When the Snowman Melts

By Vivian Home

Marcus Garvey Walker is smart, savvy, handsome, black and a partner in one of San Franciscos most prestigious law firms, Rheinhold, Marks and Walker. Marcus is married to Elizabeth, a successful and attractive TV news anchor. Their symphonious aligned life is suddenly interrupted when Marcus best friend Larry confides to him that he is HIV-positive. Larry drops the news like a nuclear warhead and doesnt explain it even when Marcus pushes him. This revelation by Larry causes Marcus to teeter. Although he loves Elizabeth, he hasnt exactly been the perfect husband. Almost...but...The but...is what causes everything to take on a new life of its own. He knows that he and Elizabeth must talk. He is reluctant since Larrys wife and Elizabeth are also friends.

Then things get worse. Elizabeths friend and co-worker discovers her husband has been shot and killed upon her return home. The murdered husband is a political giant in San Franciscos politics. The case is high profile. At first, detectives lean on the friend as a suspect until it is learned that she was at a barbecue given by Marcus and Elizabeth at the time of the murder.

Macbeth Chen and Jorge Ramirez, two of SFPDs ace detectives are assigned to the case with marching orders to solve this case yesterday. Their investigation take them to several false leads in the Castro district. All roads turn out to be dead ends. Then one day in court on a totally unrelated case, Chen spots a man in court wearing the same identical jade Buddha diamond encrusted pin that the murdered man had been wearing. He soon learns the mans identity and is hot on his trail. When the man realizes this, he drives to a deserted industrial area not caring that Chen and Ramirez are following him. When they cautiously approach the car, they learn that the man has shot himself in the temple and is dead. The man turns out to be Larry, Marcus best friend. Now Marcus is hit squarely in the face with everything, he and Elizabeth finally talk. Elizabeth is devastated with what she learns. In a rage she leaves Marcus. Alone and in pain, Marcus tries to sought all that has happened. He is determined that he will win her back at all cost. Just when he is consumed with how he is going to win her back, a familiar key opens the lock.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 27, 2000
• ISBN: 9781462827732

Vivian Home

Vivian Horne is the author of numerous short stories and the novel When the Snowman Melts. Ms. Horne graduated from California State University at Dominguez Hills. She lives in Pasadena, California. Presence of Grace is her second novel. Cover Art by: Sylvia L. Parker

Book preview

WHEN THE

SNOWMAN

MELTS

Vivian Home

Copyright © 1999 by Vivian Horne.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-7-XLIBRIS

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

Thanks to all of my teachers, friends and co-workers. I couldn’t have done it without you. Teena Escloven, Tommy, (Walter Thomas Jr.), Jeri Anderson, Tamara Jernigan, Tiffany Wilson, Joyce Griffin, Eleanor Williams, Loisteen Harbor, Alex Luu, Tish Johnson, Alex Salisbury, Joe Edo. To Sylvia thanks for the limousine.

CHAPTER 1

Marcus brushed and smoothed every strand of hair in place. Slowly, he let the towel slip from his waist and stared briefly at himself in the bathroom mirror. He was tall, with a smooth Sienna colored complexion and teeth that were perfect and pearl drop white. The braces he’d hated so in junior high school were paying off now. At thirty-five and an ex-college football jock, he still cut a mean, lean figure. The muscles were taut and the body was hard. That he had become one of the most successful attorneys in San Francisco and sought after by rich women seeking to divorce their rich husbands was no accident. It was also no accident that he took on pro bono cases too. He remembered where he came from and he had calculated it all just that way. A broad grin settled on his face as he dabbed Karl Lagerfeld over it. Some days the world was his oyster, some days not. Today was an oyster day.

Quietly Marcus tiptoed into their bedroom to dress. His wife Elizabeth was still asleep. She was an evening anchor at Channel 4 in San Francisco, and she’d been up all night covering the Oakland Hills fires.

Marcus reached into his drawer filled with an array of different colored, freshly laundered shirts with just the right amount of starch. He chose a blue one to go with his gray pinstriped Nino Cerutti suit with a matching vest.

Elizabeth rolled over sleepily. I didn’t hear you get up. Come over and give me my morning kiss. Ummm you smell nice. Wear the blue and white tie that I gave you with that outfit. It always looks so nice on you.

Marcus leaned over to kiss Elizabeth, buttoning his shirt at the same time. She looked good even when she was just awakening. I have an early client this morning. I want to get an early start. How did it go with you last night?

Long. Marcus, you would not believe the destruction and ruin these fires caused. I’ve never seen anything like it. The fires were raging on both sides of the freeway. The Fire Department kept the TV trucks at bay. They were still able to capture incredible footage. Some of those homes were in the million dollar plus price range. It was totally unbelievable.

I’m glad they were knocked down. It must have been something. Marcus picked up his coat, stopping briefly for her to straighten his tie, headed for the garage and blew her a kiss.

See you tonight, honey.

