Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Milo March #4: As Old As Cain
    Milo March #4: As Old As Cain
    Milo March #4: As Old As Cain
    Ebook210 pages3 hours

    Milo March #4: As Old As Cain

    By Kendell Foster Crossen and M.E. Chaber

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Insurance investigator Milo March is under pressure to solve a classic whodunit in a small town. Athens, Ohio, is a place full of historic monuments, many of them still walking the streets. But now the excitement of Hollywood has burst on the scene, with a studio shooting a biopic about a rugged pioneer who played a role in the founding of Athens County. Descendants of the story’s hero still live in Athens, and are the owners of valuable antiques, books, and other heirlooms passed down to them from the early 1800s. The studio has arranged to use these gems of Americana as props, insuring them with a million-dollar policy. With such a large sum at stake, the insurance company sends Milo to check on the security measures at the little museum where the items are housed under guard.

    The job seems like a snap—until a bludgeoned body and a lot of smashed-open cases send everyone into a panic. Among the stolen items is a personal diary written by Hanna’s wife, which appears to be an object of intense interest, or even obsession. Milo can’t imagine why a diary from the early 1800s should be so dangerous as to lead to murder, but he’ll have to find out. Was it a matter of greed, professional ambition, or something bizarre like a delusional fixation on the long-dead pioneer woman who penned the diary? If being unpleasant or eccentric made someone a murderer, then there was full cast of characters to choose from, including a pedantic historian, a shiftless ex-cop, and a couple of snooping old biddies, not to mention a scheming scriptwriter, a genius director, and a man-eating blonde starlet.

    Murder wasn’t supposed to happen in Athens, Ohio, and the cops want these crimes to be solved fast. The pressure is on Milo to identify the killer before he strikes again—and to recover the heirlooms before anyone cashes in the million-dollar policy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSteeger Books
    Release dateJun 8, 2020
    ISBN9788835875512
    Milo March #4: As Old As Cain

    Read more from Kendell Foster Crossen

    Related to Milo March #4

    Titles in the series (23)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      How We Met

      May 26, 2021

      How We Met
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Good Guysfinish Last

      Oct 6, 2020

      Good Guysfinish Last
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      How we MET

      Aug 1, 2023

      How we MET
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Books

      Aug 16, 2024

      Books
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Take a Writer Like Him: My Complicated Love Affair with Kingsley Amis

      Aug 24, 2018

      1. As much as I may rack my brain, there are 15 minutes or so in the dark that I can’t account for and that I’ll never get back—15 minutes during which, I have to think, that creep’s hands were touching my body. It’s a weird thing to think about all

      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Luis Alberto Urrea

      Jun 12, 2023

      Luis Alberto Urrea
      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Shaken, Not Stirred

      Dec 19, 2023

      Ava Glass, 50 Clambering down the hill, I tried not to trip as my kitten heels got wedged in the mud. Detectives crowded beside the river bank where a bloated body was being pulled out, arms jutting out as though waiting for a hug. River weeds hung f

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Never Meet YOUR HEROES?

      Apr 2, 2020

      Never Meet YOUR HEROES?
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Cold Calling

      Jan 18, 2021

      Two or three phone calls per week. Every week for six months. All more or less the same. “Hello Mrs Redmond, this is Martin/Tim/Alice/Marmaduke [I’m serious], I’m calling from your internet provider to let you know that your broadband server has been

      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Gift of Gold

      Nov 10, 2021

      The Gift of Gold
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Being Wichteled

      Nov 11, 2024

      Being Wichteled
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Prisoner of Love

      Sep 10, 2020

      Prisoner of Love
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      ‘It Was All Bollocks’

      Dec 23, 2024

      ‘It Was All Bollocks’
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Reading CORNER

      Dec 4, 2022

      For six years, a town has been hiding big secrets This novel starts out like a murder mystery, but very quickly becomes so much more than that. A heartfelt tale set in the suburbs of an Australian country town in the early ’90s, it’s about friendshi

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Dark Star

      Jun 2, 2022

      Dark Star
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      It Happened to Me…

      Apr 20, 2023

      It Happened to Me…
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      I Know He Enjoyed Your Calls

      Nov 25, 2019

      I kept finding reasons to visit Frank. Did he still have letters he and Irma exchanged during the war when he was in the Pacific? Photos of the two of them? The post I Know He Enjoyed Your Calls appeared first on The Millions.

