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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780692316146 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tell-Tale Publishing Group, LLC |
| Publication date: | 10/17/2014 |
| Pages: | 338 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Shadow of innocence
A NOVELBy Ric Wasley
Kunati Inc.
Copyright © 2007 Ric WasleyAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60164-006-2
Chapter One
Falmouth, Massachusetts | Cape Cod | Father's Jazz and Folk ClubJuly 25, 1968 | 10:13 p.m.
The smoke from hundreds of smoldering cigarettes and joints swirled around the sweating black singer rasping out a hard version of 'Cocaine Blues.' His dark, craggy features had a Mephistophelian look, Blair Prentiss Vanderwall mused, and the thought gave her a delightfully wicked little shiver.
"What are you smirking about?" asked her friend Valerie from across the tiny, wine-wet table.
Blair took a deep, languid drag from the innocuous looking Salem cigarette dangling between her left index and forefinger. She held the smoke in her lungs for a moment and let the mellow Acapulco Gold, with which they had replaced the tobacco, free her mind to drift a few planes closer to her own personal nirvana.
The third girl at the table, Jackie Trainor, watched Blair watching the stage and giggled to Valerie, "She's wondering what it would be like to make love to a ... black man."
The whispered words only heightened Blair's amusement and excitement. She loved the smoke and the smell of pot, the noise, the wine, but there was something Blair Vanderwall loved more than anything else.
Dangerous boys.
She shifted her gaze to the long bar at the right of the stage. A pair of reckless,dangerous eyes stared back at her.
She drew another deep drag and let the smoke slide out through her nostrils, where it hung around her honey-blond hair like a wavering halo crowning one of hell's cutest little angels.
The tall, lanky guy at the bar pushed his sweat-stained leather cowboy hat back onto his forehead and smiled at her.
Blair took the Salem out of her mouth, and with the innocent-erotic look she had perfected, slowly licked the rim of her upper lip.
She watched with the satisfaction of impending conquest as the guy in the denim shirt and faded jeans pushed his elbows off the bar, picked up his beer, and walked toward their table.
Looking into his smoky blue eyes as he closed the distance to her table, Blair allowed herself a small smile.
Those eyes held the promise of new thrills. Maybe even of danger!
The rangy 'cowboy' strode over, pushed his leather-tooled hat back on his head and grinned.
"Evenin', little lady. Cody Ewing. Mind if I sit down?"
Blair pushed a chair out from the table with her foot and nodded.
"What kind of name is Cody?" she asked, twirling her long blond hair around her right forefinger.
"Well, hell, little lady," he drawled, "what kind of name do ya want it to be?"
"Ummm, I don't know, something interesting," Blair mused, pretending to look up at the ceiling so that she could arch her long, graceful neck and stretch her arms, artfully allowing the scoop neck of the peasant blouse to fall open and provide a tantalizing glimpse of firm, round breasts.
The view was not lost on Cody. He grinned again and said, "Well, if you like wild, good ol' boys and bad-ass outlaws, then yeah, I guess you could say it's sort of interesting."
"Tell me," Blair whispered, "and make it exciting."
Cody's grin widened, and he moved his chair closer.
"All right, then. Well it goes back to my granddaddy, Cyrus. It seems that when he was just a kid, one day he was down in Louisville with his pa, sellin' tobacco, when this Wild West show came to town."
Blair raised her white-blond eyelashes and looked up over the rim of her glass. "Go on."
"Well, Miss-what was your name again, darlin'?"
"Blair."
"Blair. Now that's a beautiful name fer a beautiful lady."
"I said go on," she smiled. "You already have my attention."
"Well, like I was saying, my granddaddy saw this here big feller, riding out in front of the Wild West show. Sittin' way up high on a big white palomino horse, two pearl-handle 'Peacemaker' revolvers on his hips, that he commenced to shootin' off as the parade wound down the main street.
