DISPEL THE MIST by Marilyn Meredith

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Deputy Tempe Crabtree, Dispel the Mist, F.M. Meredith, Marilyn Meredith, mystery novel, mystery series, Native American legends, online book promotion, the Hairy Man, virtual book tour

 

 

 

 

Author: Marilyn Meredith
Title: Dispel the Mist
Publisher: Mundania Press
Genre: Mystery
Language: English

PURCHASE HERE

A Tulare County Supervisor, with both Native American and Mexican roots, dies under suspicious circumstances. Because of Deputy Tempe Crabtree’s own ties to the Bear Creek Indian Reservation, she’s asked to help with the investigation. To complicate matters, besides the supervisor’s husband, several others had reason to want the woman dead.

Tempe has unsettling dreams, dreams that may predict the future and bring back memories of her grandmother’s stories about the legend of the Hairy Man. Once again, Tempe’s life is threatened and this time, she fears no one will come to her rescue in time.

Her first dream was about her grandmother. Once again, Tempe was a child, cuddling against the soft warm body. Grandma’s nut brown wrinkled face, always expressive when she told Tempe the Indian stories. Love for her granddaughter apparent in her dark eyes. Tempe smelled the lavender that grandma always sprinkled into her dresser drawers. In the dream, she told a story Tempe had never heard before.

In the old days, women learned never to leave their acorn meal unattended. All day long they made ground acorns on the big rocks near the river. Then they took the meal down to the water to wash out the poison. They left it in the sun to dry, but when they came back it was gone.

Grandma paused dramatically and Tempe gasped. Who could have taken the acorn meal?

None of the women took it. None of the children took it. When they looked around they found big footprints in the sand where they left the meal, so they knew the Hairy Man had eaten it. He liked Indian food too and was smart enough to know he needed to wait until the acorn meal was leached of its bitterness before he took it. After that, they always set aside a portion of the leached meal for the Hairy Man. The women always wondered if the sound of them pounding the acorns let him know when it was time to come for his share of the food.

Tempe wanted to ask her grandmother questions about the Hairy Man, like did he still come for the acorn meal, but she faded away.

The only reason Tempe remembered this dream was because she had an urgent need to go to the bathroom. On her way back to bed, she noticed Hutch hadn’t joined her, so it must still be evening. Still sleepy, she thought briefly about the dream deciding it had absolutely no relationship to Supervisor Quintera’s death and promptly returned to her slumber.

Her next dream was a nightmare. Tempe knew she was on the reservation, but it was different looking as familiar places often are in dreams. The buildings all seemed dilapidated and badly in need of repair though she couldn’t see them clearly because of a grayish-yellow swirling mist surrounding everything. Jagged black mountain peaks poked through the clouds. Though she was alone, a feeling of menace was so prevalent, she could almost smell it.

In fact, she did smell a sour aroma mixed with smoke, like someone was burning trash with something toxic in it. Not knowing exactly what to do or where to go, she walked down the road which instead of being paved was dirt, and filled with rocks. No vehicles were around, either moving or parked.

Without warning, a large man who resembled Cruz Murphy stepped out of the fog. He held up a hand, palm out. “Stop. Danger ahead.”

“Maybe I can help,” Tempe said, moving closer to him, but as she did, he faded into the mist.

“Chief Murphy. Cruz, wait. Tell me what’s going on. I need to know.”

He didn’t answer, but another figure appeared from the gloom, Daniel Burcena dressed all in black. His features sharp and menacing. “You should heed warnings that are given to you. You may have native blood flowing through your veins, but your heart isn’t on the reservation. Everyone who lives here can see that. Go back where you came from.”

“I loved my grandmother,” Tempe said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t proud of my Indian heritage. Let me make it up to her.”

“It’s too late. Way too late.”

A warning siren blew. People ran from the buildings, spilling out onto the road and crowding around Tempe. What was going on? The siren stopped for a moment. It sounded again. More shrill this time. It stopped and then shrieked again.

It was the phone. Tempe shook the nightmare from her mind and picked up the receiver. “Deputy Crabtree.”

A strange voice, one that sounded like it was electronically altered growled, “Stay away from Painted Rock.”

 
Marilyn Meredith is the author of over twenty-five published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest Dispel the Mist from Mundania Press. Under the name of F. M. Meredith she writes the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series. No Sanctuary is the newest from Oak Tree Press.