      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Bringing The Guilty to Book (and Podcast)

      Feb 17, 2023

      ‘IF it bleeds, it leads.’ The phrase originated in the early days of broadcast journalism, but it’s no less true today. ‘For me, it’s become synonymous with our ever-increasing obsession with true crime,’ writes Nicole Engelbrecht, the voice (and bra

      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Clichés

      Jan 18, 2023

      Clichés
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Beyond The grave

      Jan 12, 2023

      Beyond The grave
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Smith vs Jones

      Jun 26, 2024

      After Baby Reindeer, the recent Netflix hit, it would appear that second-ratecomedian-celebrity stalkers still fascinate the sofa crowd. Here’s another for you. Before Baby Reindeer was even conceived, I had my own bizarre fixation experience. Most s

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Chris Bohjalian

      Apr 12, 2021

      Chris Bohjalian
      12 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Milo March #4

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Milo March #4 - Kendell Foster Crossen

      As Old as Cain

      by

      Kendell Foster Crossen

      Writing as M.E. Chaber

      Steeger Books / 2020

      Copyright Information

      Published by Steeger Books

      Visit steegerbooks.com for more books like this.

      ©1982, 2020 by Kendra Crossen Burroughs

      The unabridged novel has been lightly copyedited by Kendra Crossen Burroughs.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

      Publishing History

      Hardcover

      New York: Henry Holt & Co. (A Novel of Suspense), October 1954.

      Toronto: George J. McLeod, 1954.

      Paperback

      New York: Mercury Publications, Bestseller Mystery #B202, 1957, as Take One for Murder. Paperback. Cover design by George Salter.

      New York: Paperback Library (63-527), A Milo March Mystery, #17, February 1971. Cover by Robert McGinnis.

      For Martha

      No winter shall abate the spring’s increase.

      —John Donne

      Author’s Note

      With the exception of Moses Hewit, Jesse Grant, Jesse West, John Goodman, William Poage, Eli Terry, Thomas Affleck, Thomas Tufft, Nicholas Disbrowe, Casper Wistar, John Frederick Amelung, John Hull, and Paul Revere, all characters in this novel are fictitious and are not intended to resemble any person, living or dead. Athens, Ohio, is a very real place, and I apologize for disturbing its tranquillity with even an imaginary murder.

      M.E.C.

      EXHIBIT A

      West to the Hocking

      Fourth Revised Page 44

      INT. LOG CABIN — NIGHT

      59 CLOSE SHOT MARY

      as she writes in her diary. CAMERA ANGLE shows open diary on desk, old lamp, Mary’s hand as she writes in diary with quill pen. CAMERA MOVES IN until we can see writing.

      DIARY

      May 3, 1801

      Hiram came for me today. While it is not as I would have it, I have such faith in him that I came most gladly. Hiram is out now but he will soon return and we will have our first night …

      60 CAMERA PULLS BACK

      as there is a sound at the door, and Mary stops writing. She hastily slips the diary into a secret drawer in desk and stands up to face the door as Hiram steps into the cabin. She runs into his arms.

      MARY

      Hiram! I thought you’d never come back.

      HIRAM (embraces her roughly)

      Miss me, gal?

      MARY

      So much. But now that you’re here everything is—almost perfect.

      HIRAM (scowling)

      Still harpin’ on that?

      MARY (demurely)

      It would make me the happiest woman in the world.

      HIRAM (suddenly laughs and picks her up)

      There’ll be a circuit rider through Hocking next month. Maybe we’ll talk about it then.

      61 ANOTHER ANGLE

      as Hiram carries her across cabin toward the bed. CAMERA FOLLOWS until they reach the bed and then

      FADES OUT

      One

      Do you, Milo, take this woman, to have and to hold, in sickness and health, till death do you part?

      I do, I said.

      Do you, Greta, take this man …

      There was a mumbling monotone to his voice, like a bee trying to tunnel through cotton, and I let the words slip past me. I looked down at the girl who stood beside me. All of this had been planned for several months, but she looked startled just the same. She had long black hair, a figure that stopped traffic, and a face that might have been looking out of an old Egyptian coin. Her name, for another few seconds, was Greta Brooks. I had first met her two years before in East Berlin.

      I felt a little startled myself. This was a new kind of caper for me. But it had been when I met her, too. The name is Milo March. My identification card says I’m an insurance investigator. Which means that if somebody lifts your family jewels and you have them insured with one of about two dozen insurance companies, I get them back for you—it says here in small print.

      That’s part of the time. I work for the Inter-World Insurance Service Corporation in Denver, Colorado. Inter-World is owned by Niels Bancroft. His admiration for me stops just short of raising my salary, and whenever anybody else has a problem, he is apt to promise that I will solve it.

      That was what happened two years ago. Somebody had mislaid a British diplomat, and he’d turned up in the lost-and-found department of the Communist government of East Germany. Until that moment I couldn’t have sworn that Karl Marx wasn’t one of the Marx brothers, but suddenly I was loaned to the State Department and was on my way to Germany, posing as a fugitive Communist. The general idea was that I was to bring the diplomat back.

