The Pact At Star's Crossing
by
Darrell Pruett
Darrell Pruett
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this electronic book, or portions thereof, in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
The Pact at Star's Crossing is Darrell Pruett's third novel. He developed an affinity for writing under the aegis of his high school journalism teacher in his home state of Indiana in the late 1950's. Always preferring to do things the hard way, Darrell interrupted his writing endeavors for about three decades when he entered the Air Force after high school. Four years later, he met his wife Patricia while stationed at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts, and settled in the Springfield area in the mid '60's. He then went into the business world and began taking night courses (the hard way) at a local college. Over the ensuing ten years, Darrell obtained two business degrees, including an MBA in business in the mid '70's.
Just prior to that ten-year period, they had their daughter Robin, who currently holds a PhD in genetic research from Harvard Medical School.
The next twenty years went by in a blur as Darrell completed his own education, progressed into various accounting management positions, and began the arduous task of paying college bills.
Three years ago, Darrell's desire to write had finally re-emerged, resulting in an FBI mystery/thriller titled The Power of The Shadow, which once again was done the hard way, at nights and on weekends. Last year, he created his second novel, a medical mystery, Call Me Liz, dedicated to the trials and tribulations his daughter incurred during her post graduate AIDS research work.
The plot for The Pact at Star's Crossing germinated from Darrell's high school days in small-town Indiana. His novel takes a look at the close relationships that develop among high school friends, then reexamines those relationships twenty years later under the strain of murder and blackmail.
The characters in Star's Crossing will seem disturbingly real and familiar, so it's important to remember that the work is fiction (perhaps excepting a couple of the murders - Darrell still likes to, do things the hard way!)
Darrell resides with his wife Pat in a suburbs of Springfield, in western Masachusetts.
I have become convinced that our World has yet to produce a kinder, more dedicated, loving and considerate person. This woman would even find something of value inside the dark soul of someone like Chick Dunmoreland (see within).
For that, and many other reasons,
I love you, Mom.
This title was nominated for the Frankfurt eBook Awards.
May, 1997: The small outdated town of Wilmington, Virginia is shocked at the discovery of a human skeleton buried beneath the rocks at Star's crossing. The old abandoned ninety-foot high railroad trestle support wall located there in the foothills of the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains had hosted few visitors since the trestle was demolished a year ago. Now the grim discovery of the as yet unidentified remains was about to set off a chain of events that would rock the conservative community to its core.
The Fremont county sheriff calls on the Virginia State police for assistance. The Bureau of Criminal Investigation assigns their very best, special agent Tony "Bronco" Pandolfi, to travel from the VSP headquarters near Richmond to investigate the homicide.
But Pandolfi is having problems of his own. He remains heartbroken over the death of his wife a few-months earlier and has resorted to several aborted suicide attempts. Frustrated at his inability to end his grief by his own hand, he recalls a former undercover role he had once assumed. A street contact places him in touch with a professional underworld hit ring that the agent had once investigated. Pandolfi cashes in all the equity from the sale of his home and commissions the underworld to handle his problem for him by taking a blind contract out on himself. Sometime in the coming week, an underworld "rabbit" would execute the crusty State trooper. Then he could finally rejoin his Stella. In the meantime, just to keep himself occupied while he anxiously awaits his fate, Bronco accepts the assignment to investigate the discovery of the skeleton. Saddled with a new recruit, trooper Darwin Spinks, Bronco embarks westward for Wilmington and the homicide investigation at Star's Crossing.
Meanwhile, at the State House in Boston, Massachusetts, Lt. Governor Mike Woodson receives two pieces of mail that will drastically impact the rest of his life. The first is an invitation to his twentieth high school reunion in Wilmington, Virginia. The latter is an ominous threatening blackmail note from the past.
Woodson, a front-runner for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency, frantically places a call to a fellow Wilmington classmate, Diane Barnes, in the Washington, DC area. He learns that Diane and three of their former Wilmington classmates have received similar blackmail notes. Woodson and Barnes nervously agree to meet in Wilmington the day before the twentieth class reunion to discuss their options.
Twenty years earlier, in May, 1977, six graduating Wilmington High School seniors had made plans for a hike out to the railroad trestle at Star's Crossing. Class president Mike Woodson, son of State Senator Bob Woodson, came up with the idea for the impromptu trip. He invited his five closest high school friends: his girl friend, Diane Wojokowski; Sally Rather; and his three best buddies, Rex Connors, Jason Jackson, and Marvin Appleby. As an afterthought, Woodson also brought along 29-year old Jackie Dale Clayton, a mentally retarded friend.
The hike ended up as a drinking contest, and in a tragic accident caused by Woodson's horseplay, his simple friend Jackie Dale fell and was killed on the rocks at the base of the trestle wall.
The Harvard-bound Woodson panicked and talked his friends into not disclosing the accident. Reluctantly, his classmates agreed, and they buried their retarded friend there, covering him with rocks at the base of the trestle wall. They solemnly made a pact with the persuasive Woodson to never discuss the tragic incident with anyone.
Now, twenty years after that fateful event, the classmates are about to reunite, but this time, under the pressure of blackmail regarding the death of Clayton. The discovery of the human skeleton at Star's Crossing is threatening to uncover their twenty-year secret.
After graduation from Wilmington High, Diane Wojokowski had eventually married U.S. Senator Thurston Barnes. The Star's Crossing secret that she carried with her had led to a mental breakdown five years after the incident. To compound matters, Diane also suffers with another terrible, dark secret which has resulted in her continued therapy since.
Sally Rather, who had been pregnant the day of the pact, kept her condition a secret, even from the baby's father. She had traveled to Florida to live with relatives while she delivered the child after her graduation. Sally later moved back to Wilmington as a "widow" with her daughter Sarah, who is now married with a child of her own. Sally has been the town's head librarian for the past fifteen years.
