A Far Gone Night
by John Carenen
We are delighted to welcome mystery author John Carenen to Omnimystery News today.
John's second mystery to feature his enigmatic protagonist Thomas O'Shea and the quirky characters of Rockbluff, Iowa is A Far Gone Night (Neverland Publishing; September 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we are pleased to introduce you to it with an excerpt, the first chapter.
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"To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that leads to bitterness." — Flannery O'Connor
I KNEW IMMEDIATELY SHE WAS DEAD, half-spinning and languidly bobbing in the dark water. One arm appeared to be twisted behind her, but the other floated free, back and forth, back and forth, as if beckoning me to herself, like an Iowa Ahab, bidding me come see.
At first, I thought the drugs and alcohol were playing tricks on my eyes. Beset by insomnia, I had downed three Melatonin and three Three Philosophers Belgian ale and remained wide-eyed. So I had driven into town, walked out onto the double-arched limestone bridge spanning the Whitetail River seeking solace and looking for calm in the black water dropping down the small spillway, a smooth, uniform curtain, churning into brief curls of white water before calming and turning black again and heading on south.
I stared, thinking that maybe in doing so she might change into a mattress or a bunch of plastic wrapping or a cheap, abandoned Styrofoam cooler — anything else that would make me laugh at my first perception. But it was a body and the body was naked and it looked like a woman and I suddenly wished to God I had not seen it.
I looked away. I looked back. It was a body, alright.
My impulse was to flee, to just go back to my truck and go home and hope someone else would find her and be drawn into whatever drama awaited. But Sheriff Payne would hear and investigate and someone would mention they saw my truck parked by the bridge in the middle of the night and then I'd have to answer questions.
The only thing for me to do now, I realized, was to buck up whatever ethical and moral mettle I have in me and go to the woman in the water. How could I leave her?
I took off, slipped went to one knee, then arose and scrambled full bore back across the bridge and down the grassy slope to the river's edge, my right hamstring nipping at me to slow down as I rushed to her, splashing into frigid, waist-deep water and reaching out to the body, not caring about crime scene forensics or damaging evidence. I just wanted to get her out of that damn water, and when I saw that she was just a girl, not even a woman yet, I charged to her side, slipped my hands under her cold arms from behind, pulled her free from whatever had snagged her, and lugged her out of the water. I placed her softly on the thick dead grass alongside the river.
The body was very cold, no longer supple, no longer anything but dead.
As soon as I set her down, I pulled off my sweatshirt and covered her above the waist, and then my t-shirt and covered her below the waist. The air was cold on my bare skin, and my jeans were wet and cold, too. I squatted down next to the dead girl and my shoes squished.
I said a quick prayer and rubbed my eyes hard with my palms. Her head was at an odd angle, so I slipped my right hand behind her head to move it a little, to make it more comfortable. I know, I know, but what difference did it make if she were dead? The point is, it made a difference to me.
It was then that my fingers found the two depressions in the back of her skull. Her long, matted hair nearly obscured them, but a little exploration was called for. Stunned, I let my fingers linger under her hair to be sure. I was sure, and then, for just an instant, I was holding another dead person's head, my friend's, in the streets of Sarajevo after we thought we had cleaned up that neighborhood, the sweet smell of cordite drifting in the air like a woman's fragrance on a breeze.
My attention rushed back to the girl. Wanting to disbelieve her wounds, I laid her head back down, slow and easy. Then I just placed my right hand on her dear, lovely forehead, and moved a tangle of drenched hair to the side, away from her face. For her. For me, mostly. That's when I noticed a slash of whiteness alongside her skull. There in the dark, at first I thought it was exposed bone, but when I touched it I realized it was just a blaze of white hair slightly forward of her left ear, an anomaly in her otherwise raven hair. It looked like a fat comma or that Nike swoosh sign.
It takes about ninety-seven seconds to patrol all of Rockbluff village, so I hoped a Deputy Sheriff would come by and investigate my abandoned truck up by the bridge. The law enforcement and EMS people know my truck, a mixed blessing. So I sat there on my haunches, keeping the girl company, waiting for someone to come along.
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Photo provided courtesy of
John Carenen
John Carenen, a native of Clinton, Iowa, graduated with an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the prestigious University of Iowa Writers Workshop and has been writing ever since. His work has appeared in numerous popular and literary magazines, and he has been a featured columnist in newspapers in North and South Carolina.
John is currently an English professor at Newberry College in Newberry, South Carolina. He and his wife live in their cozy cottage down a quiet lane in northern Greenville, South Carolina. He is a big fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes and Boston Red Sox.
To learn more about the author, you can find him on Facebook.
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A Far Gone Night
John Carenen
A Thomas O'Shea Mystery
Suffering from insomnia, Thomas O'Shea goes for a late-night stroll through the peaceful streets of Rockbluff, Iowa, and finds himself pausing downtown on the bridge that spans the Whitetail River. When he glances downstream, something catches his eye … something that looks like a body. He scrambles down to the riverbank, pulling the body of a young girl from the water. The girl is naked, with two bullet holes in the back of her head. Ever suspicious of law enforcement, O'Shea chooses not mention the bullet holes when Deputy Stephen Doltch, on routine patrol, discovers him at the river's edge.
When the coroner's report lists the cause of death as "drowning," Thomas goes into action. Confronting the coroner, he is met with hostility. But then the coroner and his wife disappear, along with the body of the dead girl. Once again, Thomas gears up to find answers that will reveal who put the bullets in the girl's head, why she was killed, and her identity, which may hit a little too close to home.
Teaming up with his friend Lunatic Mooning and Clancy Dominguez, an old buddy from his Navy SEAL days, Thomas and the other two men join together to bring justice to the dead girl, a quest that takes them to the Chalaka Reservation in Minnesota, seedy businesses adjacent to the Chalaka Casino, and straight into the world of organized crime.
