“Mature Male Available for Housesitting, Non-Smoker, No Pets, Widower.”
With this listing, Private Eye Writers of America founder Robert J. Randisi introduces readers to a retired captain of the NYPD who now spends his time housesitting wherever the job takes him…and learns that he can never fully leave the job behind.
Truxton “Tru” Lewis is looking after a house in Bluegrass Country, Kentucky, a simple enough task within a tight-knit community. But it’s his encounter with octogenarian Max Beasley, who spends his days reconstructing stone walls that will alert Tru that not everything is right here. His fears are confirmed when the body a local, reviled realtor turns up, buried under one of Max’s precious walls. With Max under suspicion for the crime, Tru ingratiates himself with the local cops and a colorful lawyer, as well as with Max’s widowed daughter, as he searches for the truth that will clear the old man of a most heinous crime.
But the farther he stretches his investigative net, Tru finds himself being reeled back to the original suspect…his new friend. The thing about housesitting, Tru has learned, is you can’t know what goes on behind your neighbor’s closed doors.
excerpt
“How do you know my name?” she asked. “Do we know each other?”
“No, we don’t, but I do know your father, Max,” Tru said. “Actually, I’ve been helping him this week with his wall—“
“You’re—what did he say? Lewis?” She frowned, trying to remember, snapping her fingers. “It’s an odd first name . . .”
“Truxton,” he said, “but you can call me Tru.”
“Tru.” She said the name as if tasting it. Her face relaxed for just a moment, and he saw a more attractive woman.
“I went by the wall today but your father’s wasn’t there,” he explained. “I thought maybe . . . is he sick, or . . . in trouble?”
“Trouble,” she said, her face growing sour again. “If you call being arrested for murder trouble, then the answer is yes.”
“Murder? What happened?”
“Look, Mr. Lewis,” she said, “you’re probably a very nice man but I’ve been trying for over an hour to find my father a lawyer, and I haven’t been having much luck. I need to get back to the police station before they move him to Lexington—“
“Julie, if I may,” he said, interrupting her, “before I retired I was a Captain of Detectives with the New York City Police Department.”
“Detective?” she asked.
He nodded and said, “Homicide. Maybe I can help?”
She studied him for a long moment, then said, “Maybe you can.”
