The Last Dreamgirl
By- Shane Hayes
Genre-Suspense
For every man there's a girl who grips his imagination and his heart as no other girl ever did or will. She may be in her teens or a mature woman. He responds to her as a boy to a girl. Whether she comes early in his life or late, there is a throne in his subconscious that she takes possession of, without trying, often without wanting to.The image he forms of her reigns there in perpetuity, even if she has left his life, or this life. Her enchantment never fades or fails, and he is never immune to it. She may not be for him the last wife or paramour, but she is the last dreamgirl.
Excerpt:
Though only
twenty-four Ronald Pavone had been a private investigator for six
years—four part-time while in college and two full-time since. He worked for
the Wright Detective Agency on South Broad Street near center city
Philadelphia. Ron had learned that mild surprises were part of every case and
big surprises not uncommon. They were the spice of his professional life. Yet
never had he experienced such jaw-dropping amazement as he had that night,
Tuesday, June 5, 1962.
He was reeling from what he had just learned
in a meeting with eyewitness Stan Grackle. It had turned the missing-person
case involving Sandra Moore upside down....
Ron sat
with Marisa on the sofa and told her everything he had learned from Stan
Grackle that night—the whole conversation, blow by blow, shock after shock.
From the start of the investigation two months ago Ron had suspected that
Sandra Moore’s live-in uncle, Hal Nevil, had committed double incest, having
sex not only with his widowed sister, the girl’s mother, but with Sandra too,
and had murdered the girl when she resisted or threatened to inform on him.
Evidence had surfaced to support that view.
After two months Ron found Stan
Grackle, who had seen Sandra abducted on a Pennview street but who for
complicated reasons would not let himself be identified or testify in court.
When Ron finally dismissed him as of no help if he wouldn’t testify, Stan made
a parting comment on how ugly the abductor was. Ron was stunned. Hal Nevil was
a handsome man. Stan described grotesque features that were nothing like Hal’s
but suggested the beaked chinless face of a vulture. And the car in which the
Vulture spirited the girl away—Stan got only the first letter of its license
plate—was not Hal’s either.
“Oh, my God,” Marisa said when he
had finished. “Then Hal didn’t do it!”
“Well, he raped her,” Ron
corrected. “I’m sure he did that. And
he abused her sexually for years. But if we believe this damned Grackle, he
didn’t kill her, or abduct her. Someone else did.... I’m back to square one.
Goddammit!”....
“It must feel awful,” she said,
taking his hand sympathetically.... "Every time you think you cracked it
they say, no, you can’t use the evidence, or it’s not enough. You’ve been on a
roller coaster.”
“Yeah,” Ron said, raising her hand to his lips
and kissing it. “But tonight it crashed. This isn’t just another down after a
big up. This is the end of my case against Hal....” Ron shook his head in
bafflement. “Two hot leads didn’t do it. Hal didn’t do it. After two months, I
don’t know who the hell did it.”
“Yes, you do. Stan told you the
Vulture did it. He carried her away in his ugly talons. You even know what he
looks like. You just have to find him.”
“Yeah, but how do you track down a
vulture that’s flown away?”
About the Author-
A native Philadelphian, Shane Hayes earned his bachelor's and his law degree from Villanova University, and studied for a year at Princeton Theological Seminary. He worked as a writer/editor for Prentice Hall and an attorney for the federal government. He is married, has four children, and lives in suburban Philadelphia. His nonfiction book The End of Unbelief: A New Approach to the Question of God was released by Leafwood Publishers in the fall of 2014.
Two young men meet on ship when both are recently out of college. They share a flaming ambition. Each aims to write novels that will be internationally acclaimed and win him a place in American letters. One of them, Paul Theroux, achieves the dream in all its glory: becomes world famous, writes over 40 books, and three of his novels are made into films. The other, Shane Hayes, fails completely, but keeps tenaciously writing, decade after decade, plowing on through hundreds of rejections. Then almost half a century later, Shane contacts Paul, who remembers him, reads three of his books, likes them, and praises them with endorsements.
In writing to agents and publishers Shane could now say, "Query for a novel praised by Paul Theroux." No one offers a book deal because of an endorsement, so rejections keep coming. But more people let him send at least a sample and are predisposed to see merit in it. At his age, time is crucial. In the month he turns 75, Shane receives contracts on two of his books from different publishers. He will always be grateful to the literary giant who remembered ten days of friendship half-a-lifetime after it ended.
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