Killerwatt

Cover
photos by Bill Hopkins, Sharon Hopkins, and Jeff Snowden

Book
and cover design by Ellie Searl, Publishista
^®
- Publishista.com

KILLERWATT
Copyright © 2011 Sharon Woods Hopkins. All rights reserved.

No
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or mechanical.
Photocopying, recording or otherwise reproducing any portion of this work
without the prior written permission of the author is prohibited, except for
brief quotations used in a review.

Available
in print version

ISBN-13:
978-0615537238

ISBN-10:
0615537235

LCCN:
2011938258

This
is a work of fiction, and a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity
to actual persons is purely coincidental. Persons, events and places mentioned
in this novel are used in a fictional manner.

Deadly
Writes
and the
Deadly Writes
image and
colophon are trademarks of Deadly Writes
Publishing, LLC

 Email:
[email protected]

Deadly
Writes Publishing, LLC

Marble
Hill, MO

I have so many people to thank, especially my family
and friends who inspired and encouraged me. At the top of this list is the love
of my life, my husband, Bill, who is always there for me, who prods me, helps
me, puts up with me and who loves me. I couldn’t have written this without him.
He is my rock.

To my wonderful son, Jeff Snowden, mechanic
par
excellence
, who takes care of the real Cami, and to my delightful daughter-in-law,
Wendy, and my terrific grandson, Dylan—Love you guys!

To Hank Philippi Ryan, thanks for your wonderful
enthusiasm and ongoing support and encouragement.

To Sharon Potts, thanks for your critical eye, your
kindness and help.

To Sue Ann Jaffarian, thanks for your friendship and
inspiration.

And a huge thanks to those folks who allowed me to
pick their brains and gave unhesitatingly when I asked my many questions: Joe
Russell, Dr. David Schnur, Ken Steinhoff, and Van Riehl.

I took liberties with the geography of Southeast
Missouri to fit the story. As my dad would have said to anyone taking issue
with that, “What do you want, an argument, or a story?”

To my mother,
Agnes Vienneau Woods (1920-1973), who introduced me to the entire collection of
Nancy Drew mysteries as soon as I could read.

To
my father, John (Harry) Woods (1915-1984), a newspaper typesetter who taught me
to read before I started school. He also taught me to read upside down and
backwards.

CHAPTER 1

Thursday
morning, June 25

“Al-Serafi is dead!”

Rhetta McCarter heard Woody shout to her as she
tugged open the door of Missouri Community Bank Mortgage and Insurance Group,
but it took a minute for what he said to register. Arms loaded, she peered at
her loan officer over her reading glasses, while balancing her diminutive frame
on one foot and shoving the door shut with the other.

Today was her first day back from a branch managers’
seminar on federal lending changes. She was thinking about all the work that
piled up in her absence. Woody Zelinski, her sole loan officer and agent,
swiveled his oversized chair to wave the newspaper at her even before the door
closed.

She snapped her head around to stare at Woody, whose
forehead glistened with sweat droplets. “What did you say?”

She continued to her desk without dropping anything,
especially the grande light cappuccino. After plopping her overstuffed leather
briefcase, legal pads, and a tote bag of overdue mystery novels on her desk,
she hunted for her glasses. When she bent to search the desktop, they fell from
her nose.

Woody thrust the turned over page at her as proof.
She snatched the newspaper from him and scanned the photo of a vehicle nose
down in the water, then read the accompanying article.

Forty-three
year old Doctor Hakim Al-Serafi, a staff physician at St. Mark’s hospital, was
found dead early yesterday morning in his car in the Diversion Channel, just
south of Cape Girardeau. Marvin Englebrod, a Scott City farmer, was heading
south on Interstate 55, when he noticed the partially submerged Lexus in the
channel, especially full this year due to the recent flooding. “I spotted
something as I crossed the bridge. I pulled over to investigate, and when I
seen it was a car nose down in the water, I dialed 9-1-1,” Englebrod recounted.
Police identified Al-Serafi from a driver’s license found on the victim’s body.
Cause of death was not immediately known. Cape Girardeau County Coroner, Doctor
Julian Sickfield, said the autopsy results would be available in about ten
days.

Al-Serafi
was a staff physician at St. Mark’s hospital since coming to Cape Girardeau a
year and a half ago. His wife, Mahata Al-Serafi, could not be reached. They
have no children. Co-workers at St. Mark’s remember him as a very private
person and an excellent doctor. Information about funeral services for Al-Serafi
is unknown at this time.

Members
of the Muslim community in Cape Girardeau expressed sorrow at the loss and
grief of being unable to bury him immediately as is customary in the Muslim
faith.

(See
sidebar on Muslims in Our Community)

Goosebumps stood at attention on Rhetta’s arm. She
started to hand the paper back to Woody, who dabbed his forehead and his
glistening head with a spotless white handkerchief.

She snatched the paper back. Shaking her head, she
reread the article.

