Lineage

Copyright © 2017 by Cash Kushel.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other – except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The names, incidents, dialogue, and opinions expressed are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

For more information or to contact the author, write to rosscottandjordan@gmail.com

Published by Rosscott & Jordan

Boca Raton, Florida

Cover Design, Publisher Logo, Interior Design by Daniel Middleton www.scribefreelance.com

ISBN: 978-0-98439-823-2

Set in Caslon

Printed on acid and lignin free SFI Certified paper

Published in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to parents everywhere who would do anything and everything to protect their children.

Contents

Acknowledgements

1. The Balcony

2. The Ledger

3. Tilfer

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Author Photograph by: Debra Rosen

Thank you to Zachary Kushel, who first mentioned the concept of “Lineage” to me back in 2003.

Thanks to Daniel Middleton, of Scribe Freelance, for his cover design and formatting of the pages, As always, his covers are a work of art.

A special thank you to Cheryl Ross, for her yeoman’s work in editing and copy editing my manuscript. She spent many hours helping to shape and shorten my original text, into the fast paced thriller it is today. Her dedication and love of her craft is reflected throughout. I am greatly appreciative for all that she has done.

And my love to my beautiful wife Ellen, who supports me in everything I do.

CHAPTER ONE

The Balcony

At two a.m. on a
freezing December morning in upstate New York, I jimmy open a back window and climb into an unlit house. Although the full moon illuminates the backyard, the ray from the small flashlight I carry must suffice once I make it inside. I feel a slight twinge in my left hamstring as I raise my trailing leg over the ledge. In my fifty-six years, I have never broken into a building. Events and revelations have a way of changing people.

I know the patrol car that passed five minutes earlier will not return for at least an hour. By then I should accomplish what I have set out to do. If everything goes as planned, I should be in and out in minutes. This undertaking will define my other actions. I expect it will serve as the catalyst for the long personal journey I am about to take.

As I enter the room, I am bombarded by the smell of stale beer and vomit that permeates the carpet. Countless kegs must have been delivered to this room as inebriated fraternity brothers impressed groups of even drunker sorority girls. How many mugs, glasses, and plastic cups were tilted carelessly in every direction in a futile attempt to take a few more swigs before faces hit the table? And on the nights when a keg was not present, how many bottles of beer were spilled over chair and couch cushions by out-of-control partiers?

Five years earlier, a fatal hazing incident took place inside this house a week before the Thanksgiving holiday. Four months later, Othello University’s president resigned. The press release cited differences with the Board of Trustees over the future academic direction of the institution. But it had been the fallout from the hazing incident that had precipitated the president’s departure.

The fraternity house had remained open after the November tragedy until Gus Rinaldi, the university’s new president, closed it a week after the graduation ceremonies in May. Then he revoked the fraternity’s charter, and with that, the university police sealed all the entrances to the house.

Rumors it might be knocked down to make room for a new dormitory or a new home for the School of Journalism turned out to be false. The house stood empty on Othello’s Incubus, New York, campus and remained a haunting reminder of how my son, Rodney, an eighteen-year-old freshman, needlessly lost his life.

The inquest into Rodney’s death determined he fell from a third-story wraparound balcony. The autopsy confirmed he died instantly from severe brain trauma. Prior to hitting the floor, he had been choking on his own bile. His blood alcohol level showed he had been binge drinking.

To gain induction into the fraternity, Mu Lambda Nu, the initiates were forced to stand blindfolded and made to lean over the railing. It was then that Rodney had tumbled over the balcony under the watchful eye of his frat brothers.

The brothers should have done a better job supervising the initiation. Their actions showed a disregard for human life. Who taught young people to act this way? Who passes along this set of warped traditions from one year to the next?

After Rodney’s death, every brother who had been present in the house that night had remained silent about the retching ritual. They had taken an oath never to divulge a single detail about it. All the brothers simply said Rodney was drunk and dove over the railing to his death.

Even when the university threatened sanctions and the police exerted pressure, each brother repeated the same fabricated story. In many ways, they were all kids, yet the law judged them as responsible adults. None of them were ever punished or reprimanded however. The university administered no suspensions, nor did it delay anyone’s graduation.

Rodney had been so excited when he told me he was pledging. Mu Lambda Nu was an eclectic grouping made up of students from different schools within the university. Some of the brothers were on athletic teams while most of the house was made up of non-jocks.

Rodney felt at home here. He laughed nervously when he told me he and his fellow pledges had two things in common: First, they all liked to drink beer, and second, they all liked to drink beer.

I knew my son was speaking the part, not acting it. Rodney never had many friends because he rarely fit in with kids his age. I never believed he was a drinker, unless he developed a taste for alcohol within a month. I believed his declaration of alcohol consumption had been false bravado.

Now, as I walk through the room I smell other things besides stale beer and vomit. I smell indifference and loss. I feel a chill in the air. It is magnified by the aura of darkness surrounding my psyche as I plan to inflict great harm upon those who cultivated and developed the ritual that took my son’s life.

