Chapter 1
A Hidden Truth
Thursday, April 12, 1945
San Francisco Chronicle: EXTRA! FDR Dies
They said the cleaning lady had run out of the house, screaming into the street. As I looked down at the victim, curled up on that cement floor, a trickle of vomit burned as it rose in my throat. My eyes watered as I swallowed it back and looked down so no one would notice. I wanted to run out of the house and maybe scream too.
Hennessy, a barrel-chested veteran patrolman with a big red mustache, had taken my partner and me into the garage, and was giving us a rundown on what he knew so far. When I walked in the front door, the first thing I noticed was the smell. Not Hennessy—he always smelled like booze. And that morning so did I. I was hungover.
No, it was the house. It reminded me of a bad steak joint with a sickly sweet, smoky, but also acrid smell that hung in the air like a heavy blanket. It smelled like Merv’s Beefeater’s House, a seamy steak and gin joint. Merv was a rummy who also ran used-up hookers after the whorehouses had kicked them out. He burned the steaks, used the aging party girls, served bathtub gin, and never cleaned the place. I didn’t go there too often, but the steaks were cheap.
I felt like hell until I saw the body.
Then I felt worse.
A Layer of Darkness Description:
In 1945 during the closing months of World War II, British statesman Nigel Cunningham lies dead, burnt and smoldering in the fetal position on a cold garage floor in San Francisco. As the crime scene begins to reveal numerous irregularities, Police Inspector Andrew Johnson senses a twisted case of appearances and realities and a frightening truth ultimately revealed by the grisly corpse at his feet.
After FBI agent Ryan Kinahan is brought in with a rush of justice to convict local war veteran Mario Romano, Johnson becomes convinced of federal corruption. He finds himself pitted against his lifetime nemesis of dirty cops, but at a new level as the case opens links going up the chain of command in war time politics.
