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Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Showcase – Bless Me Father By Tom Walsh


If you love a good Murder Mystery then don’t miss this impressive new book by Melange Author Tom Walsh


Bless Me Father


No place is as intimate as where you go to confess your sins.

Bless Me Father is a “who done it?” A story of love lost and love found in the midst of contemporary social issues of homelessness, addiction, and bringing the untouchable to justice.

Cloistered conversations in the confessional are sometimes tragic, sometimes humorous. It is a modern day crime mystery with character depth, a forbidden love, and a resurrected cold case.

Excerpt

Chapter One

  Grabbing a pair of surgical gloves from a nurse’s cart, his hands trembled as he slipped them on. His heart suddenly pounding heavily in his chest at the thought of what he must do. He realized that the antiseptic smell of the building made him nervous, reminding him that he was in a very controlled environment. This was not the type of place where a plan like his was typically carried out. He pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket under the doctor’s white smock that he had taken from the back of a chair just down the hall. He was looking the part, and he was feeling the part, like he belonged here. No one suspected. He checked the numbers on the paper as he strode with purpose. 108. 106. There it was—104.

Holding his breath, he slowly and quietly opened the door. Stepping into the darkness of the room, the door automatically closing behind him. The few lights penetrating the darkness of the room came from a distant streetlight beyond the closed curtains and the green digital readouts of medical equipment beside the patient’s bed. The only sound was a soft and steady whir of life support gear that was for some reason trying to keep this dying man alive. He approached the bedside.

The face of the man asleep looked haggard, gray and pale, in fact, he looked like he was already dead. Now he removed a bottle from the inside pocket of his inner jacket, unscrewing the bottle top, placing the cap on the rolling table by the bedside. Reaching down he grabbed a folded sink towel from a bedside shelf, neatly wrapping the towel around the open bottleneck.

With one hand, he reached behind the old man’s head and cradled his neck and skull, thinking that this man he once knew had shrunk considerably. He was surprised at how light the man’s body was as he pulled him up into an almost upright, sitting position. The man suddenly made a deep gasp and began to breathe deeply as if awakening from a nightmare.

He put the bottle to the man’s open mouth as his eyelids fluttered open and his bloodshot eyeballs seemed to roll back up into his head. For but a few seconds he was able to pour the fluid freely down the man’s throat, but then as he expected the old man’s gag reflex kicked in. At this point the man appeared to become fully conscious and he began to panic. The chaos of this moment was fueling him with more determination to control it. He tightened his grips on his victim.

The man’s weak arms flailed about but the tight hold on him limited his ability to do much else. The bottle began to knock dully against the man’s teeth as his bodily reflexes tried to reject the fluid that was now drowning him. The towel acted as a gasket and kept any fluid from escaping, otherwise it surely would have been spraying everywhere. The old man’s panic-ridden eyes tried to focus. They were searching for the cause of this sudden horror.

He then saw the moment of recognition in the old man’s eyes and felt great satisfaction in knowing that his victim now understood, their eyes communicating what was happening. No words were necessary.

The old man no longer flailed about, either because he gave up, or he was just unable to do so. His eyes were no longer panic-stricken. Instead, they seemed now focused on a point beyond the ceiling of the room. It was as if, that whatever he saw, he now saw clearly, and he had come to accept it.

Now loosening his grip on the old man, he removed the bottle and towel from his mouth and he let his body down gently on the hospital bed, closing the man’s eyelids and lifting his jaw to close his mouth. He gently turned the man’s head to the side, resting it on the pillow, and then placing the vodka bottle in his hand so it was trapped between his hand and leg.

He stopped to stare at the man before leaving the room, taking a deep breath just standing there momentarily at the foot of the hospital bed before he turned and walked out the door.
 
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Heat Level: 1 flame Sweet Love scenes are not consummated, or if the love scenes are   consummated details are not given.
Tom Walsh
Tom’s earliest education began in parochial schools in San Francisco. At 19 he took a summer job in the motor pool two floors underground at a large public utility. He finished his Management degree at night at St. Mary’s College of California and by the time he left the utility company 20 years later, he had ascended the management ranks, regularly meeting with company officers on the top floor. During that time, he honed his skills in writing business proposals while contributing articles to trade publications and company newsletters.
Outside of work and school he wrote and performed music with a rock band in clubs around Marin and Sonoma counties. Continually seeking new challenges, he took management positions in bay area startups that developed innovative consumer electronics.
He saw the start-up environment wane and was asked to return to the public utility now in the midst of a bankruptcy. Then as a self-employed business consultant he assisted utilities, consumer electronic start-ups, and companies in the food industry. Somewhere along the way he was the owner-operator of a restaurant.
All the while, Tom’s artistic endeavors continue to be freelance writing and music. He is married with two children and lives in Sonoma County.
 
 
 
 

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