No Time for Murder

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​David Dartman is the poster child for America’s rat-race life. He’s overwhelmed with to-do lists and packed calendars: kids to chauffer, a corporate history book to write, a soccer team to coach, exercise, lost socks to find . . . So when the widow of his best friend demands he prove her husband’s suicide was in fact murder, his first response is he doesn’t have time for murder. Moreover, he believes his friend, suffering PTSD from a military tour in Afghanistan, most certainly killed himself.

Yet remorseful for not being there for his troubled friend in his last days because he “was too busy,” the former investigative journalist and crime writer reluctantly starts poking around. The more he pokes—all while juggling his personal and professional obligations—the more he realizes his friend’s death is more than a simple suicide.

His investigation, and a string of bizarre, brutal killings, unearth uncomfortable truths about his friend’s death—truths that jeopardize David’s marriage and force him to recognize that life is more than one long To-do list.
​Chapter 1

 When the widow of my best friend demanded I convince the police that her husband’s death was murder, not suicide, my first reaction was that I had no time for murder.

What with a looming deadline for a grimly dull corporate history book, my daughter’s soccer team to coach, daily chauffeur service for my kids, a basement-remodeling project, a family vacation to plan, exercising, a garage to clean, pets to serve, passwords to manage, lost socks to find . . . well, you get the picture.

I don’t want to come across as a kvetch about this. I’m the one who’s allowed my life to be overrun with projects, tasks, errands—life’s stuff. But hey, I’m merely honoring the American gospel of busyness. Packed calendars and lengthy to-do lists aren’t just honored, they’re canonized. Idleness is the enemy of the soul, admonished St. Benedict, which, if true, guarantees my soul is safe and sound.

Family, work, and religious pearls of wisdom aside, I confess I’ve been chafing at this busyness crap for a while now. The last thing I need is to tackle yet another task.

Especially murder.

All of which would be laughable were it not so deadly serious.

Which raised the second reason I balked at Kathryn Chilton’s demand. However desperately she believed otherwise, no one murdered her husband. Randy Chilton killed himself twenty-nine days ago, a brutal reality I’d yet to wrap my mind and heart around. The county coroner ruled it suicide, and I trusted him and the investigating detective. Bad TV shows, crime novels, and donut clichés to the contrary, cops rarely screw up the manner of death.

“What possible evidence do you have someone murdered Randy?” I challenged from the edge of Kathryn’s immaculate living room, with its half-acre of snow-white shag, white walls, and white leather furniture. The room felt as chilly as a Swedish ice hotel.

She crossed her arms. “He would never have shot himself. He loathed guns.”

“Men who kill themselves usually use guns. Even men who loathe guns.”

“He never would have done it in the house. Not with Regan. He wouldn’t do that to his own daughter.”

My goddaughter aside, my former days as a police reporter and true-crime writer taught me among other heart-wrenching truths that parents killed themselves in circumstances cruel to their children.

“Randy wasn’t the man we once knew, Kathryn,” I said empathetically.

That didn’t sit well with her. She marched in khaki capris and bare feet to a white grand piano, which she could play like a virtuoso, snatched an open bottle of beer off a coaster, and downed a long swallow. She waved the bottle at me.

“Randy didn’t leave a suicide note, either. I’ve hunted everywhere for one.”

“Suicides often don’t.”

Her head of black, no-nonsense short hair shook in frustration. “He would have left a note, David. He—” She faltered. “He would have explained.”

“Randy was troubled.”

My friend’s suicide did not come as a shock to those of us who knew him, and I knew him better than most. He’d returned in the fall of 2005 from a six-month National Guard tour in Afghanistan with snakes in his head, and they remained there until the day he died.

Kathryn fixed hard brown eyes on me. “Some people chose to ignore his troubles.”

“That’s unfair! He pushed me away. Like he pushed everyone away.”

“True friends push back.”

I should have told her then and there to go to hell. But out of love and respect for Randy, and heartbroken by the loss Kathryn and Regan were suffering, I restrained my irritation and said, “Who would kill Randy? Why?”

“I don’t know. That’s your job to find out.”

I tried not to roll my eyes. “When you called, you said you had something new to tell me regarding his death.”

Kathryn set down her beer and I trailed her gym-sculpted body down a hallway lined with family photos and political memorabilia. I sensed her destination and I didn’t want to go there.

At the end of the hallway, she opened a door and entered Randy’s study. I hung back. My best friend had spent his final moments there, alone. Brooding over demons none of us could fathom.

And I wasn’t there for him.

In many ways, his study remained unchanged: the large polished cherry wood desk in the center, the deep warm wood paneling, the floor-to-ceiling bookcase with soccer mementoes and pictures of Kathryn and Regan tucked among techno-thrillers and steampunk science fiction. A nine-foot-high whimsical giraffe sculpture stood in a corner like a naughty boy. I’d spent hours in this room with Randy, drinking Glenfiddich and pontificating on politics, sports, books, and inconsequential shit I no longer remember.

