Ironwood Ridge Read online

  IRONWOOD RIDGE

  ALSO BY BARRY WOOD

  Invented History, Fabricated Power

  Nonfiction Authors Association Award

  Malcolm Lowry: The Writer and His Critics

  Ontario Arts Council Award

  The Only Freedom

  The Magnificent Frolic

  BARRY WOOD

  IRONWOOD RIDGE

  Vanguard Press

  VANGUARD KINDLE

  © Copyright 2022

  Barry Wood

  The right of Barry Wood to be identified as author of

  this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All Rights Reserved

  No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication

  may be made without written permission.

  No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,

  copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the publisher, or

  in accordance with the provisions

  of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to

  this publication may be liable to criminal

  prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is

  available from the British Library.

  ISBN (PAPERBACK) 978 1 80016 146 7

  Vanguard Press is an imprint of

  Pegasus Elliot MacKenzie Publishers Ltd.

  www.pegasuspublishers.com

  First Published in 2022

  Vanguard Press

  Sheraton House Castle Park

  Cambridge England

  For Vickie

  Prologue

  Broc O’Neill was too much in shock to think, too paralyzed to feel anything, furious to the point of rage, yet, he had to find whatever small window to survival might open in the next few minutes.

  The minister went on with his final words over the polished walnut casket ready for lowering into the ground — a casket that contained the remains of Darcy.

  Remains. The scattered bits and pieces of human life blown over an acre of pavement in an explosion intended for him — Broc O’Neill. He shuddered to think of the mutilated remains mercifully hidden within the closed casket. The atrocity had torn him apart for the past three days, sending him into a fury of pounding furniture and tearing through his home like a caged beast.

  Darcy… His wife, the only woman he had ever loved, everything he had worked and lived for. And now she was gone. O’Neill clenched his fists as he stared at the casket, the homilies of the minister making no sense. He saw no one, though he was surrounded by the shocked community of colleagues — faculty and staff from Jefferson State University and more from the community, hundreds of people in shock from the tragedy of Darcy’s death.

  Struggling to control himself, O’Neill tried to think. The attempt on his life, which had ended in Darcy’s death, had made everything clear. Someone wanted him dead. No, the effort and planning told him it wasn’t someone; it was many. But who? And why? He did not know, but he knew he would be dead within hours if they had their way.

  He imagined he could feel their eyes. Not the eyes of the graveside mourners, but hidden eyes — perhaps in one of the parked cars just beyond the iron fence or in a restaurant across the street, or perhaps behind the half-drawn curtains of an apartment down the block. Eyes, watching him. Eyes of unknown enemies who had somehow decided to take his life away. They had failed this time. They might not fail again.

  He hardly heard the final words of consolation. A few people began to move off. In minutes he would be exposed, vulnerable, a target for those he was sure were watching him. But he had to survive. He had to slip through whatever net was closing in; he would have no second chance. If he was going to enact revenge, he had to survive, suppress his grief, and think more clearly than ever before.

  They were lowering the casket. He watched it descend — fighting back the knots in his stomach, feeling as though some deadly beast were stalking him, ready to spring, ready to maim and kill.

  The minister beckoned to him. He gathered up a handful of moist soil and scattered it into the grave. The dull sound of earth falling on the casket jarred him with its finality. The minister offered a final benediction and then stepped back.

  O’Neill stared into the grave. A little girl stepped forward: Brittany, a colleague’s daughter, five or six years old. He watched her throw a bouquet into the grave and then saw the tears on her cheeks as she turned and looked up at him. Reaching out, touching her shoulder, he felt the hot wetness of her tears, the shocking and terrible softness of her hair brushing his hand. He turned slowly, nodding his gratitude to those who had come to Darcy’s burial.

  “Broc, if there’s anything we can do—”

  He closed his eyes for a few seconds and then nodded understanding.

  “— Just call. Please, Broc, just call, or come over—”

  “Thanks, Mary. Thanks, Tim. I’ll… I’ll be okay.” He wanted to flee into the arms of friends. But he had to risk everything — for Darcy’s sake — alone. No one else could help.

  He moved slowly, thanking people. He felt their hands on his shoulders. Trying to think what was next, he struggled against the agony of their tears. People drifted toward the driveway, the iron gates, the boulevard fronting the cemetery. Aware of parked cars, curtained windows across the street, O’Neill moved with them. He had to separate himself from the others. He had to escape. He had to get revenge.

  Chapter One

  Jefferson, Indiana

  One week earlier

  Thursday, May 16, 1996

  “This is the scariest thing I’ve read this semester.”

  Broc looked up. Christelle Washington, a graduate student in political science, stood in the doorway of his office in a soft green cotton dress.

  “All those readings you assigned on the history of intelligence, Dr. O’Neill—they were pretty unnerving,” she said as she walked in holding the latest issue of American Documentary History, “but this is worse. I found your article this morning. It’s bound to upset some people in Washington. Dr. O’Neill, where on Earth did you find this?”

