Nursery Rhyme Murders Collection_3-4-2017 Read online

  Here is the value-packed Nursery Rhyme Murders Collection Omnibus, containing Humpty Dumpty, All Fall Down and Jack and Jill full-length novels. It also includes the short stories Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary and the EXCLUSIVE Old Woman in a Shoe, Eennie Meanie Moe and Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater! Hours and hours of gruesome thrills for just $9.99!!!

  **Warning, this collection includes GRAPHIC crime scenes and taut thrills. Please do not read this collection unless you have a strong stomach and don't scare easily!

  Praise for The Nursery Rhyme Murders Collection…

  “Come for the murder, stay for the three-dimensional, realistically fractured characters! … Long plane rides and rainy Saturday afternoons were made for books like this. If you like your suspense with a side of gruesome and a dash of humor, this is it.”

  Brandon Stanley

  Amazon Reviewer

  “Humpty Dumpty is a wonderful start to what I hope will be the first in a fun and thrilling series. I found myself flipping the pages to get to the end and what an ending. The story was well written and the dialogue was sharp, witty and fast-paced. The chemistry between the main characters, Joshua, Had and Cooper was magical… Eagerly awaiting the next installment in this series.”

  Romano Robusto

  Amazon Reviewer

  “Another good crime series from one of my favorites. Once again Carolyn McCray has brought together an interesting cast of characters. Each member of the team has flaws, just like real people. The concept of using nursery rhymes as a theme for murder gives the story a creepy edge. The plot twists will keep you guessing.”

  J. Duarte

  Amazon Reviewer

  “I am a big fan of this author’s novels… So, I have been excited and waiting a long time for this story… I was not disappointed and continued to read every single page all the way to an ending that was unbelievable, made me feel a little sick, and left me just as speechless as Agent Sariah Cooper… I have never read an ending to a book like this ever and it’s a vision that will be with me for quite a while.”

  Robin Lee

  Amazon Reviewer

  "For me, a book that inspires my imagination so much that I can see the movie playing along as I go is a great read – and this definitely does that. Highly, heartily recommended for fans of murder/mystery novels, fans of James Patterson, and fans of action/mystery movies.”

  Knikki Jacobsmeyer

  Amazon Reviewer

  If you enjoy the pace of Patterson, the glorious gore of Harris and the wit of Cornwall, you are going to LOVE Humpty Dumpty.

  Main Menu

  MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY

  The short story prequel to Humpty Dumpty

  HUMPTY DUMPTY

  The full-length novel that started it all

  OLD WOMAN IN A SHOE

  The bridge short story between Humpty Dumpty and All Fall Down

  ALL FALL DOWN

  The second full-length novel in the series

  EENNIE MEANIE MOE

  The bridge short story between All Fall Down and Jack and Jill

  JACK AND JILL

  The stunning full-length conclusion to the series

  PETER, PETER, PUMPKIN EATER

  The wrap-up short story

  BONUS MATERIAL

  DEVIOUS

  A prequel short story to 9th Circle, 1st in the Darc Murders Collection

  CHILD’S PLAY

  A prequel short story to Amber Alert, 1st in the Empty Crib Mysteries

  ANATOMY

  A prequel short story to Plain Jane: Brunettes Beware, 1st in the Harbinger Series

  OUTLIERS

  A prequel short story to Bangkok Butcher, 1st in The International Hunters, Inc. Collection

  Start Reading

  About the Authors

  Afterword

  Other Works

  Contact

  Copyright

  MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY… The prequel short story to Humpty Dumpty

  CHAPTER 1

  The garden was lush, organic and a bit wild. This was very much a garden after the English tradition, not the French. No straight lines, no contorted figures carved out of the hedges. All growth and color and beauty and the natural light of a gorgeous sunrise.

  Which made the hand sticking up out of the ground that much more disturbing.

