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  Advance Praise for

  The Green Beach File

  “Both timely and timeless, The Green Beach File is an environmental thriller extraordinaire. Perry’s sterling debut reminded me of James W. Hall’s Thorn novels, similar in both theme and style. The notion of a sleepy small town rocked by a series of murders may not be new, but in Perry’s polished and steady hand, it feels fresh and original. The Green Beach File is perfect for, well, the beach or a cold winter’s night, establishing Perry as New England’s literary environmental crusader, a northern version of the great Carl Hiaasen.”

  —Jon Land, USA Today Bestselling Author of the Murder, She Wrote Series

  “As a true crime expert, I can tell you with certainty, Perry’s debut novel feels ‘real.’ Her knack for storytelling and character development is uncanny—making The Green Beach File a must read for anyone in the mood for a top-notch environmental thriller”

  —Jon Leiberman, Author and Former National Correspondent on America’s Most Wanted

  “Karen Perry’s strong debut The Green Beach File has it all—a shocking murder, a twisty plot, strong characters, and a storyline that stays with you.”

  —Barbara Ross, Author of A Maine Clambake Mystery Series and the Jane Darrowfield Mystery Series

  A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK

  ISBN: 978-1-68261-907-0

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-68261-908-7

  The Green Beach File

  © 2020 by K. A. Perry

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover art by Cody Corcoran

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Permuted Press, LLC

  New York • Nashville

  permutedpress.com

  Published in the United States of America

  Contents

  Part I

  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

  Part II

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Part III

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  PART I

  Chapters 1–17

  CHAPTER 1

  Jenn closed her eyes and pictured herself standing in the forest and looking up at the trees, at all the green of the leaves. The pure and simple beauty of all the leaves moving together, swaying a little in the wind. The image brought her steady calmness. It grounded her and slowed her pounding heart. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, but the dead face was still there, right there, in front of her.

  This dead face looked just like her dead fiancé’s face. The cheek muscles were fixed and rigid. Eyes closed, lips curved down and set, and gray skin. No blood circulating, nothing rushing through the arteries. No movement or warmth. Life was gone, just like it had been from her fiancé’s face.

  Jenn blinked and tried to move past all the emotions rocketing out of her heart. All the shock, anger, and pain that came from Alex’s death. She blinked and looked again at the face before her now. She tried to curb her emotions and use her brain.

  Yes, it was a dead face in front of her. But really, that was all that the face shared with her fiancé. Alex had been emaciated by the cancer. He had wasted, shriveled, and faded away in a matter of months. This face, this dead face, wasn’t like that. It wasn’t emaciated. It was full, round, and old. Much older. And fat, really fat now that she noticed. Not really at all like her dead fiancé. The dead face from her past, her fiancé’s face, and the face before her now actually had very little in common. Just that they were both dead. Cold, fixed, and dead.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sideways. It had spiraled sideways. No one could have predicted that the evening would stir up such a tempest of emotion for Jenn and reopen the wounds of losing her fiancé five years ago. Claire, Jenn’s sister-in-law, had actually hoped the evening was going to be about Jenn’s future. Not her past.

  Jenn was heading to meet her sister-in-law, Claire, for an author’s book signing. Some big-wig, climate change guru was signing books at P.T. Jane’s, an independent bookstore, in Mayfield. As she drove to P.T. Jane’s, all the awkward efforts Claire had made on her behalf passed through her mind: blind dates, dinner parties, art show openings, and now setting up a casual meeting at an author’s book signing. Today, Claire was going to introduce Jenn to an ear, nose and throat doctor who had recently moved to Connecticut. As with all of Claire’s love interests for Jenn, the guy was “just perfect.”

  Jenn couldn’t understand why she didn’t say no to her sister-in-law. Here she was, getting dragged once again to something she should have said no to. Claire was on some kind of mission, however, to find Jenn a spouse. And Jenn would not speak up to Claire and tell her not to. Jenn’s brother, Peter, a doctor, had married Claire, an art teacher, eight years ago. Ever since Peter and Claire’s day of bliss, Claire had been after Jenn to tie the knot, too. It sure hadn’t gone well the last time.

  Jenn turned into the rear parking lot of P.T. Jane’s, lucky to find a parking spot. She was almost into the book store as her iPhone rang. It had been a ridiculously long workday and she thought about declining the call. They, meaning the other lawyers she worked with, just never left her alone. Supposedly, it was a sign of success to be indispensable to the firm. But when Jenn stopped to think about it, her iPhone in particular, and her work in general, mostly felt like a pair of handcuffs. Or maybe one of those leg cuffs that they put on criminals on probation. She paused outside the back door and dug for the “handcuffs” in her purse.