Max Hardy had told me
exactly where I could find the ledger in the old Mu Lambda Nu house. “It should be in the middle row of the bookcase, all the way on the left. That’s where it was the night Rodney died. Otherwise, look through each shelf. When you spot it, it will be unmistakable. It is bound in thick brown leather.”

Max and I had talked a few weeks earlier on the fifth anniversary of Rodney’s death. He had been one of Rodney’s fraternity brothers. He sat in my living room, spilling his guts. When Rodney died, no one’s life was turned upside down except my own and in fairness, I came to learn, Max Hardy’s.

Max had shown up at my front door unannounced. He had driven for days to meet me. Although I had heard Rodney mention Max by name, I had never spoken to the young man other than a quick hello during Parents’ Weekend.

As Max sat in my living room, for the first time I heard an honest account of what happened the night Rodney died. Max apologized profusely for not telling me sooner. He wished he had spoken up when the tragedy occurred. He said he had been too frightened and too fragile to step forward back then.

I was not sure Max was all there. A part of me believed he was ready to return to the loony bin—he said he had gone into psychotherapy after my son’s death. He seemed so unstable. I would not have been surprised if he had said he spoke to my dead son, yet no such claim was forthcoming.

Max cried when he described his friendship with Rodney. He had cared for him. I was touched.

As he spoke, Max introduced me to the concept of “lineage,” a fraternity’s family tree of sorts which shows when brothers were inducted and who they were required to be loyal to. Various lineages were listed in the ledger, he said. As I heard Max’s revelations, a combination safe unlocked inside my head. As he divulged layers of information, each notch methodically fell into the appropriate slot. With the truth revealed, I awoke from five years of passive existence. I smiled. My smile grew until my lips ached.

The ledger would be my roadmap to buried treasure. It would give me a well-crafted listing of who to kill. I would be granted a complete and accurate picture that would allow me to trace things back to where they all began.

Why would Max have shared this information with me about the ledger? I can only reason it is because he wanted me to take action.

Rodney’s death had turned me into a disturbed middle-aged cauldron. I had stewed in my own juices, waiting for this volcanic rush of emotion to free me. Max was a prisoner too. I believe he sought me out to release himself from his own restraints.

I am glad he found me. If I had acted five years ago when this all happened, it would have been too risky. The passage of time will mask what is about to transpire.

I approach the bookcase with
tremendous expectations and a dose of trepidation. Will miracles never cease? The treasure is sitting in its resting place, exactly where Max had said it would be.

I hold it in my hand. I am surprised it is not thicker, but its size and weight feel perfect to the touch. The brown leather-bound book has three Greek yellow letters engraved on the cover signifying the name of the fraternity. Seven other letters grace the surface: L-I-N-E-A-G-E. Contained in this tome is the name of every man who came before Rodney in this fraternity.

As I open it, I see pages and pages of names written in beautiful penmanship. Once I research the names, I will know the despicable creature lurking behind each of them.

I glance back at the bookcase. It looks untouched. I have no need to dust anything of fingerprints. I have worn gloves the entire time.

I climb out of a first-floor window, then close it with one hand when my feet touch the ground. In the other hand I am clutching the leather-bound ledger.

After I learn about Rodney’s lineage, I will tear it apart. I will learn the identities of each member, and I will find and kill every one of them.

CHAPTER TWO

The Ledger

When Rodney pledged the Mu
Lambdas, a sophomore named Morgan Ludlow was designated his “big brother.” Morgan was to look after his “little brother” Rodney and serve as his advisor as he entered Greek life. As Rodney’s “big,” Morgan was supposed to promote friendship, loyalty, and ethical behavior. He was also tasked with helping to guide and develop his “little” to honor and represent the values of a Mu Lambda. . . .

CHAPTER THREE

Tilfer

Senior Federal District Judge Sander
Tilfer sits in his chambers at the Martin Luther King Jr. Courthouse on Walnut Street in Newark, struggling to compose a legal opinion. Oral arguments in an antitrust case had been presented two weeks earlier. Both sides had made compelling arguments, and Tilfer had been conferencing with his law clerks throughout the day to sort through many contentious issues.

He had let his clerks go about a half-hour earlier. His Rolex reads “8:30.” . . .

C
ATALOGUE

OF

N
OVELS

BY

C
ASH

K
USHEL

:

Lotto Trouble
– (2003) ISBN: 978-0-98439-822-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010902001

www.lottotrouble.com

Published by: Rosscott & Jordan (available April 2010)

The Choosers
– (2010) ISBN: 978-0-98439-820-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009913603

Published by: Rosscott & Jordan (available March 2010)

Stockhammer
– (2010) ISBN: 978-0-98439-821-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009913604

Published by Rosscott & Jordan (available March 2010)

Sense of Direction
– (2013) ISBN: 978-1-93846-763-9

Published by Rosscott & Jordan (available August 2016)

Lineage
– (2017) ISBN: 978-0-98439-823-2

Published by Rosscott & Jordan (available February 2017)