Last week I heard from a couple of people with the writer’s
workshop. Turns out that Peg and Annette had collaborated on a poem while on
vacation. During their trip, they
happened to hear a local band playing. Somewhere
along the line, they connected with members of the band, who decided to use
their poem as lyrics for a song they were writing.
This pair has taken my advice to heart and continue to
submit their efforts for publication. While
I must confess to having absolutely no expertise in poetry, their short stories
have always been a treat.
I recall a session with the group when someone was reluctant
to submit their work. After comments went around the room, they all looked at
me.
“Why not? Be smart
about it. Look at the guidelines for the contest, if that’s what it is, or the
magazine or publisher’s requirements. You write because you have stories to
share with others. If your material sounds like it would be a good fit, why not
submit it?”
“But what if it’s rejected?” someone asked.
“That could happen. Just remember what hockey legend Wayne
Gretzky said. ‘I miss 100 percent of the shots I don’t take.’ So take the shot. Because you never can tell when where it might
lead. You never can tell.
It’s been a while since I’ve shared an excerpt from
Chene. The sequel has been accepted for
publication and I’m waiting to get the editing process started. With luck that will begin next month. Meanwhile, I’m doing some research on the
next book for the series.
So here’s a scene from “Why 319?”. Chene and Megan McDonald are back at the
scene of a deadly shooting, searching for clues.
The kitchen was a mess. Blood
smears covered the floor where Myers had been gunned down simultaneously by me
and Laura. The walls were splattered too. We stood in the doorway and surveyed
the room.
Megan clucked her tongue against
the roof of her mouth. “Why is it we always end up in a place like this when I’m
wearing a new pair of boots?”
I glanced down at her feet. These
were bright red ones, with a rounded toe and a short heel. It was difficult to
determine how far up her leg the boot went.
“How the hell can you run in
something like that?”
“I’m a woman. I can adapt to any
situation and do it with style.”
With a disgusted smirk, I turned my
attention back to the room. There was a cheap table pushed against the wall, an
old drop-leaf thing that had seen better days in the 1960s. Two padded vinyl
chairs flanked it. There was the usual kitchen clutter, salt and pepper
shakers, a sugar bowl, and a small bottle propped against the wall. There was
also a stack of magazines and mail scattered across the surface. I pointed
those out to Megan. She picked her way across the room, taking great pains in
where she placed her feet.
I focused on the cupboards above
the sink and counter. There was a jumble of mismatched glasses and plates,
along with souvenir coffee mugs from various casinos and restaurants. It was
obvious Myers didn’t care much about the furnishings of his kitchen. I was
about to close the last cupboard when something caught my eye. Up near the very
top of the door, close to the hinge, was a small round hole. The hinge was too
high up for me to see it clearly.
“Find anything good?” I asked
Megan.
“A couple of old newspapers, the
kind filled with coupons. His bills for the internet service and cable, along
with his cell phone bill. There is a magazine about weapons that looks like he
bought it somewhere.”
“Hand me one of those chairs.”
Her eyes flicked to the open
cupboard. Megan grabbed the closest chair, then swung it to where I could take
it from her without disrupting the mess on the floor.
“This guy was a slob. He couldn’t
even put shelf paper in the cupboards,” Megan said with disgust.
“Men don’t bother with shelf paper.”
“Yet another piece of evidence that
proves women are superior.”
“Can you see anything odd from
there?” I stepped onto the chair.
“Just the usual stack of dishes.”
I took a good look inside the
cabinet. Mounted high up against the back wall was a small video camera. It was
aimed so that when the cupboard door was closed, it would be able to film
through the hole by the hinge. My guess was that it would easily take in the
occupants of the little table. If the camera had a wide angle lens, it might
capture everything within the kitchen. Glancing over to Megan, I described what
I had found.
“But you knew yesterday he had
security cameras on motion detectors.” There was a touch of curiosity in her
voice. “You told me about those this morning.”
Before our summit with Cantrell, I
met with Anton Yekovich, the lead technician of the cyber squad. I gave him a
set of photos of our three victims, in the hopes that we would see them
entering the house. His team had already begun the slow process of analyzing
the hundreds of hours of video files.
“Yes, but those were all focused on
the exterior of the house and were fed into the laptop computer. But we didn’t
know about this one. And if there’s one…”
“…there have got to be others. The
question is where do they feed into?”
I stepped down from the chair,
narrowly missing a sticky patch of blood spatter on the floor. Megan followed
me into the hallway.
“Give Yekovich a call. See if they
have discovered any video footage on that laptop for the inside of the house.
We’ll check the other rooms for more cameras.”
Okay, so I’ll admit today’s title came from the song. But
you can’t do much better than the great Chuck Berry.
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