Sins of Our Fathers Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  About the Author

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

  Sins of Our Fathers

  Attorney Elizabeth Campbell turned her back on her silver spoon upbringing and finds emotional fulfillment in her work at a nonprofit legal clinic, much to the dismay of her parents.

  Her propensity for bending the law, as well as uttering a few choice phrases, makes her pairing with a Catholic priest to investigate the case of a simple man with an IQ of a child, who confessed to a brutal killing, a challenge. But solving a gruesome murder is not even her greatest trial—it’s her growing attraction to sexy but cranky Detective Grace Donovan who is hell-bent on keeping her client in prison.

  While chasing a mystery that found its way from the concentration camps of WWII to an abandoned Catholic school, Elizabeth and Grace struggle to set personal boundaries, as their relationship slowly evolves from one of hostility to indifference, to something neither wishes to define.

  Sins of Our Fathers

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

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  Sins of Our Fathers

  © 2017 By A. Rose Mathieu. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-874-0

  This Electronic book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.,

  New York, USA

  First Edition: March 2017

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

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Cindy Cresap

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Melody Pond

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank my editor, Cindy Cresap, for guiding me through the process. I would also like to thank my spouse, Elizabeth Mathieu, for her keen proofreading skills and her inspiration to keep on writing. And my children, Jamus and Evan Mathieu, for giving me the biggest reason to work hard every day.

  Dedicated to my mother, Mary, for her love and support through my life.

  Prologue

  April 1982

  Death’s blood stained the four boys who stood in a ring, dressed in jackets zipped to the top and hoods pulled around their faces, which served to thwart the moist night air and conceal their identity. Naked trees stretched out above their heads, with branches of bony fingers pointing down as though accusing. An oppressive stillness surrounded them, threatening to suffocate their labored breaths.

  “Hurry up. I’m cold!” the first boy demanded.

  “Shut up. I can’t go any faster,” snapped another.

  The sound of a shovel scraping against small rocks as it dug into the soil produced an unnatural sound to accompany the dark setting.

  “You do it.” The boy passed the shovel to a third who stood holding a flashlight. The scuffing sound continued to fill the air until at the center of the boys’ circle there was a shallow grave.

  “Come on,” said the first boy as he led the others to a piece of plastic sheeting and pulled. The others grabbed hold and helped pull, then the smallest of the boys let go and the weight of his corner dropped to the ground. The boy fell, scrambling backward until his back was against a tree.

  “What the hell!” yelled the first boy.

  The smaller boy hugged his knees to his chest. “It’s moving.”

  The boys released their hold, letting the plastic fall to the ground, and fixed their eyes on the heap in the center. A small clawing sound came from inside the wrapped sheeting, and the first boy picked up the shovel and brought it down on the plastic, making a sickening thud. A soft whimpering came from inside, until repeated blows brought deafening silence and stillness again.

  The first boy dropped the shovel. “Let’s go.” He resumed picking up the plastic, and the other two followed.

  The smallest boy curled into a ball on the damp ground, and his body shook as he tried to conceal his weeping. “Shut up,” hissed the first boy, and the smaller boy held his breath and pulled himself up, scraping his back against a tree. He placed his palm on the tree trunk to steady himself and felt a carving on the tree and looked down at it. Underneath his hand someone had crafted a heart with two sets of initials inside. It seemed misplaced.

  As the smallest boy studied the tree, the other boys pulled the lifeless heap, and the plastic easily slipped into the grave. Without looking down, the second boy picked up the shovel and began redepositing the soil into the hole.

  The morbid task complete, the boys mutely walked through the trees, but dead foliage cracking under their feet would not allow them to leave in peace. The boys flinched at the rustling of a small animal in the undergrowth, their only witness.

  The boys retreated to a wooden structure obscured by trees that easily blended with a small stone mountain. The first boy reached for the handle on a fortified wooden door that marked the entry into a discarded mining tunnel and turned to the others before he let them pass. “We will never speak of this again.”

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  Dressed in her charcoal gray suit, her skirt respectfully at knee level, attorney Elizabeth Campbell sashayed down the sidewalk, keeping time with the Madonna song pumping in her ears, butchering the words as she sang. Song lyrics were never her strong suit. Before reaching the storefront of the legal clinic and transforming into a respectable attorney, she belted out one last lyric that made even the tone-deaf cringe.

  Southern Indigent Legal Center, better known as SILC, was founded nearly fifty years ago by Joseph Manderson, whose vision was to offer competent legal services to the underserved of the city, the hardworking poor, the forgotten. Although its visionary founder passed on, SILC continued its noble service through grants and donations from larger, more prosperous law firms, whose donations relieved them of any guilt for overlooking pro bono services of their own.

