Some Things Are Sweeter than God

By Robert Trainor

How far should lawyers go when they're defending a client for murder, a client that is obviously guilty? The legal obligation is clear, but isn't there also an ethical obligation to see that a murderer is kept off the streets?

Lorinda Rivers is a public defender and a highly competitive woman who does not like to lose…Kevin Jensen is a man who's facing the death penalty after being charged with the brutal murder of his ex-girlfriend…his fingerprints are on the murder weapon, there's an incriminating videotape, and he's already confessed, so there isn't any real doubt as to his guilt. But when Kevin retracts his voluntary confession, refuses to consider a plea deal, and demands a jury trial, Lorinda is faced with a difficult moral dilemma. Should she ignore her conscience and defend Kevin aggressively, even if it means that he might go free?

And then, as the trial approaches, Lorinda begins to have an affair with Preston Ryder, the crime writer at the local newspaper. Lorinda's husband has become physically abusive, and it doesn't take her long to become involved with the handsome, well-spoken, entertaining new man in her life. Preston, because of his job at the newspaper, is interested in the Jensen case, and he offers Lorinda some interesting insights, both practical and philosophical, into her moral dilemma.

The following excerpt is from Chapter 19.

However, as she continued to think about it, Lorinda discovered another problem with having Kevin tried before a jury. What if, somehow, Jensen walked? Granted, it seemed an impossibility now, but what if it were to happen? Did she really want this guy cruising around the streets of the city where she lived? Hardly. And wouldn't this be a plague on her conscience: I was the lawyer who tricked the jury into acquitting Kevin Jensen. It's true, of course, that he might murder another woman someday, but that's none of my concern.

So the problem was this: If one has a conscience, how does one fight for a murderer's freedom? Fall back on the innocent until proven guilty mantra? Lorinda couldn't help but sympathize with the prosecutor. What if it had been her responsibility to prosecute Jensen? She could see herself cutting a few corners to get this guy executed. The movies generally created defense lawyers who were noble, misunderstood creatures battling overwhelming odds as they fought for their wrongfully accused clients. But what if you were defending the likes of Kevin Jensen? What kind of movie would that make?
Still, it was her duty to defend him, and she could not be entirely traitorous to her sworn pledge to represent him to the best of her abilities. Then again, even though the law was important, it didn't transcend common sense and genuine human considerations. Lorinda didn't enjoy making compromises, but after thinking it over carefully, she came to the conclusion that she could only fight for Kevin's life--not his innocence.

But then, everything is turned upside down when Lorinda hires a detective named Irene Knight to see if she can discover any extenuating circumstances that might spare Kevin from the death penalty. After examining the case, Irene tells Lorinda that "the most significant mitigating factor for Kevin Jensen is that he is clearly innocent of murdering Carolyn Andrews."

So who murdered Carolyn Andrews? The answer to that question remains hidden until the day that Lorinda discovers something that could end up destroying not just her career but also her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Trainor
• Release date: Feb 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224401932