In the four-car garage, Marcus climbed into his silver Mercedes with black leather upholstery. From his CD holder, he found Kenny G. and pushed it into the disc player. No one could blow horn for him like Kenny G. His favorite piece was playing. . .

When A Man Loves A Woman. The cool, crisp morning air felt good against his face as he headed for San Francisco.

He and Elizabeth purchased a five bedroom split level house in Orinda Estates. It was complete with an Olympic size pool, a tennis court and that four-car garage.

Marcus met Elizabeth in his senior undergraduate year at Stanford. She was tall and thin with honey colored skin, high cheek bones and full lips that said, kiss me. From the very moment they met, Marcus knew that she was going places. He wanted and needed those places to be with him. When he finally convinced her to go out on a real date with him, they went to a bargain movie and ate Chinese food from the carton later. She knew that he was on the football team and thought he was cocky and trouble. She found out later that he was an honor student, on the dean’s list and had already been accepted to Stanford Law School. They became inseparable.

Going to law school was another rung on Marcus’s ladder of determination. Becoming successful was like a ferocious bear gnawing at his guts constantly. Mainly he had to succeed, not only for himself, but for the nay say’ers on his mother’s side who snubbed her, him and his sister Yvonne. They never ever forgave her for marrying Thomas Garvey Walker, Marcus’s father. True to prediction, Thomas gave them plenty to talk about. He wasn’t a bad person, he just wasn’t any kind of husband or any kind of a father. He drank whiskey, gambled all his pittance of earnings, chased women wholesale, and just never could seem to keep a job. They predicted that Thomas’ son Marcus was going to be just like him. And then he had to succeed for the say nothings, do nothings on his father’s side who didn’t seem to give one good damn about nothing. Marcus’s mother, Isabella was a seamstress who, as a young woman, had many aspirations for herself. After she married Thomas, her dreams turned to seeing her children make something out of themselves. She worked her fingers raw trying to make a living for them. Her salary bought them a modest three-bedroom house in Gary, Indiana. They were as proud as if they occupied the White House. She kept it spotless.

When Marcus was eight and Yvonne was ten, Isabella had enough of Thomas’ errant behavior. She put him out.

That was a sad day for Marcus. He was angry at Isabella for putting Thomas out and angry at Thomas for leaving. To Marcus, at least when Thomas lived with them and when he was at home, which wouldn’t be often, but when he was, and he was sober, he played games with them. Sometimes, he would take Marcus and Yvonne out to Grossman’s Point when it snowed. They would ride their sleds until they were too tired to go on. Then other times, they would build a snowman in front of their house. Their snowman was always the most elaborate on the block. One year they hung a great big scarf of African prints yellow, green, blue, red and orange around the snowman’s neck. For character they placed a top hat on his head and sunglasses on his face. When the sun melted the snowman, Marcus cried. Thomas consoled his son by telling him that there would always be another season, and another snowman to be built. He never forgot that.

The sound of the CD moving to the next track snapped Marcus back into focus. The client he was meeting this morning was Beverly Marinelli-Chase of the Marinelli Department Store chain. Old San Francisco money married to nouveau riche San Francisco money, Rupert Chase. He was a self-made millionaire and was known for his stable of young women. Now she was divorcing him. She was out to get each one of her husband’s balls and Marcus was the hired gun expected to hand them to her on a gold platter. She was filthy rich and so was her husband, but all the same she wanted him to suffer.

Bitch!, Marcus thought. But then again, her husband’s balls and those of other husbands like him was the very thing that afforded him the life style he lived. He felt no guilt. He was a damned good attorney and he knew it. He pulled into the underground garage and into his spot marked Marcus G. Walker, Att. Esq.

Just as he sat down at his desk, his secretary Vera put through a call. When he had finished, he continued to grip the receiver, staring at it, too stunned to digest the revelation of what he had just learned. Finally he hung up.

CHAPTER 2

Vera showed Beverly Marinelli-Chase in as soon as she arrived. She hated to be kept waiting. Mrs. Marinelli-Chase strutted in like a showcased peacock with plumage spread. In each arm she held her two rare French miniature Poodles, Mimi and Fifi.

Marcus, I am unhappy with the slow progress of the divorce proceedings. I want this bastard out of my life for good. You’d better be sure that I get to keep the Nob Hill house and the Rolls. I want complete custody of my babies. She bent down and kissed each one of the dogs full on the mouth. Her cherry red lipstick left an imprint on each of their noses. Marcus pretended not to see what had just happened.

I couldn’t stand it to break them up. They are like my children. The Chase’s had no children of their own.

A whimper came from the fifty-ish woman with the cherry red lipstick, who sat across from him. She was wearing thick mascara and blonde hair by Clairol. Still, she looked good for her age.

Besides, he can have all of his playmates and he can keep the Chateau in Switzerland. Too damn cold anyway.

Marcus gave her a Kleenex. "Now