But now the once cheery room felt as chilly as the living room, airless, soulless. Dead. Its charming clutter was gone. Kathryn had clear-cut nearly everything off his desk, leaving behind only an empty outbox, a coffee mug full of pens, a telephone, and his computer.

I stared at the desk where he had shot himself in the head.

Kathryn walked to French doors that opened onto a flagstone patio edged with aspen. Beyond was the greenway that snaked through our housing development.

“Someone broke in here,” she said.

“What?”

She pointed to the door. “I found glass knocked out by the door handle and papers and files strewn on the floor. Drawers were pulled open. The computer was on. It hadn’t been on since he . . . ” Her voice trailed off.

“When was this?”

“I discovered it a week ago, but it could have occurred days before that. I don’t come in here much. I keep the room closed. For Regan’s sake.”

Reluctantly, I stepped into the study. “Did you report this to the police?”

“Detective Watts himself came out. He dismissed it as a common burglary.”

“He’s probably right.”

She shook her head. “The timing was too coincidental after Randy’s death. Besides, what common burglar rifles through files and turns on a computer instead of stealing it? This guy went nowhere else in the house. He didn’t steal cash or jewelry or electronics—nothing. He was searching for something in here.”

I held out my hands. “Searching for what?”

“You know the sensitive work Randy did. I suspect it was Islamic terrorists.”

Islamic terrorists? Was the woman playing with a full deck?

True, Randy’s employer, where he’d worked as the chief financial officer, was an up-and-coming manufacturing company named CobenTechnologies that landed a major contract with the U.S. Army a while back to provide protective armor for military vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan. But terrorists?

“And you what—think these terrorists killed him and then returned a week later to rifle through his office?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice.

“It’s possible.”

“Any evidence what this burglar was searching for or whether he found it?” I asked.

“I don’t think he found anything, whatever he was looking for. Randy kept classified work partitioned off in the hard drive with a password.”

“None of this proves someone murdered him, Kathryn,” I said.

“There’s more. After his funeral, I had a disturbing conversation with a former member of his National Guard unit. The man—”

My BlackBerry buzzed. My son texting a reminder to chauffeur him from school to his trumpet lesson, then baseball practice. Demonstrating exactly why I didn’t have time for Kathryn’s delusions. I pocketed my phone. “I need to pick up Zach.”

“Will you look into it, David?” she said, rare imploring in her voice. “Convince Detective Watts to reopen the case.”

“Convince him how?”

“You’re the true crime writer. The mystery novelist. The fearless investigative reporter with the tenacity of a honey badger. Come up with something.”

Yeah, once upon a time I was all those things. Part of a Midwestern newspaper investigative team nominated for a Pulitzer. A freelance investigative journalist for national publications. Two published true-crime books on murder and high finance. As for my lone published mystery, I’d cradled the novel briefly in my hands, David Cole Dartman in small type on the lurid cover, before I watched it sink into the vast sea of orphaned books. Now I write corporate histories, inconsequential articles, and any other claptrap that pays.

“You’re confusing me with Jessica Fletcher,” I said, turning to leave. “Hire a private detective.”

I reached the living room before Kathryn cut in front of me, arms thrown outward. “Please! You’re friends with Watts. He’ll listen to you. He won’t listen to a private detective.”

T.J. Watts was the detective who investigated Randy’s suicide—and the lead detective I’d made the hero in my first true-crime book. A sharp cop. A good man. But I would hardly describe us as friends. The book’s murder case took its personal and professional toll on T.J. My reappearance would only dredge up unpleasant memories.

“Watts is a good detective, Kathryn. If he and the coroner think it was suicide, it was suicide.”

I brushed by her and stepped out onto the porch. A huge American flag fluttered on a tall pole in her front yard—the flag they draped over Randy’s casket at his memorial service and which his wife flew daily to honor his memory.

“What did Randy say to you the day he died?” she said as I headed for my Chrysler minivan.

I stopped. My stomach tightened. I half turned.

“Randy called you that day,” she said. “I saw it listed on his cell phone. You were the last call he made.”

I swallowed hard. “I missed his call.”

She closed her eyes. Opened them. “Please, David, do this. Not for me. For Randy. For Regan.”

“The best thing you can do for Regan—for yourself, for that matter—is to come to terms with the reality that Randy killed himself.”

As if I had done that.
I headed for my vehicle. Randy ​had called my home office early Monday afternoon. I was in the middle of a pile of work and let the call go to voicemail. He left a message to call back. No hint of what was on his mind. No agitation in his voice. No urgency. No hint of a farewell.

It was late afternoon before I returned his call.

​By then he was dead.
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