What I am querying at this time:
First two chapters:
Prologue
What if I die and nobody cared? That is the question that itched at the brain. The thought lurked deep in their gray matter like a dull back pain, always present, never going away.
What if they die and I don’t care? What if I killed them, would anyone know? What if they die, would anyone care?
Chapter 1
Anthony Luigi Luciano Ricci lowered the window on his steel grey series 7 BMW. He flashed his legislature badge to the parking garage entrance on Commonwealth Avenue across from Soldiers Grove Park. It was nine-thirty in the morning at the beginning of September, two days after Labor Day. The first day back to work after he walked in two Labor Day parades. It was always important to walk so he could connect with the people who voted for him.
If a politician rides in the back of a car, they come off as pompous. During the parades most comments are respectful, and then there of those comments that are genially humorous. Most people are braver behind an anonymous name on social media than in person. Then, there is a minority of folks that figure that since they pay taxes, they can be ignorant and degrading in what they say.
In those moments Anthony remembers advice he got before he became an elected member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. When he first started to be a wrestling referee. The advice came from Marc Bartlebaugh, a veteran official, when he spoke about fans who would confront you over a call. The advice was simple and to the point, as Marc usually was, he said never get into a pissing contest with a skunk. It is a skill that Anthony was able to master.
The gate lifted and Anthony glided forward to the security guard to identify himself. The identification was unnecessary, Anthony extended his hand from the window, “Hey Chuck how’s it shaking?”
“Good morning, Congressman, I can’t complain. The sun is shining and I’m away from my wife for the next eight hours. You can’t beat that,” Chuck laughed.
These conversations are repeated every day. When Chuck gets a good laugh from his joke, he will use it all day. Chuck has a great job. He is part of the Capital Police and is stationed where the members of the Pennsylvania house and senate park. Along with what Chuck calls the split asses. Those are the administrative assistances who just happen to be extremely beautiful women. They are the ones that are the personal assistance for the congressmen and senators. There are perks to having power, and arm candy is one of those. Along with other fringe benefits. Chuck’s been around long enough to know who he can be friendly with and who he just needs to say yes sir too.
Anthony was someone he could joke with, “That’s why I’m not married,” Anthony joked, “You better watch what you say. If Liz finds out what you said that she will kick your ass.”
Anthony turned the corner of the garage and guided his BMW into the slot marked Ricci. The spot was next to the one marked Brown which was a bit closer to the door. When Anthony exited the car, he slipped on his suit jacket. A Dark charcoal that accented Anthony’s physique perfectly with a crisp white shirt with cufflinks with a R in a script font. You could use his Dior classic Oxford shoes as a mirror.
Anthony exited the garage and went onto the glossy red brick floor of the Capital building. The floor resembled cobblestone. Anthony’s shoes clicked loudly as he paced towards his office in the older part of the building. Being part of the minority party, his office was smaller than those in the newer East Wing, Anthony liked the history of his office, not the lousy heat and drafty two-hundred-year-old windows.
Among his peer representatives Anthony had just a select few that he called his friend. Anthony’s district was in the capital city and given his classic looks and charisma he was always the first choice of news reporters. And there is nothing like a little air time to make every ego in the representatives’ room resent you. Anthony projected an image of what he wanted people to see. He knew that if he projected himself as a playboy no one would look any deeper and know his secret.
Before his time as a Pennsylvania House Representative and after an illustrious college D1 wrestling career Anthony decided to forgo further pursuit of international wrestling and enlisted in military where he thrived as an intelligence officer. Anthony was deployed for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe working at the Joint Force Command in Naples (JFC Naples). Working for NATO the responsibility for the Allied Forces of Southern Europe and beyond is to combat aggression covertly by whatever means necessary in the defense of NATO territory and forces. His commanding officer from the assignment in Naples, Larry Stevens eventually became the head of the Pennsylvania State police and tapped Anthony to work as a Special Agent for the State Police doing mostly undercover work that by its nature was dangerous.
For the last six months Anthony had been doing one job, that of the representative of the people who elected him. As nice as it was to have a break from undercover work, he knew that it wouldn’t be long before something happens, it always does. In this morning, he was enjoying strolling through the capital and enjoying the sights.
He came up to a group of administrative assistants and smiled, “Good morning, ladies,” he said with his best smile and stopped to give them the impression that he cared about what they were doing. There were two distinct types of administrative assistants, one that was serious and wanted to move up the political ladder. Those he wouldn’t bother with. Then there were the others who were drawn to power, those are the ones that are easy to charm.
