The Wingthorn Rose. Melvyn Chase

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      The

      Wingthorn Rose

      A Story of Transgression, Redemption

      and the Power of Love

      Melvyn Chase

      © 2008 by Melvyn Chase. All Rights Reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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      P.O. Box 2321, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504-2321.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Chase, Melvyn, 1938-

      The wingthorn rose : a story of transgression, redemption, and the power of love / by Melvyn Chase.

      p. cm.

      ISBN 978-0-86534-630-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)

      1. Redemption--Fiction. 2. Conduct of life--Fiction. I. Title.

      PS3603.H3794W56 2008

      813’.6--dc22

      2008020116

      www.sunstonepress.com

      SUNSTONE PRESS / Post Office Box 2321 / Santa Fe, NM 87504-2321 /USA

      [phone] / orders only [phone] / FAX [phone]

      With love to Matthew and Rebecca,

      the next generation of dreamers

      1

      Pennington

      Lucas Murdoch had never heard of Pennington, Connecticut, but as he drove through the town, he began to feel at home.

      On the outskirts, he passed a deserted red brick factory, the windows of its eyes nailed shut with weathered boards, its vacant parking lot still protected by a steel-mesh fence, its empty guard-house watching Route Forty-Six, its barren loading docks waiting for phantom shipments.

      A little further down the road, in boxy one- or two-story buildings: a real estate agency, an auto repair shop and a mail-order catalog fulfillment center.

      A small town, too far from Boston or Hartford or New Haven to become a suburb, too poor to hold onto ambitious young people. A small town like Shelby, Pennsylvania, where Lucas had grown up.

      Turning south off the road, he passed a general store that also served as the local post office. He entered a neighborhood dense with shrubbery and massive, centuries-old oak trees crowded together so tightly their branches twisted around each other in awkward, frozen intimacy.

      It was mid-morning on a Wednesday, early in May.

      He drove at random, eventually circling back to Route Forty-Six and going north across the highway, up a steep hill, until he reached the end of the street at the gate of a hilltop estate. He could see the broad-shouldered, three-story, white house from the road: it looked weary and in need of repair.

      Pennington. Hushed, empty streets. Sullen, styleless homes and a tired, old mansion. Shabby stores. A dark-stone, somber church.

      A broad street running south off the highway led him to the oak-shaded village green. A concrete-and-brass monument squatted in the grass, remembering an event that history only briefly noticed. And facing each other across the green: the Public Library and Town Hall, built in the late 1800s, dull, undignified, sagging with age.

      City people lead private lives, Lucas thought. Their eyes tell you nothing. Cities keep secrets.

      Suburbs share that secret life. The nourishment, the spirit, of suburban people flow from the secret heart of the city.

      In towns like Pennington or Shelby, Lucas thought, every life intersects every other life. Every life history is woven into all of the others, generation after generation, a tapestry of memory. Everyone knows more about you than they would ever say. You are never a stranger.

      For Lucas, Pennington was perfect. He would stop here for a while.

      He drove to a brick-and-aluminum diner, Sarge’s Diner, on the south side of Route Forty-Six near the center of town.

      When he got out of his car, he hesitated. Without a trace of warmth, his deep-set, frosted gray eyes followed the careless drift of powdery clouds. He listened intently to the faint murmur of insects and distant traffic.

      Taking several deep breaths, as if he were at the starting line of a race, he ran his fingers through his thick, gray, close-cropped hair.

      The first day. Listen. Watch.

      Lucas was fifty-three years old, but his angular, handsome face was surprisingly smooth. Six feet two inches tall, slim and broad-shouldered, he walked toward the diner, his stride relaxed and athletic. By the time he reached the glass-paneled door, his eyes seemed less opaque, more accessible.

      Inside, Sarge’s Diner was traditional: behind a counter that ran the length of one wall, a rectangular, glassless window opened onto the kitchen. Booths lined the opposite wall. A blackboard at one end of the counter announced the day’s specials. He could have predicted that.

      Near the entrance, a fleshy woman in her early fifties sat behind the cash register, staring out the window in front of her. She didn’t look at Lucas when he entered.

      “Sit anywhere you like,” she said, without expression or tone, as if the words were a formula she had memorized.

      Two men were in a booth; a third at the counter. A husky, blonde waitress lounged behind the counter, leaning on her elbows, taking deep, hungry drags on a cigarette.

      Lucas sat down in the booth behind the two men. Old-fashioned ceiling fans, groaning softly, circulated the pleasant, mingled aromas of coffee, bacon and onions.

      The waitress inhaled a heavy dose of smoke. Then, gently, almost reverently, she rested her cigarette in an ashtray and walked over to Lucas’s booth.

      “G’morning,” she smiled, and handed him the menu. “Coffee?”

      “Yes, please.”

      In the next booth, the man facing Lucas was watching him intently. His thick, red hair overpowered the narrow planes of his face.

      A crown of fire.

      His dark eyes glowed behind thick, steel-rimmed glasses.

      Fire and ice.

      The red-haired man said to his companion, “There’ll be Hell to pay now,” but he kept watching Lucas.

      His companion said, “I’m not so sure, Henry. People like him always get away with things.”

      The waitress sighed, “It’s a shame. For all of us,” and brought Lucas a cup of coffee. “Have you decided?”

      “The breakfast special. With sausages, please.”

      “He’s a coward,” Henry said, “a liar.” He smiled, nodded his red head. “They’ll nail him now.”

      The waitress went to the window behind the counter and called out Lucas’s order: “Sarge, the special with sausage.”

      Sarge was bald, burly, red-faced.

      An ex-prizefighter’s face? Placid, scarred, still dangerous.

      Henry looked over at the man who was sitting at the counter and said, “What about it, Joey? How do you feel about our dear President?”

      Joey spun around on the stool and smiled, as if Henry had just told a joke.

      “Why should he care what I