  With her morning savior in its Styrofoam cup in one hand, she hoisted her shoulder bag higher with the other and cautiously stepped over a sleeping bag occupied by one of the forgotten who made camp near the front door. She startl
ed him awake, and the sleeping bag quickly rose, causing her to jostle her caffeine fix just enough to leave brown splatter across her crisp, formerly white blouse.

  “Damn it.”

  She yanked open the glass door and entered, throwing the cup in a small metal trash can with more force than necessary, which caused it to ricochet and leave a spatter mark on the scuffed white wall behind the can. She stared at the pattern on the wall, noting how it resembled an old woman with a head scarf, and she considered cleaning it up, but was saved from her internal debate by the voice of an intern. “Oh good, you’re here. Dan’s looking for you.”

  “Thanks, Jeff.” Elizabeth’s office sat in the back corner of the clinic, not quite the corner office her parents had envisioned for her when they paid the hefty bill for her Ivy League law school. She crossed the threshold into her modest-size office and tossed her bag on a pile of folders sitting on a worn black chair across from her desk. Behind her scarred wooden desk sat a matching black chair on wheels that Elizabeth had nicknamed BD, short for Black Devil for its propensity to flip over its occupant who sat too far back. Only a person experienced with Black Devil dared approach it.

  Behind her desk were two sets of windows that offered light in addition to the fluorescent bulbs that stretched across the ceiling. Black iron bars partially obstructed the view of the alley and the row of trash cans that seemed perpetually full and that were currently being scavenged by Fred, her pseudo pet rat. She knew it was Fred because he had part of his tail missing, which she learned was a result of an encounter with a sharp knife and the owner of the diner across the way. What she wasn’t sure was whether the injury was a result of the proprietor chasing away the unwanted critter or whether Fred was meant to be dinner and made a timely escape, minus a full tail.

  Unlike the offices of many of Elizabeth’s law school friends that boasted contemporary and expensive artwork, her wall proudly displayed a large corkboard adorned with papers and a to-do list haphazardly fastened with multiple colored pins. Her right wall exhibited two inspirational posters, offering words of wisdom including, “Don’t put off to tomorrow what you can do today because today is yesterday’s tomorrow.” This made her dizzy thinking about it. However, it was better than the second. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Elizabeth’s definition of insanity and contrary to her adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, break it; it will make you feel better.” She had little need for the posters’ secrets of life but left them in place because they offered covering for a few holes from obvious mishaps of the past.

  The walls were lined with file boxes with neat script on the outside indicating that they were organized in alphabetical order; filing cabinets were a rare commodity and never seemed to make it into the clinic’s budget. She switched on her computer before exiting her office, allowing the computer to boot up in her absence.

  In the center of the clinic, a series of gray cubicles stood side by side like a lineup, and small offices ringed the outside walls. She crossed the clinic to Dan’s office, which sat in the opposite corner diagonal to her own, and gently knocked on the door frame before passing through and unceremoniously plopping herself on a worn leather chair. Dan, with a telephone to his ear, barely glanced up as he sat with his profile to her. She patiently studied a crack in the leather of the chair and noticed the yellow foam threatening to spill out. The decor of Dan’s office was much like her own, mismatched furniture with a brown-and-gold plaid couch from an era past against the side wall. The only item out of place was the soft leather high-back chair that Dan occupied, which offered a seat warmer and vibrating motion. She briefly contemplated the chair but quickly shook off the thought and turned her attention from vibrating furniture to study Dan. He was an average-looking man, with salt-and-pepper hair that contained more salt than pepper. Slightly pudgy in the midsection, he depicted a well-fed, happily married man who didn’t feel the need for a gym membership. Unlike her tailored suit, Dan’s dark blue suit and matching blue and gray striped tie were probably purchased from the rack at a department store.

  Dan Hastings had been the supervising attorney at SILC since she started four years ago, and she wasn’t quite sure how long he had been with SILC or what compelled him to stay. Although he carried the title supervising attorney, it carried no tangible benefit that she could see. She knew with his experience he could earn a six-figure salary in a law firm of his choosing. Yet Dan seemed to find emotional prosperity in what he did that compensated for the lack of financial riches.