Marvin Appleby attended a theology school and now presides over the only Catholic church in Wilmington.
Rex Connors went on to star in NCAA basketball for the Indiana Hoosiers. After graduation at IU, he turned professional and had a highly successful career with the Chicago Bulls. He is currently a very well-to-do sports agent.
Jason Jackson, who had been the only black senior at Wilmington High, attended a junior college for two years, then joined the army, progressing to the rank of Master Sergeant. Last fall, he suddenly disappeared and was listed by the army as a deserter.
Special Agent Pandolfi and his young recruit, trooper Darwin Spinks, turn the small town upside down in their investigation to determine whose bones were found at the trestle and who was responsible for placing them there. Gradually, the burly investigator has changed his mind and no longer wants to die but has no idea how to put a halt to the contract he had made on his own life. He tensely keeps one eye out for the "rabbit" assassin while he uses his innate skills to solve the confusing case at hand.
The aggressive Lt. Governor Mike Woodson suspects that Diane Barnes' long-time Wilmington psychiatrist, Philip Jenkins, is the blackmailer. While Woodson awaits further contact from the blackmailer, he hires seedy private investigator "Chick" Dunmoreland to take care of his problem. The aspiring politician wanted to insure that nothing from the past would mar his impending Presidential campaign.
In an ironic case of double mistaken identity, Dunmoreland, the sadomasochistic PI, mistakes Pandolfi for his intended target, Doctor Jenkins. Pandolfi is knocked unconscious, bound, tortured, and beaten severely. Pandolfi mistakenly concludes that Dunmoreland is the hired "rabbit" executioner. With last-second help from an unexpected source, the trooper miraculously escapes death and begins to put two and two together: there has to be more than one body involved! He knows the identity of one of them, but who is the other, and are there two different killers two decades apart?
In a series of shocking events, which includes the eventual death of four of the original six high school friends and at least four other related deaths, Bronco eventually sorts through the tangled clues. In the conclusion, he uses his resourcefulness to resolve all the entangled mysteries surrounding the pact at Star's Crossing and successfully eludes the foreboding "rabbit". Or does he?
Later that evening, in the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia, Special Agent Tony “Bronco” Pandolfi sat gloomily on the edge of the motel bed. His Virginia State Police 9mm service pistol lay passively at his side. The flickering orange neon light from the furniture store across the street accentuated his stubble--he had not shaved for three days and hadn’t moved since the phone call from the Colonel. Slowly, almost painfully, he reached to his right and lifted the shoulder holster containing the pistol. With a vacant stare, he fingered the small letters the Colonel had insisted on having engraved on his old friend’s leather holster:
Special Agent Antonio Pandolfi
Bureau of Criminal Investigation
Criminal Intelligence Division
Virginia State Police
“Tony,” the Colonel had said, “I’ve got a job for you--one I think you’ll enjoy. It’s in the mountains out in the western part of the State. Today some kids uncovered a human skeleton and the locals have called us in on it. Stop by here late tomorrow and I’ll fill you in.”
Pandolfi had contributed only a couple of guttural grunts to the entire conversation. After the Colonel had hung up, Tony drifted back into the same despondent mood he had been mired in for the four months since his Stella had died.He glanced over to the small table that held the only light in the dingy room. Crumpled at the base of the lamp lay several receipts he had removed from the pockets of his wrinkled trousers, each one being identical except for the dates: “Stop and Shop, Parker Street, Richmond, Virginia: Italian Poor Boy, .69* tax paid .04 cash tend 1.00 .27 change.” Seven receipts in seven days. Stella would have thrown a fit. Her man should never eat like that!
No Down Payment flashed on and off the scrubby wall that Pandolfi stared at but didn’t see. He flipped open the snap on the holster and unsheathed the pistol.
“Tony, now you know better than that,” he thought he could hear Stella say. He slid the pistol back inside, then after a few seconds, slowly removed it again. This time, he thought, she didn’t notice.
Beads of perspiration formed on his forehead and dribbled down over his temples, then into his fleshy cheeks where they stopped--dammed up by his stubble.
Slowly, as if he could make the move without Stella taking notice, he brought the weapon up to eye level where he squinted down the barrel, sighting at the “P” in “Payment” on the neon sign. He noticed that the yellow neon flashing against the blue steel barrel formed an interesting color. What would Stella have called it? She always had some damn fancy name for colors. Men never knew colors. Well, real men, anyway.
A small smile formed on his chapped, puffy lips when he saw the weapon turn, as if on its own volition. He stared into the chilling dark hole for a few seconds, then felt the acid taste of the metal against his tongue. The pistol moved lewdly in and out of his mouth several times before he felt his right index finger tighten slowly on the trigger of the semi-automatic weapon. He knew that the gun had a slow trigger . . . it wouldn’t go off until he squeezed it to just about there . . . no, just a little more! The perspiration intensified. It now dripped from his trembling chin onto his boxer shorts. In fear, his eyes narrowed to slits. He gritted his teeth and slowly increased the pressure on the trigger. He heard a faint mechanical click in the firing chamber of the Smith & Wesson. His stomach rumbled loudly . . . then a backfire from the street outside the motel caused him to suddenly jerk the gun from his mouth. He collapsed on the damp sheets, sobbing into the pillow. In mortal fear, he had lost control of his sphincter muscle and his bowels had emptied on the bed beneath him. He had failed once more.
Electronic Editions: ( * Disclaimer )
Download via Email $6.95
3.25" PC disk $6.95 + $2.55 shipping and handling each disk.
NEW - InstaBook paperback Edition