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.