  Special Agent Sariah Cooper moved through the grounds, inspecting every blade of grass for additional clues. The officer who had found the crime scene had done an excellent job keeping the site from getting contaminated, but Sariah never trusted anyone, much less local cops in a small community, to find all that a crime scene had to offer.

  Hell, she didn’t trust herself. At every point she could, Sariah made sure her work was double- and triple-checked. Her colleagues in the Behavioral Analysis Unit might call her a stuck-up, know-it-all bitch, but she knew what the truth really was. And the truth was no one was one hundred percent trustworthy. Not one single person.

  Sariah redirected her attention to the task at hand. Sloppy killers were easy. They left behind so much evidence, the main problem was sorting through all of it and prioritizing what needed attention first.

  This one, however, was anything but sloppy. Sariah had to give it to… her? Even the mental acknowledgment of gender made Sariah cringe. Local cops were blaming this murder on the serial killer who’d been labeled Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.

  There were several problems with that. One, there was no conclusive evidence that the killer was a woman. Shallow graves for the victims, consistent M.O., and poison as the weapon of choice all pointed to a feminine perp, but without something concrete, the killer’s sex was still very much up in the air as far as Sariah was concerned.

  Second, there was no way to know if this body was one of Mary’s. Sure, they were in a garden and there was a shallow grave. That fit the profile for the previous killings. Okay, fine. That was some strong circumstantial evidence, but… Making up one’s mind before all the information was gathered just ensured mistakes. It was so easy to overlook important details when you already knew what had happened.

  Finally, and in Sariah’s mind most significantly, there had been a hand sticking up out of the ground. Did no one but her see the significance of that not-so-little point? Up to this point, the unsub had been so careful to bury the body three feet down. A careful killer didn’t just accidentally leave random body parts exposed, no matter how shallow the grave was.

  “Agent Cooper,” Officer Kyle Hadderly called out. He was the BAU’s liaison from the police precinct here in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “Come take a look.”

  As she stepped closer to the turned earth where the hand had been found, she felt rather than saw her fellow team members from the BAU part around her, never coming within two arm spans of her epicenter. Sariah sighed. It was always like this, no matter what the setting.

  At one point in her life, she might’ve blamed it on the fact that she was African American. Easy to see racism in the predominantly white department. But when counterexample after counterexample reared its head, after a while you just gave in to the quieter, uglier truth.

  They just didn’t like her much.

  The attitudes of her fellow Special Agents had not seemed to taint the opinion of their Michigan PD liaison, though. He seemed to have taken to her immediately, and although she was clearly not at the top of the pecking order, Officer Hadderly was treating her as if she were. Flattering. And awkward. But Sariah wasn’t about to correct the problem. Right now, all the information came to her first.

  Hadderly stepped aside as Sariah got closer, giving her an easier line of sight to the excavatio
n that was happening. “We’ve dug down more than two feet now, and that hand is getting pretty lonely. There’s nothing else so far.”

  “The hand wasn’t attached to anything?” Sariah asked. Dismemberment wasn’t part of Mary, Mary’s modus operandi, and if the unsub really was a female, they were statistically unlikely to change six bodies in.

  “Nopey-dope,” Officer Hadderly said, with a goofy grin. “And I think it’s pretty freaky that the only body part so far was stuck in the ground in a way that made it look like someone was reaching out to grab you.” He gave a mock shudder. “Creeee-peee.”

  Sariah nodded, but she was lost in thought. There was another serial killer for whom random body parts sticking out of the ground was par for the course. But that wasn’t a name that would go over well with her team. And there was still another foot or so to go in order to rule out Mary. Her graves to date had been dug to a depth of three to four feet.

  “I’ll tell you something else, just between you, me and Thing over there.” Hadderly nodded in the direction of the appendage. “Mr. Happy Hand was not lookin’ so happy, if you know what I mean.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t, Officer.”

