A Body To Bones

By Donan Berg

With a skeleton comes lust, money, secrets, and a clue.
Respected, church-going Sarah Hamilton anguishes for a decade with an emotional skeleton living in her mind's closet. The consequences to her of one act of forbidden lust do not disappear. The past sin plus the death of her young daughter still haunts her despite her passionate quest to live only in the future.
When a real human skeleton is found entombed in her town's old factory, Sarah is caught not only with the prospect of her secret becoming devastating town gossip, but of having her husband and adopted daughter drawn into solving a ten-year mystery.
One clue, surmised to be scratches of initials made by the skeleton before dying, implicates more than one resident as the potential killer in Sarah's town of 842, where her husband publishes the weekly Pioneer Ledger.
Village gossip, missing diverted church money, unexplained lights and footprints, tension, and unfulfilled dreams are a prelude in real life-threatening peril when Sarah finds out the skeleton's killer still resides in her town, ready to kill again.
And, she is the killer's target.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donan Berg
• Release date: Sep 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781941244227

Donan Berg

Award-winning United States author Donan Berg tempts the reading world with First Place Gold Award romance, adventurous teen fantasy plus entertaining mystery, thrillers, police procedurals, and. from his first novel, A Body To Bones, entertaining mystery. "A winning plot ..." said Kirkus. "...Not only well written ... characters rich in depth and background.," wrote a reviewer.To quote another reviewer, Lucia's Fantasy World "is a captivating story ... and the author perfectly captures the innocence and imagination of the characters in the book." It joins Find the Girl, A Fantasy Story, for fascinating adventure filled with child-like imagination, friendship, magic, and sorcery. For 435 days, Find the Girl topped the AuthorsDen most popular book list, all genres. This chart-topping glory eclipsed both A Body To Bones and Alexa's Gold. The mystery and romance thriller, at separate times, both exceeded 100 days as Number One.A native of Ireland, Author Berg honed his writing skills as a United States journalist, corporate executive, and lawyer.The stimulating, page-turning bedrock, underpinning his twelve novels, explores the human drama of individual flaws and challenges before victory over a wide range of antagonists, outed to be societal monsters and/or deftly hidden. A dastardly scheme can be diabolical as in Aria's Bayou Child.His prior mystery, Into the Dark, brings intrigue front and center where unaccountable cash, threats, and societal ills bring twists and turns sprung with gusto. A thoroughly engaging Sheriff Jonas McHugh, first encountered in Baby Bones, Second Skeleton Mystery Series, adds a heightened imagination to grow stronger. Alexa's Gold, a five-star, new adult romance, combines a unique contemporary heroine and a thrilling mystery.Gold and five-star writing awards and reviewer accolades were on the horizon after he landed in the winner's circle four times at the Ninth Annual Dixie Kane Memorial Writing Contest. This bested his three awards in the prior year's eighth annual contest.The bedrock of his mystery writing is his three-part skeleton series mysteries: A Body To Bones, The Bones Dance Foxtrot, and Baby Bones. The series followed by Abbey Burning Love, Adolph's Gold, and One Paper Heart, his Gold Award romance.A reviewer of his short story, Amanda, notes that Author Berg offers a keen insight into couple relationships and a very clever ending.

Book preview

Chapter One

Sarah Hamilton, in judgment without mercy, berates herself for not living up to be her mother’s 1950s ideal homemaker. Seldom does the twenty-seven-old leave her home, five rooms dedicated as the living quarters attached to the Pioneer Ledger weekly newspaper office.

Wife of Pioneer Ledger Publisher Thomas Hamilton, she expects all 842 Clinton, Iowa, residents to at least know of her. She ventures out most often into the next block to attend Mass and women circle activities at St. Mary’s Catholic Church where the pastor is Father Cornelius Murphy, a handsome thirty-two year-old man dedicated to serving God and his parishioners, especially their kids.

Sarah’s heart in 1951 aches with her mother’s death. Ever since she prays she hasn’t unknowingly betrayed her mother by a failure to achieve her mother’s good-home goals. The first is an unquestioning trust in God. Sarah recalls her mother’s prime example: a Catholic woman who marries a caring, wonderful Catholic man who earns a good income and does not stray. Mother bears three obedient, healthy children and thereafter provides a clean, healthy home with home-cooking and baked goods at every meal.

