KEEPING SILENT
A Caleb Knowles Mystery (Bk 1)
Author: Carla Damron
2013 Reissue Edition
5.5"x 8.5" Trade Paperback
Retail $14.95US; 240pp
ISBN 978-1-62268-010-8 print
ISBN 978-1-62268-016-0 ebook
LCCN 2012943386

read an excerpt >>>
book details
cover detail
buy the book

KEEPING SILENT
A Caleb Knowles Mystery (Book 1)
Author: Carla Damron

CHAPTER ONE

Caleb Knowles ignored the insistent buzz of his office phone as he studied the client across from him. Ellen Campbell grinned back—it was a wide, toothy smile that had little to do with what danced around in her head. Paranoid schizophrenia sometimes has that effect on a person.
     "So you're ready to get a job. That's a big step. What exactly do you have in mind?" Caleb asked.
     Ellen opened a brown paper bag she had crumpled in her lap and pulled out a sheet of paper, which she handed to Caleb. He laid it on his desk, pressed it out with his fingers, and scraped off a piece of banana peel. "Let's see. It's a job application for Burger Heaven. You put down your name and address, phone number . . . looks okay, Ellen." She had printed her responses in smeared letters. Caleb smiled again and said, "Now this part's interesting. Under 'Work Experience' you put 'I worked at Hardee's. I own Hardee's. I own all the Hardee's in the world.' Is that accurate?"
     The woman who also believed she'd had nine children by pre-meltdown Mel Gibson nodded enthusiastically, clearly thrilled with this new venture.
     Caleb raked a hand through auburn curls that badly needed a pruning as he pondered his next move. Therapy with Ellen Campbell had been a long, challenging journey. Whenever her reality collided head-on with the real world, Caleb's job was to intervene. She believed that she once quarter-backed for the Panthers. She spent a summer bartending with Hillary Clinton. Then there was Caleb's most frustrating delusion—she had three million dollars stored somewhere at Bank of America. He'd been summoned to the bank twice when she'd tried to make a withdrawal, usually after missing a few doses of medication.
     "This question, 'What skills do you have that would qualify you for this job?' You wrote, 'I can sing, I know karate, and I own a gun.' You don't keep a gun, do you Ellen?" Caution leaked into his voice.
     The phone buzzed again. "You have a call on line one," the office manager said.
     "I'm in session," Caleb answered, his attention shifting back to his client. "Ellen?"
     She tugged at her faded black "Aerosmith" tee shirt which needed washing as badly as her braided blond hair did. She wore jeans and fur-lined vinyl boots that had to feel hot in South Carolina's scalding July weather.
     "You taking your pills?" he asked.
     She squeezed her eyes shut. "There are mosquitoes in my brain."
     Caleb leaned forward. "Did my question make you angry?"
     "Buzzing. The pills make mosquitoes buzz in my brain," she muttered, which, of course, explained it. Once again, she'd stopped taking her medicine, which accounted for her fetching outfit and imaginative resume.
     Caleb regarded her with a mixture of sympathy and admiration. Voices and bizarre thoughts hoarded her mind like frantic bees, yet Ellen made it through every day. It was hard to take problems like the rising costs of gasoline too seriously, thinking of her struggles.
     "Ellen, the pills don't make mosquitoes buzz in your brain. I think sometimes you don't want the medication. But when you stop taking it, you end up back at the hospital, which you hate."
     "Lots of bugs there. Crawling bugs. Flying bugs. Big and—"
     "You're scheduled to see the doctor right after me. You staying to see him?"
     One eye popped open. "He have any candy?"
     "Peppermint, I think." Caleb pointed to the bag in her hand and asked: "Now, back to my other question. Do you have a gun?"
      "Excuse me, Caleb," his office manager's voice was insistent. "There's an emergency call on line one. They wouldn't let me take a message."
     Caleb stared nervously at the phone, and then back at his client. "Ellen?"
     She opened the greasy brown bag before presenting it to Caleb. Reluctantly, he reached inside and lifted out a bright green water pistol. Firing at a thirsty fern hanging in his window, he said, "Wow. This is a real beauty. Why don't you hold on to it while I take this call?"
     He handed it back to her before lifting the receiver. "Who is it, Janice?"
     "A police officer. He said it's a family matter," she said.
     Caleb punched the line. "This is Caleb Knowles."
     "Mr. Knowles? This is Officer Rowley, with the Westville Police Department. We got a situation over here at your brother's place. We need you to get over here right away." His drawling voice was barely audible over a cacophony of radio static coming through the phone.
     "What's wrong?" Caleb asked.
     He heard more confusion over the line and someone shouting. The officer said, "I can't tell you more. Detective Briscoe gave me your number and said get you here right away."
     "Let me talk to Detective Briscoe," he demanded. Ellen watched him with wide, frightened eyes.
     "The detective can't talk now. She said to tell you it was urgent."
     Caleb glared at the phone. He knew Claudia Briscoe well enough to know it had to be something serious. He heard more commotion on the other line as someone yelled out: "Bag those fragments."
     "Where is my brother?" Caleb demanded, but the officer didn't answer before the line clicked dead.
     Ellen said softly: "My brain has bugs. I can feel them." She closed her eyes so tightly that her top lip drew back, exposing again the random line of teeth. This was her way of shutting out tension; she could feel the panic in the room.
