Truth Beat
By Brenda Buchanan
A newspaper reporter struggles with unreliable sources while covering two explosive stories—the apparent murder of a priest who stood up to his church and a spate of increasingly destructive bombings
Shock waves reverberate through tight-knit Riverside, Maine, when an outspoken priest is found dead. After writing Father Patrick Doherty’s obituary, Portland Daily Chronicle reporter Joe Gale learns that the good Father didn’t die in the garden where his body was found—the cops say it was murder, and the killer went to great pains to cover it up.
Friends and parishioners tell Joe that Patrick was sincere and selfless. But a vocal gang of rabble-rousers claim he was corrupt. Joe is nowhere near cracking the case when a second crisis threatens to tear Riverside apart: a poorly constructed bomb detonates near the local high school.
On the eve of Patrick’s wake, the police imply the dead priest was involved in criminal activity prior to his death. And as Joe races to sort truth from rumor, his two big stories collide, putting him in mortal danger.
Carina Press acknowledges the editorial services of Deborah Nemeth.
82,600 words
Dear Reader,
If there’s one thing we have learned from the kickass heroines of the fiction we read and publish, it’s that you should always be in control of your own happiness. And, if you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re like me and books make you happy. So this February, during Valentine’s month, instead of waiting for someone to put some romance in your life, go ahead and do it for yourself: buy yourself all the books!
Shannon Stacey always brings a fantastic blend of humor, heroes and sigh-worthy romance, and her novella A Fighting Chance is no different. All work and no play makes Adeline Kendrick a dull girl, so when she heads to a casino resort for a friend’s bachelorette weekend, she’s ready to have a good time. Until she runs into Brendan Quinn, professional fighter and the one who got away—the one her family drove away—and things take a turn for the interesting. When the weekend is over, Adeline isn’t ready to give up her second chance that easily.
An unexpected fresh start leads to an unlikely—but absolutely perfect—pairing in Getting Him Back, a male/male contemporary romance from bestselling gay romance author K.A. Mitchell. Ethan may have followed his high school sweetheart to college only to get dumped his first day there, but he’s not going to let that stop him. And then there’s Wyatt. Mysterious, grouchy...hot. And possibly not gay. New college goal? Get Wyatt into bed and into Ethan’s life.
In Anna del Mar’s debut romantic suspense, The Asset, a woman fleeing from her sinister past must defy her fears and risk her life to care for a wounded warrior, a SEAL who will push the limits of his broken body and protect her to his very last breath. Don’t miss this first Wounded Warrior novel.
If you’re looking for a melt-your-panties hot erotic romance read, look no further than Wolf’s Ascension by Lauren Dane. Attacked by werewolves. Mated to the Alpha. Declared a queen. Kari is having an unusual day. In the Cherchez wolf pack, loyalty is earned, not given. For Andreas, the pull he feels toward Kari cannot be ignored, a physical bond immediate and unbreakable—though Andreas wants to win Kari’s heart as well as her body. And be sure to watch for book two, Sworn to the Wolf, on sale in March 2016.
In the explosive follow-up to Joely Sue Burkhart’s darkly erotic romance One Cut Deeper, life on the run with an assassin isn’t what Ranay thought it would be. In fact, parts of it more closely resemble a sex-fueled vacation—until duty calls. The FBI believe Charlie’s brother is working for a human trafficking ring, and Charlie is the only one who can bring him down. Two Cuts Darker brings you back into the world of dark romance but delivers the same satisfying happy ending.
The only doctor who can stop a man-made killer flu couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with a grenade launcher—so his bodyguard, Sergeant Ali Stone, has her work cut out for her in Viral Justice, the last book in the Biological Response Team romantic suspense trilogy by Julie Rowe. And you can still pick up Deadly Strain and Lethal Game wherever Carina Press ebooks are sold!
Tempted to off your significant other for forgetting Valentine’s Day again? Satisfy your more murderous urges with our two mystery offerings this month.
Jonathan Watkins combines mystery with romance in A Devil’s Bargain. Past sins and dark secrets threaten to blow apart the lives and careers of criminal defenders Issabella Bright and Darren Fletcher when their friend, Theresa Winkle, is charged with the vicious murder of a man behind her bar—a man Darren learns is connected to his own family’s corrupt history and to the one case that has haunted him for years. Go back to the beginning of their romance, and indulge in all of the fantastic Bright & Fletcher mysteries now available: Motor City Shakedown, Dying in Detroit and Isolated Judgment.
In Brenda Buchanan’s latest Joe Gale Mystery, Truth Beat, a newspaper reporter struggles with unreliable sources while covering two explosive stories—the apparent murder of a priest who stood up to his church and a spate of increasingly destructive bombings.