“Yo, Anthony.,” representative Steve Zebretski called from across hallway. Steve is in the house representing a rural area about twenty miles north of Scranton. Being Italian Anthony normally gets two kinds of greetings, the one Steve used, the yo from Rocky or the how you doin from Joey Tribbiani from Friends.
“What’s up boss?”
“I wanted to make sure you are with us of HB-217,” Steve answered, “We’re not gonna win but we need to stick together.”
Steve Zebretski was a diligent and dedicated state representative. He cared deeply about his work for the people. Anthony cared about getting elected again, “I’m all over it Steve, don’t worry I got your back.”
Anthony knew the role he played. He was a solid vote for his party. If he voted the way his party wanted him to vote he knew there would never be a primary opponent. The party would stop anyone from running against him. His seat was in a heavily gerrymandered district thanks to the majority party which meant that it would be almost impossible for someone in the majority party to beat him in a district that was seventy-five percent of his party.
Strutting along the hallway Anthony walked like he owned the place. He made a point of giving a cordial wave to those he knew casually and firm handshake to those he knew personally.
He made the time to thank Dave for his tireless work as the clock winder for the Commonwealth. Dave’s job is to walk around the halls of the capital with his trusty ladder and wind each of the antique clocks in the commonwealth complex. Dave worked for the Commonwealth for more than thirty years. After all that time he earns an incredibly good salary and nice pension for putting a key in a hole and winding a clock.
Once in his office Anthony could let down his guard, he walked to the room next to his office where his Office Manager worked. Denise Brown could not be mistaken for one of the young attractive assistants. She was in her mid-fifties with a medium frame and presented a mature beauty. She had long dark brunette hair with streaks of white. While Anthony was able to have more than his share of women, he did not socialize in his office, the people in his office were there to help him stay in office. And there was no better conductor for the orchestra than Denise. Denise runs the Anthony Ricci show. She is the most competent person Anthony has ever known.
Anthony stopped in the middle of the open office to admire his crew. Everyone was working on something. Many were likely engaged in assisting Anthony’s constituents with navigating governmental procedures. Anthony recognized that each individual he supported represented a potential vote.
Denise lifted her head from the computer when Anthony walked into her personal office, she checked the time on the computer, “It’s ten till ten, what the hell are you doing here?”
“I’ve got time don’t I,” Anthony answered, “I always check in here first.”
“The vote for HB-217 starts in ten minutes, you want to get there and vote early and get the hell out of there.” Denise scolded.
Most representatives would resent such an intelligent strong-willed woman like Denise, Anthony loved it, “Am I a yes or no on HB-217?”
“Holy shit, you’re a damn no. No, you vote no. Do I have to write that on your hand. Now go vote you jackass, I know you’re pulling my chain.”
Anthony chuckled and straightened his tie and left the office as quickly as he came in. Walking to the House Chamber he thought, I’m a no on HB-217. I won’t tell Denise I didn’t remember. At 10:07 Anthony entered the house floor and made his way to his desk. He was stopped by Zebretski, “I appreciated your support on this one. We won’t have enough no votes to stop the vote, but we can make a point.”
Relieved that Denise had him voting with Steve, “You can always count on me. Now let me go and vote here. There are things I need to attend too.”
Anthony didn’t sit at his desk, he opened the voting device and pressed No. He turned and walked out the shortest way from the chamber. This is the best job in the world. All I have to do is place the right votes and keep my nose clean and not piss off the party and I got a job for life.
Chapter 2
The atrocity remained as fresh as it had thirteen years ago. Since the night their world ended, they had plotted revenge. Now the first will fall, but not the last. All must pay, or no one will.
Paster Trent Armstrong began the day as usual. Fifty-two and balding, he stood nearly six feet tall and weighed two hundred sixty pounds, with a soft middle shaped by years at a desk drinking Coke and eating potato chips. He worked a dead-end job as a receiving clerk at American Importers Trucking, where everyone including Trent knew he was employed only because he was Big Jim Armstrong’s nephew.
Where Pastor Trent Armstrong held status was at the Christian Fundamental Church of the Devine. He preached that women must submit to their husbands and obey men in all things. He was not the main preacher; he became a pastor through his Uncle Jim’s connections. The church paid for an online class, gave him the test answers, and by afternoon Trent had become Pastor Trent.
He had not yet made it to the church’s big Sunday television production. He had played a shepherd in the Christmas Eve pageant and joined a secret council serving the church’s interests. For now, he preached to families and children in classrooms on Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons.