      I did, but the mission would have been a flop if it hadn’t been for Greta. She had been temporarily taken in by the Reds, but by the time I’d arrived she’d already discovered that they were about as democratic as a hangman’s noose. She wanted out. So did I. The British diplomat didn’t, but we took him along with us when we went.

      For two years we’d carried on a romance of sorts in the damnedest places. We’d held hands beneath the conference tables of congressional investigating committees and kissed in the corridors of the FBI. Finally she was cleared by every government agency, with the possible exception of the Department of Wildlife, and we were left to our own devices. These had led us to the present situation.

      There was a silence in the room, and I had a vague recollection of the voice saying something about man and wife. I guessed that the ceremony was over and kissed the bride. Nobody screamed, so I must have been right.

      There weren’t many people there for the wedding. We’d invited Niels Bancroft and a few friends. Maybe fifteen people. They crowded around us for the congratulations. As soon as that was over, we were supposed to go out to a combination breakfast and lunch, which was on Niels. After that, Greta and I would take off for a week in the mountains.

      The door opened and a big, gray-haired man stepped into the room. It was Lieutenant Murray Malikoff of the Denver Police. We were friendly, but I hadn’t invited him to the wedding because I knew he was on duty. I decided he must have been in the neighborhood and had taken advantage of it.

      You’re just in time to kiss the bride, I said.

      He grinned a little tightly as though he were tired. He went over and pecked at Greta’s cheek. Then he shook my hand.

      Congratulations, Milo, he said. I hope you have better luck with the rest of the marriage than with the beginning.

      What does that mean? I asked.

      You’re under arrest, Milo.

      For a minute I thought it was a gag. You mean the rest of my wives have caught up with me? I asked.

      Murray shook his head seriously. This is no joke, Milo. The department has been requested to arrest you.

      By whom?

      The Department of Justice.

      The brief exchange of information had accomplished one thing. It had stopped all the conversation in the room.

      Then where’s the FBI? I asked. I still wasn’t sure that it wasn’t a joke. They usually do the arresting for the Department.

      He nodded. Brown, in the local FBI office, is the one who asked me to bring you in. He knows I’m your friend and he thought that might make it easier.

      Oh, sure, I said. I always like to be arrested by my friends. What’s the charge?

      They just want you for questioning.

      I didn’t know what it was about, but that didn’t sound so bad. All right, I said. Let’s go down to this Brown’s office; he can ask his questions and then Greta and I can be on our way.

      It isn’t quite that simple, Milo, the Lieutenant said. I don’t know what it’s all about. Neither does Brown. But they want you for questioning in New York.

      New York? I said blankly.

      We’ll fight it, roared Niels Bancroft. That was my boss. He was always eager to fight over somebody else’s body. We’re not going to be frightened by the FBI!

      Share and share alike, I said bitterly. I’ll go to jail and Niels will do the yelling.

      He gave me a look that said I didn’t appreciate him. The look was right. I didn’t.

      Greta edged closer and slipped her hand into mine. What is it, Milo? she asked.

      I don’t know, honey, I said. Maybe the junior senator is scraping the bottom of the barrel. But nobody was in the mood for jokes, even feeble ones. Niels is right about one thing, honey. We’ll do something about it. Maybe they’ll hold off their questioning for a week.

      I suggested that, the Lieutenant said. He looked unhappy. They won’t wait. I talked over the whole situation with Brown. You have two choices, Milo. You can fight going to New York if you want to. In that case, however, I’ll have to take you in and hold you until a decision is made.

      That’s a lovely choice, I said brightly, but I don’t think I care for it. I don’t recall that there’s a bridal suite in the local jail. What’s the other choice?

      I explained the whole situation to Brown, Lieutenant Malikoff said, and he made a suggestion. If you will agree to go voluntarily to New York, I can take you straight to the airport and put you on a plane. In fact, there’s one in about a half hour. It’ll put you in New York in four and a half hours. Brown says that with luck you’ll be through with the questioning in about an hour. You can take the next plane back and be in Denver tonight. So it will delay your honeymoon by only a few hours.

      There’s only one thing I don’t like about it, I said. That phrase ‘with luck.’ What does it mean?

      Lieutenant Malikoff shrugged. I don’t know what they want to question you about, so I can’t say. I suppose it refers to the answers you give.

      And with another kind of luck I could end up in Alcatraz, I suppose, I said.

      You know your own vulnerability better than I do, he said dryly.

      I grinned. The only thing I can think of is that I have some intention of impairing the morals of my wife. Is that illegal?