Robert Trainor

Over the past twelve years (since I retired at the age of 59), I've written nineteen novels, four novellas, four non-fiction books, and seven anthologies, all of which you can find in the Kindle Store. Instead of writing a biography of myself, which seems rather irrelevant, I would prefer to write a biography of my books. Here, in the order in which they were written, is a brief sketch of the plots, themes, and subject matter of these books.1/ The Voice of the Victim describes a series of murders in a small city. I've always felt a great deal of empathy for the victims of violent crimes, especially those who are murdered by guns. What, I wondered, would these people say to us if they could speak? When reading this book, it is important to remember that my intention, from first page to last page, was to present the voice of the victim. And, to me, this voice is not a straight-line accusation of weapons and murderers but tends to veer to a pervasive mockery and total indictment of modern culture. This novel is much different than anything else I have written, and there will be many who will object to what the "voice" is saying.2/ Some Things Are Sweeter than God is somewhat along the lines of a classic murder mystery but is certainly not one of those books where the conclusion is some wild revelation that no sensible reader could ever discern beforehand. The protagonist is a forty-year-old woman lawyer who, in her role as a public defender, is required to represent a man who is accused of brutally murdering his ex-girlfriend.3/ The Road Map to the Universe is a well-constructed novel--at one time, I was a tournament chess player, and this book required a great deal of planning and analysis. Essentially, it's a highly unusual murder mystery, but the perceptive reader may be able to identify a standard plot theme lurking in the background. The Road Map also examines an interesting philosophical question: In a universe of four billion galaxies, what relevance, if any, does the human being have?4/ The Great Barrington Train Wreck, a truly offbeat social commentary, includes a unique type of murder mystery and is one of my favorite novels. Although I almost never include anything from my own life experience in my books, I was, just like the protagonist in the Train Wreck, homeless for many years. So I'm familiar with the lingo and attitude that some of the homeless have. This is a catchy, captivating book where the plot seems to materialize out of thin air until it becomes the elephant in the room. Also, to my mind, this tale could describe what happens to Holden Caulfield, the anti-hero of the Catcher in the Rye, as he approaches forty. It's not all peaches and cream! Especially when he falls in love with the daughter of a millionaire, and even more especially when he ends up on death row.5/ Your Kiss Is Like the Sweetest Fire describes a teenage romance between Jaime and Renee, who were adopted at a young age into the same family. It seems illogical to me, but in almost all states, the law views a sexual relationship between adopted siblings who live in the same family as a crime of incest--exactly as if they were related by blood. So Jaime and Renee have this difficulty to contend with, and also, their mother and father are both rather repulsive characters who are totally incapable of helping them. Wait until you meet Renee--I love her.6/ Requiem for the West is partially based on an apocalyptic poem that I wrote during the 1990's. Ten thousand hours is a lot of time to spend on a seven-hundred-word poem! Requiem is also an examination of some apparently abstract themes that seem highly relevant to me: 1/ The pervasive role of explicit sexuality in our culture and the very different ways that people react to it; 2/ The often farcical, Dilbert-like nature of the modern workplace, in this case a college; and 3/ Is doomsday just around the corner? The 1960-2000 version of myself considered a nuclear apocalypse to be inevitable, but nowadays, I'm ambivalent.7/ Frontier Justice was easy to write because once Adriana Jones arrived on page 10, she took over the book, and all I had to do was keep up with her as she overpowered every obstacle that crossed her path. I hadn't intended for that to happen, but that's the way life goes sometimes. Do I agree with, support, condone, or advocate Adriana's way of doing things? Difficult questions. Adriana is my creation, so I have to take some responsibility for her, I suppose, but I look at it this way: To be true to a character, one has to let the person speak and act in a way that is appropriate to his or her personality. I just can't legislate them into political correctness! Adriana didn't just overpower the other characters in Frontier Justice--she also overpowered me. I really like this book--I wish, as a writer, I could think of more characters who are as dynamic as Adriana.8/ A Tale from the Blackwater River is a novella that is meant to be a satire on a certain kind of story that is showing up far too frequently nowadays, but on another level, it's just kind of a humorous tale that was a lot of fun to write. This book is written in the first person by a forty-two-year-old woman named Alanda Streets. I almost published it under the pen name Alanda Streets because I thought some people might say that no woman would ever write a story like A Tale from the Blackwater River, but for those who feel that way, I hope you will ask yourself this question: If the name Alanda Streets had been on the cover of the book, instead of mine, would you have felt that a woman couldn't have written it?9/ The Blackwater Journal is another Alanda Streets novel--this time, she is only sixteen. I couldn't seem to get away from Alanda--she does have a spunky survivor's attitude towards life that appeals to me. In this book, she has to call on all her resources when her evil father imprisons her in a room and tells her that she has only a week left to live. As the days pass by, the terror mounts on her own personal death row. Does Alanda escape? Maybe so, maybe no.10/ Love Letters (Soaked in Blood) is another murder mystery that has a humorous undertone, which many will probably miss. The problem with writing a murder mystery is that anything that can be thought of has already been done about a thousand times. The only original idea left would be to have the most obvious suspect turn out to be the murderer. Think of it--that's probably never been done! And so...maybe you can guess the rest.11/ The Book of the Dead is about a man who goes to his 25th reunion and meets his high school sweetheart. The two of them embark on an impulsive twenty-four hour car ride that will take them through three southern states and bring them face-to-face with death. This is a tale where the boundaries of ordinary reality are stretched out a little bit! I'll leave it to you to decide whether The Book of the Dead is a fantasy or a reality.12/ Destroyed by Malice sees the return of a character who played a minor role in The Voice of the Victim. He's the world famous novelist Barker Drule, but unfortunately, he (and his wife) exit the book on page 1 when they are gunned down in their driveway. It isn't long before detective Jeff Willard is convinced that the murderer is a member of the Drule family. Perhaps it's Lenore, the older daughter, who was, years ago, secretly raped by her father; perhaps it's the beautiful Raylene, who wrote a novel about a rape victim that her father managed to have the publishing industry blackball; perhaps it's Ricky, the cocaine-addicted son who is desperate to get his hands on his father's money; and perhaps it's Dalton Drule, Barker's irascible eighty-two-year-old father who just happens to own the gun that was used to murder his son. In the end, when the truth finally comes out, there will be very few left to tell the tale.13/ How to Write an Imaginative Novel takes you through the whole process of writing a novel and then uploading it to Kindle. Among the many things covered are: Where will you find a plot? What is the best way to find names for your characters? How important is it to punctuate your book correctly? Is there a quick way to learn punctuation and sentence structure? What is the best way to write dialogue? What kind of things should one avoid in a novel? What is the significance of the first draft and why is it so important? How does one begin a book so that it immediately commands the reader's attention? How does one revise and edit a novel? Is it possible to create the cover for your book without spending any money? How does one convert a book to the correct format so that it can be uploaded to Kindle? And finally, how does one upload a book to Kindle?14/ I Ching 2015 contains a complete translation (minus the Confucian commentaries) of this ancient Chinese classic. Also included are detailed instructions on how to consult the I Ching using either yarrow stalks, coins, or dice. (For those who have been using coins, one should be aware that a significant error has crept into the method that many people use to cast an omen. This