  “Jennifer Bowdoin,” she answered. Stuart, the partner she mostly worked with, launched right into the details of a client’s particular wishes and needs, and the alternative strategies he thought might help the client. Jenn tried hard to pay attention, just in case he was looking for real input.

  Other latecomers to the book signing were passing by, and so as not to disturb them, Jenn started ambling away from the small back porch at the rear of the bookstore. She headed back toward her car for privacy. Her car was parked near a dumpster at the edge of the lot. The lot was not paved, but rather covered by small stones with tiny, pale green weeds starting their seasonal creep through the gaps in the stones.

  As Jenn moved closer to what she thought was a dumpster, she realized it wasn’t for trash, but was actually an ice machine with a wooden fence built three-quarters of the way around it. The cosmetic screening fence
was meant to hide the ice machine and was a little shorter than she was at five feet, eight inches. Actually, it was an ice freezer to store already made bags of ice—it did not make ice like ice machines in hotels. The freezer was just a short rectangular-shaped structure that held bags of ice and had two doors on the front of it. Why was it in a bookstore parking lot?

  “Yes, I checked the legislative history, and no, there was no comment on your point,” Jenn explained to Stuart as she meandered along. Her legal specialty, “environmental law” sounded glamorous, but most days she felt like she just had a routine desk job, some kind of glorified paper pusher.

  Stuart was still talking. He launched into a creative solution for the client that involved seeking an amendment of some law. Stuart spoke on and on and on, but Jenn had stopped listening.

  As she wandered closer toward the ice freezer, she saw some deep green moss growing amidst the pebbles. The moss was a beautiful, rich green and in such an odd spot for moss. Maybe condensation from the machine provided an extra source of water. She then saw that someone had propped some brown dress shoes on the far left side of the ice freezer. How odd. The shoes were between the freezer itself, and the five-foot high screening fence wrapped around the sides and back of the it. The freezer faced west, and the screening wall stood on its north, east, and west sides.

  Focusing on the shoes, and not just the moss, Jenn saw that they had tan slacks attached to them at a weird angle. She stepped closer. Stuart continued talking, but now she wasn’t following him at all. She moved toward the left side of the ice freezer. There was a person partially shoved between the machine and the fence surrounding it, and his shoes and pants cuffs were visible.

  She leaned in closer and tried to peer behind the left side of the ice freezer, toward the person’s face. As her eyes adjusted to the darkening evening sky, she could see his pants, leather belt, white dress shirt, and blood. Yes, it was definitely dried blood on the shoulder of his shirt. The blood was so dark. She could also see his face. His lifeless, still face. Her brain couldn’t catch up with the reality before her eyes.

  CHAPTER 3

  Upon picturing the peaceful tree canopy and pushing down the whirlwind of emotions about her dead fiancé, Jenn focused on the fact that the man before her was really so much fatter and older than Alex. Not quite elderly, but gray-haired with a belly straining the buttons of his dress shirt. Propped so far diagonally on his left side, that his stomach was stopping him from collapsing at the waist and falling behind the ice freezer. His eyes were closed, but his face muscles were frozen in a way that looked like he was in pain.

  “Hello?” she called out to the man.

  “Yes, Jennifer, I’m still here. Can you hear me?” Stuart asked. She had forgotten all about the call.

  “Stuart, I have to go. I’ll call you back.” She pressed “end” and said, “Hey, are you alright?” to the face behind the ice freezer. The dark brown blood on the shoulder of his shirt looked as though it had come from his head. He was not alright. He had not fallen behind the ice freezer.

  “Jennifer Bowdoin, what are you doing?” boomed Claire from ten feet away. Jenn turned her head toward Claire’s loud voice, and could almost see smoke wafting up from Claire’s ears.

  “Claire.” It was all Jenn could get out. She looked back at the man’s body. The man’s dead body, she now realized.

  Claire was just far enough away so that she must not have been able to see the shoes or lower legs. She grabbed Jenn’s arm and started pulling her toward the bookstore.

  “If you didn’t want to come, you could have just said so. I saw you almost get to the door and then turn and walk away. Why bother showing up at all if you aren’t coming inside?” Claire clearly sensed Jenn’s reluctance to come tonight.

  After hobbling along a few feet with Claire, Jenn recovered enough to pull her arm away from Claire and dialed 911.

  CHAPTER 4

  While they waited for the police, Jenn and Claire moved to the back porch of P.T. Jane’s. The porch was gray and raised two steps above the height of the parking lot, framed by four large orange ceramic pots filled with purple, yellow, and pale blue pansies. It seemed strange to stand close to a dead body, so without discussing it, they had wandered out of the parking lot and up toward the safety of the porch and its cheery flowers.

