Blood Is Thicker Than Wine Read online

  Blood Is Thicker Than Wine

  Copyright © 2018 by Liz Eagle

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN (Print): 978-1-54395-437-1

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-54395-438-8

  Acknowledgments

  To my family, for their support, inspiration and continued fiction that makes writing a joy.

  To all the brave men and women of the United States Probation Office, who are truly on the front line of public safety and are trained to overcome impossible situations to uphold their oath and keep the public safe.

  To all the federal judges currently seated and those who have passed, who hold the United States Probation Office in high regard.

  To the experts in their field, like Denise Sizemore, who have chosen careers in forensics and have helped make this book as factually correct as possible. And, editors, like Linden Wiegel, who are a tremendous help to new authors.

  To Donna Merriman who graciously allowed me to use the name of her lovely Clemmons, NC boutique in this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter1: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  Chapter2: Fall of 1944 – Warsaw, New York

  Chapter3: Fall of 1944, Warsaw, New York

  Chapter4: The fall of 1944 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter5: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  Chapter6: 1944 from Warsaw, New York to New York City

  Chapter7: Spring 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter8: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter9: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter10: 1945 Warsaw, New York to Attica Prison

  Chapter11: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  Chapter12: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter13: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter14: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter15: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter16: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter17: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter18: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter19: Winston-Salem, NC

  Chapter20: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter21: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter22: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter23: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter24: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  Chapter25: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter26: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter27: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  Chapter28: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter29: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter30: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter31: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter32: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter33: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter34: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter35: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  Chapter36: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter37: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter38: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter39: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter40: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  Chapter41: North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

  Chapter42: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter43: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  Chapter44: 1945 Warsaw, New York

  Chapter45: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  Chapter46: Warsaw, New York

  Chapter47: Warsaw, New York

  Chapter48: Warsaw, New York

  Chapter49: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  Chapter50: Warsaw, New York

  Chapter51: Warsaw, New York

  Chapter52: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  Chapter53: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Lil couldn’t resist the temptation to read some of the documents in the dusty old cardboard boxes. It was late, and she was exhausted from the ten-hour drive home and unpacking the car. She knew she had to be in court first thing in the morning, but the contents of the boxes were much too intriguing to wait. She dusted one off and pried it open. It was filled with loose paper, faded folders, FBI reports, and a lot of handwritten notes. Nothing was in order or made any sense. The first piece of paper she came to was a note written by her deceased grandfather, Gus. How incredible it felt to read what her own grandfather had to say. It was dated long ago, but she felt like he was talking directly to her. She secretly hoped he would reveal some sordid details of her family’s history, or maybe even the whereabouts of a small fortune gone unnoticed.

  1945, July 10th

  It has been almost a year since I was assigned to investigate complaints made by the inmates at Attica Prison about the improprieties of the town lawyer. It has evolved into an investigation concerning the brutal double homicide in this sleepy town. This was quite unexpected. I have some theories on the murders, but I need more proof …

  Lil realized he was writing about her hometown of Warsaw, as she had heard people discuss these murders before. She wondered why her grandfather was making notes about them. They were, quite honestly, the most exciting, though brutal happening in that town except for all the semi-truck accidents on East Hill. She wondered why her grandfather was writing about them as she knew that the person convicted of the crimes had been sentenced to serve time in Attica Prison, where he later died. She thought the case was closed, the murder solved, end of story.

  ...I have interviewed a lot of people and stayed at the inn long enough to come to believe that Mr. Harvey may NOT be the killer. I have to find a way to get proof. There are lots of shrewd lawyers and professionals in this town and they are covering their tracks pretty well. The McDougals, the Chandlers: I don’t trust any of them. I just need to find something concrete.

  As a side note, I can’t find a way to keep young Phillip Chandler away from my daughter, Jacqueline. Although they claim to be dating, he is stepping out on her according to rumors circulating in town. I can’t disclose that to her. She is too insecure right now and would be emotionally crushed for the second time. I just can’t do that to her without the proof I need. However, she confessed something very odd about this family, but I was not able to connect the dots. Suffice it to say even she knows there is something wrong here and despite all that, she is getting infatuated with Phillip, and I fear the worst for her if all that I know comes out.