Traveling as a salesman, Sarah’s father is home only weekends, and then she remembers he’d spend his time with her brothers. They never spent time with mother, except to learn clean-up chores. They never cook or bake. Sarah learns her destiny is alongside mother.

The big crisis erupts when Sarah informs mother she’s accepted Thomas’s marriage proposal. When she adds Thomas is Lutheran, her mother cries for a week.

Mother pesters Sarah to know why she couldn’t find a proper Catholic boy. The war’s end means nice Catholic boys in need of wives are heading home. Thomas only partially mollifies Mother when Thomas agrees to have our wedding at St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Mother predicts to family Sarah’s marriage will not last.

Two years after her mother’s death, mother’s prediction looms. Sarah faces societal forces that challenges American women plus an American workforce decision never forced upon her mother.

Embarrassment lingers from her mother’s teachings and Sarah speaks aloud to an empty room. Excuse me, Lord, these recent years radio shows tell women sex is no longer limited to procreation. Between Thomas and I conflict begins, not with sex, but his asking me to perform newspaper work. I know mother would have me say no. So I tell Thomas ‘no.’ Disobedience conflicts me since mother preaches a wife owes complete obeisance to her husband.

Sarah’s rejection of Thomas becomes the catalyst for future arguments, e.g., who answers the phone, or, who spends excess money on personal items.

As long as she refuses to leave the kitchen, the arguments continue. Watching TV becomes the way to avoid conversation. Not going to bed at the same time, as had always occurred, reduces, but does not eliminate intimacy.

Melissa’s birth intensifies their marital tension. Thomas spends his time with Melissa, not Sarah.

She cries herself to sleep; loses twenty pounds; avoids others.

After weeks of never-ending argument and tension, Sarah leaves the kitchen to immerse myself in activities at St. Mary’s. Church bake sales rise to be an enjoyable emotional outlet and baking honors her mother. Thomas argues church tasks are like working outside the home, but Sarah refuses to listen and accuses him of blasphemy.

Sarah basks in Father Murphy’s kind and inspiring support. She toils to encourage donations to fulfill his dream of a church hall for the kids. Bake sales, raffles and church dinners raise thousands of dollars. After one event, she sees Father Murphy write numbers onto a paper slip he inserts into a Clinton Fifth State Bank bank book. A later time he places bake sale proceeds into a special-account envelope he addresses to Mr. Godfrey Klempler, bank president.

She enjoys Father Murphy’s spirituality and nonjudgmental aura. She comes to realize he hangs around with her after other women departed to fulfill family obligations. Sarah cherishes he listens to her. He praises daughters honoring mothers. He said he prays Thomas will understand God’s law exists for a husband and wife to keep the home sacrosanct.

Then one night, Sarah gives him an innocent hug. It lasts longer than normal, but she’s not ready to chastise herself. Thereafter she stays a respectful distance when others are present.

Sarah begins to long for Father Murphy’s event appearance. Sunday afternoon proves to be a special time as the rectory housekeeper departs at noon. Thomas visits the baseball park on Sunday afternoons to watch the amateur baseball team play, youths practice softball or to observe people. He continues his routine with Melissa.

With the rectory next door to the church, Sarah finds it easy to stroll past and, if the street empty, to knock.

Cornelius Murphy’s soothing words and confident demeanor put her at ease. In the rectory that first March Sunday afternoon, she sips the red wine he offers. Her gesture mimics weekly communion.

Her head whirls. She feels the aggressive touch of his hand under my overblouse. He caresses her clothed breasts, then her naked breasts so tenderly.

Sarah tries to squirm free. He pushes her onto on a divan, his weight allows him to pin her torso, lift her skirt and separate her legs.

Conflict whipsaws her thoughts. She longed for tenderness; not force. Sarah’s protest lost. Soft kisses caress her lips as his fingers constrict her neck.

When she relaxes her chest, his unclosed hands fondle her breasts until his elbows part her knees and their thighs engage.

Tears stream her cheeks as her lower body, joined with his, enters the promised land of rolling thunder and joint climax..

His seed pulses inside her.

She whispers, Thomas. Then summons every ounce of her strength to kick and jerk free.

