The Beresford Case

by Ken Teutsch

About the Author: Ken Teutsch is a writer, performer and videographer living in Arkansas. His book, "S-10 to Valhalla" is available from Shotgun Honey books.

Excerpt

The place looked like one of those English manor houses—I think they call them “Georgian”—all red brick and right angles and perfectly-spaced windows, and it was bizarrely, disorientingly out of place in a clearing in a Northern California forest. The grounds around it looked like they had been laid out with great care, then the gardener left on a long vacation. The vibe translated to: “Looks like money … but get it up front.” The front door opened straight onto the gravel area where the coaches or whatever were supposed to pull up and let out their duchesses or whoever, and there was no cover above the front steps. I had no umbrella. I shouldn’t have needed an umbrella, because at this time of year it shouldn’t have been raining. All bets are off nowadays; last May, they tell me, it snowed in Atlanta.

The whole thing started off badly, since at first I couldn’t even find the place, and that’s kind of galling for a detective, especially the kind of detective that I was supposed to be. But the rain was blinding, and the turn off the highway was unmarked and apparently known only to the robot lady inside my GPS. After about the fourth time she said, “Please turn around,” I assume only Asimov’s Laws kept her from adding, “...you frigging moron.” Finally I realized that a little lane, despite looking like an abandoned logging road, must be where I was supposed to go. A hundred yards off the blacktop and through the thick trees, there it was.

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