"And, ma'am," the boy drawled as he slipped an arm around Blair's shoulders, "he was so taken by that feller that he just up and runned off and joined up with that show. He got a job taking care of the horses and the other livestock, and so's his daddy wouldn't know where to find him if he came a-lookin', he changed his name. He changed his first name in honor of that feller on the big, white horse. Buffalo Bill. And I wound up gettin' part of that name that Granddaddy took."
The cowboy put his lips next to her perfect pink ear and whispered, "Cody."
Blair moved her head a fraction of an inch closer to those lips and whispered back, "Tell me more."
Cody drew in a breath and started to speak, but Blair put her fingers to his lips and said, "Not here. On the dance floor."
The club's jukebox played between the live music sets. Blair smiled, intertwined her fingers with Cody's and pulled him up from the table. "Dance with me. I like this song. It's slow. You know how to dance slow, cowboy?"
"Jest try me, darlin'," he grinned.
Chapter Two
Newport Neck Tennis and Beach ClubJuly 26, 1968 | 9:06 a.m.
"Come on, Davy," four-year-old Timmy Perkins whined at his older brother. "Let me see."
"No," David answered with a scowl. "Go back to the sand castle. I'll be there in a minute."
As the big brother, David's mom had drilled into him, he was expected to take charge, set an example, and above all, keep Timmy out of trouble.
As Davy stared at the big pile of seaweed, Timmy inched closer and reached out with his right hand to pull aside the long strands of green and brown.
"Damn it, Timmy!" Davy yelled. "I told you to go back to the sand castle. Now get out of here!"
Timmy looked at his older brother for a moment then his face crumpled and he let out a wail. "Mom! Mom!" he yelled, running to her.
Freshly lathered with Johnson's Baby Oil, she glanced up just long enough to assure herself that her youngest wasn't drowning then let her eyes drop back to her Harold Robbins novel.
After the third eardrum-splitting "mom-my!" she reluctantly inserted a finger between the pages of her paperback and looked up.
"What is it now, Timmy?" she sighed.
"Davy's not being fair!" Timmy gasped, stamping his foot. "He said we should go look for seashells for the sand castle. And I did, but I didn't find any." Timmy stopped long enough to draw a breath and went on in a rush, "And Davie found a whole, giant, humongous, super-big pile of shells and all this seaweed, and then when I came over to get some he told me to get away and go back to the sand castles and ... and ..." Timmy paused once more and then added triumphantly "... and he swore!"
Shielding her eyes from the glare of the morning sun, she looked at her oldest boy, poking a pile of seaweed with a stick.
Timmy followed his mother's gaze and said, "See, he's got a whole big pile of shells and stuff, and he's hogging them all for himself."
Timmy's mother looked at him again, wondering if she was really going to have to leave her comfortable chair and Harold Robbins to deal with the situation. She looked down and sighed. It was just getting interesting, too. That guy had just gone into that girl's apartment in Hollywood and found her sprawled on the bed and she was dea ...
Timmy added the coup de grâce. "Mom, he's not sharing."
That did it.
It always happens, she thought. No sooner do I get a chance to sit down and read when one of them has a problem.
With the long-suffering sigh of beleaguered mothers everywhere, Mrs. Donald Perkins got up from her chair, and, still clutching the paperback, walked over to the harmony-shattering pile of seaweed.
"Really, David," she said, "I don't see why you can't let Timmy play with the silly seaweed, too!"
Right away Timmy ran to it and gleefully pulled shells out of the seaweed pile.
"Hey, Davy," Timmy asked, his hurt appeased with the achievement of his goal. "What's this?"
"I told you," his brother answered with a frown. "Leave it alone!"
Timmy ran to his mother.
Davy looked up at her, his eyes filled with seven-year-old seriousness. "Mom, I think there's something bad here."
His mother took two steps closer, bent down and picked up the stick that Davy had been using. Hesitantly she pushed two long strands of seaweed back from something white.
