Category: Novels

The final chapters. Chapter Fifty-Three I woke up staring at my shoes, my head lolling forward, slobber dripping in a long string from my lower lip down to the lapel of my suit coat.  My nose was running.  My chest felt like it had a large stinging burn on the outside and a large black bruise on […]

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Chapters 50 though 52 Chapter Fifty Wanda and I took a walk together.  Slow.  Down the street and around the corner from the F.B.I. office.   Pleasant day.  A little breeze.  Not many cars.  For a change no one was honking their horn.  Unusual.  Just walking.  We had never done anything like that before.  We were quiet.  I once again thought of how comfortable I was […]

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Chapters 47 though 49 Chapter Forty-Seven We were back at F.B.I. headquarters in another of their endless conference rooms.  When I got there, they already had the police chief in the room.  He had been left in the custody of Wanda and Maurice.  The police chief without his uniform wasn’t impressive at all.  He sat at the table with […]

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Chapters 44 though 46 Chapter Forty-Four “I think how she treated me was rather shabby.” Wanda glanced at me but returned her eyes to the road and kept driving. I waited for her to say something, either agree or not agree.  She didn’t reply.  I noticed there was a slow shaking of her head almost imperceptible.   “What?”   […]

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Chapters 41 through 43 Chapter Forty-One I was back at the base infirmary.  But unlike the first time, I was not the lone patient.   The Base commander’s wife was ministering to the wounded.  She was extremely busy, and I observed none of her previously demonstrated sadistic tendencies with the sailors and personnel she was tending.  There were some […]

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Chapters 37 through 40 Chapter Thirty-Seven “There is something I don’t understand.” Big Wanda and I were in her brown, unmarked police sedan.  She was driving.  We were headed back to my condo. “Just one thing?”  I didn’t’ reply to that.  Evidently that caused her to decide to drop the sarcasm before she got carried away.   “Okay, what don’t […]

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Chapters 34 through 36 Chapter Thirty-Four The military could be extremely efficient when they had a plan in place.  At least in peacetime.  In war, plans seldom lasted past the first infantry engagement, but that never prevented generals and admirals from laying out several elaborate plans while they waited for the first shot to be fired.  And in […]

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Chapters 31 through 33 Chapter Thirty-One “When I woke up, I was wearing a mask.” “A mask?”   Wanda looked at me impatiently.  I resolved to make a better attempt at fulfilling my promise to hold my lawyerly inquiries until the whole story had been told; all the testimony had been taken as it were.  For me, a […]

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Chapters 28 through 30 Chapter Twenty-Eight Ten minutes later we pulled up and stopped in the abandoned parking lot of the high school.  We were just outside the administration building.  I never liked going back on campus.  It was so much smaller, less impressive than when I roamed these halls twenty-five years earlier.  Then I had all the delusions […]

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Chapters 25 through 27 Chapter Twenty-Five Back in my law office, I searched through the pile of messages I had discarded on my desk looking for the one from Wanda.  I would try calling the number again on the oft chance she would answer.  I listened to the ringing for long minutes before I returned the receiver […]

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