To Sketch a Thief Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Praise for Sketch Me If You Can

  “Fast-paced and spirited, Sharon Pape’s mystery . . . introduces police sketch artist Rory McCain and her cranky, ethereal housemate Ezekiel Drummond.”

  ��Julie Hyzy, national bestselling author of

  Grace Under Pressure and the White House Chef Mysteries

  “Police sketch artist Rory McCain, moonlighting as an amateur detective, assisted by the ghost of an 1870s federal marshall. Sharon Pape takes this improbable premise and makes it work—and how! Rory is memorable, her sidekick intriguing. Exceptionally well-written, a standout mystery. I’m looking forward to more.”

  —Susan Witting Albert, national bestselling author of

  The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies

  “The fun in this lighthearted frolic is figuring out who the killer is before the heroine and her poltergeist partner do. Readers will admire and adore the intrepid heroine.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “This is the first in a new series, and it looks like it’s going to be a fun ride.”

  —CA Reviews

  “Sharon Pape’s debut novel, Sketch Me If You Can (the first in her Portrait of Crime Mysteries), is part mystery, part paranormal and all spine-tingling suspense. This promises to be a great beginning to a dynamic ongoing series that both mystery lovers and paranormal fans will enjoy.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Sharon Pape

  SKETCH ME IF YOU CAN

  TO SKETCH A THIEF

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  TO SKETCH A THIEF

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / June 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Sharon Pape.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-52903-4

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group

  (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  With love and gratitude to all the

  four-legged members of our family,

  past and present—Apollo, Buck, Kodi, Jesse,

  Lyla and NikNak—who’ve enriched our lives

  beyond mere human expectation.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank:

  Michelle Vega, for seeing the forest as well as the trees. I couldn’t ask for a finer editorial eye.

  Mike Farris, for helping me navigate the publishing world. I’m fortunate to have him in my corner.

  Dr. Doreen Acuff, for the skilled and gentle care she’s given the canine members of our family. If not for her, we would have missed those wonderful last years with our amazing Jesse.

  Dr. Alexander Mauskop and Lynda J. Krasenbaum, for giving me back my “eyes.”

  My husband, Dennis, the first to read each chapter, for picking up on inconsistencies and flaws in logic, since logic and I have only a nodding acquaintance.

  All the readers who were kind enough to write and let me know how much they enjoyed Sketch Me If You Can, the first book in this series.

  And as always, my family and friends for their loving support.

  I invite everyone to visit my website at www.sharonpape.com.

  Any liberties I’ve taken with regard to veterinary care were solely for the purposes of the story.

  The Long Islander

  EST. 1839

  September 7, 1878

  Published in Huntington, New York

  ARIZONA MARSHAL

  MURDERED IN HUNTINGTON

  Ezekiel Drummond, federal marshal for the Arizona Territory, was discovered dead of gunshot wounds to his back yesterday in the house belonging to Winston Samuels. Mr. Samuels has stated that upon returning from a trip into town to purchase feed for his horses, he found his thirteenyear-old daughter lying unconscious in the parlor with a gash to her head and bruises on her arms. The body of Marshal Drummond was lying nearby. Samuels further stated that the room was in disarray, as if there had been a scuffle, and that his hired hand, John Corbin, was missing along with one of his horses. A trail of blood led from the parlor through the kitchen and out to the barn, leading authorities to conjecture that Corbin had been wounded. The only weapon recovered at the scene was a Colt Single Action .45, favored by lawmen in the western part of the country. The Colt, which had not been fired, is believed to have been the property of the marshal.

  When the young Miss Samuels regained her senses, she told a chilling tale of being overpowered by Corbin, who was determined to have his way with her. She remembers struggling to break free of
his clutches, but claims to have no recollection of the events beyond that point. After a complete and careful examination of the young woman, Dr. Edmond Stuart has pronounced her quite fit, given the horrific nature of her experience. He has additionally stated that a bout of amnesia is not uncommon in a victim of such a tender age and sensibilities.