"Oh, no," she murmured. Was it a dead seagull? No, too big. A seal? No, too white. Good heavens, she shivered, you don't suppose it's a shark?
"No," she mumbled, peeling back a few more strands of seaweed. It was too thin to be a shark, thin and pale and wrapped in dozens of strands of thick black fishing line. She moved the stick a little higher and pushed away another clump of seaweed. She froze. Harold Robbins dropped unnoticed from her fingers as life chose once again to imitate art.
She clapped her hand, sticky with Johnson's Baby Oil and sand, over her mouth, but it couldn't stifle the scream. The thin, slender white thing wrapped in black fishing line was attached to-a slim white neck!
A bone-white face, framed by a tangle of blond hair and seaweed, and a pair of cold blue eyes stared back at her.
Chapter Three
Cambridge, Massachusetts | Inman SquareJuly 26, 1968 | 3:56 p.m.
Michael "Mick" Prescott McCarthy pulled the big BSA motorcycle back onto its kickstand with a grunt, swung his right foot over the handlebar and sat back on the long leather seat. He bent his head backwards and looked up at the top floor of the three-story apartment building, to make sure that Bridget, the love of his life, best friend, and a God-Almighty nagging mama, wasn't looking down from the small third-floor porch.
She wasn't.
He slipped a slim, zigzag-wrapped stick of 'Cambodian Red' out of the top pocket of his denim jacket and, taking the big old Army Zippo lighter out of the left pocket of his jeans, dragged the tiny wheel across his dungaree leg and lit the joint's twisted tip.
He drew the acrid smoke deep into his lungs and held it there then let the numbing smoke out in a slow exhale.
Christ, he thought as he sucked in the next toke, I promised Bridge I wouldn't do this shit anymore. I guess my friggin' nerves are shot from all the damn nightmares I've been having.
He paused with the joint halfway to his lips and looked at it. He lifted it toward his mouth again and slowly shook his head.
"Screw it," he said. "A Goddamn promise is a promise," and he flicked the glowing joint into the street.
A pair of soft lips touched the back of his neck.
"Thank you, darlin'," the familiar voice breathed in his ear.
Mick tilted his head backward until Bridget's delectable upside down image filled his field of vision.
"Hey, babe," he said.
"Hey, yourself," Bridget said, kissing him on the cheek.
"You saw," Mick said.
"That I did."
"But I tossed it," Mick said, still looking at her upside-down image.
"That you did," Bridget acknowledged, "which is the only reason why I'm not gonna beat you like a redheaded stepchild."
"Damn fucking kind of you."
Bridget hit him on the top of his head with her index and middle fingers.
"Ow-w-w. Jesus." Mick rubbed the top of his head. "That hurts!"
"It's supposed to, McCarthy," Bridget answered with a satisfied smile, "so kindly watch your damn language!"
"Hell, yes, Mother Superior." Mick laughed, sliding off the bike as Bridget reached out to whack him again and missed.
"Or maybe I should just say 'Sister Bridget,'" he teased as he ducked under her well-aimed left hook and caught her around the waist.
"Stop it, McCarthy," she hissed. "Fer pity's sake, we're right out here in the middle of the street practically, where everyone can see!"
"Then let's give 'em something to look at." Mick lifted her off her feet and pressed her against his chest.
"Oh, darlin'," she murmured, "you turn me bones to water."
"That's the idea," he whispered in her ear.
From the open window on the third floor porch, the ring of a telephone broke into their love play. Bridget pulled toward the front door.
"Uh uh," Mick said, holding her tight.
"Mick, the phone."
"I hear it," Mick said, his arms still tightly wound around her.
"It may be something important," she said weakly.
"Could be," he nodded.
For a moment, she seemed to capitulate, and laid her head back down on his chest.
"Mickey," she said, raising her head from his chest, "I think you better answer it."
"Why, babe?" Mick sighed.
"Because it may be the same person who called before."