  For Jenn, the blooms were like the tree canopy she had forced into her mind at the moment she saw the dead face. Claire was talking about the book signing and hinting that the doctor, “possibly the one,” was still in there waiting to meet Jenn. Jenn didn’t look up at Claire, or respond, but just stared down at a pansy, as her eyes were drawn to the contrast of the dark purple and strong yellow colors, both on just one petal. The edge where the strong colors met was not straight, but ragged and variant, with purple veins running through the yellow half of the petal. Together, all the petals created a strikingly beautiful flower. Jenn’s focus on the pansy kept her calm, centered her, and kept at bay the emotions that had flared up from seeing the dead face, and the pressure she felt from Claire to go be sociable inside.

  Thankfully, the police response time was quick. Within a few minutes, a policeman in his full uniform, who looked like the lead from a Hallmark or Lifetime movie, pulled up rapidly in his cruiser. He blocked the exit from the parking lot, and walked briskly over to Claire and Jenn. When the first words he spoke were to inquire whether they were okay, Jenn liked him immediately. His second question was whether they had placed the call. Jenn said yes, and pointed to the ice freezer.

  Jenn was struck by how reassured she was by the stunning policeman’s arrival. The Mayfield police force was rife with problems. She had read that some officers were charged with engaging in prostitution, some with accepting overtime pay when no work was performed, and others with privately using police vehicles to run personal errands. There were also claims of incompetence in the leadership’s management skills, since response times to several recent burglaries were unacceptably slow. At one burglary last month in the north end of Mayfield, on a house that was alarmed, thieves were able to rob the house and leave quickly, even before the police arrived. So, the quick arrival by the resplendent officer was wonderful and reassuring to Jenn. Plus, with the policeman’s fast response time, Jenn didn’t even have to respond to Claire’s suggestion that she still go in to the book signing.

  The parking lot was lit by two lights, which had turned on in the fading light of dusk. She could see the officer disappear out of view behind the ice machine’s fence. After a moment, he reappeared.

  “Yes, he’s dead,” he pronounced and then paused a moment. He said, “I’m going to grab the police tape from my car. You need to stay here so that we can take your statement.”

  Before Jenn could say anything, a second police car arrived, sirens blaring, and two other officers jumped out. The officers all spoke together and then broke up to perform various tasks. One of the newly arrived officers approached the ladies and simultaneously pulled out a small notebook from one of his many pockets.

  “Ladies, I have the pleasure of escorting you to the station. It will be better to take your statement there, in a warmer and better-lit spot.” Claire, who, despite motherhood, was still incredibly self-centered, immediately spoke up.

  “Officer, I didn’t find the body. My sister-in-law did, and she, as a lawyer, will be able to give you a far better statement than I ever could. I have not even been over there to look at the body. I have no desire to see it, and I need to get home to my daughter.”

  Jenn turned toward Claire with an expression of awe. What a load of crap. Claire had looked at the body, albeit quickly. She had taken a peek behind the ice freezer while Jenn was on the phone with the 911 operator.

  “My sister-in-law was supposed to meet me here at seven. When she was late, I started watching out the back door for her, and came out to greet her when she arrived. By the time I saw her, she had already discovered the body. I really can’t go to the station tonight. I live
on Liberty Street and am a teacher here in town. I have nothing to add, but I’ll give you my contact information in case you need me in the future.”

  “Alright ma’am. Write down your name and address here, and let me see your driver’s license.” Claire rooted through her handbag for her wallet and did as she was asked. “Miss, why don’t you show me your license, too? And then you can follow me to the station in your car. It certainly looks like foul play, so I’ll need to get a formal statement.”

  Jenn started digging in her purse as well. She handed her license to the officer as her phone rang. She saw Stuart’s name appear on the screen and pressed the answer button.

  “Stuart, I hung up on you because I found a dead body. I’ll call you back.” Then she hung up on him again before he could respond. Oops. Maybe that was not so smart. When she felt brave enough to look up and meet the police officer’s eyes, he looked impatient.

  “It was my boss, I was on the phone with him when I first found the body.” Jenn felt compelled to explain why she bothered to answer her iPhone.

  “So, Jennifer,” the officer said, reading her name from her license, “let’s head over to the station. I’ll follow you. You know where the station is? Where are you parked?”

  Jenn nodded her head and pointed toward her car, then started walking in that direction.

  The crafty, lying, Claire caught up to Jenn and said, “Phew…that was close. I’m sorry you have to spend the evening at the station, but it would have been a huge waste of my time. I’ll let Pete know what happened. Discovering a dead body as a way to avoid meeting a date is a new one in my book.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The evening continued its sideways path. As if the dead body and Claire’s lying weren’t enough, Jenn’s visit to the police station was not as Jenn had pictured it on her drive there. She thought of herself as the helpful Good Samaritan who had called in a dead body. The police, however, did not share this point of view.