Prologue to Murder

By Kenneth Toppell

"Takkies last video" attracted little attention until long after Takkies' death. By then, three other men had died violently, and the other people from the video were missing. Henry Atkinson was waiting on a flight when he saw one victim fall out of a luggage carrier. Even at a busy airport, this attracted attention. Henry was a retired lawyer and a baseball devotee, but when he and his cousin Shelley, a former hitman, heard about another victim, the chase was on. Why were these men being murdered? It couldn't just be due to their answers to the quiz. Who was killing the cast of "Takkies last video?" With the help of a non-existent dog and an alcoholic former cop, Henry and his family learn more about the French Broad than they knew to ask.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350916393

Book preview

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©2023 Kenneth L. Toppell

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Print ISBN: 979-8-35091-638-6

eBook ISBN: 979-8-35091-639-3

What came first,

What came before.

Why don’t we know

Who was there

And brought the whore

Of death

To the house,

To the door.

And destroyed those lives,

In rooms

of gore.

Kenneth L. Toppell, MD

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER Five

CHAPTER Six

CHAPTER Seven

CHAPTER Eight

CHAPTER Nine

CHAPTER ten

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER Twelve

CHAPTER Thirteen

CHAPTER Fourteen

CHAPTER Fifteen

CHAPTER Sixteen

CHAPTER Seventeen

CHAPTER Eighteen

CHAPTER Nineteen

CHAPTER twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY-one

CHAPTER TWENTY-two

CHAPTER TWENTY-three

CHAPTER TWENTY-four

CHAPTER TWENTY-five

CHAPTER TWENTY-six

CHAPTER TWENTY-seven

CHAPTER TWENTY-eight

CHAPTER TWENTY-nine

CHAPTER Thirty

CHAPTER Thirty-one

CHAPTER THIRTY-two

CHAPTER THIRTY-three

CHAPTER THIRTY-four

CHAPTER THIRTY-five

CHAPTER THIRTY-six

CHAPTER THIRTY-seven

CHAPTER THIRTY-eight

CHAPTER THIRTY-nine

CHAPTER forty

CHAPTER forty-one

CHAPTER FORTY-two

CHAPTER FORTY-three

CHAPTER FORTy-four

CHAPTER FORTY-five

CHAPTER FORTY-six

CHAPTER FORTY-seven

CHAPTER FORTY-eight

CHAPTER FORTY-nine

CHAPTER Fifty

CHAPTER Fifty-one

CHAPTER FIFTy-two

Authors Note

Acknowledgements

PROLOGUE

He stood on the sidewalk in front of the station, holding a microphone and feeling foolish. But he needed visibility. His show was down a few points in the ratings. Not quite on the rocks, but the water was getting shallow. That’s ironic: on the rocks. He needed a drink. Maybe later, much later. 

Hi. We’re doing a Takkies in Atlanta interview. Would you like to take part?

You’re kidding, right?

No, this is for real. We’re celebrating Martin Van Buren today, and we thought it would be fun to go to the public. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about President Van Buren? He smiled, appeared friendly, like he was sharing secrets with a friend.

I guess so. Sure, go ahead. They were always so happy to help, to be part of something cool.

You know that today is Martin Van Buren’s birthday, don’t you?

They usually nodded. Wow, that’s right. I almost forgot.

That’s OK. After all, there have been so many presidents. It’s hard to remember all their birthdays. To celebrate Van Buren, let’s see what you know about our eighth president. Ready?

OK, I guess.

Was President Van Buren known as Honest Abe, The Little Magician, or Marty?

Whew. That one is tough, but he was one of my favorites. He was Marty.

He learned how to be kind while asking these questions. Sometimes that was tough.

James Buchanan was the only bachelor president. Today is his birthday. We’re running a little quiz in his honor. Will you participate?

Sure, this is exciting.

True or false, President Buchanan’s wife was named Dolly.

True. They even named a park after her. Dollywood.

Hi. In honor of Presidents’ Day, we’re asking random people questions about our presidents. How about taking part?

Let’s give it a whirl, as they say.

Four sets of presidents have been related. You know, father-son, cousins, and grandfather and grandson. Tell me any two of them.

"Whoa there, boy. That’s a tough one. But I had a way to learn that sort of stuff. Like state capitals. I made little songs about them. For that one, here goes… Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Jackson, Johnson, they were the brothers…Andrew.

Do I get something for that?

Today is Franklin Pierce’s birthday. Will you play along with us and participate in a little quiz in his honor?

Sure, sure. It’ll be fun.

OK. Here we go. President Pierce is either the first president with two last names or the only one who died of cirrhosis.

That’s easy. He’s the president with two last names. 

Four geniuses in one day were all he could take. That’s when he changed the Takkies in Atlanta to once a month. The contestants always remembered him. They were mortified when they saw themselves on TV. They often thought they’d given the correct answer. No, it was how they appeared when the clip was broadcast. They looked stupid. No one liked to look like an idiot. He should have known better.