Last, this month I’m excited to present a new romantic suspense series that I’ve been highly anticipating from Carina Press author Nico Rosso. Undercover agent Art Diaz had no choice but to drag Chef Hayley Baskov into the world of Russian mobsters, but when her tentative trust turns to full passion he vows to stop at nothing to protect her during the final strike. Be sure to pick up the first in the Black Ops: Automatik series, Countdown to Zero Hour.
So kick off your shoes, curl up in your favorite cozy spot, and treat yourself to a Valentine’s month of books. (When it comes to books, one day of indulgence is never going to be enough.)
And then look forward to next month, with releases from Shannon Stacey in contemporary romance, Dee Carney in paranormal romance and j. leigh bailey in male/male romance.
As always, until next month here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.
Happy reading!
Angela James
Editorial Director, Carina Press
Dedication
For Diane, my beloved co-adventurer.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Cha
pter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Excerpt from Quick Pivot byBrenda Buchanan
Acknowledgments
Also by Brenda Buchanan
About the Author
About the Joe Gale Mystery series
About the Bright & Fletcher Mystery series
About the Dylan Scott Mystery series
Writing for Carina
Copyright
Chapter One
Stella Rinaldi summoned me on speed dial before the EMTs had both feet out of the ambulance. Though she was north of eighty the woman still had the eyes of a hawk, peering down on the St. Jerome’s churchyard from the third floor of her big brick house across the street. The fact that it wasn’t yet six thirty in the morning didn’t dampen Stella’s fervor, though she narrated her observations in a hushed voice.
“Two cops in separate cruisers got here first. They parked across the street from my house and ran through the churchyard through the garden gate. Then the ambulance crew pulled into the back driveway. Now they’re hauling a stretcher out of the back.”
I tapped the speaker button and set my phone on the bed so I could listen to Stella’s on-the-scene reporting while I pulled on a pair of khakis and a shirt. My colleagues in the newsroom at the Portland Daily Chronicle laughed when I took her calls, but the portly octogenarian had been one of my mentor Paulie Finnegan’s valued sources. When he died, she became one of mine.
I stuck the phone between my shoulder and ear and stepped into the bathroom to run a wet washcloth over my cowlicks.
“What’s happening now?”
“That darned red maple is blocking my view of the garden itself. I can’t see a kickin’ thing. But I have a bad feeling about this.”
All summer Stella had been calling me with tidbits she deemed newsworthy while she watched the slow-motion demise of one of Maine’s largest Catholic churches. St. Jerome’s wasn’t the first parish to be shuttered, but it was the one with the highest profile. In the battle between the Church hierarchy and the faithful, the early June announcement that Riverside’s most handsome Gothic Revival structure would be deconsecrated by Christmas and sold to the highest bidder was the emotional equivalent of a carelessly thrown live grenade. Catholics from other defunct parishes had joined furious members of St. Jerome’s at nightly vigils in the churchyard. The intensity of the protests increased with the temperature. One humid August night when prayers gave way to shouts, Stella predicted trouble was in the offing.
“Just you wait,” she’d said. “They aren’t all Riversiders anymore. Agitators are infiltrating.”
Two months later, with a golden October dawn portending a beautiful Tuesday, an ambulance in the rectory’s driveway was an ominous sign. I hoped to hell the ambulance wasn’t for Father Patrick Doherty, who’d been hip deep in the church closure fight, but the odds were good. Patrick—who insisted on being addressed by only his first name—looked fit enough at five-ten, maybe 180 pounds. But his fondness for cheeseburgers and disdain for exercise, paired with a stressful job and nonexistent personal boundaries, had landed him in the hospital with a mild heart attack once already. Maybe the ambulance was idling across from Stella’s house while the EMTs tended to someone else at the rectory. But my gut told me Patrick was the reason for the early-morning call.
St. Jerome’s was three short blocks from my house, so I was standing outside the garden gate when the EMTs—a short man and a tall woman—emerged. They shuffled across the courtyard to their rig, climbed into the cab and cut the engine. I approached the driver’s side window and asked what was going on.
“Waiting for the ME,” the woman said. “Not a rush job.”
“A priest?”
She nodded.
“Patrick?”
Her mouth tightened. “Yeah.”
I closed my eyes, trying to block reality for a moment. The EMT noticed.
“You knew him well?”
“Professionally,” I said. “But there wasn’t really a bright line between personal and professional with Patrick.”
Neither of the cops inside the garden noticed me slip through the gate. I stood silently next to the stretcher the EMTs had left next to a toolshed, and took a long look. Patrick was lying mostly on his back, in a flower bed encircled by a stacked stone wall. His skin was gray. His eyes were open, and so was his mouth. He wore jeans and a blue work shirt. I noticed sharp, steam-iron creases in both, and that the collar of his shirt was soaked with blood.