error, which involves using either three or four similar coins will seriously affect the accuracy of the omens you receive.) Additionally, there is extensive advice on how to interpret an omen. By using the correct method of interpretation, you will be surprised at how much clearer omens become. As part of this advice, I have posed a number of questions to the I Ching and have then interpreted the omen I received. Finally, for each hexagram, as well as many of the lines in each hexagram, I have included my own observations as to the essential meaning of these hexagrams and lines.15/ Blood and Blackmail is an elegant murder mystery with an unusual plot twist that took me some time to piece together. For those readers who enjoy the challenge of solving a crime before the final chapter arrives, this novel should provide you with a truly interesting puzzle. I doubt many people, if any, are going to see the underlying deception that runs throughout this tale because...if I say anything else, I might help the reader unravel this mystery, and I certainly wouldn't want to do that!16/ Fairy Tales by Martians takes a humorous look at the theory of evolution. Science, of course, claims that the human being originated from an amoeba that eventually became a tadpole that eventually became a frog and so on and so forth. However, I just can't conceive of the fact that ten million years ago, two frogs mated in a swamp and because of that event, I eventually arrived on the scene. What kind of a genealogy chart is that? Neither does the seven-day religious version of events appeal to me, so what I'm left with is a very cynical view of both the religious and scientific theories concerning the origins of our existence.17/ The Book of Dreams repeats a very old idea that has been used in many a novel. But here, in this murder mystery, the idea is taken to another level entirely and contains a twist that not many will see coming. The clues are there, starting with the poem in the Preface.18/ The Dark Side of the Moon is a tale about an attractive high school teacher who falls in love with one of her students. However, Carolyn Black is nervous that her sexual liaison with the student will ruin her career. Eventually, she tries to break off their relationship, but when he threatens to commit suicide, Carolyn is faced with an excruciating dilemma.19/ The Murder of Nora Winters was inspired by John Dickson Carr who wrote a number of locked-room mysteries. In this type of mystery, the murder victim is found in a room that does not allow the killer any means of exit. The doors and windows are all bolted from the inside, and it's considered very poor form for the author to create a room where there are sliding walls or secret panels. The solution to the murder of Nora Winters is, I think, relatively simple, but I've woven in enough deceit and misdirection to confuse all but the most astute readers.20/ The Vanishing Victim is a tale of a psychiatrist and a troubled woman who comes to him for counseling. What she reveals to him proves to be a confession to a brutal crime, but he is unable, because of the doctor/patient privilege, from revealing this crime to anyone, including the police. But even more troubling is that the woman's confession, although it contains a number of factual inaccuracies, turns out to have a terrifying reality of its own.21/ The Fatality Game follows a series of innocuous crimes in a rich neighborhood that seem to be more pranks than anything else. But when a woman is murdered in her bed, Detective Cody Barnes realizes that there is something evil lurking under the placid veneer of swanky mansions that are inhabited by millionaires. And when Cody becomes romantically involved with one of the earlier victims, the beautiful Lucinda Kane, the case begins to take on a life of its own that will eventually lead to the deaths of three more people.22/ How to Write an Intelligent Murder Mystery describes some of the adventures I encountered while I was writing murder mysteries (of my twenty-one novels, thirteen are murder mysteries.) This is a somewhat unusual instructional book that attempts to relate the problems encountered in the writing of a murder mystery to the more general problem of writing fiction in today's market where any new novel is almost instantaneously buried under an avalanche of new novels.23/ The Real Meaning of Life is definitely one of my favorite books. It's written in the first person by Patrick Devlan, a twenty-seven-year-old guy who writes murder mysteries. But his father, who is dying of pancreatic cancer, wants Patrick to write something that will take his readers to a "better place." Patrick decides to follow his father's advice, but a few days later, his roommate's pregnant girlfriend is murdered, and Patrick becomes entangled in a real-life murder mystery. Eventually, after his roommate is convicted of the crime and sent to death row, Patrick is faced with a dilemma that will lead him to the discovery of the real meaning of life.24/ Flight 9525 is a non-fiction book that attempts to answer the question as to why there is so much suffering in the world. For the most part, this book bypasses the usual political, psychological, and social reasons for suffering and examines the following: If God is real, then why do human beings suffer? Why would an all-merciful, all-loving, and all-powerful Being permit its creations to suffer? The usual explanations, such as the hypothesis that God granted man free will, don't answer the question at all. In fact, this is a question that's never been answered satisfactorily.25/ The Scriptwriter is the tale of a man who becomes entangled with three different women. There's the incredibly beautiful woman, the incredibly rich woman, and the incredibly homeless woman. Which one will he choose? Events, mishaps, and character flaws lead him to an interesting decision.26/ The Murder of Marabeth Waters contains a considerable amount of subtle black humor and describes the investigation that ensues after a prostitute is found strangled to death. Detective Devin Driver is quickly able to focus on a suspect; not only did this man send a threatening note to Marabeth, but also, her blood is found in his car. As it turns out, the real murderer lurks elsewhere, and unfortunately, Devin isn't a particularly perceptive detective, so it isn't surprising when the wrong person is convicted of the crime. However, even if Devin had been Sherlock Holmes on steroids, he undoubtedly wouldn't have solved this murder.27/ The Trial of Shada King--a district attorney in Hartford, Connecticut, is charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of the man who had raped her ten days before the shooting. Shada claims that she acted in self-defense, and since she was wearing a recording device at the time of the shooting, her claim of self-defense seems to be valid. But why was she wearing the recording device? The prosecuting attorney is convinced the crime scene was an elaborate stage production that was intended to deceive those who would be listening to the tape and that the victim was murdered in retaliation for the rape.28-34/ Finally, I have seven anthologies on Kindle that combine complete versions of many of the books listed above: Four Novels, 5 Novels, Four Murder Mysteries, The Blackwater Novels, Dark Tales, Six Novels, and Five Murder Mysteries. The purpose of the anthologies is that it gives the reader a chance to buy, for instance, five novels of mine at the rock-bottom price of $2.99.I spend a great deal of time revising my books. After finishing the first draft, I go through the book at least eight more times--first page to last page. Each journey through the book is slow and painstaking--no less than three hours and no more than thirty-five pages a day. From my experience, the kind of errors that pop up on some of the later readings can be rather surprising, if not downright alarming! I particularly look for inaccurate punctuation, lackluster sentence structure, and inaccurate or repetitive vocabulary. I also do not permit confusing sentences to stand--I can't imagine that any reader will want to read a sentence twice because I couldn't find a way to explain myself clearly.Finally, I would ask you all to keep an open mind about novels by an author who has no brand name. I am quite unusual because I do not advertise myself in any way, shape, or form (outside, I guess, of this little biography). My books are well-written, entertaining, and thought provoking, but they are often truly original, and I worry about the page-six syndrome. That's the point where some readers abandon a book by an unknown author because of a single sentence, idea, or attitude that seems amateurish to them. Have faith that there are some genuine diamonds in the Kindle arena and have faith that your instinct to buy one of my books was a good instinct. If you read any of my books to the finish, I think you'll feel that your time was not wasted because these novels are not cheap imitations--they are real creations.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE: OVERKILL 