Sarah rushes frantically to dress. Father Murphy extends his arms. Sarah shakes her head and promises herself to declare the rectory and Father Murphy off limits.

On her scurry home, she laments that in minutes she’d permanently stained Mother’s honor and her own. Tormented by following Mother’s wish to say no to help Thomas; she hadn’t uttered the same word to Father Murphy.

Radio host words float within her brain. Today’s society advocates that engaging in sex without marriage is the new healthy reality, not to be suppressed.

Sarah’s experience convinces her she’s been betrayed. While the forbidden lust with Father Murphy exists as an absolute reality, she learns women’s lib pursuits lack love, commitment and the divine.

Did God watch? Sarah’s faith tells her the answer. Her Bible states an eye for an eye. Her penance must be to root out evil.

Two nights later, Sarah surprises Thomas and agrees to help out with the newspaper as long as she didn’t have to abandon her desire to create a clean, healthy and proper household. She prays Mother understands she wasn’t leaving her home to perform business work.

Sarah skips a church circle meeting, then a bake sale. She lies to avoid St. Mary’s, especially the rectory.

She succeeds . . . and then misses a menstrual period. Horror consumes her entire being. God had been watching.

Sarah awakes each day worthless, isolated. She lacks the courage to confess to Thomas. He knows they hadn’t been intimate for months before or after her Sunday afternoon with God’s priest.

A second missed period terrifies her.

Living the shell of a life, she sleeps more and takes long walks with Melissa to give Clinton residents the appearance of a doting mother with a first child. Thomas acts surprised when she offers to accompany him to First Lutheran Sunday services.

Grasping for answers, Sarah prays her trip to Winterville, twenty-files miles north of Clinton, promises a solution to the growing baby in her womb. She lies to Thomas one Thursday that Melissa needs a well-baby checkup. She hides her clinical appointment.

As she expects, after experiencing identical prenatal feelings she’d had with Melissa, to be told she’s pregnant. She ponders her will to be strong and terminate it. Her moment of lust violated Holy Catholic Church tenets; her sacred marriage vows and forced her into making a decision by herself that would violate her entire upbringing, principles and every moral value preached by her mother.

Sarah’s soul could no longer endure the painful irony of Mother pressuring her to find a Catholic man, and then her body ravished by a Catholic priest.

An overcrowded Winterville Clinic frustrates her, however, she embraces the ability to go unrecognized. She cries in the exam room when the nurse tells her of her pregnancy. The nurse praises her happy tears, while Sarah refuses to unveil the truth.

She wipes at tears and places Melissa into the car to return to Clinton. Distracted by a receptionist lollipop, her daughter doesn’t see Sarah cry.

Sarah persuades herself she will use the two week interval until she returns to the Winterville Clinic for a confirming blood test and possible procedure to determine how and when she’ll confront Father Murphy.

If she tries what she contemplates, she requires help.

On the highway to Clinton she didn’t observe the oncoming car swerve wide and into her path from an intersecting road until the last moment. She jerks the steering wheel hard right to avoid a collision. Breaking glass and metal on metal screeches represents the last sounds she hears. Later, she learns the driver drove drunk and his tire marks on the asphalt indicate excessive speed.

Not until the third hospital day did Sarah awake.

Her attending doctor tells her she was very lucky to be alive. He explains that part of her pain is from the hysterectomy necessary to save her life. While his words initially offer comfort, Sarah understands her ability to bear children no longer exists.

She curses her God for getting even.

Sarah collapses on the fourth day when Thomas breaks it to her that Melissa didn’t survive the crash.

A wheelchair carries Sarah to St. Mary’s first pew for Melissa’s delayed funeral. A vacationing Father Murphy means a substitute priest officiates. The face veil in her lap goes unused.

The entire town turns out. Shops post closed signs for the Thursday morning funeral service. Sarah can’t bear to read Melissa’s obituary printed the next week in the Pioneer Ledger.

In a dozen weak moments after her disgrace, Satan encourages her revenge. She removes her rings for dish washing and dough kneading with a frequency that encourages her not to wear them as a silent symbolic reminder of her promise to make things right.

After several months, she forgets where she hid them.