A Riverside police lieutenant who had little use for reporters arrived with a young doctor from the state medical examiner’s office. I stepped outside when the lieutenant pointed to the gate. He didn’t keep his voice down when he chewed out the patrol officers who’d been oblivious to my presence.
When their radio squawked, the EMTs hustled back inside. They reemerged five minutes later with Patrick’s lifeless body, his face covered by a sheet. As they were easing the stretcher into the ambulance, a wail erupted from the other side of the fence. The cry was human, but could as well have been animal, a dog with its foot caught in a trap. The male EMT glanced back.
“The other priest. Father DiAngelo. Shock’s wearing off.”
The gate had been thrown wide to accommodate the stretcher, which allowed me a clear view of a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing the black pants and shirt of a priest, kneeling next to the patch of crushed asters where Patrick’s body had been. He was bawling like a child—heaving, high-pitched sobs. His hands kneaded the rich loam as his head fell so far forward that it nearly touched the earth. Shuddering breaths convulsed his huge frame.
In my years as a newspaper reporter I’ve seen a lot of grief up close. Father DiAngelo’s uncontrolled emotion reminded me of mothers I’d witnessed weeping over the bodies of their dead children—sharp, unimaginable pain that robs loved ones of their wish or ability to contain their anguish.
The dark-haired priest began to speak through his tears, gasping out words in a low voice. Because he was facing the flower bed and I was outside the fence, it was difficult to make out what he was saying, or perhaps praying. Something about sorrow. And the name Patrick, over and over.
Like me, the cops inside the garden appeared frozen by the priest’s emotional outburst. I startled when Police Chief Barbara Wyatt touched my elbow. She gave me a sharp look but read the situation as soon as she stepped through the gate. She gestured rather than spoke to her officers, and the lieutenant approached DiAngelo gently. The chief walked back outside to where I was standing and we watched the silent ambulance pull away.
“Johnny-on-the-spot, as usual.”
The chief hated it when I beat her to a scene.
“Heard the siren. It sounded close.”
“I’ll bet it sounded real close to Mrs. Rinaldi.”
I shrugged. A reporter has sources. A cop has informants. We’re both doing important work, but the chief doesn’t always see it that way.
“I don’t know what Patrick was doing out in the garden before dawn, but I hope the heart attack was fast.”
Wyatt squinted, and I wondered for a moment if she was squeezing back tears of her own. But when she spoke, her voice was even. “I hope he gets his due—that people realize he always was on their side.”
“Even when he was acting as the bishop’s mouthpiece?”
The chief’s eyes shifted to something over my shoulder. I glanced back and saw a TV van pulling to the curb in front of the church.
“Even then,” she said.
I texted my editor, Leah Levin, to let her know about Patrick’s death before jogging back to my house. She’d want to get a bulletin up on the web. The news jolted her enough that she called my cell rather than texting me back.
“Jesus, that’s a big headline first thing in the morning,” she said.
“If you can get someone to call church sources for the official comment, I’ll gather some man-on-the-street before I come in to write the full story.”
“You mean man-on-the-diner-stool, right?”
“I’ll interview a few people out in the Rambler’s parking lot if it will make you happy. But get a bulletin up now. The TV people pulled up at St. Jerry’s as I was leaving.”
“Bring me good quotes,” she said. “We need to be out front on this.”
For the past dozen years, I’ve made my name staying ahead of the ever-diminishing Maine media pack. As a reporter at the Portland Daily Chronicle—which has scrambled to trim its sails as terrifying headwinds continue to buffet the newspaper business—I know the future of the Chronicle depends on our ability to report the news not just better but faster than the competition.
Our much-downsized staff punches above its collective weight as circulation and revenues continue to shrink. The die-hards are sticking it out, and we’ll throw a hell of a wake after the last press run. In the meantime, I love being the guy in the front row, decoding what’s being said between the lines and elbowing my way into the middle of the scrum when something big is happening.
On the unhappy morning when Patrick was found dead in his garden, my arrival at the Rambler—an old-fashioned diner on Riverside’s main drag owned and operated by my girlfriend, Christie Pappas—set off a noticeable ripple of motion and conversation. Word already was on the street about the early 911 call at the rectory. The breakfast crowd intuited that it was Patrick’s body inside the boxlike ambulance that had driven by the diner, lights flashing but siren off. Two people stopped me before I reached my usual perch, four green leatherette-covered stools in from the front door. They wanted to know if it was a heart attack or a stroke, who found his body, how long he’d been gone, questions I couldn’t answer.
Christie turned from her work at the grill and covered my hand with hers. “Patrick. How sad.”
“I’m guessing it was fast. What’s the polite expression? Blessedly quick.” I kept my voice down, because I don’t generally talk in public about what I observe at death scenes. I’m not hoarding information so people will read my newspaper. It’s a respect thing.
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