Batshit Crazy On Murder Island (Annie Hansen Mysteries Book 2)

Book summary

In "Batshit Crazy On Murder Island," a quiet Canadian town is shaken when brutal drug dealers arrive. Annie, dealing with schizophrenia, stumbles upon the murder of Ben 'The Butcher' Rough, uncovering unsettling ties to the criminal underworld. With RCMP Detective Mark Snow, she embarks on a quest for justice, determined to unravel the mystery.

Excerpt from Batshit Crazy On Murder Island (Annie Hansen Mysteries Book 2)

Ben the Butcher’s life ended in a cacophony of bullets. From the Albert-01R handgun, an enhanced missile crashed to spiral past the line of swinging pig carcasses into the back of the Butcher’s head. His brain exploded. More projectiles followed, rendering the brawny man’s crown a bloody piece of meat. The basement room reeked of old bleach and fresh blood. Meat muscle slammed to the floor.

“Bull’s Eye!” shouted the murderer, called the Bloodhound. “Pig’s Eye, I should say. This ain’t called the Butcher’s Den for nothing,” continued the hitman, extracting white sacks of cocaine from the pigs’ innards after he holstered the smoking Albert. The bags were sewn into the carcasses. He ripped them apart with a ten-inch knife.

“Anybody come between the boss and the coke trade is found here or in East Van with bullet holes in their skulls. Now to look up the rest of the Butcher’s men and see if they need persuading to work with us. It weren’t easy to trace him, but this is Big City junk with small-town dealers. He didn’t count on an early morning raid or the Bloodhound’s patience.”

The hitman passed the bags to the three figures shadowed behind him in the basement room of the meat shop. “When we find the paperwork, we’ll know when the next shipment is due from Miami and on what flight path. Give me his tablet. He had quite a sweet business here as the middleman between Nanaimo and the coast.”

The shadowy figures toted the sacks up the stairs through the back door of the butcher shop, and into a waiting black van. The van had mirrored windows and a local license plate recently installed.

“His men ought to be close by. Maybe it’s too early for the bodyguards– good luck for us,” said one of the thugs. “He wasn’t expecting trouble. Piece of cake.”

“Yeah,” the Bloodhound said, backing away toward the stairs. “Let’s go. You drive. I’ll keep a lookout in the back of the van. Someone’s sure to have heard the shots.”

In the parking lot, the men heaved the last of the cocaine into the van.

“Those two lazy cops in the station won’t be on duty yet,” said one, picking at his ear.

The hitman chortled. “No, but the detective’s still here and that crazy female private eye, too. Remember the doctor and crooked mayor two years ago? She solved those crimes when nobody else could. It was on the national news at the time. Her partner is a detective in the RCMP. He’s part of their major crimes unit and specializes in homicides. Our East Van cartel knows about the– er– challenges here. Shall we say? Somebody big in East Van has their eye on us, let’s say.”

“You got contacts all around, boss. Good,” the other thug said.

“Of course. In high places. Not the bruiser Ed Adonis in East Van but above him.” The hitman sniggered. “Serendipity is a hellhole now. Ed will be popped soon, too, along with us if we don’t deliver.”

“Piece of pie, boss.”

Over the Courthouse to the north swung the last white silver of moon. The Butcher’s Den was closed and almost dark. One basement light remained that signaled to any curious onlooker that the Butcher was cutting up and packaging today’s meat, as was his custom from Tuesday to Saturday. Not until the first customer rang the bell would the grisly discovery be made. Perhaps not then. The Butcher’s hours were erratic.

The black van belched oil and blasted down the dirt road toward the First Nations reserve near Modge Bay, but didn’t stop there.

“Wonder when they’ll find out there won’t be steaks from the Butcher for the barbecue tonight?” the hitman said with a chortle.

“Boss,” the driver said as dirt billowed from the churning tires, “do we know the schedule the Butcher left? Ed the Bruiser wanted it.”

“Yah. Took a look at his tablet while you were loading the merch. Everything’s on there. Adonis will be happy with us.”

“A course. Cup of soup for you, boss. This went smooth as goose shit on a hardwood floor.”

“There’s a shipment next week on a private plane that lands on Vancouver Island, coming here on the ferry from Campbell River. It’s in bags labeled, coarse Kosher salt,” the hitman replied.

“He was taking a chance.”

“Sometimes it IS coarse Kosher salt,” said the Bloodhound. “Though the Butcher was a careless man.”

The other man slammed on the brakes in front of the ferry dock. “Obviously that worked against him.”