     "Uh . . . I know, Ellen. It's okay, really. I'm afraid I need to end our session early. But you wait for Dr. Rhyker, Okay?"
     He grabbed his keys from his desk before ushering her out. He herded her to Janice, muttered he had an emergency, and bolted out the door.
     Adrenaline pushed his food against the accelerator and the truck lurched into traffic. What the hell had happened? His mind raced with possible scenarios.      Maybe Sam had been robbed. No, it sounded more serious than that. How serious? Maybe Sam had been hurt, or . . . He shook his head to dislodge the thought. No reason to assume the worst.
     Maybe Sam had witnessed something, and they needed Caleb to work as interpreter. All the chaos he heard on the phone, his deaf brother wouldn't know what to do. Yeah, maybe something not so serious. Please be something not so serious.
     The traffic didn't comply with his need for clear passage. At the intersection of Lake and Haynesworth, the light turned red as the Mustang in front of him veered left. Ignoring the on-coming cars, he laid his hand on the horn and swerved onto Sam's street. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.
     His Toyota pickup climbed the curb in front of the restored two-story mill house that served as Sam's home and sculptor's studio. Several police cars, with blue lights strobing, were wedged between the porch and the narrow street. Caleb squeezed between the cars, and passed the police officers and on-lookers gathered in the yard. He ignored the calls for him to wait, the warnings about a crime scene, the officer's hand that tried to stop him. He raced through his brother's front door.
     The studio was even more crowded than the yard. Uniformed officers and men in jumpsuits wore latex gloves as they poked through broken plaster fragments. A police woman stretched yellow plastic tape across the far corner of the room. Where was Sam?
     At last Caleb spotted Claudia Briscoe, notepad in hand. Her mahogany skin glistened with sweat. She waved a crimson-nailed finger at two officers, instructing them to check to something on the floor.
     Caleb rushed to her. "Claudia? Where is Sam?"
     Her sharp black eyes regarded him for a second, then she cocked her head toward Sam's office. There, bent forward and still as a stone, sat his brother.
     "Thank God." Caleb rushed to him. Right away he saw the blood on Sam's shirt, a blob of reddish brown against the gray. Sam's hands, propped on blood-speckled knees, clutched each other tightly. He stared blankly at the turmoil around him.
     Caleb stooped down and touched Sam's shoulder. Sam looked at him, looked through him, and turned away.
     Caleb grabbed his arm more forcefully and signed "Are you hurt?"
     Sam's shirt was soaked with blood but there didn't seem to be any injuries. Caleb shook Sam's shoulder and waited for Sam's eyes to find him. When they met his, he brushed his right fist, thumb out, against his forehead, signing "Sam!"
     He watched him carefully, alarmed by what he saw. Sam's face contorted and his brown eyes searched Caleb desperately, painfully, then fell back to the floor.
     "Jesus, Sam."
     "He's been like that since we got here. I guess he's in shock." Claudia had slipped up behind him. She eyed Sam with a mixture of frustration and sympathy.
     "What the hell happened here?"
     "We found a body. Tentative ID is Anne Farrell, from a purse we found in a desk. Know her?"
     "Anne? Anne's dead?"
     "Yes. Who is she?" Claudia asked.
     "Sam's fiancée. What happened?"
     Claudia turned to Sam again, but he'd gone far away, oblivious to them. "I think he knows. I've tried to talk to him, I know how well he reads lips. But he won't answer. I hope you can get him talking, because we need answers here. And we need them fast."
     Caleb crouched down and touched Sam's massive hands. "Talk to me," he signed. But his brother's eyes, his window to the world, would not acknowledge him.
     "Where is she?" Caleb asked Claudia.
     "We do need an ID. But I'm not sure you want to see her. The murder was brutal."
     He had to see her. Maybe then he'd believe that this was real and not some demented nightmare.
     He followed Claudia to the front of the studio, turning toward the far left corner of the room. They passed a line of Sam's sculptures, centered in splashes of light from an angled track system, but the order of the display gave way to disaster as they neared the corner. Plaster fragments and jagged pieces of wood covered the floor. Two toppled columns, broken and nudged against each other, were strewn with yellow tape. Anne's body lay on top of them.
     "Dear God," he whispered. She didn't look real, she looked like a puppet with cut strings. She was tilted on her side, her arms splayed out at odd angles from her slender frame. Her eyes, wide empty beacons, held no sign of life.
     He'd never seen so much blood. Her brown hair was matted with it. Her pale blue dress had drunk it up like a sponge, but still, a pool spilled over beside her. Splotches of red sprayed the walls, the pillars, the wood sculptures that encircled her. Caleb tried to get closer but Claudia stepped in his path.
     "Not too close, our lab guys aren't finished yet. You okay?"
     "Yeah. It's Anne." He didn't feel okay. He felt sick. A strange chill crawled up his spine and he wanted to run, to bolt from that room, but he couldn't move, nor could he tear his gaze away from the body.