At 4 A.M. on Christmas morning, Hunter Creek Road was dark, desolate, and depressing, but he knew what he felt was just the response of his imagination as it attempted to come to terms with the events of the last two hours. The pavement had ended, and he was driving along a narrow one-lane dirt road that because of the recent subzero weather felt like broken-up slabs of cement. He wondered if the potholes, which kept getting wider and deeper, could snap an axle, and then he’d have to walk out of this godforsaken place. Somewhere up ahead—he should have reached it by now, he thought—was Wilder Bay, which was where he planned to dump the body. Stupid idea. He should have just taken her a couple of miles down the road that ran by his house and thrown her into the woods behind the abandoned movie theatre instead of embarking on this harebrained expedition. Never should have murdered her either—not that she didn’t have it coming to her, but now that she was rolling around on the back seat and had maybe fallen onto the floor with that thud he had heard about a half-mile back, there wasn’t too much sense in thinking about the past and alternative lines of action. He had to focus on reality and stop yapping about all his supposed mistakes because it wouldn’t be all that difficult to go careening off the road and plunge into some kind of rocky morass where he could be knocked unconscious. Murderers—my God, he couldn’t believe that he had gone through with it—needed to have some backbone, some intestinal fortitude. It certainly wouldn’t be good to lose it down there! What a terrible tragedy to be caught because you left behind that kind of DNA. Everybody would be laughing at you for years. 

At least he could still dream up jokes, pathetic as they were, but he had to admit that this grisly nighttime adventure into the boondocks was a nasty piece of work. Even though there wasn’t a ghost of a chance that he could be caught—unless somebody found him wandering around out here—it was too scary and primitive for his taste. Way too scary. That look...that intense animalistic expression of fear that was permanently frozen onto her face...It looked like pleading—incredibly pitiful. What had he done? And what if God really did exist? Don’t think that way! he said to himself. He didn’t go to church, and he hadn’t read his catechism since the fourth grade, so why should he let that Ten Commandments’ gibberish get to him? It was just a woeful plate of Golden Rule rubbish that your parents fed to you so that you wouldn’t wise up, step out of line, and trim them down to pint-sized, irrelevant midgets. Anyways, if he’d been given a choice about whom to murder, it would have been his parents. Hands down! That way, he wouldn’t have to visit them anymore and attempt to explain how well his life was going—finally, after all these years—and plod through one laughable pretension after another as he described his overblown triumphs in the material world. Smirking, he tried to imagine what they would say to themselves if their precious dear boy were ever arrested for the murder of Carolyn Andrews, the jeweled-out, mudslinging tramp from the depths of the gutter. Pops probably wouldn’t be able to take it; he had two heart attacks under his belt already, and Mom always said—one of her stupid pet expressions—that the third time was the charm. 