The Bloodhound laughed and spittle flew from his rough lips. “I’d say so.” He removed the Albert from its holster and wiped it clean of prints. “What Butcher-boy?”

The four men climbed out of the van and slammed the doors. The hitman consulted his mobile.

“The jetboat meets us here in five minutes. You two hike back to our warehouse in the bush to scout out the Butcher’s boys the rest of the day, and the two of us will pack the dust into the boat when it gets here. There’s a car you can use hidden in the warehouse. You’ll like it. Only used a few times but enough so the townsfolk know it as belonging to local dudes. I’ll take the van on the ferry after we load the snow on the boat. This has been slick, dudes, and I thank you for your help.”

A tall, lean thug nodded. “Yeah, boss. No problem.”

They shook hands and parted. The hitman and his companion slouched in the front of the van and waited. The ferry would be there in a couple of hours, and they would be on it after the powder was on the jetboat headed for East.

Ammo enhanced with chemicals slammed into the black vehicle as the jetboat docked in a swirl of foam. Something exploded. A flamethrower ignited the vegetation. The Bloodhound cranked the engine to life and turned the wheel to escape but his blood erupted from a blasted artery in his temple. He was dead before his torso slumped across the dash.

The van crashed into a Douglas fir. The tree splayed the metal like a surgeon’s hands would open a heart. Running for their miserable lives, the other two thugs crashed lifelessly into the undergrowth in a torrent of bullets.

Shadowy figures scooped the bags of cocaine into a waiting red truck. The incoming jetboat reached the Cove and partially exploded in a fiery broadside. The pilot tore it away from the dock and zig-zagged out to sea, streaming smoke, oil, and curses.

***

Perhaps because the town still slumbered in darkness, no one responded to the bedlam and screams of the dying criminals. Annie Hansen and her partner Detective Mark Snow slept in their little white house near the Cove. Her father, who returned to Canada alone from his dalliance with the buxom Dutch woman from Curaçao, drank his first whiskey of the day in Annie’s float house.

“Hmmm,” her father, Albin Hansen, mused. “Gunshots.” He frowned and tipped the glass to his lips. “Nobody’s safe no more.” He turned up the volume on the television set and settled back to watch Global News.

***

Out in the Salish Sea, heading toward the Gulf Islands and the mainland, the jetboat swerved, leaving a crimson trail of blood in the foam behind it. There was no cocaine on board. The driver and his companion thought they were lucky to escape with their lives, let alone the drugs. They left behind a murder scene that would lead to Florida and beyond.

Annie was startled from a dream of witching fairies and satyrs. The nightmare caused a bothersome premonition. She slipped an arm over the sleeping form of her lover. She had never been a morning person, but something awakened her early – a sound of gunfire and the blat of a jetboat taking off from the Cove, a quarter of a mile away.

Their recently adopted golden retriever, Chuckles, moved his muzzle from his crossed paws of soft fur. He woofed and leapt from the bed. Annie smiled and leaned over to pet his darling head. Not since her mother’s cat, Tigger, had she felt such love for a helpless fellow creature. Chuckles depended on them. She smiled then remembered the sound that had awakened her. Chuckles whined and gazed up at her with soft brown eyes.

She touched Mark’s muscular shoulder and addressed Chuckles, their newest family member. “There’s something out there, boy, isn’t there?”

“Whazzup?” murmured the lean, tanned man beside Annie. He threw the duvet from his defined torso and poked a leg over the side of the bed. “Your friends Pepsi and Samir at the door again from the mainland? Haven’t they got enough of you, their blood sister? Or is it your father, drunk at this time of the morning and wanting bacon and eggs?”

Annie rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Neither one.” Her size ten feet hit the floor in a hulk stomp.

“What then?”

She pulled her designer jeans over her pajama bottoms. “I heard something. Chuckles heard it, too. It was loud and close. Didn’t you?”

“I thought I was dreaming,” Mark answered. He stood by the open window, dawn streaming at an angle onto the monstera deliciosa plant in the corner.

He was magnificent, Annie thought, and her stomach churned at the sight of her naked lover with sunlight falling over his light brown chest hairs and thighs like oaks.

“So quiet here since O’Halloran became mayor,” Mark said. “He keeps a tight watch on the crime in our little town. A tight watch or else he’s into it, too.”

He got up and pulled on boxer shorts, khakis, and a light blue shirt. He then slipped into brown sandals.