  Upon contacting the office of the territorial governor in Arizona, it was learned that Marshal Drummond had left his post without notice two months earlier. It was believed that he was on the trail of a fugitive by the name of John Trask, who had raped and murdered several young girls, but this could not be corroborated. The authorities in Arizona are convinced that the hired hand, John Corbin, is in fact an alias of the above-mentioned Trask. Should anyone have additional information regarding this case, they are asked to present themselves at the office of the Suffolk County sheriff.

  As Marshal Drummond was not known to have any kin, he will be laid to rest at The Burying Ground Cemetery tomorrow morning at eight o’clock with all rites and respects due any brave member of the United States Marshals Service.

  Chapter 1

  Ghosts don’t make the best business partners. The thought scrolled through Rory’s head like the news crawl on CNN. It was an old loop of news that found its way to the forefront of her mind at least once a day. Some days a lot more often. What had cued it up this time was the latest e-mail to pop into her in-box: “You fixin’ to live out there?” The note was signed “Zeke,” as if she might have received similar questions from any number of people.

  “I’ll be in soon,” she wrote back, stopping herself before she could add, “You need a hobby.” The problem was that she was his hobby—she and the investigative firm she’d started that bore both their names. Whenever her patience with him was wearing thin, she reminded herself that Mac believed without reservation that the success of his PI firm had been due in large measure to the experience and canniness of Ezekiel Drummond. And to be fair, she had to admit that the marshal had been helpful, maybe even pivotal, in breaking the double murder case that had launched their strange partnership.

  The trouble with Zeke sharing her business life was that he also shared her domestic life in the old Victorian home Mac had left her. She could hardly blame him, since he seemed to be pretty much stuck in that haunting ground. Yet whenever she’d suggested he look for the light that might lead him out of his limbo, he’d become enraged and would say only that he wasn’t going anywhere until he knew for sure who’d shot him in the back more than a hundred years earlier. Rory had given up trying to convince him that having such information would be worthless, given that whoever the player or players might have been, they were all long dead themselves. Since Zeke was not without common sense, she was sure that there had to be another, more profound reason why he was hanging around. A reason he hadn’t as yet felt inclined to share with her.

  She brushed her hair back. It was definitely past due for a cut. The short, low-maintenance style that had framed her face and accentuated her wide hazel eyes was now often concealing those eyes. Somehow since she’d opened her own business, there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to take care of everything.

  She stretched her arms up over her head to ease the knot that was tightening in the small of her back. She’d spent the better part of the afternoon hunched over the keyboard, writing progress reports for the two cases she was presently working on, paying her bills online and trying to balance her checking account, which seemed determined to stymie her efforts. Sometimes it felt as if the microprocessors in the computer secretly had it in for her. Zeke would have loved to hear her say that, she thought wryly. Although he’d developed a measure of interest in the Internet after she’d shown him how to navigate it, he still complained regularly about how much time she spent at work on it. Rory chalked his attitude up to a case of sour grapes. According to the marshal, her only source on the subject, it took a lot of energy for a ghost to manifest in the third dimension. Even if he were to remain invisible and just use his energy to work the keyboard, there was a limit to how much time he could spend at it before needing to rest and recuperate. Ever since she’d nearly become the third victim of the killer she was investigating, the marshal hadn’t allowed himself to become too depleted in case she needed his help again. There was no convincing him that she’d had the situation under control before he’d popped in to save the day. They’d argued the subject up one side and down the other, until she’d decided to let him have the hero status he seemed to need so desperately. Apparently you could take the lawman away from the tin star, but you couldn’t take the tin star away from the lawman.

  Rory glanced out the window over her desk. The mid-September sun hung low in the sky, playing limbo with a band of stratus clouds. She might still have enough daylight to tackle the weeds in the flower beds that ran like a scalloped hem around the front of the house. She hadn’t intended to leave the impatiens, pansies and petunias to fend for themselves, but the summer had been nonstop busy, what with leaving her job as a sketch artist for the Suffolk County Police Department and setting up her own firm.

