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    A Fall From Grace: The Zack Taylor series, #2
    A Fall From Grace: The Zack Taylor series, #2
    A Fall From Grace: The Zack Taylor series, #2
    Ebook253 pages3 hours

    A Fall From Grace: The Zack Taylor series, #2

    By Dale T. Phillips

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    About this ebook

    When a single mother is wrongly accused of murder, Zack Taylor must work to clear her name. Not an easy task, as everyone in town thinks she's guilty. Zack finds plenty of people who wanted the victim dead. As the events around him spiral out of control, Zack begins to do the same.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGenretarium Publishing
    Release dateFeb 21, 2015
    ISBN9781386131212
    A Fall From Grace: The Zack Taylor series, #2
    Author

    Dale T. Phillips

    A lifelong student of mysteries, Maine, and the martial arts, Dale T. Phillips has combined all of these into the Zack Taylor series. His travels and background allow him to paint a compelling picture of a man with a mission, but one at odds with himself and his new environment. A longtime follower of mystery fiction, the author has crafted a hero in the mold of Travis McGee, Doc Ford, and John Cain, a moral man at heart who finds himself faced with difficult choices in a dangerous world. But Maine is different from the mean, big-city streets of New York, Boston, or L.A., and Zack must learn quickly if he is to survive. Dale studied writing with Stephen King, and has published over 70 short stories, non-fiction, and more. He has appeared on stage, television (including Jeopardy), and in an independent feature film. He co-wrote and acted in a short political satire film. He has traveled to all 50 states, Mexico, Canada, and through Europe. He can be found at www.daletphillips.com

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      Book preview

      A Fall From Grace - Dale T. Phillips

      Copyright © 2015 Genretarium Publishing

      First printing, January, 2012, Briona Glen Publishing

      135798642

      Cover Design copyright 2011-2015 Melinda Phillips http://www.snapichic.com

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, no portion of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author. 

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is coincidental.

      Try these other works by Dale T. Phillips

      Shadow of the Wendigo (Supernatural Thriller)

      The Zack Taylor Mystery Series

      A Memory of Grief

      A Fall From Grace

      A Shadow on the Wall

      A Certain Slant of Light

      A Sharp Medicine

      Story Collections

      Fables and Fantasies (Fantasy)

      More Fables and Fantasies (Fantasy)

      Crooked Paths (Mystery/Crime)

      More Crooked Paths (Mystery/Crime)

      The Last Crooked Paths (Mystery/Crime)

      Strange Tales (Magic Realism, Paranormal)

      Apocalypse Tango (Science Fiction)

      Halls of Horror (Horror)

      Jumble Sale (Different Genres)

      The Big Book of Genre Stories (Different Genres)

      Non-fiction Career Help

      How to Improve Your Interviewing Skills

      With Other Authors

      Rogue Wave: Best New England Crime Stories 2015

      Red Dawn: Best New England Crime Stories 2016

      Windward: Best New England Crime Stories 2017

      Insanity Tales

      Insanity Tales II: The Sense of Fear

      Sign up for my newsletter to get special offers

      http://www.daletphillips.com

      DEDICATION

      To my mother and father

      Even though Philip Larkin was right

      Acknowledgments

      There are a number of people who have assisted the writer in bringing this book to market, that you might read it. And so my thanks go out to these, and any who are not named, for their help in making this book possible.

      As always, to my wonderful family: Mindy, Bridget, and Erin, for suffering my peculiar and solitary profession of writing.

      To my dear and supportive friends and loved ones for making things more enjoyable along the path of life. To my main man, Dana Lee, who once held a position that inspired the germ of an idea, but in no way resembles or suggests any character or situation depicted in this work.

      To all my critiquers and proofreaders who helped make the work better, especially the Tyngsboro Writer’s Group; including, but not limited to, the following: Joe Ross, Mike Johnson, Karen Johnson. Matt Lewin, Rick Cooper, Brian Hammar, Todd Savelle, and the Immortal Bernie Z. And once again to the helpful staff at the Tyngsboro Public Library for giving us space to meet and work. And to my later editors, who made a good work better.

      To my original publishers, who did it again; the staff and consultants of Briona Glen, for working to bring a book into being. And to Genretarium Publishing, for giving the book a new beginning.

      To two outstanding professional mystery writers and nice people: Debbi Mack and David Daniel, both of whom have read a Zack Taylor book and allowed me to use their kind and generous words of praise. (Their mysteries are great—buy them!)

      To all those who have helped teach me to write, through their works.

      To all those who read the first Zack Taylor mystery, A Memory of Grief, and wanted more. And to you, my heartfelt thanks, for reading this one.

      Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.

      — Galatians 5:4

      Chapter 1

      The jailhouse lay before us, an ugly, squat building full of menace. Pelted by the November sleet, I was unable to make myself move, like a fear-frozen kid on a high-dive board. Allison looked at me, waiting for me to make good on my promise to go inside with her. I had agreed for love’s sake, and now had to plunge into a lake of broken glass to help out a stranger.

