Murder on the French Broad

By Doug Walker

Sometimes called The Paris of the South, Asheville, North Carolina, seemed the perfect setting for the murder of a fabulously wealthy and beautiful young woman with a mysterious background. But who would want to kill such a person? Inspector Lang Travis found candidates falling from trees.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Doug Walker
• Release date: Sep 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311127785

Doug Walker

Doug Walker is an Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, journalism graduate. He served on metropolitan newspapers, mostly in Ohio, for twenty years, as political reporter, both local and statehouse, along with stints as city editor and Washington correspondent. Teaching English in Japan, China and Eastern Europe were retirement activities. His first novel was “Murder on the French Broad,” published in 2010. Now occupying an old house in Asheville, NC, with his wife, he enjoys reading, tennis, short walks, TV and writing.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Detective Inspector Lang Travis is reading a lurid paperback. The cover features a ravishing half-nude woman climbing a mountain. It might be an Alp:

After a brief respite the climbers continued their descent. Konrad, a leathery-faced forty-eight and the most experienced of the three, led the way. A howling storm that had come ripping abruptly from the northwest scoured snow from flinty outcroppings and tore at the three small figures. making every inch a challenge, every foot of progress a victory of sorts. The entire mountain moaned with each slight change of wind and seemed to move below them.

The three shared one unspoken secret: Their chances of reaching safety were next to nil The punishing storm showed no signs of letting up. Thin air, the lack of oxygen, dwindling food supplies, brutal cold driven before the storm and the treacherous kilometers before them formed an evil committee to map their demise. They shared hope—also unspoken—for one more night on the mountain.

Where there were three, there had been seven. The girl’s lover, Peter, had been the most recent casualty. How Konrad and Serge, who was last in line, had envied him. Now the girl was roped between the two as they continued their painful descent.

In her own way Susan had loved Peter. But she was a sensual animal, warm and glowing, under her climbing gear and she felt a magnetic pull toward her mentor, Konrad, and more of an animal attraction toward the youthful and sometimes impulsive Serge. She had been very close to Peter at the final moment. Susan had in fact glimpsed his eyes as he twisted and plunged from the mountain. She had seen death there. A lonely, awkward, sort of death. No last second message of passion, or farewell. Just forlorn death. Although it was still midday, the storm had drawn a cloak of near night around the three. Serge could see Susan’s careful movements a few feet ahead of him. He could see the mountain tent strapped to her back. It was slightly larger than most, certainly large enough for three people, and of a peculiar color to the Russian eye—hot pink. Peter had been carrying the life giving food for the two of them when he dropped off the ledge. So now it was Susan and the hot pink tent. How the others had fantasized over what went on in that tent! Serge found himself growing more excited and closed his eyes for a moment to regain his composure.

Up ahead, Konrad was also thinking of the girl. He knew he would probably have to fight Serge. Experience against youth. But there was Little energy or food to spare among the three of them. To diminish it in that way seemed tragic, he told himself, then counted himself lucky to have had forty-eight good years. And one more good night, then to die a good death on the mountain. He found himself smiling...

The telephone rang. Detective Inspector Lang Travis moved his head slightly to the right to gaze at the offending instrument. On the fourth ring he picked it up. Travis here.’

Schultz, a voice replied. Sorry to bother you on a Saturday night, Sir.

No problem. Just having a beer and reading a trashy novel. What’s up?

We’ve got a dead one. A twenty-two year-old-woman named Sue Barker.

Murder?

I would think so. A bullet in her right temple.

Is it a family thing? Travis patiently questioned Sergeant Schultz. Asheville is not a huge city, but it has its share of violence. The western North Carolina mountains are a paradise to some, but drinking, drugs and guns are not uncommon. The inspector knew that it would take an unusual feature to cause Schultz to call him on a Saturday night.

Not that I know of yet. I don’t even know if she has family in Asheville. She was found down by the French Broad.

In the water?

