Shades of Truth

James A. Ardaiz

Description

Reopening a cold murder case uncovers disturbing secrets … and forces a young prosecutor to an agonizing decision.

Informations

• Publié par: Linden Publishing
• Date de parution: 05 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781610353656
• Langue: English

Extrait

S HADES OF T RUTH
A Matt Jamison Novel
James A. Ardaiz

Pace Press
Fresno, California
Shades of Truth
Copyright 2019 by James A. Ardaiz. All rights reserved.
Published by Pace Press
An imprint of Linden Publishing
2006 South Mary Street, Fresno, California 93721
[phone] / [phone]
PacePress.com
Pace Press and Colophon are trademarks of
Linden Publishing, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-61035-345-8
135798642
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.
A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.
-George Bernard Shaw
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
T he blazing sun of summer fills the great Central Valley of California with heat until even shade provides little respite. It s not uncommon for late afternoon July days to reach 105 degrees. Nothing moves, not even the leaves on the rows of vines that stretch out along endless country roads, their wooden canes curling around wire that holds up the summer s end crop of green and red grapes. There is no wind. No breeze. Just heat. Like the leaves of the vines, nothing moves unless it has to.
Until the evening. That s when the ground begins to release the warmth it has absorbed and the onset of evening becomes a balm to the people of the Valley. The dusk sun sets orange against the rise of the Coastal Range and the horizon folds streams of crimson and yellow into the slowly darkening sky. It is a time when older people remember that as children they played in their front yards while neighbors sat in chairs watching and visiting. Even now, when in many cities across America people don t know the names of their neighbors, the evening time is when people of the towns of the Great Valley walk and wave and stop for a moment to say hello. It s one of those places that remind people from other places of how they want to think it used to be.
But memories of the past cannot push back the slowly rising tide of change. The violence that no longer leads the news in major cities is still a headline here. Like the violence elsewhere that seems to find new and different ways to crash through the sensibility of people, shocking them with what before they could not even imagine, it sometimes happens here also. And people are reminded that the life they once held on to so casually they must now hold on to tenaciously because there are more and more who would take away from the peace of others. It is the way of a changing world and even that change has come to the Valley. What once stunned its inhabitants by its uncommon violence now assaults slowly calloused sensibilities. With that progress of civilization, the revulsion that once endured in memory is now frequently only a moment s repulse. But on this warm July night, there would be one more moment, and even those who thought of themselves as no longer surprised at what predators could do, would awaken this time to horrific images conjured by the words of reporters, reporters who themselves were recoiling from what they had before not even imagined.
Chapter 1
Tenaya County, California
July 5, 1980
C hristine stirred fitfully in her bed, opening her eyes to the darkness. Moonlight seeped into the small bedroom, outlining the few items of furniture that provided familiarity in the daylight and became fearful shadowed objects of imagination at night. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, pulling at the T-shirt that rode up over her belly, sticking to her small body. It was too warm even for a sheet. But it wasn t the stifling trapped heat of her room that kept her awake. It was the sounds. She d heard them before. They were part of the three short years of her life. She pulled her knees up to make herself small, hiding in the folds of the sheet, and buried her face in the pillow.
The sounds of her life were not the noises that should be part of childhood. But Christine didn t know that because it was what she d always known. These were the sounds of her home. Soon her mother would come and comfort her. Her mother always came, and then they would both cry, from the child the frightened tears of an innocent who needed reassurance, and from her mother the resigned tears of a woman who couldn t find her way out of despair. But tonight, her mother didn t come. Only the sounds.
The body of Christine s mother slammed against the thin wall of the kitchen, the shuddering vibration carrying throughout the long-dried wooden frame of the house. It carried even into the bed where the child lay, pulling her small body against herself. She kept her eyes closed, scrunching them, trying to keep out the resonating sound. She curled into a tighter ball, drawing the pillow up against her face, reaching for the softness of her stuffed rabbit. The worn fur of the over-loved toy yielded to the child s tight embrace, but it was unable to block out the reverberating noise which came-again and again and again.

The light in the kitchen was unshielded. Any glass shade that once softened the harsh glare of the light bulbs had long ago disappeared, probably broken, certainly misplaced in time and memory. The eight-by-ten room was cramped by the small kitchen table in the center and three chairs, their plastic seat coverings splitting as age took away whatever suppleness they once had. The sink and counter were littered with half-empty glasses and plates with remnants of food drying hard on them.
For some inexplicable reason, at that moment Lisa Farrow took in the meagerness of her life as her back slammed into the kitchen wall. She felt the air leave her body. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth where her teeth clamped together against her tongue as she tried to brace herself against the blow. Her vision closed in as her left eye began to swell. She didn t reach up to see whether the skin was broken. She needed both hands to protect herself. Experience had been a brutal teacher.
Her words came out thickly. Rick, don t. No more. What do you want? I ll do what you want, anything you want. It didn t matter. She was long past pride. This was about survival for her, for her baby. Lisa s face turned slightly to the left, toward the hallway and the bedroom where Christine was, hoping she didn t hear. Out of the corner of her right eye she could see Rick moving toward her, his face twisted with anger, his eyes narrow slits revealing only blackness.
He stood there, his eyes darting around the room, the rage coming in waves, ebbing and flowing. This is her fault. She made me do this. It s her fault, not mine . The thought refueled his anger, focusing his eyes on the woman, her back against the wall, coughing and shaking. This is all her fault . The more he looked at Lisa s swollen face the angrier he was that she made him do this. He felt the rage rising up inside him like a tornado blacking out the light of day. His hand slid to his side, the fingers curling around the smooth dark wood of the Buck knife he carried sheathed on his belt. He didn t even sense the automatic gesture of his other hand easily pulling out the blade, the stiffness of a new knife being opened long past.
Lisa kept her face turned to the left, the swelling eye closing rapidly, forcing her to focus her right eye as she heard the dull click of the blade locking into place. Rick held it up, hesitating before he laid it on the counter, the silver metal of the blade glinting as it rattled against the cracked and aging tile. He lunged forward, drawing his hand back into a fist, shoving it into her stomach. Lisa felt her knees buckle as she gasped for air, fighting the urge to simply be still but unable to stop the slow slide to the floor. There was nothing left for her except to cover her head as Rick kicked at her. Bitch! Bitch! What makes you think I would even want you? What makes you think anybody wants you?
Lisa felt him standing over her, his sweat dripping down, mingling with her own fear-driven sweat and the blood from her split lips. Then he began to kick again. He kicked until she couldn t feel it anymore, and then he kicked again. She heard him shouting, but his words were a garble of sound and spit. Finally, he stopped.
She should have lay still but there was Christine. That was all that went through her mind as she struggled up from the floor, trying to raise her upper body, her side burning, every breath a racking pain, her body choosing between the need to breathe and the inevitable agony that shot through each breath. L