Unforgiven Victims

Book summary

In Unforgiven Victims, Sherilee Malcolm, a writer living in hiding after being acquitted of murder, faces a new threat when a witness claims to have seen her commit another crime. As a detective and an artist uncover conflicting truths, the stakes rise, putting reputations—and possibly lives—on the line in a tense battle for justice.

Excerpt from Unforgiven Victims

Chapter 1: Sherilee

They say I killed Otto Workman. I was his lover, the natural suspect, and a witness said the killer looked like me. Later the witness changed his mind, and people wondered why. Three years after my acquittal I remain accused, not absolved.

I drink my coffee at an outdoor table, Cinzano umbrella overhead, the only patron outside, my sanity perhaps doubted by those indoors as warm rain falls on this false Europe. I sit in my own falsehood, hair blonde and summer dress bright, sunglasses off, everything different and vision blurred, forever blurred, in and by this my home, where I hide in the open, not seeing people, watching my city in all its unfamiliarity.

This is the place that has only now returned to me after three years absence. This is San Francisco through sober half-blind eyes, a sobriety enforced by sadness so strong that the usual joyous drinking would surely be fatal. And my reaction to this hairpin turn may be how my life is saved, or it may be how the lights go out, slowly dimming, the hazy vision perhaps the clearest I’ve had, and certainly the best I can have right now.

Once I could sleep and escape, for however weak I felt there was strength in my subconscious. That was before Otto’s murder. Now my dreams abound with harsh terror, placing in my hands a pistol all too comfortable, like a thin leather glove and the fingers must be flexed. So I lie awake at night as long as I can and finally pass out, to sleep badly, knowing as I drift off that there will be no mercy in sleep. Awake I am safer, saner; dreams distort the possibilities again and again. I know what I did and didn’t do and am unable to accept it.

And now I’ve returned to my adopted home, but I don’t know if it wants me back. I often walk, with nowhere to go, or ride a bus, hidden in the crowd. I do not drive, my car is in storage, the smallest traffic violation would bring out that old driver’s license, with that old picture on it and that name—Sherilee Malcolm—I want no one to hear. It is not Otto’s name that I hide from but my own, and yes his death haunts me but so does my life. And it is not me but what people think of me.

If people must know me let them read what I once wrote, and from those personae attempt to find whoever I may have been. For I am not that person now, although she of course remains; knowing I must change, in my isolation I attempt to wriggle free.

My problem is not that my life has ended with his, or that I cannot speak his name—I say it over and over, but only to myself, no one else need hear it, no one else need think of him, not the ways that I must.

And when the wind blows, hurling rain in my direction, if I am still writing I will join the crowd inside and continue; if my thoughts are temporarily complete I will stride into the downpour. I have no fear of being drenched. My notebook will be well protected inside my purse.

Chapter 2: Wash and Simon

I knocked on Hutcheson’s door and was gruffly ordered in, something worse than usual in his gravelly voice. I stepped in slowly and made sure the door shut tight behind me. The old man’s eyes remained on the file lying open on his desk. I stood, waited to be invited to sit, wanted to find out what was up and get it over with. Hands behind my back, eyes on the wall clock, I assured myself it had only been two minutes. Finally Hutcheson shut the file, opened another, and told me to sit down.

His desk was tidy except for the stack of manila folders before him. An ashtray, dusted clean, sat within my reach, spotless, but it probably always had been. Hutcheson didn’t smoke and I doubted any guest would dare sully his air. It was a small office in an old building, one where the windows still opened, and the old man kept one that way as long as the weather permitted.

Chilled, I said nothing. Hutcheson’s thick white eyebrows arched up the long slope of his forehead. He looked into my eyes as he looked into everyone’s, solemnly, as though probing the mind behind them.

“You’ve done some good work for the agency, Shank. You work well in the field.” He coughed the dust free from his throat. “Yet I hesitate to pull you from your paperwork, which is sometimes, ah, lax.”

His nose reminded me of a hawk, and I knew this pause between sentences was not an invitation to speak but a circling before he swooped.

“There are those who think me too old to hesitate before making a decision.” He held up one hand in a reflexive gesture dating back to the days when someone might have questioned his word. “But what I am too old for is mistakes.” His brow wrinkling down toward his nose, the old man leaned forward, let me in on a grave secret. “I may not have time to correct them. Now I find time is pressing, at least in this matter, and an incorrect decision, at this stage, can be no more disastrous than none.”