  Elizabeth understood this all too well. She was drawn to SILC after a summer internship while awaiting her bar exam results. The people touched her and kept her coming back, much to her father’s dismay. Charles Campbell, Elizabeth’s father, corporate attorney and founding partner of Campbell, Roberts, Addelstein, and Krass, was the polar opposite of Dan Hastings. Charles Campbell was refined, with an office that oozed opulence and an assistant at his beck and call. Charles expected the same for his daughter, reserving an office for her down the hall from his own. Instead, she turned her back on CRAK, the nickname her father detested, but one that she threw out every chance she could. Her father continually reminded Elizabeth that her office awaited her when she was done “slumming it.” At first, she tried to explain the importance of her work at SILC, but her father could never see beyond her five-figure salary. In the end, they agreed to disagree.

  Elizabeth was a trust fund baby, and her modest salary from SILC was like a small bonus. The Campbell family came from old money. When she was young, Elizabeth’s father liked to tell stories of how her great-grandfather built an empire from shining shoes on a street corner. In her later years, she realized that her family’s early fortunes did come from boots, but more like the bootlegging kind.

  Dan finally hung up the phone and blew out an exasperated breath. He turned to face Elizabeth and stared down at her blouse. “Tough morning?”

  Glancing down at her chest, she remembered her morning mishap with her coffee. “It was the sleeping bag,” she said as if that explained everything.

  He scratched his head, and she sensed that he was warring with himself as to whether he should explore the sleeping bag comment or let it go, but he opted to let it pass.

  Dan placed his arms on the desk and leaned forward. “Mayor Reynosa is running for the governor’s seat. He has his agenda to sell. He promised the people a full review of convictions from the DA’s major crimes division over the last five years because of the scandal over in Brewster.”

  “Brewster’s three counties away. This means…what exactly?” she asked with suspicion.

  “The mayor is reaching out, asking for assistance from clinics like ours to help because the PD’s and DA’s offices are overwhelmed.”

  “And we’re not? Why are we even considering this?”

  Dan leaned back in his chair, giving her a stern glance. “We’re considering this because we’re funded by grants and donations. If we don’t play nice when they ask for help, they don’t play nice when we ask for help.”

  She sank back in her chair. Brewster County had been rocked with scandal after an investigative reporter revealed a kickback system between the mayor, city officials, and the major crimes unit of the district attorney’s and public defender’s offices. Reynosa had been mayor as long as Elizabeth could remember, and she surmised that he and his people probably had plenty of closets full of skeletons scattered throughout the city. It made good political sense to open a few empty closets to give the appearance of transparency. For this reason, she knew the review would turn up no impropriety.

  “Look,” Dan said, “they’re only asking us to review three cases. Look them over, give them your stamp of approval, and move on.” He handed over a short stack of files. “It’ll take two hours tops.”

  “Right,” Elizabeth mumbled as she stood and grabbed the stack. “I serve at the pleasure of the mayor.”

  On the trip back to her office, she stopped in the communal kitchen,
better described as the communal closet, for another try at a cup of coffee. A small counter space contained a brown microwave with twist dials with the numbers rubbed off, a toaster that had two settings—raw and burnt—and a new, state-of-the-art coffee machine, compliments of Elizabeth. The kitchen could fit one person comfortably, two people if they were well acquainted, and three if someone would risk being charged with lewd and lascivious behavior.

  With a coffee mug that proudly announced “World’s Best Dad” in one hand and the stack of files in the other, she carefully traversed back to her office, determined not to wear her second cup. After plopping the files on her desk, she scanned her emails and opened one from BestChef:

  Hey Girl, we still on for tonight? I have perfected my sauce and you are my first victim customer.

  She typed a quick affirmation and turned to her dreaded task, opening the file on top—Mark Waters, drug dealer, convicted of second-degree murder. It seemed he and his customer had a disagreement as to the quality of the product, and Mr. Waters decided to end the dispute in the most diplomatic way he knew and pulled out a semi-automatic weapon. Elizabeth reviewed the rest of the file and noted that Mr. Waters was convicted by a jury after three separate witnesses, who were in the park across the street, testified as to the exchange of words and shooting. Satisfied that the conviction was clean, she closed the file and reached for the second one.

  Helen Akbajian, homemaker and part-time receptionist, was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and mayhem. Mrs. Akbajian had learned of her husband’s infidelity with the young clerk at his butcher’s shop and decided to take matters into her own hands. She waited until he was sleeping, took a meat cleaver—apparently Mr. Akbajian’s favorite, to add insult to injury—and removed his appendage. To ensure that Mr. Akbajian would have no chance of further indiscretions, she stuffed the appendage in the garbage disposal and turned it on.