“It’s too quiet,” Annie agreed and shrugged on a navy tee shirt embroidered with ‘Lewiston, Michigan’ and a stylized lake. “We should of known it wouldn’t last. I heard gunshots and I’m sure a boat at the pier took off early this morning. Dammit, the dog didn’t wake us, Mark, and we’re halfway responsible for law and order. Let’s go.” She grabbed his revolver and holster and threw them at him. Before bolting for the door, she pulled on the rest of her clothes. Mark followed. “Don’t let the dog out.”

Too late. The golden retriever bounded across their front yard by the yellow hibiscus and lifted a leg.

Constable Tom strode up the dirt path from the Bay. “Annie,” he called.

***

As the young woman ran, she wiped a hand across her face. Where is the Sarge?

“I heard a noise from Modge Bay,” she called. “Sounded like a crash. Gunshots, too. Mark didn’t hear it. Some sleuth he is.”

Mark was close behind her. He shouldered his gun.

Annie’s legs pumped along the path. “The sun wasn’t up yet. This happened about half an hour ago, I figure. Damn me for not rousing us sooner. They got away in a powerboat. That’s how it sounded. I heard a jet engine.” The schizophrenia, mostly controlled by coping skills and medication, was present as she turned to peer at the pink rhinos preceding them up the path. She sidestepped one and continued after the Constable and Detective Mark.

“There’s a black van with fake Island license plates wrapped around a Douglas fir a few yards from the Cove,” Tom said. “And debris in the water from a jetboat spewing oil in its wake. The suspects in the boat must have used it to make a getaway after blasting the occupants of the van. All four of those thugs are dead. Our funeral home hasn’t been so busy since the last Mayor got popped.”

“I remember.” Annie sidestepped a flaming bush in the middle of the path. “Don’t mind me, Tom, I’m a little cray-cray this morning. Thought my delusions was what the noise was, truth to tell, or I’d have been there right away. And the dog and Mark were sleeping like dead logs. Useless man and his faithful companion. They did get up from their gaseous beds when I called.”

The constable nodded. “Thought you should of heard it. Sarge’s cordoned off the crime scene and asked for Mark. We’re collecting bits and pieces in an official container as evidence. A bag of cocaine was split open and left, and snow is scattered around what’s left of the black van. Our department in Victoria is on it. They asked if they should send a couple Mounties, but we don’t need the feds, do we? Not with you and Mark here. And Mark’s tied to the West Shore detachment of the Mounties and the mainland, too.”

“This sounds like the dope’s going to Vancouver – might be a good idea to check it out with the detachment there,” Mark said. He loped past Annie on the narrow path. “Last time we had a murder in Serendipity the feds and media got involved. Let’s try to keep this quiet until at least we know what happened.”

Constable Tom quickened his already rapid steps. Annie spread her arms wide to the quiescent sun and the pink and red cloud cover in the east over the ocean which they were approaching. She heard Hawaiian music. The sun split in half and two suns rose, one violet and one yellow.

Beautiful, she thought. I wish Mark could see this.

***

Mark continued ahead, oblivious to but not surprised by his lover’s hallucinations. Schizophrenia can be a beautiful thing, he thought. But also challenging, and he would rather not have encountered it in his sweetheart Annie, who nevertheless fought the good fight.

She chuckled behind him and he knew the sunrise was exploding in beauty for her. Sometimes the visions were good. Sometimes horrific. Sometimes she saw and heard things that were inexplicable and horrible to him. It was a good thing he loved her like he did— nothing made a difference to their lives together. But their shared history helped them both accept the grisly details of what they were about to encounter.

***

Constable Tom stopped near the dock. He gestured to a pile of molten metal and fiberglass a few yards away. A twisted engine was tilted against a Douglas fir. Pieces of a black van were scattered across a section of mud and burned grass. A bag spilled white powder onto the smoldering earth. Crimson fingers of blood churned with black oil on the ocean.

Mark put a finger on the side of his nose and sniffed at the white powder. He tasted it. “Cocaine,” he said. “This is bad. Meth dealers are happy dudes. Cocaine? Bad international dudes. I think we should ask for help.”

Constable Tom nodded. Volunteers commissioned as deputies and the Sergeant marked the evidence behind the yellow crime scene tape. Under the Sergeant’s instruction, the deputies covered the bodies with tarps and waited for the coroner to arrive from Vancouver Island. After a series of photos by the Constable, the local auto wreckers backed up to the van and hoisted the engine and remains of the mangled fiberglass and steel body. Smoke and dust marked the spot. Mark made notes and spoke with the Mayor’s aide, who had been summoned by Sarge. Mayor O’Halloran and his assistant were absent.