Chapter Two

Spring of 1954

The quiet is broken by the slide of the wooden door to open the portal of St. Mary’s confessional. A thin, unlined, purple velvet cloth hides the female penitent’s identity from the priest, each in their own private space, permitting only voices to be heard. A hint of hair spray scents the air.

Bless me, Father Murphy, for I have sinned.

Yes, go on.

"I don’t know what to say . . . where to start. I felt new life growing within me. At first, denial rises. I’m married, but my husband is not the father. I did not tell anyone, not even the father. I suspect the real father does not even know what he created.

"I worry that my secret will be exposed, and many close to me will be subject to community disrepute, disgrace, scorn and scandal. I have failed in other ways to live by what my mother believed in and taught me. I fret I’m not worthy to be her daughter. Then I’m consumed with the anguish of knowing that God did let this baby grow to be born, with the magnitude of all the consequences that I cannot hide. I have been drowning in guilt. I had to make a decision. I had to act somehow.

Then God intervened. For my sin, God sacrificed two young lives; one my innocent daughter, my own flesh and blood. He cut out my ability to conceive, to cherish another child.

Sarah pauses. Listens ensnared in gloom and darkness.

As humans, we never fully understand God’s great plan. As God’s family, we must believe He’s compassionate. There is a sacred trust. For your—

Before the priest can express a penance, Sarah interrupts.

One life extinguished was the result of an unholy union. Its death does not unburden me. My failure to be morally strong or to honor my mother does not go away. I feel ashamed, conflicted. I cannot be truthful. To speak out will only bring shame, chastisement and hurt the persons I love who live, or the memory of the departed. It’s hard to hold it all inside, to not let the lies be seen, to bear all the pain in secret behind an accepted facade.

Yes, the priest coughs before continuing. We all, including me, have secrets from other humans but not from God. We must believe in Him, seek His forgiveness, and above all, pray to Him exposing every bit of our soul. Now, for strength and your penance, say three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys after saying your prayer of contrition.

Behind the confessional portal cloth Sarah faces, a sliding door is unexpectedly pulled closed the only way it can be—from the inside.

*.*.*

Ten years later

"Oscar, where are you? I can’t see you." Oscar hears his fourth-grade friend’s voice echo behind him. Cobwebs stick to Oscar’s hands and face. His knees hurt as he crawls into the darkness of the secret brick-walled tunnel he’s discovered near Clinton’s old factory.

A tingling sensation on Oscar’s forehead stops his advance. He shakes his head. The pins and needles of an insect crawling across his right hand causes him to lift his hand and blow the bug away.

His head’s right side an abrasive solid. Ouch, he shouts.

Oscar, I’m scared. Let’s go home.

Found a room; feels like finger bones.

Where are you? Jim shouts.

Go back. We need a bigger flashlight.

On hands and knees, Oscar pivots and catches Jim. He pushes his buddy to go faster.

Outside his secret tunnel’s entrance, Oscar replaces the boards he’d pried loose an hour before.

He stares at Jim. It’s our secret. He raises and licks his right forefinger and says to his friend, Cross your heart and hope to die.

Jim does.

Chapter Three

"That’s my jack. That’s mine . . gimme it."

No, it ain’t. You cheated.

The eight-year-old boy, in a bright yellow-and-brown-striped T-shirt and blue jeans with a hole in the left knee, stares at his friend, Jim, who sits on the lowest of three concrete steps leading into Clinton’s main, and only, bank. Oscar (oh, how he hates that name) wants Jim to give him the jack.

Oscar is skinny for his age. Jim, a year older, outweighs Oscar by thirty pounds, not including the oversized black glasses he wears. Oscar is winning. He sees himself on the way to his first grand-slam victory. Always playing to win, Oscar isn’t a cheater.

I’ll give you your stupid jack, retorts Jim. Now you go git your ball. With a quick swipe of his right hand, Jim grabs Oscar’s small, red, lucky rubber ball and flings it over his left shoulder. After thirty or so feet, it bounces once, twice, three times, ever slower, lower and lower each time until it’s rolling down the block’s concrete street gutter.

Oblivious to the ball in the gutter, a familiar solitary figure slowly pedals his blue-and-white fat-tire bike in the direction of the bank.

This man of average, regular build, in his early fifties, wears a railroad signalman’s cap, which shows graying hair at the temples; black slacks and a short-sleeve, white dress shirt with one button at the neck unfastened.