Trent left home with a grunt of “See you later” to his wife, Charity. He drove his eight-year-old Ford F-150 a half mile to Starbucks and ordered his usual.
“Yea, can I get a bacon cheddar and egg sandwich, extra bacon. And a cinnamon caramel cream cold brew venti?”
He was driving from the drive through when his iPhone notified him that he had a message from a social media application that specializes in no questions asked hook ups. Trent exited the road and parked in the nearest parking lot, then stuffed the sandwich into his mouth dripping bacon juice on his face. He opened the app and found he received a message from GirlOnHerKnees, In town for a college thing, love to fuck you 😊.
Trent clicked on the name GirlOnHerKnees and looked at her picture, “The picture is hot.” The profile says she is nineteen and she currently lives in State College. What made Trent shift in his seat was under the profile where it said my limits, her answer was the back of my throat. Under status it said single and looking for older married men to have their way with me.
Her profile looked like it was legit and not a troll, and her picture looked too good not to reply. He thought, you are hot. Then decided not to type that, “Everyone must tell her that.”
Then he wrote, I was on my way to work but I’d love to meet?
GirlOnHerKnees wrote back immediately, I really really need it now, can you blow off work, then I can blow you off 😊.
A bead of sweat rolled from the back of Trent’s hair and down his neck. He shifted in his seat to adjust his pants. His hands trembled just a bit when he answered, “I own the company. Where are you, I will be there.
GirlOnHerKnees answered again very quickly, At the Dave’s Inn, room 138.
Dave’s Inn was a small motel owned by an independent operator about three miles from where Trent was parked. They played on the name association with a big chain, even the sign resembled the chain. From what Trent remembered it looked clean enough from the outside, certainly not a place that one would think was rented by the hour.
Trent answered, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
The answer came back as Trent was putting his truck in drive, Door is open & I’m naked on the bed.
The normal trip would take ten minutes. Trent made it in five. His truck slid to a stop on the gravel parking lot in front of room 138 between a work van and a Honda Accord. He exhaled heavily and tried to will his erection to subside. Before leaving the truck Trent looked in every direction for anyone that might see him. There was no one out and about in the area, so he brushed what was left of his hair with his fingers and got out of the truck and walked to the door.
Tentatively Trent tested the doorknob. A broad smile broke on his face when the knob turned with no resistance, “I’m gonna fuck a nineteen-year-old,” he whispered to himself when he opened the door and stepped inside.
His eyes struggled to adjust from daylight to the room’s darkness. As he rubbed them, eager to see what awaited him, a sudden shock hit his neck and drove him to his knees. A moment later, he felt a sharp prick in his arm. Before the pain of the taser subsided, his eyes rolled in the back of his head as he landed on his side. His eyes adjusted to the dark, he looked up before he passed out. Oh fuck, he thought as he lost consciousness.
The gentle lap of water against the island set a steady rhythm for the work. Humming It’s a Wonderful World, the worker got to work. A board like an old ironing board, missing one set of legs, rested with its square end on the cabin floor and its tapered end propped at a forty-five-degree angle.
In nearly forgotten days, the island oasis felt like a middle-class French Riviera. Coveted lots, with views of Three Mile Island behind and Goldsboro in front, passed from generation to generation. The lucky few spent weekends there escaping nearby life, bringing supplies by boat for cookouts and family memories. They looked down on the people who used the public Susquehanna islands, where, if they were lucky, a broken picnic table and corroded grill were the best they could hope for.
As a child, the worker loved weekly trips to the island, exploring the woods and wetlands for frogs, bugs, and washed-up treasures. By their teens, the outings felt like stolen weekends, with another charred burger or hot dog and potato salad enough to disgust them. Like many teenagers, they rebelled, though strict parents limited them to small acts like reading forbidden books after bedtime. Outwardly, theirs seemed like a perfect family. No visible sibling rivalry, parents always wearing smiles that rang false. At home, their parents ruled absolutely, and any disobedience brought swift, painful punishment. As they grew older, the worker realized they neither loved nor even liked their parents. They obeyed only out of fear.
The cabin had once again become an oasis. Now in their mid-thirties, the worker had reclaimed it as the refuge it had been before adolescence, a place to be alone, escape oppression, and work toward justice. For the task, they used a specialized drawknife-like tool. A twelve-inch blade with orange handles at both ends. The work was messy but necessary. After the brain oils had soaked into the hide stretched over the fleshing beam, the worker sat with the beam braced against their chest and used short, quick strokes to scrape the fat away.