      Some places it is, he said. Seriously, Milo, I’m told that the questioning is a matter of routine despite the fact that there is some urgency on their part. Whatever the case is, the department does not believe that you are directly involved—only that you may be able to provide needed information.

      That’s fine as far as it goes, I said. Information on what?

      I don’t know.

      Milo, Greta said, putting her hand on my arm, why not go voluntarily? Murray says you’ll be able to be back here by night, so at the most we’ll lose only the afternoon.

      She was right. There was no point in being stuffy about it. If the Department of Justice wanted me, they’d get me one way or the other, so I might as well make it easy on myself. Okay, honey, I said. I’ll do it.

      Good, the Lieutenant said. Come on. I’ll take you to the airport. There’s just about enough time to make the next flight.

      You mean they’ll trust me to go alone? I asked.

      At my suggestion, he said. Just remember that, if you get any sudden ideas about taking off into the wild blue yonder.

      With Greta here as a hostage? Not a chance. Where do I have to go when I reach New York—the Justice Department?

      He shook his head. Immigration and Naturalization Service at Seventy Columbus Circle.

      Immigration? I said. What the hell can I tell them about immigration?

      Maybe, Greta said hesitatingly, it has to do with your bringing me back from Germany.

      Couldn’t be, I said. You were a citizen.

      Save it for later, Malikoff said. We don’t have much time.

      So I kissed Greta, listened patiently to a number of funny fellows who offered to take care of the bride, and went down to the street with Lieutenant Malikoff. We got into the police car and got under way.

      A fine thing, I grumbled. If anybody asks me where we spent our honeymoon, I’ll have to say that she went to the mountains and I went to New York City.

      He grunted something.

      Then, I said, if anybody wants to know why, I suppose I can always say that I’d been to the mountains. He opened the siren and that was his only answer. I didn’t blame him. It didn’t deserve any more than that.

      With the help of the siren we went through Denver without stopping. There were still three minutes before flight time when we arrived at the airport. I’d been wondering if I’d be able to get a seat, but I discovered that the FBI had taken care of that. They’d made a reservation.

      Okay, Murray, I said. I’m off in my own custody. Who do I see when I get there?

      Gardner. He’s expecting you. And don’t worry about getting back tonight, Milo. The Bureau will also see to it that you have a reservation on the return flight.

      They’re so good to me, I said dryly. I bought a mystery novel at the newsstand—it wasn’t exactly what I’d been looking forward to, but it would have to do—and climbed aboard the plane. Two minutes later we took off.

      It was a four-and-a-half-hour flight, and the mystery novel took care of no more than one fourth of it. After that I chain-smoked and wondered what the hell the Immigration Service could want with me. I’d done a lot of things in my life, but so far as I could remember, I’d never smuggled anyone in or out of the country.

      It was the middle of the afternoon when we sat down on LaGuardia Field. If I’d been patting myself on the back over the fact that they’d let me come alone, I soon got over it. There was a Bureau man waiting there for me. He drove me into the city and delivered me at the office on Columbus Circle.

      Mr. Gardner saw me right away. He looked so much less official than the Bureau man who had just escorted me that I immediately felt more relaxed. He talked to me pleasantly about my flight for two or three minutes until a secretary came in with a folder. She placed it on the desk and walked out. There was just enough jiggle to her hips to remind me that I was supposed to be on my honeymoon instead of sitting in a New York office.

      By the time I got my gaze back to Mr. Gardner he had opened the folder and was looking more official. I reluctantly forgot about hips and honeymoons.

      Mr. March, he said, I believe that you made a trip to Spain within the last year. Is that correct?

      Yes.

      For what purpose?

      To recover a rather valuable diamond. I wondered what he was after. I’d probably broken a few Spanish laws while I was there, but I hadn’t broken any American ones.

      I believe you also brought back the man who had stolen the diamond?

      That’s right, I said. But he was an American citizen and he agreed to come voluntarily with me.

      He nodded. So I understand. Now, Mr. March, while you were about the business of apprehending him in Spain, did you use any Spanish nationals to help you with the search?

      I started to say that I hadn’t, then realized that wasn’t strictly true. Yes. I did have a boy shadow the man for a number of days.

      He glanced at the folder. Was that one Ernesto Pujol?

      Yes. I hitched my chair a little closer to his desk. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to know what this is all about. So far, no one has told me anything.

      He put the folder down on the desk and placed the tips of his fingers together. He peered at me over the tops of them. Yesterday, he said, a stowaway was discovered on one of the big liners after it had docked. He is a Spanish national. He has given his name as Ernesto Pujol and has informed us, through interpreters, that he came here because you told him to.

      I grinned. I

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1