No, Sir. Not at all. In a fifth floor apartment. It’s one of those old brick buildings. There are two of them, side by side, connected by a bridge on the fifth floor. They’ve been made into apartments and offices. Schultz hesitated, then added, Different things.

I know those buildings, Schultz. Whose apartment was it?

Empty apartment. But I’ve been told it belonged to her ex-boyfriend up until a day or two ago. But he’s gone.

Well, you’d better find out where he’s gone and talk to him. He sounds like-a pretty good suspect.

That’s just it, Sir. I think he’s in Saudi Arabia and from what I’ve been told he probably left before Barker was killed.

There’s an alibi I’ve never heard, Travis mused. I was in Saudi Arabia. Might I ask what he’s doing in Saudi Arabia?

A teaching contract. His brother got it for him. I’ve been told that he left Wednesday morning.

Might I also ask who’s been telling you all these things and, also, is there a murder weapon?

A pistol, I suppose. But it’s gone. The body hasn’t been touched. We’re waiting for the coroner. A girl named Janet Price. She lives next door. She came home tonight and for some reason went into the vacant apartment. She called the police. The two apartments, Price’s and the empty one, they’re the only two on the fifth floor. There’s a lot more people involved in this, Inspector. Schultz paused a moment, then added the missing part that Travis had been waiting for. I think the dead girl lived at the Grove Park.

Very few things surprised Travis, but this one did. Many people couldn’t afford to even dine at the Grove Park Inn on a regular basis. But to live at the Grove Park. That was something! You mean she lived there week in and week out?

Yes, Sir. That’s what Price tells me. She was a very beautiful girl and very rich.

She wasn’t just a tourist, or a hooker? Travis didn’t believe any hookers lived at the Grove Park. It was too old, too establishment, too isolated, too everything, a great stone and timber structure that had hosted presidents and such notables as Henry Ford and General Blackjack Pershing. But it had never crossed his mind that anyone lived there on a regular basis.

That’s not the story I get so far. She had been in town for months. Price thinks from New York. She is, I mean, was, one beautiful girl. You should see her. I mean, even dead, she looks better than most live ones. It’s amazing. Then, there’s her friends. From this building, you can walk right across a bridge to the fifth floor of the next building. Right into the offices of ‘City Nights and Days,’ that entertainment paper. That’s her crowd. They all hung out together.

Travis took another sip of beer and put a hand in the air as if to stop Schultz from talking. "Don’t tell me any more. We’d better give this the treatment. Get a list of everybody involved. Ask the coroner to give the body the works. Search the apartment. Fingerprints. Search the area. Try to find the weapon. I’ll call the station and OK manpower. I’ll talk to Harley. Naturally, he’ll be in charge. But you can work together.

Of course.

One of the two of you drop by to see me on Monday morning. If something happens before that, of course, you know where I am. Travis hung up the telephone and took another sip of beer. He picked up the book and read a few more lines: Susan knew that the two men might fight and she thought of ways to head off the confrontation. In a fight with ice picks and pitons, both men might be badly injured or killed. And they would surely fritter away valuable energy, those two healthy hot-blooded mammals. She wanted them both. There was room in the hot pink tent, room for three.

Travis snapped the book shut and put it aside. He decided to light a small fire in his stone fireplace. It was one of the great comforts of his room, one of the several reasons that he lived in the bed and breakfast. He had moved in shortly after his wife had died. A month’s leave was adequate to dispose of his furniture and the house, the accumulations of twenty-three years in the same spot. After that, the arrangement with the B and B owners, Kip and Sandy, for a permanent room. At that time he had no plan except to take early retirement and catch up on his reading. His attempt to retire had been thwarted. During his career he had been successful in solving a number of vexing crimes, including a series of seemingly dazzling burglaries that had been carried off by members of the department. His skill had also extended to solving morale problems and ending knotty white-black clashes. The powers that be found something sound, a vein of substance, the epitome of the mountain city itself in Lang Travis.