I nodded my head, like I knew what he was talking about.

His glance did not acknowledge my reaction. “You are the best operator available for this assignment. You will handle it.”

The old man slid a folder across the desk. “And, Shank. Be careful this time. Carelessness put us in this mess.”

Hutcheson retrieved the file he’d been reading when I entered. He opened it, leaned forward so that I faced the top of his balding dome. I sat there an uneasy couple of seconds, then picked up the file and stood, waited another second, turned and walked out of Hutcheson’s office.

With one hand I shut the door behind me while with the other I opened the folder. At the top of the first page was the witness’s name: Simon Parker. He had been nineteen at the time, an art student. I wondered at the old man’s words: what mistake of mine had kept this case alive?

It had been three years since I’d tracked down Parker at the Art Institute, followed him when he left his class and entered the cafeteria two minutes after he did. Three years since I’d carried a sketch pad, bought a cup of coffee and searched the room for the tall boy’s sand-colored hair.

He sat alone at one end of a long table, his own sketch book in front of him, coffee cup near his left hand, and sprawled awkwardly out of the little chair, even seated his height as obvious as his youth.

Parker looked up at me pulling out the chair across from his. I sat and took a cautious sip of my hot coffee. It wasn’t worth a grimace but I gave it one anyway, made sure he saw me. “Not very good, is it?”

Parker’s pencil hovered an inch above his pad, scribbled lines and circles in the air, stopped. “You get used to it.”

“Hope I don’t have to. You go to school here?”

His eyes found mine for the first time. “Don’t you?”

“Nah,” I grinned. “I met a girl here for lunch. A friend fixed us up. Sometimes you wonder who your friends are.”

Parker tipped his head to one side and his empty hand flopped open, toward me. “Then the sketch pad?”

“Oh, this.” I held up the pad, flipped through its empty pages. “A prop. To let the girl impress me.”

“But she’s gone, right? And you’re still here.”

I shook my head. “Do you know what it’s like trying to talk to someone like that? I had to get some coffee to wake up enough to leave.”

“Mm hm,” Parker said, his eyes returning to his paper, curiosity apparently gone.

“My name’s Wash Shank.”

The odd name seemed to distract him, and his pencil dropped as I reached out and squeezed his hand.

“Simon Parker.” I was tall but he was taller, and his hand in mine was more bone than meat, a lot of bone, and I grinned back, thinking this boy, though less than a decade my junior, could be molded.

“Simon Parker?” I squeezed my features together, feigned curiosity. “Have you drawn something famous?”

The boy shook his head. “No, man. I’m a sculptor. But I have been working in mixed media.” He said this last part like it was something I needed to know.

“Yeah?” I hoped I looked curious. “Experimental stuff?”

“Some of it,” Parker answered, brown eyes shining. “I’m trying to find new ways to communicate to a less traditional audience.”

“Sounds interesting,” I smiled, “but a little vague. Could I see some of it?”

“None of my new stuff’s ready yet. I don’t like to show works in progress.”

I sipped my coffee while Parker talked, set it down when he paused. “I still know your name from somewhere.”

I was reluctant to push, but if I didn’t Parker would soon rush off.

“Wait!” I said excitedly. “Weren’t you the witness in the Otto Workman murder?”

His head snapped back. “How do you know about that?”

I shrugged. “I know a lawyer. Word gets out.”

Parker’s head shook. “Shouldn’t.” It shook in the opposite direction. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

“Me neither.” I frowned, waited.

“You?” He blinked. “You were there?”

“No,” I shook my head, still frowning. “It’s a different murder I’m not supposed to talk about.”

Parker’s pencil loosened in his fingers. He laid it gently on the table, like it was wounded.

“Look,” I said, “I knew you were a student here. And neither of us is supposed to talk, right? I figured you were one person I could talk to.”

Parker nodded.

I held up an open hand. “It’s so hard to never tell anyone. I swear I’ll go nuts.”

Parker nodded again. Then he smiled, knowingly. “Are you gay? Is this a pickup?”

“This is San Francisco. Would I go to all this trouble?” I leaned back. “I need to talk.”

“Yeah,” Parker said, picking up his pencil. “I know.”