Murder and Deceit In: RIVERTOWN, USA

Murder and Deceit in RIVERTOWN, USA, is a 1930s-era novel based on an actual murder in Tiltonsville, Ohio. Involved with both the out of town syndicate and locals in a land fraud scheme, Michael Bishop, an architect turning con man in order to achieve sudden riches, arrives in town knowing he is to be set up with a cover job. Deacon Walsh mistakes him for the Methodist bishop who is also arriving that week. Since somebody came, Ezekiel, the custodian does not give Deacon Walsh the message that the real bishop has been delayed in the south of France. He doesn’t want to disappoint Henrietta who thinks the bishop will change the whole town.

Lettie No and Jim, a couple trysting by the river see the first murder, but tell no one for fear their adulterous relationship will be discovered. Young David, discovers the body but tells no one because Ezekiel said, "Keep out. Ain’t none of your business what’s dead or alive. Let the undertaker look to the dead ones and the bishop to the live ones, if there are any. They got it all arranged like that."

When David’s father beats his mother he runs to the "bishop". Michael, has not had any liquor all week so when Deacon Walsh advised, "Don’t go, Tom Brown is just an old drunk," Michael replies, "He drinks you say? I’ll go." Bethany Hayes is the ethereally beautiful woman who comes with Michael Bishop as his secretary, realizes she will not see Michael for the rest of the day.

Due to the postmaster’s habit of steaming open the mail, the murder is solved and Ezekiel and David teach each other, and the com man, something wonderfully inspiring about life.

Betty and Sylvia are both daughters of minister and author, George A. Parsons, Sr., who after pasturing twelve hours a day would sit by the furnace and work on the story of his own boyhood on the river, instilling into his children, almost from birth, a desire to write.

Having lived in Methodist parsonages from the Ohio River to Lake Erie, they saw the tears, the suspense and the humor of daily life.

Betty, a drama graduate of Mt. Union College, is the author of Knopf’s Run Ready Run, the story of a wild fox she raised, and Six Days form Sunday, the touching story of an Indian boy who must sadly leave his home to attend school. (Rand McNally)

Sylvia, a music grad from the University of Akron formerly worked in advertising copy and layout and is the author of Standard’s God is Everywhere, and Augsburg’s Ride On, Ride On.

That saved a wretch like me--"

Bethany Hays pulled herself away from Michael Bishop and strode silently across the highly polished floors, bright with fringed, burgundy rugs touched by pastel washes. She ran her fingers through her thick corn silk textured hair, unconsciously adjusting the folds of her loose neckline which fell just low enough to slightly expose a cleft of shadows. Michael watched as she reached to the bamboo door of her canary’s cage, closed it more tightly, then leaned one knee on the cream colored, wide cushioned window seat. Fitting loosely, yet smoothly over a perfectly curved figure, her beige silk, flowing out at the knees, caught the reflection of the church lights, refracting the colors of the stained glass windows.

Michael wanted her right now, but "Hell", he thought, "I don’t dare touch her tonight, she’s in one of those holy moods."

Watching her, as he sat at the polished cherry desk, he thought, "Someday maybe I’ll marry her." She was as a vision to him--no angel could be more, if there were such things as angels as his mother had told him. If there were, they did not enter Michael Bishop’s world. He preferred Bethany, with her olive shaped eyes, the color of wheat fields flecked with shades of grass, and her skin as the cream that flowed to the top of the fresh warm milk he remembered when a boy at his

father’s Iowa farm. Her lips were soft as dark pink roses. She had what his mother termed, an aristocratic English mouth, beautifully formed.

Bethany, as close to holiness as Michael ever cared to be--what need did he have of angels, heaven, or God for that matter? His eyes moved down the curves of her bodily profile. Her dress blew against her as she stood before the open window’s hot wind. The silk clung revealingly.

Michael’s breath came in a short gasp. She was faithful and would never leave him, he knew. He would take the here and now and let the poor in soul worry about the hereafter. He always got whatever he wanted out of life. All he need do was, "go after it!" He poured himself a cup of hot coffee, still steaming in the silver carafe, which Bethany knew he liked even in the summer, believing, as those in India, one doesn’t drink cold drinks on a hot day, too much of a shock to the body. He added the thick, almond colored cream and looked around at the tastefully decorated room as he swallowed: the delicate chintz covered sofas, chairs in shades of August peaches, mint, pale fresh meat of almonds, and the end tables with carved alabaster, cream lamps that matched the painted woodwork, the moire lamp shades punctuating a deep burgundy accent to all. Bethany had taste!

At the window strains of the hymn, "I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see--" floated through, flooding Bethany’s soul. Her thoughts turned to Rebecca Hampton and Pittsburgh, another river town of their childhood and college days. Rebecca’s father was a minister the bishop transferred suddenly, though the church invited him back. Gray--Grayson--yes, a Bishop Grayson Michaels! Bethany shook her head. She refused to believe the rumors. Started by a disgruntled member and grabbed on to by that Bishop. Actually, as Rebecca bitterly stated, Bishop Grayson Michaels wanted the church her father had built to pay back someone who helped him get his bishopric.

Rebecca’s words came to Bethany’s mind. "The politics of the Methodist church, and probably others, are rough and dirty as government politics. And Dad said he never wanted to be one of the ‘Bishop’s boys.‘" But as my mother said, ‘the tallies aren’t all in yet.’" Bethany believed Rebecca.