      Allison came to me trembling. She shielded us with the three-dollar umbrella she’d bought at a LaVerdiere’s drugstore on the way. It had improbable yellow daisies in defiance of the locale and the weather, and reeked with a sharp smell of bad vinyl. Sleet crackled on its surface.

      My arm went around her and I put my head against hers, her scarf tickling my nose.

      I don’t want to go in either, she said. But we have to.

      Yeah. So we did. But I was in another jail, on the other side of the country, where I’d been more than a dozen years ago. Flashbacks came in lightning flickers, illuminating painful memories that had lain long buried.

      There was no way for her to fathom how close I had come to dying as that piece of my life was torn from me. She could run her fingers over the puckered silver-dollar-sized sunburst mass on my lower torso like a bad appendectomy, or the jagged red ridge forking off from my eyebrow. But she couldn’t conceive of prison’s constant assault on the senses, or the life-bludgeoning despair and hate.

      I’d like to think that maybe she wouldn’t have asked if she had known how much it hurt, but then again, maybe that didn’t matter. Family was involved, blood thicker than water and all that. Anyway we were here, and I had to make my feet move, make myself go voluntarily behind bars once again. It felt like digging my own grave.

      I breathed deeply, trying to ease the constriction in my chest. With an effort of will, I pushed the ghosts back and looked once more at the buildings and the fences strung with concertina wire. I had gotten out, I was free. I could walk in here and walk out again this time. Okay.

      We went together toward the huge steel doors of the entrance. Twitching like a junkie, with pounding pulse and a dry mouth, I showed my ID, filled out a form, signed Zack Taylor with a trembling hand on the visitor sheet, and passed through a metal detector. Cameras with unblinking red Cyclopean eyes stared down from the walls. The pat-down for contraband made me shudder. It felt too much like being an inmate again.

      The faces on the guards were the same as I remembered, as pitiless and immobile as the carved heads of Aztec gods. The only reaction they showed was in the eyes, taking in everything and measuring everyone by level of threat.

      My shoulders were hunched and tight. I had to force myself to stand erect and look at faces instead of at shoes. In prison, a straight-on look to anybody is usually taken as a challenge, and you simply don’t look a guard in the eye, even when he talks to you.

      One of the guards gave me a sharp double take and whispered to a cohort. The other looked over and gave the first an almost imperceptible nod. The first one stepped away. Panic sweat traced the length of my spine. I wanted so badly to run back through the heavy doors to the cold outside air.

      The guard came back, and gave a slight shrug, while I pretended not to look. We started moving to the next door, and I started breathing again.

      The outer rings of personnel were all males, but as we got deeper in, it was all women, though they had the same stone faces. The hell that I’d been in had smelled of sweat, piss, and misery. This jail smelled of industrial cleaner.

      We were taken to a room separated from the prisoners by thick, wired glass. We sat on hard plastic chairs while they brought Bonnie in to the other side. She looked like a terrified mouse, small and pitiful inside the shapeless gray jail outfit. She had a half-moon cut under one eye, with a telltale discolored bruise.

      Looking at her, I didn’t see a killer. In the many years I’d spent studying people, I’d seen those who had killed, and I could tell. This woman was lost in a nightmare, and she looked at us the way a drowning person sees a rescue rope. She picked up the phone on her side, while Allison put her head against mine as I held the one on ours.

      Kelly’s fine, Allison said. For her to hear first thing about her daughter was just what Bonnie needed, and I saw some of her tension ease. She’s doing well. You’ll see her soon. We’ll get you out of this.

      Bonnie’s throat worked as she tried to speak, but she broke down and sobbed. A jail matron came over and handed her a tissue, an act of human kindness I’d not thought possible in this place.

      Allison put her hand on the glass and spoke.

      This is Zack, honey, you remember? He grew up on a turkey farm out in California. That’s right. Thousands and thousands of turkeys, just like him.

      I laughed, and Bonnie half-smiled. I saw more tension drain away. Allison knew her stuff.

      I chimed in. And here we are, close to Thanksgiving. So I’m getting a little edgy. How about you, Bonnie?

      They think I killed him.

      Yeah, I said. But hang tight. This is rough, but you’ll get through it. When someone’s killed, the cops like to arrest someone quickly. So they take the shortest route. But we’ll get you a good lawyer, get some lab tests done, prove there are other people they should look at.

      She looked stricken. I ... don’t have the money for all that. 

      Allison jumped in. Don’t worry about that. We’ll see that everything is done. We’ll get you out.

      It’s awful in here. The other women. You can’t believe the things they say.

      Yeah, it’s what they do for entertainment, I said. I looked at her eye. Did they give you that cut?

      Bonnie touched the wound. No, he did this to me, the day he was—

      Okay, I cut her off. Instead of thinking about what they say in here, think about what you’ll say to your daughter when you see her.

