Melia Ridge Read online

  MELIA RIDGE

  A MAX BLAKE MYSTERY

  WILLIAM FLORENCE

  WildBluePress.com

  “Melia Ridge” is a work of fiction. The names, characters, locales, and incidents that are depicted in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of any character within this work to an actual person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The exceptions are the Oregon, Ireland, and Italian settings.

  MELIA RIDGE published by:

  WILDBLUE PRESS

  P.O. Box 102440

  Denver, Colorado 80250

  Publisher Disclaimer: Any opinions, statements of fact or fiction, descriptions, dialogue, and citations found in this book were provided by the author, and are solely those of the author. The publisher makes no claim as to their veracity or accuracy, and assumes no liability for the content.

  Copyright 2017 by William Florence

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  WILDBLUE PRESS is registered at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offices.

  ISBN 978-1-947290-23-5 Trade Paperback

  ISBN 978-1-947290-22-8 eBook

  Interior Formatting/Book Cover Design by Elijah Toten

  www.totencreative.com

  Also by William Florence:

  The Max Blake Mystery series:

  Raptor’s Ridge

  Misery Ridge

  Faraway Ridge

  Snowfall Ridge

  Emerald Ridge

  The Max Blake Western series:

  The Killing Trail

  Trail of Revenge

  Trail to Redemption

  Trail to Dead Man’s Gulch

  Trail from Crooked River

  Acknowledgments:

  Special gratitude is extended to Jennifer Guyor Jowett and Lori Kronser, editors extraordinaire, for their detailed critique of the early manuscript; to Rowena Carenen of WildBlue Press, for her detail-oriented and meticulous eye; to Christian Maheux, for his cover design; Linda Lou, for finding the cruise of the century; Stu and Donna, for pulling the Mediterranean trip together so nicely; and to a variety of friends and relatives – from Bill Kohlmeyer and Doc Strand and Michael J. Parker to my cousins Vinny and Bob to – hey, you know who you are – who once again served up their names and expertise to the cause. Simply put, I couldn’t get there without you. Nor would I want to.

  For Vincenzo, Roberto, Giovanni, and the entire New England clan, scattered now to time and distance and the four winds

  Cast of Primary Characters

  The port side of the Atlantic

  Max Blake: Private detective; retired college professor and former investigative reporter

  Caeli Brown: Max’s fiancée/business partner and a former newspaper reporter

  Bill Kohlmeyer: Chief of police of Oregon’s capital city

  Fredo Fierro: The new capo di tutti capi; Max’s and Caeli’s friend and sole client

  Elmore and Leonard: Fierro Enterprises (USA) employees/bodyguards

  Michael J. Parker: Max’s and Caeil’s friend and attorney

  Dr. Floyd Strand: Max’s friend, golf buddy, and medical adviser

  Mitts: Caeli’s 26-pound Maine Coon cat

  Koko: Caeli’s midnight-black rescue cat

  The starboard side of the Atlantic

  The Rev. Sean “Jack” O’Lennox: Caeli’s uncle, the former Archbishop of Armagh

  Roberto Fierro: The late Don Vincenzo’s lookalike brother; Fredo’s uncle

  Guglielmo Morandini: Don Roberto’s gardener and occasional chauffer

  Monsignor Luca LaGuardia: Papal wheeler-dealer

  Father Antonio Rizzo: Resident Vatican good guy

  Father Pietro Angelus: Resident Vatican bad guy

  Penn and Teller: Fierro Enterprises (International) employees

  Bruno Coretti: the Mayor of Nepi, Italy

  Ruth Coretti: Kidnap victim and the mayor’s wife

  Chiara Coretti: Bruno’s and Ruth’s daughter

  ‘Those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.’

  ‘Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.’

  – John Fitzgerald Kennedy

  35th U.S. president

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  A Niggling, Worrisome Past

  The majesty, the spectacle, the trappings of power – all are difficult to ignore.

  Admirers, and especially the true believers, continually remind you of the simple fact that the church endures. Witness the long lines at the Città del Vaticano, day after day.

  But if you take the time to study the centuries-long abuses and shockingly sordid history of the church, you’ll discover all too quickly that its zealous minions will do damn near anything to further the excesses of the faith, or at least the faith as they see it and shape it. And if Shakespeare was correct and the past truly is prologue, this legion of underlings, many thousands strong through the millennia, will go to extraordinary lengths to protect those who represent the venerable institution and toil in its vineyards, for good or for evil … not only in the past but in the present day as well.