He will never arrive at the bank. Today’s destination, as every other workday, is also on Main Street, but it’s in the block before the bank.

The painted gold letters on the double front window panels proclaim in foot-high letters to all that pass this is the Pioneer Ledger, the chronicler of the town’s life and death, mostly the latter. Nevertheless, the great majority of readers, claimed to be 1,059, use the Pioneer Ledger to keep track of family history or genealogy, social teas, school lunch menus, and create coffee shop and barbershop gossip.

Afternoon humidity is unseasonably high for a spring day. The sun in a cloudless sky bakes the emerging crops and softens street-tar joints. Vault locks turn automatically at three-thirty p.m., ending another regular bank business day.

Thomas Hamilton, a thrifty fourth-generation Scot, lets his bike slowly glide to a stop in front of the large gold letters of the Pioneer Ledger, where he lazily props up his bike next to the front door. He is in front of his newspaper office—the dream of many a journeyman printer. By any standard, the paper is small. Many weeks it is a struggle to publish its one edition at a minimum of eight broadsheet pages. Yet every Tuesday, a one-cylinder press in the basement creaks and groans from the exertion required of it. It sometimes balks, sometimes purrs, but always, to Hamilton’s amazement, fulfills its printing task.

Today is Tuesday. At three-thirty p.m., Hamilton normally would be in the frenzy of the last-minute details of planning, brushing and locking the chase forms that are bulging with lead type and made up into full pages, eight to twelve in number. It’s always a chore for Hamilton to mechanically operate the small pulley to lower the lead pages down to the basement and into their proper position, ready for the press. Behind schedule this day, he’s not one to give up or be hurried. For seventeen years now, he has never missed a deadline, and today will not break his streak.

The outside screen door slams.

A woman inside the front office jumps.

I’m sorry, doll, apologizes Hamilton in quiet, loving, reassuring tones. I’ll remember next time.

The woman smiles knowingly. If sixteen years of marriage to Thomas Hamilton has taught her anything it’s that he’ll never learn to quit banging the door until it is nailed shut. At five-foot-five and forty-nine years old, she is always dieting to lose ten pounds, but the scale needle each week never budges from 145. She is wearing her Tuesday wardrobe of an ink-smudged dress, with her everyday wig pushed slightly behind the recommended frontal hairline. Her fingernails are painted dark blue—almost black—to match the ink. The darkish brunette wig matches the thinning hair it is trying to camouflage. A little hairspray keeps stray strands in place. Glasses, used for reading countless columns of the printed word, dangle in front of her neck with each bow attached to a silver chain.

I’m sorry if I startled you, Sarah, repeats Thomas.

Tom, George Windhurst was just on the phone. He … he wants to talk with you before he leaves town today.

Why? What’s he want? Any time I talk to him I stand to lose money. He always puts off buying a bigger ad.

He didn’t say why. He was … ah … sort of close-mouthed. Like always. Sarah bites her tongue. She doesn’t like to take messages, even for Thomas. It always makes her feel inadequate when she fails to anticipate questions or isn’t given enough details. Her mother only trusted her with housework; all other work is a man’s job she was told.

Did he say when he was leaving?

I think about five.

Good, good. I’ve got a couple of things to get ready for tonight. Why does Windhurst always want to bother me on the day I’ve got the most work to do? He always says time is money—someone else’s time and his money. I’ve got to live, too, you know. I’m going downstairs.

Yes, dear.

Hamilton, by title both Pioneer Ledger publisher and editor-in-chief, loses the rest of his wife’s sentence. Halfway down the basement stairs, a molten lead smell fills his nostrils. Quickly over his head and tied at the waist, a somewhat new leather apron protects his clothes. He’ in his element—relishing the challenge of creating and publishing words in lead.

Chapter Four

Opened books piled five high, next to sheaths filled with papers, await the tiniest tremor to slide off corner-to-corner wall shelves. A single book precariously teeters on the crest of the brownish-red leather judge’s high-backed chair. This chair, the room’s most prominent feature, offers the boldest hint at the occupant’s foolish state-court judicial aspirations.