His mind drifted back to the moments after Carolyn had croaked (not quite the right word, that’s for sure), and he’d literally stumbled over the gun when it had fallen out of her handbag as he was bringing it to the car. Just dumb luck, and now he didn’t know whether the little metal monster was a gift from God or a ticket to hell. But the gun was the reason he was here—without it, he would never have concocted this complicated plan to cover up his tracks. Of course, now that he had time to think about it rationally, there was no point in covering up his tracks because the doctors in this town were way too backwards and stupid—your classic local yokels—to ever figure this one out. Even the pros would be stumped. Not that he was a genius, but he had done some of his homework! Cursing, he realized that he had overreacted because there was just no sense in pretending that the FBI was chasing you around when all you had to worry about were the cops that sleepwalked around Marshfield. Now, if Carolyn had been the daughter of a rich, well-connected family from the hill section of town where the stupid condos were going for three hundred grand, then maybe he would have had something to worry about. But this long, agonizing drive down a road he hadn’t been on since his father took him fishing about twenty-five years ago was beginning to drive him crazy.

Enough! He slammed the brakes on, shifted into neutral, jerked up the emergency brake, and jumped out of the car. What was he so afraid of? It wasn’t like he was in the middle of the freeway with a million cars whizzing by as one driver after another hurled obscenities and threats at him. Sooner or later, somebody would come down Hunter Creek Road, but it wasn’t liable to be anytime soon—not tonight with everyone waiting patiently for Santa Claus to deliver the presents. There simply was no need for him to be a perfectionist and reach the bay because he was far enough along the road that nobody would hear the gunshots. And then, mercifully, he could leave this place and drive back to the random anonymity of civilization where he would be able to disappear without a trace.

Opening the back door on the driver’s side of the car, he could barely see her—it was so unbelievably dark out here, just absolutely black, and the headlights from the car didn’t help much since they were like two stupid soldiers who only marched in one direction—forwards, of course. Where was the flashlight that he had brought? God! He couldn’t remember anything. He thought he had put it on the floor with her handbag and coat, but she had half fallen off the seat and was sprawled on top of everything. He reached down with his gloved hands, grabbed her arms, and started to pull her out, but she was caught on something or wedged between the seats. Twisting her, he gave a violent yank and went staggering backwards as the upper half of her body came out of the car. Obviously, he thought to himself, this wasn’t going to be a formal burial with the usual decorous sermons and obligatory plaudits. Rather, this would be the quick and dirty version of the rites for the dead, which was exactly what Carolyn deserved. The Christians could dawdle around and bawl their brains out, but the gravedigger who was also moonlighting as the chauffeur of the hearse had some work to do and didn’t have the luxury of wasting his time on incantations and prayers. 

It was amazing to him what kind of senseless chatter was going through his mind. A lot of it actually seemed funny, but he didn’t dare laugh because he wasn’t sure whether it was even remotely sane to be laughing at a time like this. By now, he had Carolyn completely out of the car, and stepping over her, he pawed around the floor of the backseat until he came across the flashlight, which was small enough to fit into his coat pocket. He dumped out her handbag, found the gun, and was going to put it into the other pocket in his jacket but thought that was too risky—it might fall out or even go off somehow and shoot him right through the heart, and then, although the evidence would hardly justify it, the official conclusion would be that it was just another murder-suicide. And inevitably, people would ask, How could anyone kill himself over someone like Carolyn Andrews? 

Leaving the gun on the back seat, he stood behind Carolyn, grabbed her by the wrists, and dragged her just off the road into some dense low-lying bushes—they were so thick and stiff and impenetrable that he couldn’t even lay her flat on the ground. Going back to retrieve the gun, he haphazardly wondered what he would have done if someone had come along while he was busy hauling her off the road. What in the world would he have said? Maybe he could have claimed that she was drunk, and he was merely helping her into the bushes so that she wouldn’t retch all over the new upholstery in the car. Talk about having to think on your feet! 

Placing the gun in his hand, he walked back to her; with the flashlight on, he rolled Carolyn’s body over because he didn’t want to be looking at her face when he shot her. At the house, he had checked to make sure the gun was loaded and the safety was off, but now he had a perverse feeling that after all this clever effort the idiotic thing would malfunction. However, the noise that resounded from out of his hand when he pulled the trigger sounded ominously loud as it echoed and reechoed across Wilder Bay. No wonder people used to call guns hand cannons! He should have followed his original idea and shot her at the edge of the bay because, for all he knew, he could be within shouting distance of someone’s house. 

