For They Know Not What They Do: Two Novellas

Let Me DieZack Mitchell finds himself unwillingly pulled into solving his best friend Joel Thomas' cause of death. Eighteen-year old Ronald Blaine, a black man with a storied past, trying desperately to break from gang inclusion and claw his way out of poverty, claims he was acting in self-defense when he shot Joel on a dark street in a poorer section of Las Vegas. Zack is asked by Joel's widower to attend Ronald's arraignment. During his trip to Las Vegas, where there once was a garden of racial anger and rage, a seed of doubt is sewn. For They Know Not What They DoBill Baxter, racked with emphysema, dies at the foot of a cross while trying to cleanse his guilt for an act committed during his senior year at a Maryland Catholic high school. To further make amends, Bill leaves the majority of his inheritance to Margaret Chase, a deeply religious cleaning lady who works at Baxter Satellite. Sam Baxter, Bill's ruthless brother and C. E. O. of Baxter Satellite, works furiously to deny Margaret her just inheritance.