The Crop of Wickedness – EXCERPT #3
While working as an investigator for an insurance agency, Harold is approached to help a friend of his boss, the vice-president of a bank, who has somehow lost a day and a half of his life.
“This past Friday, the thirteenth, I vaguely recall leaving work.”
“I don’t understand, Mr. Johnson.”
“I spoke with my secretary, Mrs. Juliet Gallison, around three in the afternoon. She brought files of two recent loans that were approved. I would likely have reviewed and signed them and then left promptly at four o’clock.”
“But you didn’t?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked at Troy Harding. I hoped he didn’t feel I had psychiatric abilities as well. I was about to issue forth my deep concerns about the conversation when William Johnson continued.
“I don’t know what happened on Friday. Or Saturday. All I know is that I woke up this morning in a house wearing the same clothing I had on when I would have departed the bank. The same clothing you see me wearing now.”
“Where was this house?”
“I can’t be certain. I was rather, shall we say, groggy.”
“Drunk?”
“No, sir,” he said defiantly.
“Drugged?”
He had a quizzical look, one of speculation, as though he tried to describe in as clinical a fashion as possible what he experienced.
“Quite possibly.”
Since he appeared to have no medical training, it was pointless to pursue that inquiry.
“What kind of house was it?”
“Two stories. Several rooms. Elegant wallpaper. Crystal chandeliers. Red velvet furniture. Oh my! I dare say it almost sounds like a brothel.”
“Was it?”
He looked sharply at me, his character impugned by the suggestion. My instincts as an investigator caused these questions to come out as second-nature. I never worried that I would hurt a client’s feelings if it elicited the truth.
“I don’t know, Mr. Bergman. I just don’t know. I did not encounter anyone there. As I said, my mind was in something of a fog. Things were blurry. I didn’t see any scantily clad women or nervous gentlemen. I heard some muffled sounds. Perhaps. My goodness! I wouldn’t be able to say for sure where I was even if I swore it on a stack of Bibles.”
He slumped as his hands covered his face in embarrassment, even though he didn’t know me until a few minutes prior. His own sense of propriety caused his shame. It was based more on speculation than recollection.
Harold Bergman, Jewish shamus and WW II vet, is ready to settle down with his high school flame. When a society lady offers a job too simple, Harold winds up neck-deep in a 25-year-old murder tied to a dead gangster and secrets no one wants unearthed. Just as the dust settles, a regular job with an insurance outfit drags him into something darker and more sinister. Now the dead are whispering and the living are lying. He’ll need the strength of his five-thousand-year-old religion to survive the wickedness of the past.
The Crop of Wickedness, Volume 3 of The Wichita Chronicles, will be released October 8, 2025
“THE PAST HAS COME TO HARVEST”
