Free The Murder Suite: Book One - The Audrey Murders by Leonie Mateer

but he knew he was a good looking guy and still had all his hair and played golf almost daily to keep in shape.   In fact, he could have his pick of good- looking ladies.  He had been married a couple of times but marriage wasn’t really his ticket.  He liked younger girls, much younger girls and although he didn’t really need to pay for them he found it a lot easier to have “his girls”, as he referred to them, on tap.
    Tonight was Tuesday night and he a standard date at nine o’clock with Delia.  She was eighteen, if she was lucky, and absolutely adorable with black straight hair and big red lips.  She always wore red, very high- heeled shoes.  John had a foot fetish and high heels were weakness.   He didn’t have to worry about money he owned his own business and times were good.   When the economy was bad his business always took a turn for the better.  He owned a beer distribution company and he always said; “When times are tough, women buy lipstick and guys buy beer”.   He was right. Business was booming. 
                  John didn’t have any children of his own but he had hired Jimmy who had worked for him for the past twenty years and John decided it was now time for Jimmy to take over the company.  He had drawn up the papers and they both signed on the dotted line.  This was John’s last week running the company.   Friday he was going to take a holiday up north.  He had arranged to go big game fishing in Whangaroa harbor and was looking forward to getting out of the city.  John looked at the paperwork on the desk he wondered if he would miss the day-to-day running of the business.  It had been a great thirty years in the beer business.  He had made enough money to pay off both wives and still have a million dollar house on the North Shore.   His “girls” cost him a pretty penny.  They were the cream of the crop and ran him a thousand dollars a night but they were worth every penny.  John liked to play rough and his money satisfied all his sexual needs.    Delia was his favorite girl although lately she had seemed to be less attentive.   John pushed the papers to one side of his desk and picked up the phone.  
                  “Hey Mike, wanna take in a game of golf this afternoon? “Great.  I’ll call and see if we can get a tee time at two thirty.  Bye”.
                  He hung up the phone and called his golf club to confirm. The pro always got him in.  He called his mate back and called out to Jimmy. 
                  “Hey Jimmy, I am off for lunch then off to play golf with Mike. See you tomorrow morning.” 
                  Jimmy nodded and went back to stacking cases of beer.  He was looking forward to having the business to himself.  John was a bit of a wanker really.  He didn’t approve of his social life.  Jimmy was married and loved his wife and always respected women.  John would embarrass him when they entertained clients.  It was always to a strip bar with young prostitutes.  Some of their clients liked that sort of thing but Jimmy didn’t.  Things would change when he took over.
     
    C H A P T E R   3 1
     
    It came down like a blanket over the valley.  Torrential rain.  It had been a couple of years since Audrey had seen rain like this.   It seemed to come out of nowhere.  She needed to check the creek in the valley by the pigpen.  When it rained like this water would pour down the mountain and fill the creek to overflowing.  The creek would flood and the swirling, muddy waters would gush under the road, across the cow paddocks and out into the bay.  The floor of her valley was always damp due to her natural spring. The underwater spring was the only water source for the chalets.  A concrete soak well and pump house pumped the water up plastic pipes to her water tanks every two hours.   But when it rained, the whole area was just a wild torrent of swift