"Who was it?" Mick asked, wondering if he really wanted to know.
Bridget took a deep breath. "He said he was from your old squad in Vietnam."
Mick's eyes grew cold and distant.
"Go on," he said.
"His name was Smitty and he said he needed your help."
Chapter Four
Cambridge, Massachusetts | Harvard SquareJuly 26, 1968 | 5:35 p.m.
Mick paused for half a second in front of the pebble-glass door that read McCarthy & Son - Private Investigations.
He smiled with equal parts pride and trepidation as he thought of the scarred old ex-cop on the other side of the door, and of what he was probably going to say, probably in very loud and profane terms, when Mick told him what he intended to do as the very junior partner of McCarthy & Son.
Mick yelled, "Hey, Pop, are you busy?" as he pushed the door open and walked in.
The former Boston beat cop didn't look up from the form he was laboriously filling out. He just pointed to the hard-backed wooden chair in front of his cracked old roll-top desk and grunted, "Sit."
Mick sat.
He stared out the dusty, semi-opaque window behind his father and let his mind wander to the scratch, scratch, scratch of his father's n o. 2 pencil. He thought about the first twenty-two years of his life, about his older brother, Frankie, his sister, Bronwyn, and his parents and their unlikely union: his Boston Brahmin mother, the former Miss Felicity Parker Prescott and his father, the beat-up old beat cop from Southie.
He let his mind drift three months back, when his father had shattered a dozen generations of McCarthy 'lone wolf ' tradition by asking his son to partner with him in his post-cop incarnation, as a private detective.
Mick had been drifting ever since 'Nam. And even before that.
A prep school misfit despite his mother's connections and what she'd always said was his 'birthright.' Kicked out of Harvard in his freshman year for fighting. A gung-ho PFC and reluctant sergeant in Vietnam.
And now?
Now partner and hopefully a good son to the guy from D Street in Southie sitting behind the old roll-top desk in front of him.
He was trying like hell to get his life back on track.
Partially through his mother's Ivy League connections but mostly due to Bridget's well-meaning nagging, he was back at Harvard, majoring in Pre-Law as 'Miss Felicity' liked to tell her friends. In truth he was majoring in history, because the past seemed so much safer than the future, with a philosophy minor. No one could figure that one out and Mick didn't feel like talking about it. Not even to Bridget.
But probably his buddies in the old squad would have understood. When you've stared into the barrel of an AK-47, a cat's whisker away from having your brains blown all over some steaming jungle trail, you needed something to wrap your mind around and give it all meaning.
Bridget said Mick would get all the philosophy he needed if he came to Mass with her and sometimes he wished it were that easy. A few times he'd even tried it. But like everything else in his life, his religious upbringing had been a confused oil-and-water mix of back-to-back Sunday services with 'Big Mike' at the Catholic Church in Southie, and the First Congregational Church in Cambridge with his mother.
He had to smile when he thought about singing in the boys' choir next to his cousins Danny and Kevin, as they tried to look angelic while Father Kennedy stared at their latest black eyes and scarred knuckles, acquired in pursuit of their favorite pastime: fighting.
And from that atmosphere of ceremony, incense and fun-loving family brawls, he would be driven from South Boston to the austere but elegant white clapboard church on Brattle Street in Cambridge. His stoic-faced father deposited him on the steps of the First Congregational Church where his mother would be waiting in her Bonwitt Teller navy blue dress and plain but expensive Tiffany pearl choker. She would nod to her ex-husband, take Mick's hand and walk with him to the Prescott family pew from where three hundred years of Prescotts had stood watch over the 'correctness' of things on Brattle Street.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Shadow of innocence by Ric Wasley Copyright © 2007 by Ric Wasley. Excerpted by permission.
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"A page turner . . . let Ric Wasley cook it all up for you. Then sit down and enjoy. You'll be glad you did."--(William Martin, New York Times bestselling author of Back Bay, Harvard Yard, and The Lost Constitution)