But it was too late for second-guessing, and stepping closer to her, he saw that he had hit her in the right shoulder. What good was that? He knew what the plan was, but it still made him squeamish. He didn’t want to get too close to her in case the blood splattered, but he realized that was just another senseless fear since she was already dead and her blood pressure had long since fallen to zero. Standing with each foot on either side of her waist, he leaned slightly backwards as he fired his next shot in the general direction of her head. And then, leaning forward and seeing that he had entirely missed his target, he closed his eyes and fired two more shots in quick succession. 

Afterwards, he couldn’t even look at her because he didn’t care anymore. All he wanted to do was run away from his perfect crime and go downtown and have a few drinks, so he could forget that this gruesome night had ever happened. He just didn’t have the stomach for this kind of ultimate gore, and impulsively, he took the gun and hurled it away—over Carolyn’s body and into the darkness of the night. As he turned back towards the car, he heard an unusual hollow clatter from the gun landing—as if it had hit at a much lower level than the ground on which he was standing. Was there some kind of cliff just beyond her body? Lucky he hadn’t walked any further off the road. He spun around and searched ahead of him with the flashlight but couldn’t see anything. What difference did it make? He wasn’t writing a novel for the true-crime market. Get out of here! Go!

As he returned to the car, which was still idling patiently and waiting for a command from its peculiar master, he saw that he couldn’t possibly turn around on this section of Hunter Creek Road. It was far too narrow to attempt such an ill-advised stunt, and he’d have to go all the way to the end where the fishermen launched their motorboats into Wilder Bay, which meant that shooting Carolyn by the side of the road had simply been the clumsy, panicked act of an amateur murderer. Maybe he should go back and get her, he joked to himself grimly. With the car crawling along at seven miles per hour as it lurched spasmodically through the ever-deeper potholes, which were starting to look like bomb craters from a World War One movie, he tried to remember what was at the end of the road. Was it a pier? A pier that he would be rumbling down absentmindedly as he subconsciously relaxed and thanked God for miraculously removing the potholes through the awesome power of His divine disposition? Like gliding on air, which is exactly what he would be doing until, draped in his heavy one-ton metal overcoat, he plunged precipitously into Wilder Bay. Sinking remorselessly into his cold, watery tomb as he struggled savagely and desperately with the door handle, which would be obstinately, irretrievably locked to protect him from intruders. Crawling and panting around in the rapidly rising, freezing water that was about to suffocate him as he frantically attempted to lower a window. Windows that were childproofed or windows where the button to lower them was impossible to find.  Punching desperately at the glass with his fist, but the water, which by now had risen a foot over the dashboard, reduced all his violent boxing efforts to feeble slow-motion swings, and now, remorselessly, he was floating up towards the implacable, double-locked sunroof where he would be taking his last gasp—just like Carolyn took her last gasp, only she hadn’t drowned. But it would be almost exactly the same thing. 

Did God really hunt you down like that? Even if he didn’t go plunging off the pier would he be on a boat some day, maybe a luxury cruise in the Bahamas, whose journey was catastrophically cut short by a colossal explosion that destroyed all the lifeboats? Or maybe it would be more prosaic, and he’d be like his father and have some kind of heart attack that left him gasping perpetually for breath. And he knew—just absolutely knew—that if something like that happened, he’d be seeing Carolyn. Live and in color. Seeing her as if it were a blown-up photograph, complete with that remarkable digital resolution everybody was crowing about nowadays. At least, thank God for small blessings, she hadn’t been able to talk. But he would see that look forever, that terrified, desperate, horrified look. 

He’d be haunted for the rest of his life. It was something that he was going to have to deal with, and he obviously wasn’t going to be able to discuss it with a psychotherapist. Those people were crazy anyways—nothing but mother or father figures dressed up in the mangy cloak of their ludicrous degrees. If he was searching for guidance, he’d have to find it within himself. All anybody else wanted was money—like that court case he had seen on TV where the guy didn’t think he had to pay his landlady rent because he was giving her advice on her love life, which he estimated would have cost her fifty thousand dollars if she had gone to a professional. Probably would have, too. 

He just had to keep his eyes on the road and remember that within an hour, he’d be sitting in Wakefield’s Pub with a few other degenerates as he swilled down some beers and realized that he had gotten away with it, the scare was over, and all these rambling-wreck thoughts of his were just the frantic expressions of guilt. After what he had done, there was no sense in lugging around an emotion like that because guilt was for the righteous, but for him, it would be too hypocritical, so he might as well forget about hell, God’s retribution, since he had escaped from the mirage of good and evil. He didn’t go to that ancient store anymore and buy the saintly trinkets that allowed you to enter paradise. And they say God is the truth! In reality, He was just a trickster, but He wasn’t the only trickster in this world. Just ask Carolyn. 