  “Right. Sorry. I get a little macabre at a crime scene. Gallows humor runs in the family. Dad’s a mortician, so…” Hadderly shrugged. “Anyhoo. Hand looks like it’s been preserved somehow. Frozen, maybe. A hand-sicle!” He looked into her face, apparently didn’t see what he was looking for, and hung his head. “Again, sorry.”

  Sariah wished she was better at the social game. A small smile from her would have gone a long way towards breaking the ice here. She liked Officer Hadderly. Even thought he was funny. So why not show it? Would it really be risking all that much?

  Looking around at the rest of her team, Sariah realized that perhaps it would be. Sariah heaved another large sigh.

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for, Officer. Really.” His face brightened up, like a switch had been thrown. Sariah felt her own lips twitch upward in response. “So what makes you think the hand wasn’t fresh?”

  “Father. Mortician.” He shrugged, his expression sheepish. “Agent Cooper, I’ve seen a lot of preserved bodies in my day. Used to give me nightmares. Dad just thought it was funny.”

  “He sounds like he must have been a real laugh riot.”

  Hadderly chuckled. “You have no idea.” He gazed up into Sariah’s eyes, his smile deepening.

  The officer was shortish, with a face that looked far younger than the lines in his forehead seemed to indicate. Most of the ravages of time appeared to be from smiles and laughs, the wrinkles combining with the mischief radiating out of his eyes to form a singular image of a man who hadn’t lost his ability to play.

  The eye contact went on for a moment or two longer than was comfortable for Sariah. She dropped her eyes, not wanting to give him the wrong idea of where this could go. He was handsome, interesting and funny, but there was no chance of anything happening here.

  Officer Hadderly seemed to get the message. He backed off the intensity of his gaze, but somehow managed to do it in a way that didn’t diminish any of his warmth towards her. No wall, no defensiveness, no show of wounded masculine arrogance. Sariah was surprised and more than a little pleased. She had been sure she’d just pushed away her best ally here in Michigan.

  Glancing around, Sariah saw that the space around her—and now Officer Hadderly—had increased to four arm lengths. She needed all the allies she could get.

  As Officer Hadderly shifted his weight from one foot to another, Sariah focused on the reason he had called her over in the first place. What now looked like it was a disembodied hand, stuck in a shallow grave in such a way that it would look like part of a corpse poking up out of the ground. A hand that may have been on ice until just now.

  “I know what this is,” Sariah whispered.

  “What?” Hadderly perked back up, his attention having been diverted by a shiny object. Literally. One of the team had recovered a piece of costume jewelry out at the far edges of the garden. “You find something?”

  “No,” Sariah corrected, her skin heating up. There was no way of explaining her ideas without some level of embarrassment, but she was now convinced that this crime scene was not from the same killer that had been terrorizing this area.

  “Okay, so you didn’t find anything, but something just happened, right? That, or my emoto-meter needs to be recalibrated.”

  Sariah glanced into the face of this local cop who had, for some unfathomable reason, decided that she was worth speaking to. Without consciously deciding to do so, she found herself speaking the words that could very well scuttle any respect for her this officer might have.

  “I think this is Humpty Dumpty’s work.”

  The officer’s eyes dilated. “Whoa. Humpty Dumpty? Really? I thought that guy was an urban legend.”

  Okay, at least that wasn’t the worst response she’d ever gotten when she’d brought up this particular serial killer. “No. People think that because he hasn’t been active in almost thirteen years. But I have… I’m… connected to the case. Sort of.” Once more, her skin flushed.

  “You’re kidding! So… connected how?” He looked intently into her face and then backed up a step. “Unless that’s a bad question to ask…”

  “No, no…” Sariah cleared her throat, making a decision. “I work on body parts.”

  Officer Hadderly’s face was a study in incomprehension. “You what?”

  Another clearing of the throat. “Body parts. All the random body parts that are found anywhere in the US end up coming across my desk.” Sariah allowed herself a dark smirk. “Sometimes literally.”