Satisfied that all the fat had been removed from the hide and the scraps placed neatly in two buckets, the worker drew fresh water into a black tub. They mixed natural soap into the tub and swirled it around with a soft brush and placed the hides into the tub to soak to soften and wash away remnants of remaining blood.
Sweat clung to the worker’s shirt as the crisp September air chilled them. Carrying two buckets of scraps, they crossed the lawn between two oaks behind the cottage to the river. There, they passed through a line of Fraser Firs their father had planted for Christmas trees but kept for privacy from weekend gawkers who could not afford a Susquehanna cabin. Beyond the trees, the worker stepped onto the worn gray dock where their fourteen-foot Crestliner was tied. With two front seats, a steering wheel, and a windshield, it was fit for cruising or fishing, and its forty-horsepower motor could move fast.
At the end of the dock, the worker dumped the first bucket of fat and blood into the river and watched it disappear into the murky water. After rinsing away every trace of blood, they emptied the second bucket as well. Then they settled into a plastic chair bolted to the dock, breathing in the cool air and listening to the wind stir the trees. Smiling, they remembered one of their Uncle Sam’s old stories, the carefree bachelor every family seems to have. He was the one who gave them their first motorcycle ride at ten, much to their father’s anger.
“I bet Bessie will enjoy the meal I dumped into the river,” they said to no one.
Legend said a mud catfish was irradiated during the Three Mile Island disaster in April 1979. It grew to more than thirty feet and still haunted the river near the island. Supposedly, fish no longer satisfied its appetite, so it fed on children who swam in its waters. They laughed at the naivete of their youth, though that one summer in the river had been nerve-racking. All it took was brushing a submerged branch to send everyone scrambling from the water.
With the buckets stacked together, the worker settled into the plastic Adirondack chair on the dock and let the cool breeze dry the sweat on their body. After thirty minutes, they figured the soap and clean water had softened the hide and washed away the remaining residue.
Inside the cabin, they brushed the softened hides to remove the stubborn fat still clinging to them. The work went faster than expected, and in a little over an hour the worker draped the two hides over a rack to inspect them. Satisfied, they punched holes around the edges. Using twine, they tied a quick fishing knot and threaded the loose ends through holes drilled in a wooden rack. One by one, they tied each end to the hides until both were stretched tight on their racks. It would take a few more days to finish tanning them before they could be used.
The work had to be finished that day. To preserve the hide, the skin had to be removed within hours of the kill; if fat stayed on too long, the hide would be ruined. Darkness had begun to blanket the island, and with the blinds drawn tight, the cabin was lit only by two bare sixty-watt bulbs on old fixtures brought from home.
One task remained. Before the final step, the worker went into the small kitchen, made a ham-and-cheese sandwich, and took an ice-cold tea from the refrigerator. Sitting on a couch once in their father’s house, they took a long drink and finally felt their hunger. After a big bite, they admired the work. As with any job, the right tool mattered. Their skinning knife measured just over ten inches from pommel to point, with a razor-sharp half-moon blade a little over five inches long. It let them shape the cut and peel back the skin with almost no plunging, reducing the amount of blood spilled.
Glistening against the bare bulb the hides had already started to look perfect. Hanging by the neck from the central rafter a naked man dangled with two distinct squares of skin removed, one from each buttock.
The day had turned from blue to gray, the twilight hour signaling the time to complete the last task of the day. Releasing the knot holding the man and using a pulley system the worker slowly lowered the body into a wheel barrel lined with a sturdy tarp. With great effort they maneuvered the wheelbarrow off the small porch down the temporary ramp they constructed with spare lumber to the front yard.
Using the cover of twilight and the Douglas Fir trees the worker navigated to the pier. They drew the line holding the Crestliner as tight as possible to the dock and secured the boat. Using the tarp, they rolled the dead man onto the boat, the sides of the boat concealing the man. At this time of the day and year there is almost no traffic on the river.
They switched on the lights at both ends of the boat and headed downriver along Shelly Island on the Goldsboro side, following a route they knew so well they could avoid the shallows without daylight. Just past the island’s southern tip, where the water deepened, the worker eased back the throttle and put the forty-horsepower Mercury in neutral to hold position.
Unceremoniously, the worker attached the tarp to cleats on the side of the boat, then lifting the opposite end of the tarp they raised the body up and over the side. As the body vanished into the depths of the Susquehanna River the worker laughed, “Goodbye, watch out for Bessie.”
Mike Settino 