     "What do you make of this?" With her pen, she gestured at Anne's hands. Both were positioned the same way, with the index and middle fingers squeezed into the meat of the thumb.
     "No." His hands reached out toward hers. "She's signing 'no.' Anne was deaf, too. I guess she was screaming at the killer the only way she could."
     Claudia added this to her notes. She motioned a uniformed officer over, explained that Anne had been identified, and told him to call it in.
     "No need. Captain Bentille just got here," the young officer said.
     "Terrific," she muttered.
     Caleb stepped back, steadying himself against the wall. He looked over at his brother, now fully understanding his withdrawal.
     Claudia whispered, "Here comes Bentille. He's gonna want a statement from your brother. If not here, then at the station. I know he's deaf, but he reads lips and speaks more articulately than me. You know how the captain is, Caleb. Sam better be ready to cooperate." She rushed past him to where her boss huddled with his entourage.
     Caleb couldn't care less about the police and their politics. He knew Sam couldn't talk now, he had shut down. When reality hurts this much, you turn off, you push away. There had been other times when Sam had pulled into himself. Right after the accident that had deafened him at sixteen. After the fights, again and again, with their drunken father.
     He went back to his brother and pulled a chair over in front of him. Sam didn't seem to notice. Caleb reached out and took his hands, felt the rigid tension in them. It took a while, but slowly, Sam's eyes made their way to his.
     "How you doing, Sam?" he signed.
     Sam looked puzzled, and stared at him for a long time. Finally, he asked aloud, "Where's Anne?"
     Words froze in Caleb's throat. With his right fist, he stroked his cheek, then extended both hands out, one palm up, the other palm down. Slowly, he rolled his hands over; "Anne's dead," the hands said.
     "Dead?" Sam asked out loud, disbelieving.
     "Yes," Caleb struggled to find his voice. "I'm so sorry."
     "No." Sam said, his attention shifting to the silence of the floor.
     Caleb returned to Claudia.
     "Did he tell you what happened?" she asked.
     "I don't think he knows. He's in bad shape. I need to get him out of here."
     She shook her head. "You don't understand. He's got to answer some questions."
     "Look at him. What do you think he can tell you?"
     "Listen." She spoke in an urgent whisper. "We got a call at two PM from a neighbor. She had heard a ruckus over here but decided to ignore it. Neighborhoods like this, nobody wants to meddle. Then Sam comes running over to her place, yelling for her to call an ambulance. When the EMTs got here, the victim was dead. They radioed for us and the coroner. Lab guys have been here for a half hour."
     "Someone else was here. Someone else did this."
     "Well so far, Sam's all we got." She motioned at Captain Frank Bentille. "He's gonna insist Sam come downtown."
     Caleb glanced over at the police captain. He'd had unpleasant dealings with him last year during a child abuse case. Bentille looked over at Caleb and tried a smile, but it came off as a quick, shallow, TV evangelist's grin. Claudia whispered, "It's not my call. Sam will have to come in."
     "Is there a problem, Detective Briscoe?" Bentille approached. He almost matched Caleb's six-foot height, but with long, spidery limbs. He wore an almost tasteful wheat colored suit that revealed more wrist than it should.
     "Yes, there is," Caleb interjected. "The detective says you plan to question my brother. Sam may read lips well, but that means he gets maybe seventy per cent of what's said. If you're going to question him, he'll need to get every word. Until arrangements are made for an interpreter, Sam's not going anywhere with you."
     Bentille studied him up and down, assessing, but then the camera-ready smile returned. He laid a hand on Caleb's shoulder. "Sorry, Knowles, I know this is upsetting. But we do have an interpreter lined up. He's at the station right now."
     "Who?" Caleb asked. He knew all of Westville's registered interpreters, and some were better than others. Sam would need the best.
     "I think you'll approve of this one. Reverend Stewart Brearly."
     Caleb nodded, relieved. Stewart was the best. He was also Sam's closest friend.
     A commotion at the front door attracted Bentille, who quickly busied himself barking orders at his legions. Soon the door swung open and a man and woman rolled in a gurney. They heaved the body on the stretcher with little care. After strapping her in, they covered her with a sheet.
     "NO!" a voice boomed, sounding not quite human. Sam sprung up and started after the stretcher.
     Caleb rushed to him, fending off the officers that tried to restrain him. "Easy now, Sam. They have to take her."
     "No," he repeated, with less muster. Caleb held his shoulder, but couldn't bring himself to look at his brother's face.
     The medics wheeled the gurney past Sam, past the officers, and out into the torrid summer air.

copyright © 2013 Carla Damron

To purchase from your local independent bookseller click here:

Purchase at amazon.com

Purchase at barnes&noble.com

Purchase at booksamillion.com:

NOTE TO BOOKSELLERS:
All Bella Rosa Books titles are available through Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Brodart, Follett, BWI, The Book House, Inc., Emery-Pratt, Ambassador Books.

Booksellers, Schools, Libraries, and individuals can also purchase direct from Bella Rosa Books. For quantity discounts contact sales@bellarosabooks.com .