He tried to rectify the damage. He invited all the interviewees to his office for hors de d’oeuvres and a drink to watch the show. It was usually enough to mollify them. Usually.

CHAPTER ONE

The first person to see the body was a uniformed cop. He was responding to a call. The Resort Association was up in its collective arms because of the stench coming from the house on the corner. No one had lived there for years, and now it smelled to high heaven.

Carter Lake and the Regulation Reservoir were created in the latter half of the twentieth century. The reservoir was the result of damming Talking Rock Creek where it joined the Coosawattee River southeast of the dam that created Carter Lake. There are cabins alongside what was left of the free-flowing river as well as in the Coosawattee River Resort itself. More foundations were laid, and so were several members of the Me Generation who were camping on the grounds. It took several years before the rest of the property was acquired and completed. 

The house with the disgusting odor was one of the first ones built. Its landscaping was provided for by the Resort Association to keep up the appearance of the neighborhood, but even that august body couldn’t dispel the stink.

The veteran cop was answering the call to let some of his colleagues attend a retirement party. He couldn’t stand the captain who was leaving, so he said good riddance under his breath and went to work in the field.

He recognized the smell of death as he kicked in the door. He needed his service flashlight to cut through the preternatural gloom and motes that had probably been there since the last owner turned out the lights. Sheets covered the windows, and the furniture was in disarray. An armchair was lying on its side, the cracked padded seat on the floor. Splayed across the recliner was the body of Takkies Spencer. His left arm was hanging off to the side, and his head was twisted in the opposite direction with one dead eye staring at the back of the lounger. The sneakers he had been noted for were gone. His feet had been cut off.

The experience of almost twenty years on the force kicked in, and the sergeant crouched, rotated around the room with an outstretched, gun-wielding arm, and called for backup and a crime scene team. Takkies Spencer wasn’t alone any longer.

The backup guys cleared the site of the nosey Nellies and left it to the lead detective and the finger printers, the photographers and the sketch artists, the evidence recorders and the baggers, the medical examiner, and the crime scene technicians. They yelled at each other not to touch anything, repeated it every time someone new showed up, and then in unison when anyone from the district attorney’s office arrived.

Sketches of the site were drawn and labeled. Forensic samples were taken, bagged, and cataloged. Photographs of the scene and the body completed the documentation of Takkies’ last production. His final ride was to the city morgue with sirens sounding.

Police began to look for next of kin, which wasn’t easy. A native South African, Thackeray (Takkies) Spencer had emigrated during the presidency of Thabo Mbeki when the glow of the Mandela years was first smudged by blatant denial of the connection of HIV to AIDS and the subtle corruption and sub-rosa support for the violent rule of Robert Mugabe in adjoining Zimbabwe.

Spencer began his American life at a television station in South Carolina. Because of his accent, his bosses imputed a sheen of literacy to him. He wrote newscasts, weathercasts, and sportscasts until his utter confusion between football and soccer led to his departure. 

He landed on his feet in south Georgia, where he worked on the morning show as a newsreader. Word of his style and panache spread, and he took a job in Atlanta at a significant pay increase. Provided that he read other people’s words, his reputation grew. Even his name was changed after he was spotted wearing sneakers during his Takkies in Atlanta interviews. When he explained that they were takkies, Afrikaans for sneakers, he became Takkies from that moment on. 

For years, his specialties were oddball interviews and quizzes. He was never surprised at the wacky answers, and he didn’t laugh at them. He simply put them on the air without comment, going to commercial breaks instead.

The police were stumped. Almost everyone liked Takkies Spencer. Could one of his interviewees have gotten upset at him, or had some other hiccup in his past turned out to be more like vomit?

CHAPTER TWO

Henry Atkinson was a patent attorney. He’d retired early after a successful career and spent his time with two things –– his wife, Carolyn, who’d run away with him, and reading and writing about baseball. Carolyn was pretty sure baseball came first, but she seemed comfortable with the arrangement.

She had been a serious business journalist before eloping with this odd but strangely lovable man. He was terrified of his own shadow yet frightened of nothing. Simultaneously self-effacing and impulsive, he loved her unconditionally. He did need some care and attention at times. For example, when he was awake. 

They lived in Trumansburg, New York, a backwater village in the town of Ulysses northwest of Ithaca on the somnolent side of Cayuga Lake. Henry acted as a legal consultant for their neighbors, including the sixteen part-time police officers in town who looked in on the house when they were away, like now. 

They were in Atlanta on an extended layover from JFK to Houston, where Henry’s daughters and their families lived. Atlanta was paralyzed by a bitter cold front; the airport runways were covered in black ice. The Atkinsons were agitated by the long wait on board and the rowdiness of their fellow passengers. When they were finally allowed to deplane, the airline’s smiling representatives were at the gate handing out inadequate chits for rooms at a nearby hotel. No one was mollified. They had enough in their carry-on bags to get through the night.