  Fortunately, the concerns she’d harbored about attracting business had proven baseless. Once the local newspaper ran the story of how she’d solved two murders the police had failed to solve, one of them sadly that of her beloved uncle Mac, she’d been inundated with requests for interviews from the major networks as well as from most of the cable news channels. After a good deal of consideration, she’d agreed to appear on just one of them. She politely but firmly turned down the others, not eager for her life to become a three-ring circus. As long as she was making headlines, it was hard to put Vincent Conti behind her. She still couldn’t believe she’d been naïve enough to fall for the drug dealer who’d had her uncle murdered. But in spite of her efforts to downplay the story, it seemed to have more legs than a centipede. Print journalists across the country rehashed tasty sound bites plucked from her interview and managed to keep it alive for the better part of a week, until Rory found herself wishing for some kind of world crisis that would knock her off the stage. Just when the hoopla finally seemed to be winding down, a zealous young reporter, posing as Vincent Conti’s terminally ill brother, emoted his way into a jailhouse visit. Although the subterfuge was immediately evident to the suspect, who didn’t have a brother, let alone a brother on the brink of death, he decided to use the visit to his own advantage. And when the reporter begged for a headline, Conti gave him a whopper.

  The story appeared in dozens of newspapers, the headlines all variations on one theme: “Murder Suspect Captured by Wyatt Earp.” Quick as a wink the case was again story one. Conti’s attorney ran with the ball his client had thrown him and sprinted for the goalposts of an insanity defense.

  The district attorney lambasted the sheriff’s department for having allowed the reporter access; the sheriff’s department barred the reporter from the courthouse, the trial and anything else they could think of for the rest of his professional life. By the end of the day, everyone on Long Island had an opinion on the subject. When Rory was asked to comment, she demurred, saying that she didn’t want to taint the case. Although she was horrified by the prospect of Conti being sentenced to a mental institution from which he might one day be deemed healthy enough to return to society, she had no wish to join him there by corroborating his ravings about his ghostly encounter. On the other hand, if she’d denied his ghost story, she might still be promoting the case for his insanity. It was a lose-lose situation, so she kept her mouth shut. In New York, multiple homicides entitled a murderer to an untimely death of his own at the state’s expense. Although the appeal process could take years, Rory looked forward to the day when Conti would draw his last breath.

  She logged off the computer and turned off the light in the small office she’d had built in the detached garage behind the house. The garage had started life in 1870 as a carriage house and stable for the original owner and was large enough to accommodate three cars, several
ladders and assorted gardening equipment. Even after it had been partitioned for the office, there was ample room for one car. Since Rory had sold her Honda in favor of the red Volvo convertible she’d inherited from her uncle, that was all the space she needed. Even so, she only parked the car inside when snow was in the forecast, preferring to leave it on the driveway where it was closer to the front door.

  She went from the office into the garage through the connecting door and found her gardening gloves, a sturdy weeder and a small plastic bucket she’d bought specifically for that chore, so that she wouldn’t have to drag a large garbage can around with her. Then she let herself out through the office door and locked it behind her.

  The temperature had dropped off while she’d been working, and her shoulders immediately hunched against the unexpected chill. The lengthening shadows of autumn had swallowed the day’s warmth whole, like an old-timer knocking back a shot of whiskey. Even after twenty-eight years on Long Island, the turning of the seasons always managed to surprise her. She’d have to detour through the house to grab a jacket for her gardening.

  As Rory hurried across the backyard, she gave herself a mental thumbs-up for having had the office built. It was a great commute and far and away the smartest money she’d ever spent. Of course Zeke had tried to talk her out of it.

  “It’s been fine with you workin’ right here in the house,” he’d said. “Why do you want to go changin’ things now?”