  “In the library where Harry Truman grew up,” he answered as Christelle sat down. “Boxes of uncatalogued papers from his early presidency. God knows how they got there.” She laid the journal on the edge of his desk like a sacred object. “But the semester’s over. You can put off reading academic journals until next fall.”

  “This issue just arrived in the Poly Sci reading room.” She looked at the buff-colored journal, then at him. “It’s pretty upsetting. It makes me go cold just thinking about it.”

  “I wish all my students were as attentive.” O’Neill smiled with pleasure. He pulled a stapled sheaf of paper from a half-opened bundle on his desk. “Here, fifty offprints came in this morning’s mail. Good thing, or I wouldn’t have received them until I got back in September. Would you like one?”

  Christelle beamed as only a student can who has been recognized and favored by her mentor, her teacher in two history seminars and now a member of her newly-formed dissertation committee. “I’d love one, Dr. O’Neill.” He passed it across the desk. “But —would you sign it?” Broc took it back feeling like a celebrity as he wrote his name under the title of the article. “Good! Now I can say I knew you before you testified before the Senate.” She fingered the offprint as though it were a string of expensive pearls.

  Broc smiled. “I think it’s about as interesting as an old shoe — speaking from a layman’s perspective. After all, it’s from the Truman years. That’s half a century ago.”

  Christelle thumbed through the offprint.
“That’s the historian’s perspective. But I’m sure some in high places would prefer this document never saw the light of day.”

  Broc shrugged. “We historians get hardened up after a while. After Watergate and Oliver North, nothing in Washington seems surprising. New forms of deception, new examples of corruption.” Broc smiled. “And the dirty tricks change with every administration. Clinton has had it easy so far even with Republicans in control of both Houses. Of course, they’re no worse than Democrats. Just new rules for dirty games just as we managed to figure out the old ones.”

  Christelle listened to him attentively, then opened her handbag. “Is it true that you won’t be back until September?” She laid a stapled sheaf of pages on his desk.

  “Darcy’s been with her law firm six years, she wants a long vacation. She’s working out plans for the summer. Ten weeks.”

  “So, that means no more rummaging in old presidential documents.”

  He nodded. “Darcy’s demanding a clean, research-free, brainless vacation.”

  Christelle smiled at his description. “Dr. O’Neill, I love that wife of yours. She’s a woman after my own heart.” She paused, wrinkling her forehead. “As for me, I can’t imagine a whole summer off, not with this dissertation to plan. Where are you going?”

  “A grad-school buddy has a place out by Chesapeake Bay. He’s invited us to use his guest house, but I expect to spend some time in DC.” O’Neill picked up another copy of the offprint. “There’s more to it than this, more documents never examined.”

  Christelle smiled at him across the desk. “It doesn’t sound like a research-free, brainless vacation to me. What does Darcy say?”

  “She says I can do what I like in Washington, but never to say a single thing about it to her, not unless I come home with theater tickets or venues for classy sight-seeing. But she’s ruled out the Native American and Holocaust Museums.”

  “Well, I thought she was interested in all that kind of stuff.”

  “She is, but she says I’ll get distracted and start chasing some wild hare into the politics of broken Indian treaties or activities still unknown about Hitler and the Nazis — which I have mentioned from time to time.”

  “So, are you planning to poke around in the Library of Congress?”

  “Some things are possible. Staying out of libraries for ten weeks is not. Darcy says research is an academic disease. I can prowl the stacks as much as I want, but the cabin is an academic-free zone. She’s a lawyer. She’s threatened to write out a legal contract listing off-limit topics and penalties if I break the rules.”

  Christelle smiled in amusement, then pointed at Broc’s article. “Academic sleuthing seems pretty intriguing. Nobody in Poly Sci does anything interesting. They just sit around and argue about the election in November. Your summer sounds more interesting.”

  Broc shrugged. “It could be interesting if anything turns up, but it won’t be much of an adventure. Have you ever been to DC in the summer?” She shook her head. “It’s awfully hot. Five-showers-a-day weather. You may not know about this. California has a sensible climate.”

  Christelle nodded. “You’re right: it’s pretty nice in San Diego. Anyway” — she patted the pages she had laid on his desk — “this is a first draft of a dissertation proposal. Something to read when you’re not sleuthing. My first and second readers have it — Dr. Bailey and Dr. Jones.”

  O’Neill glanced at the stapled pages. “How soon do you need a reply?”

  “Oh, there’s no rush! I need to do a lot of reading. This is only a first draft, a sort of work-in-progress. I’ll try to define the topic more exactly over the summer. So September is fine.” She watched Broc glance at the title. He lifted the lid of his briefcase and slid the proposal inside. “But I would like to have your summer address so I can send a card. You and Darcy have an anniversary soon.”

  Her memory caught him by surprise until he recalled how well Christelle had taken to Darcy at joint faculty-student gatherings — not surprising considering that Darcy, at age thirty-two, was probably only three or four years older than Christelle. On the fifth of August they would celebrate ten years of marriage.