They implored him to stay, pointing out that he was still a relatively young man, perhaps at the half milepost of his productive years, a man who could do great service for his community. He dismissed their entreaties as nonsense and said he was absolutely through with the day to day tedium of police work. But the mayor and law director put their heads together and countered brilliantly. The post of detective inspector was created for him. He need make an .appearance in the office only once or twice a week. There would be a pay reduction, but benefits would remain the same. In effect he would be more of a consultant, but always available to cope with the unusual. In fact able to devote his single-minded attention to the difficult problem.

The untimely death of Sue Barker seemed to fall into this category. Rich, beautiful and very young, Travis pondered. Where is the weapon and when did she die? Very likely the killer is someone she knew very well, probably a boy friend. Death, murder, the final dictum. In the flush of youth, a most bitter dictum. Very likely the case will be solved, closed for police purposes, long before the meeting with either Sgt. Russell Schultz, or Lt. Harley Swafford on Monday. He picked up the telephone and punched out the number for police headquarters. He would set a few wheels in motion. A small voice told him to avoid overconfidence.

Travis felt himself above the battle, or was it below the battle, trampled by the battle? His wife’s death had been the destroyer. He tried not to blame her for deserting him. Him, Travis, the one on the firing line, the one who carried a gun and trod the raw edge, he had been left to linger on in something like a dream. At least nothing else could happen to him, no poisoned blades, or fire-tinged arrows could do him further harm. He had come face to face with despair and learned to coexist.

That the victim had lived at the Grove Park still nagged at him. There are two great structures in Asheville, aside from the art deco buildings that bear witness to a busted boom. They are the Biltmore Estate and the Grove Park Inn. The Biltmore Estate and winery, built by George Vanderbilt, took a thousand workers five years to construct. When it was opened on Christmas Eve in 1895, it was recognized as the most spectacular mansion in America. Now open to the public for a price, it has retained its baronial magnificence.

On the other hand, the Grove Park was intentionally built for the public, but an ultra elite public. Early guests include Harvey Firestone, Sr., Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, Jr., Horatio Winslow Seymour and Henry Ford. This illustrious group gathered there in 1918.

Edwin Wiley Grove owned a pharmaceutical firm in St. Louis which produced such products as Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic and Grove’s Bromo Quinine. He originally planned to establish a chemical company in Asheville, but found the climate so invigorating that he bought a large tract on the west slope of Sunset mountain in order to build a mountain resort.

His idea was to build something patterned after the Old Faithful Inn in the Yellowstone, but he was unable to find an architect who could grasp the idea Grove asked his son-in-law, Fred L. Seely, to try his hand at the project. Without architect and without contractor, Seely built what came to be called the finest resort hotel in the world.

Boulders from Sunset mountain and the surrounding area provided much of the material. Italian stonemasons and hundreds of local laborers did the job in eleven months and twenty-seven days. On July 1, 1913, William Jennings Bryan delivered the opening address. The lobby, or Great Hall, is 120 feet long and 80 feet wide. Its massive fireplaces can burn twelve-foot logs. Through its years of colorful history, the Inn has been improved, including the addition of a country club complete with eighteen-hole golf course, fitness center and spa.

The Grove Park caters to the expense account crowd, conventioneers and the rich. For a twenty-two-year-old woman to live there for a period of months bothered Travis. But it did not bother him enough to make him leave his comfortable room. He opened another beer and fed the small blaze in the fireplace. Kip regularly kept his wood box filled with substantial logs and a bit of splintered kindling.

When he was satisfied with the fire, Travis pulled out a new book he had been saving for a late night of pleasant reading. It dealt with the excavation of a city called Kourion on the island of Cyprus. The city had been smothered in short order by an immense earthquake, probably sometime in July in the year A.D. 365. The year had been very well established by coins found in the rubble. The disaster had struck with such swiftness that it preserved the residents going about their daily tasks, like so many flies in amber. The inspector looked at the book as a gourmet would look at a well-turned roast and a bottle of good wine. His degree was in anthropology, including a year’s study in Mexico City. His interest was in ancient cultures. How he had stumbled into police work, he sometimes wondered.