  Consider this random listing of known transgressions:

  Book-burnings and imprisonments and the incessant rewriting and reconstruction of history;

  The mournful saga of the Crusades and the slaughter of untold hundreds of thousands of so-called non-believers;

  The wanton destruction of churches, synagogues, temples, and varied places of worship of those faiths deemed unworthy;

  Witch-hunts and religious wars resulting in the deaths of shocking numbers of innocents – millions of them through the ages;

  The slaughter of native peoples around the globe – from Ireland to the Hawaiian Islands and throughout the African, European, and American continents, both North and South, including what eventually became the United States;

  All-out, all-in wars against so-called heretics of all stripes and creeds across the far-flung reaches of the globe;

  The historical exploitation of church indulgences, which constitutes a gut-wrenching retelling of vicious abuses and excesses;

  The World War II concentration camps run by the Catholic Ustaše, which participated in the murders of people of all genders and ages, children included;


  The indifference of the Pius XII, often called Hitler’s pope, while the Nazis ran roughshod across two continents;

  The church’s involvement in the Rwanda massacres of the 1990s …

  You get the idea.

  It’s a litany not of the saints but rather of grave-faced, relentless, unrepentant sinners.

  A selective recounting, you say?

  Ah, but there’s so much material to select from, with long centuries of history to cull, despite the repeated efforts of those at the helm to make it all disappear.

  Look up the sad tale of John Wycliffe, or the detailed history of the Knights Templar – never mind the myths and the accounts of revisionists or those trying to make a buck through hucksterism or movie deals or simple deceit. Take a moment to wrap your mind around the church’s dealing with Galileo Galilei, or Joan of Arc, or Jan Hus, or William Tyndale, or the true story behind the Inquisitions. These days, with a wireless connection and a ready-made internet library at your fingertips, getting to the heart of the matter is as easy as a few keystrokes and a click with a plastic mouse.

  Raise these topics, of course, and the faithful, forever bleating like sheep trailing the wandering shepherd, protest vociferously that much of this recounting is culled from the distant past – the Dark Ages, which have long since been relegated to the dusty pages of a shameful if narrow slice of selective history. And while countless reports regarding the predatory practices of certain members of the clergy have come to light in shocking detail in more recent years, those missteps, too, also are just as easily dismissed by the faithful. These halo-blind followers repeatedly maintain that we should not condemn the entire institution because of the malevolent depravity of a few sick individuals … this despite the repeated attempted whitewashes from those in charge, at least some of whom have been tried and convicted for their efforts to thwart justice.

  To save you some time:

  In 1992, exactly 350 years after Galileo’s death, Pope John Paul II apologized on behalf of the church for its denouncing of the brilliant scientist and philosopher’s lifetime of achievements and for locking him up for the final nine years of his life.

  This recent John Paul, you should know, was something of an apology machine. During his years as pope, he formally apologized not only for the Galileo debacle but also for the church’s roles in the murders of Muslims during the Crusades, for its involvement in the African slave trade, for its ongoing silence and blind eye during the Holocaust, to those who were convicted during the Inquisition, for the church’s role in the religious wars that took place after the Protestant Reformation, and for its historical treatment of Jews, women, and most everyone else who suffered at the heavy hand of the dogmatists through the centuries.

  Case closed and the record set straight … right?

  Not quite.

  Upon John Paul’s death in 2005, his successor, Benedict XVI, decreed that the original “verdict against Galileo was rational and just, and the revision of this verdict can be justified only on the grounds of what is politically opportune.”

  As the wise man said, you can look it up.

  I recount this slice of a sordid past not because I want to disparage the institution (I do not) but merely to point out that when something is rotten, in Denmark or in Rome, you can’t sit idly by and pretend that the cogs and the pulleys and the wheels and the wires are still in place, humming nicely along, benefiting all of mankind.

  They aren’t, I’m sad to report, and from recent first-hand experience. If you have some time, I’ll tell you about it – including the church’s tenuous connection to the shocking death of an American president more than five decades previous.

  I can’t promise an easy journey in this telling. But I will promise that it’s the truth … or at least it’s as close to the truth as I could get, given the fractious circumstances.

  Judge for yourself.

  ONE

  The Mills of God Grind Slowly

  Ever stop to contemplate how your life can turn on a dime?

  A shift of the winds, an unexpected diagnosis, a glance in the rearview mirror (or a failure to glance behind you) – even the arrival of a single postcard in the mailbox: Snap your fingers and everything you know, everything you trusted or once took for granted, vanishes.

  Bang.

  Just like that.

  Caeli’s Uncle Jack, the former Archbishop of Armagh, was alive.