  Signed,

  Augustus Gaylord, Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation

  Lil couldn’t believe what she had just read. She read and re-read her grandfather’s words. “What the heck? Holy Cow!” she said out loud. “These people you are talking about, Grandpa, are my mother and my father…my family!” Lil shook the paper as if to bring her grandfather to life in an effort to talk to him about it. She was stunned. Was he really serious? How could she go to sleep now? Her mind was reeling at a million miles per hour. What else would be revealed in these boxes?

  July 1943 in the park

  “Oh, come on, wake up!” he shouted, his patience running out. This was taking too long. He picked t
he lifeless woman’s body up by her shoulders and shook it. Her head bobbled back and forth. Then he tapped her cheek, looking around to make sure no one from the crowded fair heard him or saw him. He was safe. It was dark, and they were in the shadows of the trees. The bright lights and noise from the fair down the hill would surely mask his deed. “Come on…that’s it…you can do it…wake up,” he said to his victim. “It’s time to fool around, baby. Hey, remember me?” The tall man, dressed immaculately in a button-down shirt and tie, saw his victim begin to come around. “That’s good,” he told her. “You can wake up now my dear.” He held her head gently as if he actually cared about her.

  His victim squinted and blinked her eyes to focus in on the man leaning over her in the dark. He was kneeling on one knee. She could smell the stench of her vomit on and around her. Her stomach was churning, and her throat and mouth burning.

  “Oh, God!” she cried out. Her throat felt like sandpaper. She thought it must have been the wine. The grass was cold and wet, and she could hear music playing from the nearby county fair rides. She also heard people laughing and yelling as they played sideshow games under the tents. She was beginning to come back to life.

  “What happened?” she asked the man kneeling beside her. “Was I drugged? How’s my friend?” She looked up at him with a squint, bringing his face into focus. She thought she recognized him but could not remember from where. She looked around for her friend, then saw her, apparently passed out by the old WWI cannon. “Is the fair still going on? I need to get us to a hospital or a doctor.” She rubbed her eyes and wiped her mouth with her shirt sleeve.

  “The fair is still going on, my dear,” the man said, “and you have work to do, don’t you?” He leaned over to kiss her, and she slapped his face.

  “Hey! Get away from me! I will scream, I swear!” she yelled at him while pushing his hands away from her. She had hoped someone down the hill at the fair could hear her, but the collective noise of the crowd was too loud. She thought that the shove would be enough to keep him away from her. She recognized him from somewhere, but where was it? She and her friend had spent many a drunken night at the local hotel down on Main Street drinking, dancing, and listening to music. She knew that she had been too loose with strangers and probably had had sex with too many men. Some were quite a bit older than her, just like this guy. Maybe that was where she had met him. Her head was splitting, and she felt like she was going to get sick again but managed to push herself through it. She knew this guy. Then it dawned on her. Yes...she recognized him. The rich one.

  He saw it in her eyes. “Now you know me, don’t you?’’ the man said. ‘’Well, it’s time to have some fun up here in the dark. You first, then I will wake your friend,” the man said as he slid down his suspenders and starts to unzip his black trousers.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” she screamed, mustering all her strength to push him away. He lost his balance and fell back onto the grass. She almost passed out again from the strain, and her stomach was beginning to churn.

  “Alright, alright, you win,” he said, pulling himself up to his knees. “How about a quick feel just for old times’ sake, and I will leave you and your friend alone?’’

  “I guess that won’t be so bad,’’ she said, ‘’but make it a short one. I think I am going to throw up again.” She was hoping that a quick feel of her breasts would appease him, and he would leave her alone. She was feeling worse by the minute.

  He liked that idea and slid his hand down her shirt, getting a good feel of her full breasts and pinching her nipples before pulling his hand out of her shirt and placing both hands around her small neck, gradually tightening his grip. He thought he heard a bone crack. It was probably the third or fourth cervical vertebrae. He didn’t care. She gasped for breath but was too weak and he knew it. Now she wouldn’t tell anyone who he was, and his dirty little secret and that of others in this town would be safe. After she collapsed, he molested her friend, who was just about to regain consciousness.

  “You owe me,” he uttered under his breath to them as he gathered up all the jars he could find. At least two of the town’s problems were resolved (and his, as well), and no one was the wiser. He slipped out of the park by staying in the shadows of the trees and fair tents and walked briskly away from the crowd without running into anyone.