“Didn’t you read the paper this morning?” he asked.
Even though Rhetta couldn’t remember her own father, Woody sometimes sounded
like a father and towered over his manager like one, too. Although he
outweighed her by over a hundred pounds, he swiveled with the ease of a dancer,
and returned to his desk.

Rhetta reached for her coffee and inhaled deeply,
the fragrance making her mouth water. Then she began arranging the items on her
desk. “No, Mr. Newsaholic, I didn’t. I had a few errands to run on my way to
work this morning, so I picked up the St. Louis paper to read later.” She
sipped, savoring the burst of flavor.

Rhetta pointed to a
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
among the items piled on her desk. It annoyed her that Woody didn’t remember
how much she disliked the local paper. “You know I don’t buy the Cape paper.
It’s all advertising. The last time I read the thing there was a headline
proclaiming that a Butler County cow gave birth to triplets. I can’t stand that
much excitement.” Anticipating his next question, she added, “And, no, I didn’t
watch much of
First News
this morning either.”

She propped her elbows on her now-organized desk.
“The TV reporter is much too chirpy. I turned the news off after hearing about
the upcoming music festival.” Then, thinking about how many visitors would
converge for the annual event, she muttered, “Traffic will be worse than snails
racing turtles while that’s going on. Remind me not to go downtown.”

Woody paced, tugging at his neatly trimmed grey
beard, apparently ignoring her assessment of the local news media and the
popular annual music event. “What should we do? Do you think we should call the
FBI?” The sunburn he’d acquired on a recent fishing trip couldn’t hide the
paleness of his face, drained of blood.

After running her hands through her cropped hairdo,
Rhetta reached for the phone, but changed her mind. Instead, she rested her
hand on the receiver.

“What’s the point? The FBI ignored you when you
called them before. What good is it to call again? Besides, what, exactly, do
we tell them?” Rhetta craned her neck to gaze up at Woody.

Woody snatched a handful of tissues from a box on
Rhetta’s desk and resumed pacing. Picking up a pen, Rhetta stuck it into her
mouth, and gnawed. She returned the box of tissues to its previous location.
“It’s useless to call them again.”

“We have to tell somebody what happened.” Woody
stopped pacing and dropped into the guest chair in front of Rhetta’s desk.

The swoosh of air that followed him knocked off a
stack of while-you-were-out messages that he’d earlier placed on the corner of
her desk. A pink blizzard covered the floor near Woody’s chair. He bent and
retrieved each sheet, stacking them neatly into piles according to how she
always classified them—Hopeless, Maybe, and Good. There was barely enough room
on her desk to make three stacks. Woody’s desk was always arranged with the
precision of a Japanese garden while her work area generally looked like the
aftermath of a tornado.

He leaned forward. “What about calling the local
police or the FBI again? Do you think they’d be interested now?”

 Rhetta removed the chewed-up pen from her mouth.
“They should be. I don’t believe this”—she tapped the newspaper article—“was an
accident. Aren’t those cable thingies the state put up last year supposed to
stop such a thing from happening?”

Woody picked up the paper as she continued, “After
everything that happened when we did his loan? He got a ton of money from his
refinance, and now he’s dead. It’s too coincidental.” She eyed the tissues,
wondering if blue ink had leaked on her face.

Woody rubbed his head with both hands. “Why did I
have to get that stupid phone message in the first place?” She recognized
Woody’s head rubbing as a familiar gesture that he repeated whenever he was
under stress. Two-handed meant he was doubly stressed. Apparently, being a star
linebacker for Mizzou and a former Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan
hadn’t prepared him for coping with the stress of the mortgage and insurance
business.

Although Woody, at forty-four, was a year older than
Rhetta, she had to check herself from treating him like a younger brother. She
dug to the bottom of her oversized purse, grumbling, “This thing is a freakin’
black hole.” Eventually, she surfaced with her billfold. After riffling through
several of its pockets, Rhetta found a business card, snatched the phone, and punched
a number into it.

“Who’re you calling? The FBI could care less,
remember?” Woody said.

“It’s
couldn’t care less
, and to heck with
the FBI. I want to see that car for myself. I know we don’t have to inspect our
customers’ wrecked vehicles, but let’s just say I’m suspicious. I just don’t
think he could have simply driven off into the Diversion Channel.”

Eddie Wellston, owner and manager of the impound
lot, answered on the third ring.

*
* *

“Great.
Thanks, Eddie,” Rhetta said and hung up. Eddie said he would still be at the
lot if she came over to view the car. She returned the phone to the cradle,
spun her chair around, grabbed the rest of the contents of her purse, and said,
“I was right. Eddie said that he towed Al-Serafi’s car there yesterday, and
it’s still there. He also told me our adjuster called him, and will be over to
look at the car sometime today. I want to get there first.”

Considering what happened six weeks ago during Al-Serafi’s
loan transaction, she was determined to see Al-Serafi’s car before anyone else
did.

CHAPTER 2

Six
Weeks Earlier, Tuesday, May 19