  But who could tell in the initial rush of revelation whether this was good news or bad – a fact to celebrate or one to curse?

  As I look back, contemplating the significance of the disclosure from the safety of time and physical distance and large bodies of water that even now help to separate the varied combatants who lined up to stake a claim, it was damned difficult to absorb and not much fun to speculate about when the news arrived.

  I’ll admit that I suspected the worst when the postcard showed up in the mailbox with a Vatican stamp attached. That’s likely because I’d previously seen an identical postcard, one with a British stamp, and recognized its significance.

  Of course, learning that Caeli’s uncle was alive was one thing – an inconvenient truth. Learning that he was under the protection of the Holy Roman Church, which historically has gone out of its way to shield legions of scoundrels and villains and other shady characters who’ve populated the hierarchy of the august institution for millennia, was another consideration entirely.

  Jack a scoundrel?

  You bet. That’s exactly what he was – and he remains so in my mind.

  Until a few weeks ago, I never would have placed those two words – Jack, as in Caeli’s uncle, and scoundrel, as in miscreant and blackguard and scalawag – in the same sentence, paired with one another in the way that, say, Arm & Hammer or Simon & Garfunkel or Smith & Wesson are associated.

  But that was before the events on Mutton Island, the 185-acre bird sanctuary off the western Irish coast, and Jack’s efforts to overthrow the British government’s rule in Ulster through force and violence and madcap adventure and misguided revolution. (You can read the fine details in Emerald Ridge, my accounting of the sordid tale, the background of which might help with what took place in its aftermath and even here, in this telling.)

  The thing of it is, Caeli and I both were certain that Uncle Jack was dead, killed by steady, unrelenting machine gun fire on the island, along with his trusted right arm, Michael Corbin, and other like-minded revolutionaries who followed in the archbishop’s terrorist-inspired footsteps and decided that the best way to unite the two Irelands would be to restart the historical mayhem of The Troubles.

  Yeah. Exactly. What the hell was he thinking?

  What the hell were any of them thinking?

  We were there, Caeli and I, along with our two bodyguards-on-loan, Elmore and Leonard, planted on the barren, windswept island in a pelting rain, trying to rescue Uncle Jack from himself.

  It turned out that Jack didn’t want to be rescued.

  Or at least, not then, he didn’t.

  But the situation took an enormous roundabout turn, unexpected and sure as hell unappreciated, when unnamed church officials stepped up to institute a capture of their off-the-reservation red-robed warrior, slamming him with a tranquilizer dart instead of a bullet and whisking him off Mutton Island and into waiting hands in Rome before any of us – or at least before Caeli and I – were able to see through the subterfuge.

  I found this out weeks later when Jack sent Caeli a postcard depicting William Butler Yeats’s tombstone in Drumcliff churchyard, County Sligo, with the final three lines of the great poet’s 1933 masterwork Under Ben Bulben engraved on the stone monolith:

  Cast a cold Eye

  On Life, on Death,

  Horseman pass by.

  It was the same message that started the eve
nts leading to our arrival in Ireland and eventually on Mutton Island – the same message, delivered on an identical postcard, that resulted in, among other things, our ownership of a large estate on the Irish coast, near Limerick.

  I eventually was able to confirm that church bigwigs, hoping to avoid the scandal that would accompany a rogue archbishop spraying gunfire across the land he so fondly called home, brought the once honorable and most reverend Sean “Jack” O’Lennox, the archbishop of Armagh, back into the fold, rather than allowing the Irish authorities and global media wolves to wail and gnash their collective incisors, along with their cameras and keyboards and flash drives and internet connections, on his sorry carcass.

  Among other heinous deeds, Caeli’s uncle was responsible for the murder of his longtime friend and church associate, the Rev. Monsignor Donald McBride. And yet, although church officials were cognizant of that horrendous crime and dozens more, they still took Uncle Jack in and placed him under their protective blanket in the notorious Secret Archives Building at the Vatican, where he was assigned to while away his days in peace and penance, doubtless told to account for his sins and misdeeds while sorting through mountains of paperwork that date back centuries.

  Or so we initially were led to believe.

  Somehow, at some point, all was not as it seemed and he slipped away just long enough to smuggle out the Yeats postcard, which he sent to Caeli. I retrieved it from the mailbox when it arrived days later and, rather than turning it immediately over to her, tried to determine whether Jack was, in fact, the miscreant of this latest endeavor, or whether it was all some sort of twisted joke, perpetrated on poor Caeli by a decidedly malevolent prankster … one other than her uncle, of course.