  Chapter 1

  Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  On Monday, Lil Starling went back to work at the probation office in a funk. The long road trip from New York was bad enough. They had buried her father after a long battle with dementia and Alzheimer’s, both cruel diseases. Her dad, Phillip Chandler, had pretty much lost his mind five years before his death and left all the Chandler assets in his third wife’s name. He had asked Lil for help straightening it out a few years ago, but it was too late. He had already been declared incompetent because of the disease. Lil was saddened by this, but she knew it was too late to do anything to help him out of the situation. She was not even in the same state and she had a husband, children, and a career as a federal officer. But it still bothered her. He was gone, and she would inherit absolutely nothing from her father’s years of hard work as the town’s brilliant lawyer for years.

  After the memorial service, her stepmother told her to come over to their cottage at the lake. Lil’s father had bought the cottage but had put it in her stepmother’s name to keep it away from his second wife. “Here take these,” her stepmother told her as she stacked a pile of boxes outside the back door. “Your father instructed me to give these to you after he died,’’ she said. ‘‘I don’t know what’s in them as he kept them in the cellar under his workbench. He said one time that you were the only one who might be interested in their contents, so it must be something concerning the Chandler family. I think they have been there ever since we moved here. I don’t care anything about them. I just want them out of the basement.” She never even invited Lil inside the house.

  That was probably the nicest thing her stepmother had ever done for Lil. They did not have a great relationship, and Lil had had to put up with a lot just to stay in touch with her father. Now that was all in the past, and she did not have to see that woman ever again. Her father had been a great and highly respected lawyer for fifty years in that town, but now he was gone. What her grandfather had written about him and his family simply could not be true.

  Lil wished she hadn’t even gone through the box last night. Now she was back at work in federal court for a sentencing hearing. She sat patiently with another probation officer in the federal courtroom at a table specifically designated for probation officers. Their cases were on the docket for sentencing today, and she had written the presentence report on one of the defendants. No one was talking, as they waited anxiously for the federal judge to appear. She tried to focus on the court proceedings, but after going through the boxes, she was worried about what she had read and found it difficult to concentrate.

  “All rise,” the courtroom deputy said, instructing everyone in the gallery of the courtroom to stand while the federal judge entered. Lil was not concentrating. Her mind wasn’t even on court today. It was on what she had read.

  “What a screwed-up family I have,” she thought. “Am I a product of a mess my parents started? No wonder I’ve had failed marriages! Thanks, Mom and Dad!”

  Lil shook her head to bring herself back to the present and noticed that everyone in the courtroom was standing except her. She quickly got to her feet as the judge entered from the side door, dressed in a traditional long black robe. He stepped up to the bench and looked out at the crowd. Everyone turned their focus to the most powerful man in the room. He held the fate of so many people in his hands that day, and everyone in the courtroom recognized it. No one uttered a sound. They all stood and looked toward the judge as he gave the instructions.

  “Open court,” Judge Owen Stone directed the courtroom deputy.

  “Oh yea, oh yea, oh yea
,” the courtroom deputy said. “All those having a matter before this court draw near and you shall be heard. The Honorable Owen Stone presiding. Please be seated and come to order.” The courtroom deputy spoke in a firm, but respectful tone as he addressed the gallery. Everyone sat. It was the only murder that ever happened in that town. Lil did likewise, but she was preoccupied. A double murder over 70 years old…in the sleepy little town she grew up in…it involved her grandfather and possibly her parents…everyone knew about the murders…but how could her family possibly be connected? Her dad had never, ever mentioned anything about her grandfather’s suspicions.

  The judge stepped up to the bench and looked toward the Assistant United States Attorney. “Good morning, Ms. Harris,” Judge Stone said. “What matter do you call first?”

  “Thank you, your honor,” she responded. “We call the United States versus Thomas N. Jenkins. He is the first case on the docket. He is present with his attorney. He has reviewed the presentence report prepared by Senior United States Probation Officer Lil Starling, and he has filed several objections to that report. I believe the court has received those objections and also the responses filed by the probation officer and our office. I am prepared to argue the government’s position at the appropriate time.” She looked across the aisle and nodded to the defense attorney and sat back down at her table. Ms. Harris was new to this district. She was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York and recently transferred here. Lil had not had the time to introduce herself to Harris. She had a great working relationship with all members of the local bar and they often socialized. She counted them as friends. Lil was not certain Harris would support her recommendation for the sentence. She would have to wait to see how it played out, as all parties in the proceeding did.

  The defense attorney stood to address the judge while simultaneously pulling his suit coat together and buttoning it with one hand. “Good morning, your honor. We have filed several objections to the presentence report prepared by Mrs. Starling. We specifically object to the high criminal history category and the probation officer’s recommendation that the court depart upward from the calculated guideline prison range.” The defense attorney paused, waiting for a response.