Murderers, he thought dispassionately, have to be at least a little bit hardhearted—just to preserve their sanity, which was important because otherwise they might murder again. And murdering people was not something that he wanted to turn into a habit. Once was enough—more, much more than enough. However, it was time to put the past behind him, accept the fact that he had made a few mistakes here and there, and move on. Maybe, after all, he was wrong, and God could still take a few swipes at him, but he was beginning to realize that his fears about what he had done to Carolyn were nothing more than a four-year-old being spooked by some fleeting shadows on the wall. That was really, he mused, a spectacular definition of God: The Shadow on the Wall. What was that test the psychologists used? The Rorschach test? The one where you looked at an ink blot (The Shadow!) and told your avaricious mentor what it all meant. What do you see, my son? It might be a ghost, it might be a goblin, it might be God. So, admittedly, he was a bit freaked out, but that was perfectly natural because the whole process of actually murdering someone was gross, nauseating, and utterly repellent, and that was the reason why his thoughts were so distraught or whatever other depressing word one wanted to put to his state of mind. 

The end of Hunter Creek Road did not live up to his perilous expectations and was merely a small parking area with a paved boat ramp that led down to the water. He turned around, and as he drove along, he peered out to the right to see if he could see any signs of his recent antisocial activities, when he suddenly remembered that Carolyn’s coat and the rest of her belongings were still in the back of the car. It didn’t make any difference, of course, because the car belonged to Carolyn, but he could feel a new fear creeping up on him—what if he were stopped by the cops at one of their stupid sobriety checkpoints, or if it was too late for that, maybe he’d be pulled over because no normal person would be trolling around these parts a couple of hours before dawn on Christmas morning. It would be difficult enough explaining why he was driving Carolyn’s car without having to account for all that junk of hers that he had dumped on the floor of the back seat as he searched for her gun. And what if the cops recorded the license and registration of the car? He could probably blow them off by saying that she was his girlfriend and he was too excited to sleep because he had bought her a diamond for Christmas, but once someone found Carolyn’s body, he’d be an absolute goner. He’d have to flee the state, and he had about enough money to buy a hundred-dollar bus ticket and some candy bars while he waited to depart for Timbuktu, Elba, and Points Beyond. He absolutely had to get back to town and ditch this four-wheeled albatross. 

But first, he’d clean out the car so that if the cops pulled him over, there wouldn’t be any embarrassing questions. The boys in blue would undoubtedly be curious to know why the woman who owned the vehicle had her wallet, ID, and forty-seven other things strewn around inside of it. No way! Once again, he slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car. Walking to the passenger’s side, he used the flashlight to see if he was anywhere near where he had dumped her body—no sense leaving evidence all over the place. But he saw no sign of Carolyn, and opening the back door of the car, he began hurling everything he could find into the bushes beside the road. There wasn’t anything of his in here, was there? He stopped in alarm—real alarm—and tried to think. Anything from the house? No, there was nothing because after moving Carolyn’s car into the garage, he had just dragged her out through the kitchen and crammed her into the back seat. Right! The only thing he had brought—he actually went back into the house for it—was the flashlight. 

When he had finished tossing her things into the bushes, he shone the flashlight throughout the interior of the car—it was absolutely imperative he leave nothing behind that could be traced back to him. Thank God the government didn’t have everyone’s DNA in some gigantic reference encyclopedia for cops. Undoubtedly, he’d left a few hairs behind, but for the local cops that was like the unexpurgated version of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Undoubtedly, in a hundred years, the FBI would have special electron microscopes that could analyze the DNA footprints from your carbon dioxide, and they would then be able to prowl around people’s cars and extract the DNA from the windshield with an ultra-atomic solvent, which could only be made from dust that the space shuttle had collected on one of its erratic and scary trips to Mars. But for the dopey thugs who masqueraded as cops in Marshfield, the only thing they would be able to understand would be real evidence—like something that had fallen out of his pocket and had his name on it. 

He spent a final minute double and triple checking everything inside the car, including the floor under the driver’s seat. Here, he took the rubber mat out, and walking to the front of the car, he threw it with a scaling motion as far as he could into the blackness of the night. Once again, he had the impression that it had fallen a great distance downwards before striking the ground. Strange. It made him realize that he had no idea where he was and that he should get it into gear and leave this eerie tract of land, which might as well have been on the moon. No sense tempting fate.

CHAPTER TWO: THE GREAT EAGLE

After twenty years of marriage, Lorinda Rivers became involved in her first affair—a tacky, commonplace word to describe what was, for her, an intense emotional experience. Although Lorinda was a modern woman who felt that morality was the last bastion of the culturally challenged, she had always adhered to the sensible opinion that a single sexual liaison was more than enough for any sane person. But in the end, her principles proved to be no match for her desires, and she had fallen for Preston Ryder, who had transformed her husband into an irrelevant actor in a raunchy off-Broadway play. 

