Death under the Stone Arch Bridge Read online

  The red dust swirled around Tommy St. James as the small plane taxied down the dirt runway and turned around. The whine of the engine grew louder as the plane turned and started to go faster down the runway, once more coming toward Tommy. It would pass her right before it lifted into the air.

  As it went by, Rafael’s smiling face appeared in one of the windows and his small hand pressed against it, fingers splayed. Tommy raised her hand in a similar gesture, smiling until her cheeks hurt. Then, blowing a long, kiss toward the plane that was growing smaller in the blue sky, she turned away, turning her back before the tears slid down her cheek.

  EPILOGUE

  La Isla Bonita

  The old Mexican man spoke no English, but no words were needed. The silence was what Tommy St. James preferred on the small boat this morning. As they left the shore, she saw Kelly standing near the dock with his blue windbreaker on and his arms folded across his chest.

  This was something she needed to do alone. She clutched her mother’s ashes in their gaudy tin. After a few minutes, she turned to the old man.

  “Are we close?”

  He held his fingers to his lips and then to his ear, gesturing that she should listen. In the distance, she heard a clap of water, as if a giant tail had slapped down nearby.

  She unwrapped the ashes and gently poured them over the side of the boat, close enough to the waves that they would not escape into the air.

  “Here, mama. Now you can find peace. Nobody can ever hurt you again. The whales will protect your spirit and guide you wherever you need to go.”

  She watched the ashes quickly dissolve into the water until they had become a part of the sea. A tear splashed after them. She quickly wiped the others away.

  Then suddenly, the old man reached over and gently touched her shoulder until she looked where he gestured. On the other side of the boat, a giant gray whale had surfaced. A giant black eye looked right at Tommy St. James. Her breath caught in her throat. She was afraid to move. She didn’t want to startle the large, gentle creature. As she looked deep into that one eye, she felt as if the whale was trying to communicate with her. She was mesmerized. She had never seen such intelligence in the eye of an animal. It seemed as if the whale were telling her she was not alone. It was telling her it was not Tommy’s fault that her mother died. A sob caught in Tommy’s throat as an image of her mother filled her mind’s eye. Her mother told her it was time for Tommy to forgive herself.

  Then, with what she swore was a glimmer of understanding, the whale slowly sank back under the sea and nothing was left but the smooth silky glass surface.

  Her heart suddenly filled with love and joy, Tommy St. James turned to the old man and asked him to take her home. She needed to go back to shore and sleep. So she could dream.

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  Exclusive Excerpt Book Two in the Tommy St. James Mystery Series

  Death on Sunset Hill

  A Tommy St. James Mystery – Book 2

  December 16, 2017

  By Kristi Belcamino

  Pre-order HERE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Jackie Chandler liked having the entire sidewalk to herself today. All the other walkers and runners avoiding the path because of the dark stormy clouds overhead were kind of being wimpy, she thought.

  After all, this was Minnesota summer: Hail one minute. Blistering heat the next. Why change plans because of some dark skies? Just as well, now she had the two-mile loop up Sunset Hill and around the cemeteries all to herself, no dodging sweaty joggers.

  On a normal weekday during lunch, the two-mile loop, skirting two adjacent cemeteries was teeming with strollers, runners, and fast walkers. But even Jackie’s walking buddy, Sheryl, had begged off today, saying she was going to read her new Stephen King book and eat lunch at her desk.

  At the beginning of her walk, as Jackie passed the looming fortress of Honeywell, one lone man had run past her in his jogging shorts. He was now a distant speck at the top of the steep hill. As he passed a large tree, a murder of crows took to the air. Jackie watched them from afar as, instead of settling back down in the branches, they formed a posse weaving in and out of the tree, attacking a hawk that had dared to settle on a bare branch in their tree.

  That’s one thing Jackie loved about Northeast Minneapolis. Even though she worked in the city limits, her daily lunchtime walk often included sightings of wildlife. The area was famous for its flocks of wild turkeys. In addition, the neighborhood had albino squirrels, red foxes, hawks, and occasionally you could even spot a Bald Eagle, of all things.