  “Wow… that sounds…” Hadderly appeared to be groping for an appropriate word.

  “Low down on the totem pole? Yep. Pretty much.” Sariah pointed her thumbs into her chest. “That’s me.”

  “No, that’s not… What I was going to say was that it sounds kind of fascinating.” He made a face. “You know, and gross. But that just reminds me of my childhood. Makes me feel all warm and homey. Or something.”

  Sariah gave him a wry grin. “Thanks for that.” She gestured with her head around at the BAU team, still swarming around the garden. “But for your own sake, you might want to find a different agent to be friendly with. Talking with me isn’t going to do much for your relationship with the rest of these guys.”

  Hadderly followed her gesture, looking around the garden at the agents working there. He then slowly returned his gaze to Sariah, his face uncharacteristically solemn.

  “No thanks.”

  “What?”

  The officer sighed. “Why would I want to stop talking with the most intelligent person here?” He reached out a hand and chucked her on the shoulder. “You’ve got the goods, Coop.”

  Coop. She liked that.

  “Okay,” Hadderly continued. “We’ve established that I’m not going to go off to kiss the ass of whoever’s highest on the—what did you call it?—totem pole. So now will you tell me what’s up with you and the Humpty Dumpty killer?”

  “Well, here’s the thing. Everyone thinks I’m either crazy or just looking to climb up the ranks faster. So if you get on this train with me…”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ve been warned. Ooooooo.” He made a ghost noise and waggled his fingers back and forth.

  “Right. Well, I’ve had two random body parts show up from different parts of the US that came from the same body…”

  “Which fits in with Humpty’s M.O. Gotcha.” The officer thought for a moment, then frowned. “Two parts. Which means it’s not enough to establish a pattern in anyone’s mind. But still. Sounds significant to me.”

  “Obviously, we’ll have to wait and see if anything else is dug up here. And then there’s the DNA testing that’ll have to be done. But—”

  “But it’s probably enough that you should say something to your boss,” Hadderly concluded for her. “And you’re not positive you want to do that
.”

  “That’s pretty much it. My boss seems to like me better than the rest of the BAU. Well, he doesn’t actively avoid me, at least.” Sariah wrung her hands together, taking out her nerves on her fingers. “But what I’m thinking is pretty out there.”

  “More out there than Humpty Dumpty?”

  “Yeah.” Sariah took a deep breath, and then continued. “I think he did this on purpose, to get our attention.”

  Hadderly raised his eyebrows, but refrained from making any other comment. Sariah saw why a moment later, when one of her fellow agents appeared from behind her. It was Agent Salazar. Of course, it would have to be.

  Salazar was the lead agent on this team, and one of the few that took the time to talk to her. Unfortunately, when he did, it was only to insinuate in not-so-subtle ways that Sariah was nothing but a climber. He never said anything overt, nothing she could challenge, but it was crystal clear what he thought of her.

  The agent studiously avoided looking at Sariah as he delivered his report. “We’ve finished processing the grave site. We’re down to bedrock and there’s no sign of the rest of the body.”

  “All righty, then,” Officer Hadderly stated. “Let’s get you guys set up in your new digs back at the office.” He made his hands into a steeple, winked at her and said, “And then we get to catch a bad guy… or bad girl… or whatever.”

  There’s just one problem with that, Sariah thought to herself. The case that brought us out here has nothing to do with the case we’re supposed to be solving.

  * * *

  Kyle Hadderly pulled his cruiser into a parking spot outside the precinct office. He’d given directions for the agents to follow, although only Agents Cooper and Salazar had been ready to leave the site at that point.

  This was… well, it was awesome, that’s what it was. Kyle had only ever worked a couple of homicides in his career before Mary, Mary came to town. Not all that much call for it in Ann Arbor. And of the two that he had worked, one had been over a cheating spouse, the other over a card game gone horribly wrong.

  Nothing that would ever get onto the national news. Nothing that would ever get the attention of the BAU.