American Crime Thriller Book Series
Falcone & Richards Thrillers by Phillip Tomasso
Series Excerpt
The clouds hadn’t cleared, but neither had they gotten any darker. They had, however, gotten heavier. Fatter. Falcone thought it was going to rain. No way around it. The wind had picked up some, and it made the temperature feel much colder out than it probably was.
The media, when word got out about the triple homicide on an otherwise quiet and peaceful residential area, swarmed like bees invading a picnic. News vans lined the neighborhood streets. With a giant antenna erected for each, either extending skyward from the roof of the van, or standing close to a van with thick cables and power cords snaking this way and that on the street, populated any and every space available within the vicinity of the Franks house.
Family of both Byron and Janice, once notified, showed up at the house as well. The neighborhood became more of a circus, than, well, a circus. The media disregarded family privacy and filmed as much of everything as they could. Falcone used a police wall and pushed them back. No one dared breach the crime scene tape. The tape was sacred, and journalists knew better than to cross that line.
With the family inside the house, and out of media reach, Mayor Anne Duffy, and the Chief of Police, Kenny Tunsil, stood side-by-side in front of a portable podium on the sidewalk in front of the Franks’ house. Investigators Vincent Falcone and Farrah Richards stood just behind them and off to the right—out of the camera shot.
Tunsil asked Falcone and Richards if they would hang back, just in case he needed to defer questions he wasn’t prepared to answer. Good man, genuine heart, terrible public speaker. Falcone was kind of surprised Tunsil didn’t just order him to head the press conference. He’d done so before, it wouldn’t be anything new.
It wasn’t that Falcone had anything against the chief, other than the speed with which the man rose up the rungs. Tunsil was born, as he liked to say, just before the finish line, but liked to act as if he’d run the entire marathon along with everyone else. It came down to politics. Tunsil played the game like a pro. You could never tell which end of the spectrum he was on. Left, right. Far left, far right. Who knew? It depended what group he addressed. Tunsil knew how to talk in circles, said a lot without saying much of anything at all. He slanted this way and that. If he’d ever walked a straight line, Falcone had yet to witness it.
Wearing a charcoal grey suit, Tunsil stood with hands planted on ample hips, exposing a softening belly. The badge, clipped to his belt, was bent forward, almost not visible. Falcone thought it might be time to affix the badge to a chain and wear it around his neck. He wasn’t going to say anything though. Not now, not today anyway.
Falcone did his best staying focused as journalists shouted questions at the mayor for the first four or five minutes before Duffy reined them in and took control. He wondered how the officers were making out on their door-to-door investigation. Crimes weren’t solved by luck or a series of perfectly placed clues left for investigators to find. Cops closed cases after doing leg work. This meant talking to people, gathering information, and then fitting pieces together until there was some sort of recognizable picture. Even then, sometimes it did come down to plain stupid luck. After a year-long spree where six people were killed, and another eight wounded, it was a parking ticket that did in the infamous David Berkowitz.
Richards nudged Falcone. She shook him from his thoughts, and inadvertently, he nearly growled at her.
“Investigator Falcone.” The chief waved him over to the podium. Tunsil had just introduced Falcone, speaking into a host of microphones.
“Ah, thank you Chief Tunsil, Mayor Duffy,” Falcone said. The press stared at him, as if anticipating an answer. “If I could have the question rephrased, please?”
Sounded like a good way to get caught up, since he hadn’t been paying attention.
A reporter up front furrowed her brow. “Okay. Instead of, do you have any leads, how about are there any people you suspect may be responsible for the triple murders?”
Like a reflex, Falcone bit down on his upper lip before he straightened up, and said, “At this point, with the investigation just getting underway, we are just in the process of gathering as much evidence and information as we can.”
“So, that’s a no then?”
Falcone did not like this lady. He figured the chief must have called on her because she was good looking. The chief did things like that. Long, blonde hair, blue eyes, and a solid figure—hell, Falcone figured he might have called on her, too. He’d never share this insight with Richards. She’d just call him sexist. “We’ve just begun collecting evidence. I assure you when we have something worth sharing the mayor and the chief will coordinate another press release. That’s all we have for now. Thank you for your questions, and your concern. The one thing I want to stress is that if anyone has any information, if anyone saw anything, please call nine-one-one. Thank you.”
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