Chapter 2

Inspector Travis had long since had breakfast with Sandy and a pair of overnight guests in the bright, pleasant downstairs room just off the kitchen. He was having a second cup of coffee in his room and examining the charts and photos in his book on Kourion when Sergeant Schultz knocked on the door.

Find the killer? Travis asked, motioning Schultz to a chair.

No. But I’ve talked to a lot of people. We might be close.

Coffee?

No thanks. He had tried the inspector’s coffee on a previous visit. No caffeine and weak, even so. She was apparently killed late Thursday, or early Friday.

Travis did a double take. And the body wasn’t found until Saturday night?

"That’s right. No family in town. She does live at the Grove Park. Not cheap. I mean she didn’t skimp up there. She had a suite. Great wardrobe. Everything expensive. Mostly

from New York. That seems to be where she’s from. Manhattan."

And the boyfriend?

Seems to be in Saudi Arabia. I checked the flight. He was listed on board. On Wednesday. They had an up and down affair. A few spats. But his plane left well before the murder, or suicide.

Suicide? Travis asked. I thought you said there was no murder weapon found. He drained his coffee cup and set it well away from the precious book he had been reading.

That’s right, Schultz said a little lamely. But someone in the group down there suggested it might be suicide. I think they got it from Garvy.

And who in the hell is Garvy?

An older woman. Sort of a mother hen of City Nights. There are maybe ten, or a dozen people who help put out that paper. Most of them are part timers. The office is sort of a gathering place. They had a party there Thursday night.

The night the girl was killed?

That’s right. The apartment is just across this bridge in the other building.

And the theory is that Barker snuck away from the party, went into her old boy friend’s apartment and shot herself without a weapon. Do I have it right?

No, Sir. Of course not. That theory was that if she shot herself, that someone came along and took the gun. Maybe because it was their gun, or that they knew who it belonged to, or for some other reason.

That sounds like a theory of last resort. What kind of gun was it? The paper didn’t say.

It was a .38. And we have a top suspect. A man named Daniel Smythe-Keye. He’s in the advertising business. He and a partner have a firm called Keye Brown & Associates. That apparently means there are just the two of them and an answering machine. Brown seems to be on vacation and I haven’t been able to find Smythe-Keye.

Why are we looking for him?

Well, he helps with City Nights, and I’ve talked with two or three people who think he and Barker were together in the boyfriend’s old apartment on Thursday night. And Harley talked to at least two people who said the same thing. They were definitely absent from the party during the late hours. That is before midnight and when the party broke up just after midnight.

Travis was taking notes on a yellow legal pad. This was about the time of death?

That’s right.

"You have statements from these witnesses?

Not yet. We were going all day yesterday, Schultz explained. We will get them in and make it official. Right now we’re trying to find Smythe-Keye.

And where might he be?

Maybe on the run. We have an alert out for him. He lives in out Chunn’s Cove way. No one up that way has seen him since the middle of last week. He’s numero uno right now.

What kind of a person was Sue Barker and what was she doing in Asheville. Seems a slow track for a rich New Yorker.

Like I told you on the phone, she was beautiful. Everyone agrees on that. Not only beautiful, but she had class. Style. She knew clothes and she knew make-up. She always looked like a model. And she was a nice person, a sweet girl. I haven’t talked to anyone who didn’t like her. Always a good word for everyone. Usually in good spirits. But maybe a little moody underneath.

Travis nodded. I suppose by moody you mean suicidal. A little something to back up this suicide theory?

I guess. I can’t give you a psychological profile after one day talking to acquaintances.

I think you’re right there. Do as much more solid police work as you can. Don’t just sit on your hands and wait for Smythe-Keye to turn up. This girl has been dead since maybe Thursday. We don’t want the trail to get any colder than it already is. Did the coroner say there’s been any sign of recent sex?

You mean like rape?

Rape. Sex. Any kind of sex, natural, unnatural.

No he didn’t. You know the body was fully clothed.

"Yes, I read that in the paper. But if there was sex an hour,