  In addition, the grassy plateau at the top of Sunset Hill offered one of the most stunning views of downtown Minneapolis to be found. And anytime there was any sort of meteorological event: shooting stars, eclipses, and full moons, the parking lot at the plateau would be filled with sightseers.

  On one side of the plateau, the I35W freeway stretched into downtown Minneapolis. On the other side, sweeping across the rolling hills below, lay Hillside Cemetery, which butted up against Sunset Cemetery.

  It wasn’t unusual during Jackie’s walk to come across funeral processions to one or the other. That didn’t bother her, but the gravediggers, did. Once, a shirtless white man in his 30s stopped digging to admire her through the black iron fence as she passed. His tanned arms were covered in tattoos. Although his eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, he made his interest apparent, keeping the small shovel resting on his shoulder as he smiled at her. While it was flattering to Jackie, who had just turned 47, it also kind of gave her the creeps to see a hunky young man, chest-deep in an open grave checking her out.

  Another time, she was struck by the serendipity of two funeral processions passing one another on opposite sides of the roadway. The first one was headed up by a motorcycle cop, and then followed by a black hearse and a stream of cars. Right where Jackie stood, this first procession met up with the other: a police car leading a white hearse and then a stream of cars. The yin-yangness of the whole thing was a trip, Jackie thought. When she got home from her secretary job that night, she sat down at her old computer and wrote a short story about it.

  Today, Jackie had just started the steep walk up to Sunset Hill. She looked up at the threatening sky and shrugged. Temperamental weather. It wasn’t worth changing your plans, that’s for sure: especially when she needed to work off that slice of cheesecake from over the weekend. But Jackie, who took pride not only in her extremely fit body, but also the rest of her looks, also didn’t want to ruin her perfectly blonde coiffed hair, so just in case the skies opened up, she had grabbed a mini umbrella on her way out the door. That and her cell phone.

  The gloomy skies had turned the entire area dark like dusk, triggering the orange streetlights. That, and the utter desolation of the path today, prompted Jackie to dial her new husband. Well, he wasn’t exactly new, they had been married for six months, but compared to her old, ex-husband whom she had been with 25 years, this one was new.

  “Hi, darling,” Jackie purred into the phone. “How is your day going, Loverboy?”

  Her husband, Don, chuckled. “Pretty good after the way you woke me up this morning.”

  “Well, there’s more where that comes from.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  As she talked, out of the corner of her eye, Jackie thought she saw a silhouette duck into the thick brush that formed a wall to the right of the sidewalk on the hill above her. The brush area lasted about three blocks and was a dense overgrowth area that reached up twenty feet, shading that area of the path and blocking out the sun, when there was some. Today was so dark she couldn’t trust what she saw.

  Brushing it off as her overactive imagination, Jackie returned her attention to Don. They talked about their plans for the weekend: a visit to th
e Guthrie Theater and maybe a stop at the Farmer’s Market.

  “So honeylumps, any idea what we should fix for dinner?” Don asked.

  But instead of his wife’s sweet voice, Don heard a thud and then a scream that sounded as if it came from far away. Then, Don heard the distinct sound of heavy breathing before the line went dead.

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  About the Author

  Kristi Belcamino is a Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Award-nominated author, a newspaper cops reporter, and an Italian mama who makes a tasty biscotti. As an award-winning crime reporter at newspapers in California, she flew over Big Sur in an FA-18 jet with the Blue Angels, raced a Dodge Viper at Laguna Seca and watched autopsies.

  Her books feature strong, fierce, and independent women facing unspeakable evil in order to seek justice for those unable to do so themselves.

  Belcamino has written and reported about many high-profile cases including the Laci Peterson murder and Chandra Levy’s disappearance. She has appeared on Inside Edition and her work has appeared in the New York Times, Writer’s Digest, Miami Herald, San Jose Mercury News, and Chicago Tribune. Kristi now works part-time as a police reporter at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and her two fierce daughters.

  Find out more at http://www.kristibelcamino.com. Find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kristibelcaminowriter/ or on Twitter @KristiBelcamino.

  Read more at Kristi Belcamino’s site.