The Wrong Body: A Bettie Private Eye Mystery Novella: The Bettie English Private Eye Mysteries, #12

By Connor Whiteley

A Fun Evening Out. A Post-Mortem Demonstration. A Wrong Body Found.

Murderers hide at shows.

When Private Eye Bettie English attends a fun post-mortem demonstration with family, she discovers the slab contains the wrong body.

Bettie investigates the shocking murder against time.

Enthralling. Gut-Punching. Stellar. Connor Whiteley's The Wrong Body hooks readers from the first word taking them on a rich, gripping mystery exploring what happens when Bettie English wants a nice evening out.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: CGD Publishing
• Release date: Jun 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223211136

Connor Whiteley

Hello, I'm Connor Whiteley, I am an 18-year-old who loves to write creatively, and I wrote my Brownsea trilogy when I was 14 years old after I went to Brownsea Island on a scout camp. At the camp, I started to think about how all the broken tiles and pottery got there and somehow a trilogy got created.Moreover, I love writing fantasy and sci-fi novels because you’re only limited by your imagination.In addition, I'm was an Explorer Scout and I love camping, sailing and other outdoor activities as well as cooking.Furthermore, I do quite a bit of charity work as well. For example: in early 2018 I was a part of a youth panel which was involved in creating a report with research to try and get government funding for organised youth groups and through this panel. I was invited to Prince Charles’ 70th birthday party and how some of us got in the royal photograph.Finally, I am going to university and I hope to get my doctorate in clinical psychology in a few years.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

28th July 2023

Maidstone, England

Private Eye Bettie English was so damn excited as she stood at the edge of The Kent Grammar School’s anatomy lab with a waist-height white science table filled with brilliant pig heads, pig eyes and other wonders for her to dissect as part of her post-mortem experience.

She was standing around a large group of the tables where four other people stood around her. The sterile white walls of the lab were covered in fascinating photos of the human body, decay and posters labelling different processes. It was so fascinating that Bettie just loved it all.

There was a large thin TV mounted to the wall allowing Bettie to see the large corpse in the middle of the lab covered with a white cloth. It was so life-like there was even blood dripping off the body, this experience was going to be great.

Bettie looked around at all the other groups of people gathered around their own tables. There were young medical students with their young, sweet faces looking excited, there were older medical professionals that were only here because of Continued Professional Development requirements, that they had to do for their career, they hardly looked too interested. They had probably done this hundreds of times before. And there were random members of the public like her.

There was one group of university students that caught Bettie’s eye. The five students were all wearing white lab coats like everyone else and they were laughing, smiling and taking photos.

It was great seeing them so excited.

Bettie waved at a group of male medical students with all of them having short brown hair, who she had bought their tickets for them. They were all students from poor, broken homes so Bettie had bought their tickets for them so they didn’t miss out.

And she bought them the premium Plus tickets instead of the standard. They might as well have the extra specimens to dissect and enjoy and have a front row seat.

That’s disgusting, Graham said heaving.

Bettie smiled at her sexy boyfriend Detective Graham Adams as he just stared at the pig’s head. He looked horrified and Bettie just kissed him. He looked so wonderful, beautiful and attractive in his white lab coat that highlighted his fit body.

Cheer up Uncle Graham,

Bettie laughed at her nephew Sean who looked made for lab work the way he rocked the white lab coat, and the whiteness of the coat perfectly matched his longish blond hair with tasteful and artfully done pink highlights.

Sean’s boyfriend Harry looked a little more like Graham. He didn’t look at all sure and Bettie had to admit, Harry had only come because of Sean and because all four of them lived together they had really wanted to escape the house.

As much as Bettie loved her precious little babies, Harrison and Elizabeth, no one had prepared them for turning ten months old.

The little darlings weren’t darlings anymore. They were like a hurricane of death and destruction, exploring every little nook and cranny and Bettie hadn’t even realised her house was so big until she couldn’t find her babies.

Bettie had to develop eyes in the back of her head just to keep up with the little ones.

And they were suffering from massive separation anxiety, Bettie could hardly pee without them crying or making a fuss bless them.

So Bettie had sadly dropped them off at her mother’s for the night. And Bettie, Graham and the two boyfriends got a wonderful night of peace.

Bettie loved it when that happened.

Good evening, Zoey said.

Bettie didn’t care about so-called clinical procedure or whatever the event organisers called it as she went over to her best friend Senior Forensic Specialist Zoey Quill who came to join their table. Bettie was so glad she had been able to join them.

Zoey might have only been doing this for Continued Professional Development reasons but Bettie was just glad she was here. Granted Bettie knew that Zoey didn’t want to do her day job on her Friday evening off but Bettie promised it would be a fun night.

Something she knew she wouldn’t be a liar about.

Auntie, Sean said. Look at the body,

Bettie looked up at the TV screen and shrugged. It was a special-effects corpse with a white sheet over the top. It wasn’t anything special.

I thought after death the blood started to congeal, Sean said.

Bettie nodded and Zoey nodded even harder. Yes about three hours after death the blood has congealed so much we can tell what position the victim died in,

Bettie bit her lip. I get your point Sean. If this body is really a special effects corpse then why is it bleeding?

Graham looked like he was trying to frown but failing. Can’t we just go somewhere nice and not end up with a murder?

Bettie cocked her head. Go out somewhere nice? We’re at a post-mortem experience, what did you expect?

You want to check out the body, don’t you? Graham said hoping she would say yes. "And then you