Realistically speaking, she was hardly married to Cliff anymore, except in the legal sense, but what difference did the law make unless one was filing for divorce, and she wasn’t about to do that, especially since Preston was married. However, she’d seen pictures of his wife—Ashley, poor thing, who looked like a scarecrow that had been left out for the winter in the wilds of the northern plains. Not much competition there! Puzzled, because Preston was one of the most attractive men she had ever met, Lorinda had managed to discover the reason for Preston’s marriage by using her considerable inquisitorial skills to subtly pry the relevant facts out of him. Apparently, the way his marriage worked, Ashley paid for almost all the necessities while he used his money to enhance the quality of their lives. That happy-sounding sentiment had turned out to be a cover story for Preston’s life of elegant self-indulgence where cocaine played a significant role. (Unfortunately, since Ashley was a straight arrow who disdained drugs, she was unable to partake of this particular enhancement.) Lorinda had also learned that shortly after his marriage, Preston had been forced to ditch his marijuana habit because Ashley had a nose like an Australian bloodhound, but coke was an entirely different story. Very sleek and discreet. Pop into the bathroom, do up a line or two, and nobody knew the difference. It was terribly pricy, but that was basically a good thing since it kept his consumption down to manageable levels. At least he wasn’t an addict. Ashley, Miss Mouse, occasionally wondered where all his money went, but he had become adept at the grand gesture, taking her out to the swankiest restaurant in town and spending two hundred dollars on her. Waste of money, but it kept her quiet. 

Despite these seemingly malicious sentiments, Lorinda couldn’t help but be amused by Preston’s lackadaisical honesty and relatively benign cynicism. He didn’t come across as someone who was hardhearted and mean but as a person who felt that existence was essentially a cosmic joke where people were placed in awkward positions that required them to constantly make compromises with the devil. People, observed Preston casually, would receive a lot more enjoyment from life if they didn’t take everything so seriously—as if God were looking over their shoulders and grading them rigorously on every thought, emotion, and whim that passed through their minds. That was just a lot of preposterous Calvinistic poppycock. Lorinda noticed that when Preston expressed an animosity towards something, he usually found a way to connect it to the Calvinists—those seventeenth-century zealots who made the Puritans look like prostitutes. 

Although his feelings about Ashley weren’t entirely inspiring to Lorinda, it was unique and pleasurable for her to be around someone who had plenty of money and spent it freely. Preston worked at the local newspaper, The Marshfield Post, where he had recently become the lead editor for local events, and his salary was almost sixty thousand a year. Even so, he confided to Lorinda, it was difficult for him to keep up with his credit card payments, but he wasn’t worried about it because he knew that Ashley, who was obsessed with their credit rating, would bail him out if he started to go under. 

Because of the nature of their jobs, Lorinda and Preston found it easy to sneak away for their secret afternoon trysts at the Wilder Inn in Brookshire, which was a small resort town located about ten miles north of Marshfield. Both of them still wanted to keep their relationship a secret; for Lorinda, she feared—dreaded was a better word—how Cliff would react to her transgression, and besides that, she felt Preston was more of a defiant fling than a serious romance. She was far too intelligent a woman to throw all her chips on the table with a guy whose basic attitude to life was so different than hers, but he was fun to be around—very urbane and lighthearted, with excellent manners and refined tastes. True, his relationship with Ashley was a bit depressing—not the fact he was married but the way he used his wife to finance his unfaithful life. And even though he justified this by alluding to the absurdity of our ancestors’ devotion to puritanical ethics and fire-breathing Gods, Lorinda couldn’t help but feel guilty when she realized that a room and meal at the Inn came to nearly two hundred dollars—and they were going there twice a week. That was another reason why Lorinda knew she could never become entangled with him in a formal arrangement like marriage. Because, very quickly, one of them would have to make an unacceptable compromise—either he’d have to pay his share of the bills, or Lorinda would simply become the new Ashley as Preston gallivanted around town and hit on another classy, dissatisfied woman. 

So, perhaps, this affair was a good thing for both of them because no lives would have to be wrecked. There would, for instance, be no necessity for the stereotyped heartrending scene when she dropped the rejection bomb on Cliff’s balding head and told him that he had been dumped into the rubbish bin of her life. It was hard to jazz that one up! Although her husband was a problem that would eventually have to be resolved, she felt—at least at the beginning of their affair—that Preston was just a temporary fix, a distraction from a relationship that had contracted a terminal illness and was clearly on its deathbed until she could figure out a way to pull the plug on the wretched, dying patient. 

Her marriage to Cliff had become so trite that all one had to do was walk into a book store and pick up one of the usual run-of-the-mill best sellers to find a longwinded, award-winning description of the catastrophe that had befallen them. There had, of course, been the first fantastic blast of passion when they met, the groping orgies of lust that began, innocently enough, in the