grown children and golden retrievers.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at TimothyPattenAuthor.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Money, Family, Murder by Timothy Patten
A Novel of Suspense
Publisher: TMP Novels
In the picture-perfect community of Newport Beach, violent crime is virtually non-existent. Until one sunny morning, when the beautiful bookkeeper of Newport's wealthiest family is found strangled in her bed. Johnny Barnes — loyal husband, dad, philanthropist, and all-around decent guy — is arrested for the murder.
Johnny has been wrongly accused. He is released on $20 million bail, but the tide of public feeling turns rapidly against him; everyone has competing agendas, from the power-hungry DA to a perspicacious police detective to Johnny's influential brother-in-law. With diminishing resources and dwindling hope, Barnes must conduct his own investigation. His journey takes him from Montecito to North Dakota to Key Biscayne as he uncovers a dazzling web of intrigue, self-dealing, exhortation, and murder.
The clock is ticking. Soon Johnny will be sent to prison for a crime he did not commit — unless he is able to identify the true murderer and clear his name in time.
A beautiful corpse. A family of billionaires. An innocent man .
.. or is he?
— Money, Family, Murder by Timothy Patten
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