George Windhurst cherishes the four-year-old second-hand chair. Its lack of legal pedigree matches his initial shortcoming of failing to get into his state university’s lower-tier law school and then squeaking through an out-of-state night law school. With his diploma he suffers two failures before he passes the state bar exam on his third try. Seldom contracted for intricate legal matters, his legal practice revolves around simple land dispute mediation, smoothing out matrimonial separations, defending petty theft charges against misguided juveniles, multiple misdemeanor traffic charges, and no-fault automobile insurance accident claims.

His temples, sprinkled with gray, and the furrows in his forehead and chin inaccurately give the impression of a hard life of sixty-two years. Only the most perceptive of his farmer clients, with faces as hard as his, notice that Windhurst’s face does not have the bronzed tint gained from day-to-day exposure to the sun, wind, and other outdoor elements common in a farming community. The one window in his office rarely lets in the sun; its brown-stained slats are always shuttered.

Tuesday is Windhurst’s day to visit Clinton and its 842 residents. He spends the rest of the week in Winterville, twenty-five miles to the north, the county seat and three times the size of Clinton. In Lake County, Iowa, the two communities comprise half of the county’s population. In the summer, corn tassels and soybean pods dominate the landscape. Non-cash crop fields are either alfalfa or a pasture home to grazing dairy or beef cattle, chickens, and/or hogs, but never, never a ram, ewe, or lamb.

Clinton couldn’t support a full-time lawyer, not even one of Windhurst’s lackluster caliber. So Windhurst talks his two law partners into spending one day in Clinton. This saves his client a trip to Winterville, as legal documents have to be filed there in the Lake County courthouse. Collecting signatures in Clinton keeps Windhurst’s Clinton clients away from visiting three other Winterville firms, a definite competitive advantage he desires to exploit.

Windhurst unlocks his office door and enters. He leaves the door ajar. Striding to his desk, he reaches for the book on his chair—but misses it. The resulting thud creates a sonorous echo on the parquet wood floor. He hears a gasp and a footfall and gazes to the door.

A startled male visitor stands alone at Windhurst’s open door.

Come on in, Tom. Nice day. Isn’t it? Windhurst lets his broad shoulders slump and plops his frame with ample, protruding stomach into his chair. His five-foot-ten-inch frame fails to stretch his 245 pounds into the image of a toned athlete. His moisture-streaked white shirt, with its tie loose at the collar, and tan suit rumpled by a car ride contrasts sharply with Thomas Hamilton, who is neat and trim, wearing a white shirt and black slacks. Only the latter’s ink-stained moccasin is a clue that he arrives direct from his newspaper.

Thomas sits facing Windhurst and crosses his legs at the ankle. Windhurst gazes at the fallen book but leaves it on the office floor.

Sarah says you want to speak with me.

Yes, sir, I did. You know, it’s nice to be able to talk with someone this afternoon. It’s nearly five, and it’s been the dullest day in two months. You know, having an office in a bank is supposed to be good for business. But then, being in the back doesn’t seem to help. If it was you, you’d be happy to know the rent is cheaper here in the back.

I try to consider my costs, but you didn’t call me to discuss your rent. You can nickel and dime Godfrey if you wish.

You’re a hard man, Tom, to waste time with. Sometime, we’re going to sit down, just the two of us, and solve the world’s problems. You and I could do that, you know.

Sure, I know, Thomas replies.

Windhurst notices no conviction in his visitor’s voice but does pick up a hint of dilly-dallying irritation.

He continues, There was one thing I wanted to get your opinion on. Off the record, that is. He pauses and, without Hamilton’s interjection, he continues, "There’s that rather large lot next door to you, owned by Old Man Peterson. His house with its loose shutters and missing shingles appears unsightly. And, its dying hydrangeas puts your nicely painted Pioneer Ledger building to shame."

Sure, I know, but I can talk only so often to Mr. Peterson, and half the time he doesn’t hear me. Don’t know if it’s his hearing or he doesn’t want to hear my offer.

Probably a little of both, but maybe we can do something to help us both. I know people who’ve expressed interest to buy that piece of property. My guess, would pay a premium price, more than its appraisal. Definitely more than it would fetch at a sheriff’s sale.

Peterson won’t sell, Thomas says. "He’s lived in that house for seventy years after being born there. Where else could he sit on the front porch and watch