  “That’s awfully kind, Christelle, but don’t feel you need to remember all the important dates in the lives of your dissertation committee, especially your third reader.”

  “I’m sure Darcy would appreciate it. Lady lawyers are as sentimental as the rest of us.”

  Broc squeezed his lips together, acknowledging her point. “Well, you can send things care of the History Department at Georgetown University.” He opened a notebook and thumbed through. “It’s Washington, DC. Zip code, 20057.” Christelle jotted down the address. “Also, I’ll be calling here every couple of days to get my phone mail. Just leave your number and I’ll call back. Where will you be?”

  She stuffed her pen and the offprint into her purse. “I’ve borrowed my sister’s cabin in Vermont for the summer. She and her hubby are off to Europe. I need to be away from distractions if I’m going to get any reading done. There’s Internet but no video player, not even TV, nothing except a walk in the woods every day.”

  “Sounds idyllic. We’ve got a place like that. It belonged to Darcy’s mother. Completely isolated. But it doesn’t seem like we’ll even get there this summer.”

  He watched Christelle stand up and close her handbag. Her green dress set off her hazel eyes and auburn hair, which fell in spreading waves halfway down her back. “You look like you’re on your way somewhere.”

  She glanced at her watch. “The airport. I’ve got a flight in three hours. I’m spending a couple of weeks with Mom and Dad, then a drive across the country. I’m looking forward to that. And then, I’ll be holing up in Vermont.”

  Broc stood and gathered up his spring-semester paperwork. “I have to hand this in and then I’m gone for the rest of the summer! Can you wait? I’ll walk you to your car.”

  Standing in the parking lot, they enjoyed the spring air and smell of honeysuckle blossoms from the bordering hedge. “I know your proposal is a work-in-progress, but how close are you to pinning down a topic?”

  “It’s going to be something about double-agenda politics — federal bills that appear to be one thing but are put forward to build party power in ways the public may not notice. Politicians do things with devious intentions that no one realizes until later.”

  Broc gazed across the parking lot. “It makes a lot of sense, especially now with Republicans trying to neutralize a fairly effective president. There’s manipulation at every level, slanted news releases, closed-door deliberations leaked to The New York Times. There’s such duplicity and subterfuge in Congress. How does Dr. Bailey feel about the topic?”

  “He says I should focus on one or two administrations or this will become a multi-volumed tome. He says you would know the period that will yield the best results.”

  Just about any period will give examples. “Whatever you come up with will probably do. But is September early enough?”

  “Oh, definitely early enough! I need to explore major bills over at least the past forty years, maybe everything since FDR, before settling on a specific period.”

  He nodded again. “Look, Christelle, this whole topic is fascinating! It’s such an interesting twist on legislation. If you get it mapped out — you know, a chapter outline, whatever — e-mail it. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Will Darcy allow you to read academic stuff during your vacation?”

  “She’ll be okay because she knows you’re trying to finish your degree.”

  Christelle smiled her thanks. “I don’t understand everything in your article. It assumes a lot of complicated background that I’d like you to explain, but that will have to wait until September. And it’s separate from my summer dissertation project.” Broc nodded. “Anyway,” she said, glancing at her watch, “I have to go or I’ll get caught in traffic.”

  Broc weaved through the parking lot to his car, an aging Honda Accord, and
opened the door, which he never locked. As he got in, he remembered his task for the rest of the afternoon. He set the briefcase flat on the seat, opened it, and pulled out the cell phone. The damn thing had gone haywire two days ago, but he knew he could get it replaced free of charge since it was still under warranty.

  Christelle’s car passed by — a new Pontiac Grand Am SE with cross-laced wire wheels that communicated the kind of muscle more typical of the seventies. Steel-gray, elegant. A price tag of something around thirty-six thousand hovered in his mind; he wondered where today’s graduate students found the money to live in luxury while working full time on a degree. O’Neill backed out and followed her car to the parking lot entrance, then along the boulevard. The black detailing and low-lying, rear-deck spoiler radiated understated elegance. He caught a glimpse of sunlight on Christelle’s hair as she turned left under the freeway and headed up the ramp to Highway 40. She waved as he continued south toward the mall.

  Broc set his briefcase on the table, examined his new phone and punched in Darcy’s office number. The voice came on after the first ring: “This is Sanderson and Sanderson, Attorneys at Law. Please listen carefully as our menu has recently changed.”

  He punched in Darcy’s extension and waited while the phone rang twice. “This is Darcy O’Neill,” she announced in the same telephone voice that had entranced him for a dozen years.

  “Well, Counselor, how are things in the law patch?” he asked, thinking of something like an urban cabbage patch. He admired Darcy’s competence in her chosen profession. The days of hardship while he put her through law school were behind them, and now the dollars were rolling in. Hers from Sanderson and Sanderson were rolling in at about double his from Jefferson State University.