      They said the state would take her away from me.

      Because they want to see your pain. Don’t talk to them, don’t answer back.

      She nodded again, very serious, seeming to absorb what I’d said. She might make it.

      So how’s the food? I asked, trying to gauge what she had left. Good, huh? That gray stuff is the best. Too bad you won’t be in for Thanksgiving. You get a whole spoonful of green mashed potatoes.

      She smiled a little and shook her head.

      Actually, I went on, It’s better if you mold it into sculptures. Decorate the cell for everyone, since you’ll be out soon. Just think, you can be the Martha Stewart of Cell Block D.

      She snorted. Definitely a good sign.

      Chapter 2

      Three of us sat in Portland’s Great Lost Bear restaurant, amidst the loud, boozy cheeriness of an early-Saturday crowd, young twenty-somethings getting a start on their hormonal partying. We usually liked this place, but tonight Allison acted like a stunned victim in the aftermath of a car wreck, and I still had the jitters from being in a jail again. Dangerous doors had been opened in my memories, and my muscles twitched like electric current under my skin.

      You two are about as much fun as boils, J.C. said, looking from Allison to me and shaking his head. Joshua Chamberlain Reed, J.C. to his friends, was a reporter for the Maine Times and seemed to know everyone in the state, so I’d asked his help in finding Bonnie a lawyer. J.C. still owed me for the inside information on a drug ring I’d helped bust up. He’d written a series of articles about the case that could put him on the short list for a Pulitzer.

      With his white hair and trimmed beard, he’d be perfect for the Hemingway look-alike contest in Key West, a hands-down winner. I watched him with envy as he sipped the amber Scotch in his glass and smacked his lips. The Siren call of liquor still came to me whenever I was in a lot of pain, and a drink or few would have really helped calm my nerves. But once I started, I didn’t want to stop, because that would let the pain and the ghosts back in. So I sat there feeling miserable, and blaming Allison for putting me through all this.

      Silence piled up like poker chips in a pot. When it was obvious Allison or I weren’t going to contribute to the conversation, J.C. spoke again, using his pedantic professor voice in an effort to perk things up.

      Ah, you two should cheer up, considering I have secured for you the services of the renowned Gordon Parker. Whom we’ll be meeting after we dine.

      Allison had been moodily staring off into the distance, but now turned her lovely blue eyes to him. Is he good?

      My dear, he is the premier criminal defense attorney north of Boston. He’ll get your cousin out in a trice. However—

      He’s expensive, I said.

      Indeed he is. And he’s worth every thousand. J.C. cleared his throat ostentatiously, and looked up at the ceiling while humming off-key. That was his idea of being subtle.

      Allison studied him for a moment, swallowed hard, and slumped in her chair. She waved her hand in a gesture of resignation.

      I’ve got some saved up.

      I turned to her. The money for redoing the upstairs?

      She bit her lip, shrugged, and looked away. Some things are more important. Grabbing her wineglass, she downed what was left, then twirled the empty glass in the air, signaling the waitress.

      Can I get another one of these?

      She’d been saving money and talking about the renovations to the old house for months. I stared at her, wondering how she could put her needs aside that way. Some of the resentment I was feeling toward her ebbed away. I took her other hand.

      I can help some, I said.

      She set down her glass and looked at me with a trace of a frown. You don’t have to do that.

      What affects you affects me, I said, and got my reward. She smiled, for the first time in hours. It was like the sun coming out.

      So you’re riding to the rescue, J.C. said. I thought your money was going for renovations to your martial arts studio?

      It’s called a dojo, I said, a trifle too snappishly. I’ll make some adjustments. Allison leaned over and kissed me.

      I don’t know which is worse, said J.C., the sitting like bumps on a log, or the cooing lovebirds. Let’s order some vittles, shall we? Assuming you two are going to eat, instead of just making kissy-face all night.

      Allison got into the spirit and stuck her tongue out at him.

      At least we can understand you now, she said. I was afraid you were going to talk high-falutin’ all night.

      I added my two cents. "He’ll probably talk about Bonnie being in Durance Vile next, or start quoting from Wilde’s De Profundis. He thinks it’s impressive. Down-home Yankee, but he spouts off like a tweedy Englishman. Hip-ho, old boy. What say a bit of the crumpet?"

      J.C. looked at me through lidded eyes, trying not to smile.

      You really are an annoying sod, aren’t you?

      The waitress came back and we ordered our dinners. Then we talked about everything but Bonnie, trying to keep a light tone, but the air went out of our forced conversation. Allison drifted back into a mood as cloudy as a Scandinavian winter. I didn’t taste my food, and mostly rearranged it on the plate.

      I’d survived in the years since prison by emotionally numbing myself, pushing down bad memories and learning not to feel. Now the pain was back in full, sharp and cutting as a new saw blade.

      A

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