She is a member of EPIC, four chapters of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, WOK, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. She was an instructor for Writer’s Digest School for ten years, served as an instructor at the Maui Writer’s Retreat and many other writer’s conferences. She makes her home in Springville CA, much like Bear Creek where Deputy Tempe Crabtree lives. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com.

Kindred Spirits by Marilyn Meredith

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crime mystery, Deputy Tempe Crabtree, Kindred Spirits, Marilyn Meredith, murder mystery, Pump Up Your Book Promotion, virtual book tour

KINDRED SPIRITS

By Marilyn Meredith

 

 

 

Trouble in Deputy Crabtree’s marriage is soon forgotten when the body of a murder victim is found in the wake of a forest fire. Sent to Crescent City in search of information introduces Tempe to the victim’s Tolowa relatives and friends–along with two stalkers and Big Foot.

 

Upon her return home, a pig’s heart on Tempe’s front porch serves as a warning. Detective Morrison becomes an unusual ally, and the victim’s spirit visits Tempe in the night. She and husband Hutch set off for Santa Barbara in an effort to flush out the murderer and once again she finds her own life threatened.

 

Chapter One

 

 

                Before Deputy Tempe Crabtree could see evidence of the forest fire, she could smell it.

                Smoke was heavy in the air and got thicker as she drove up the highway into the mountains. Monday was one of her days off, but when something happened in her jurisdiction she was often the first responder. Her instructions from the sheriff’s sub-station in Dennison were to make sure everyone who lived in the path of the fire started in the higher elevations of Bear Creek canyon had obeyed evacuation orders.

                As resident deputy of the large but sparsely populated area around the mountain community of Bear Creek, Tempe ’s job usually consisted of making traffic stops, arresting drunk drivers, solving problems among neighbors, and looking for lost children or cattle. Along with the highway patrol, Tempe was the law in the community located in the southern Sierra where the foothills turned into mountains.

                The last estimate Tempe had heard about the fast moving fire in rugged country was that it covered more than 1100 acres. She was stopped at the staging area by a highway patrolman she knew by sight though couldn’t remember his name.

                Though his uniform still had sharp creases, large circles of dampness crept from his underarms. Opaque sunglasses covered his eyes. He put both hands on  the open window of her Blazer as he bent down to speak to her. “Where’re you headed, Deputy?”

                “My orders are to check out some of the houses in the path of the fire. Make sure everyone’s out.”

                “Be careful you don’t put yourself in danger. It’s one fast-moving fire. It’s in a rough area where they haven’t been able to get in any personnel yet. They’re doing lots of water drops. All the roads are closed from here on up.”

                “Thanks for the warning. I know some of the folks who might not have received the word yet.”

                Tempe drove by the private airstrip that had been taken over as the fire command post. Men and equipment, fire engines, water tenders and bulldozers were being dispatched from there as well as truckloads of hand crews.

                Leaving her window down, Tempe drove around the traffic cones that temporarily blocked access to the road. She planned to stop at the Donaldsons’, but they were loading horses into a trailer, obviously on their way out.

                The higher she drove on the winding road, the darker the sky, the thicker the smoke, the harder it was to breathe. Ashes showered on her white Blazer. She passed fire trucks and men heading upward to fight the fire. In her heart she was thankful her son, Blair, was already back on the coast for his last year in college or he’d be on the fire lines. Fighting fire had been his first love since the age of sixteen when he began hanging around Bear Creek’s fire station.

                Tempe stopped at several homes hidden down winding trails or perched on hilltops, surrounded by pine and cedar trees and underbrush. Most homes were deserted with signs of hurried evacuation.

                Loaded pick-up trucks drove down the hill, some pulling horse or cattle trailers, not getting out any too soon from the looks of the black sky and the large amount of falling ash.

                She had one more place she wanted to check. A beautiful home and separate studio built of sugar pine stood atop a knoll surrounded by Chaparral, and a thick pine forest. Tempe had been there once on a domestic abuse call. The owner, a well-known artist, Vanessa Ainsworth, now lived alone since her boy-friend had been served with a restraining order. If Vanessa wasn’t gone already, Tempe hoped to help her collect her animals and paintings and carry some of them out for her.

                When Tempe made the last turn before Vanessa’s she was halted by a horrifying sight.

To find out more about Marilyn Meredith’s new book, Kindred Spirits, visit Marilyn’s website here or follow their virtual book tour here.  If you would like to pick up a copy of Marilyn Meredith’s book at Amazon, click here.