is why I haven’t been writing on my writing blog. Right now I am trying to work on a story that I do not wish to post on my blog. Still need to have a few tricks up my sleeve ya’ know. I am trying to figure out when, where, and how future lovers met. So far the day had been extremely hot and “he” decided on a walk instead lunch. So that is about as far as I have got with that. My mind keeps running these different scenes and none is working. I have also found it extremely difficult to find writing music. I hate not writing without music. That has been the only way I have been able to write at long stretches without a break. Give me a glass of unsweet (yes that is unsweet) ice tea and a good sounding genre and I could write for hours without noticing time. It has to be the music is why I can’t figure out the “meeting”. I’m sure before the night is over with I will have found the right scene.
Tatum Street House
It was one of those brisk fall days that remind you of a fall day from your childhood. The kind of fall day made for jumping in a leaf pile so high that you could barely see over it with young eyes only if you stood on your tip toes.
That was the type of fall day it was when a twenty-something woman parked herself and her strained backpack on a park bench just up the bank from a man made lake. She had at first slid the pack from one shoulder and than the other making it fall to the ground with no care of breaking its contents. The young woman’s dress and mannerisms gave the appearance that she was a student at the university just outside of the quiet park. Winthrop was the name of the university. It said so on a sweat shirt that she wore. After dumping her bag on the ground, she herself took a seat on the bench. She didn’t bother with the bag. It seemed as though she was glad to have forgotten it for a bit. This twenty something young woman wasn’t in any way to take a keen interest in. The students from Winthrop came to this park everyday. This young woman, though, was different from the other students. So she sat watching the last of the mallards on the lake. It was difficult to even take a guess at what she might have been thinking. Was it the ducks or was it how she was about to have finished her classes for the day? Either way she kept deep into the thought even after she was accompanied on the bench by another person. The man didn’t look out of place. As a matter of fact he looked right in place with the university community. With his grey hair and brown wool suit with the matching brown tie and just as matching white button down shirt, this gentleman could have easily been thought of as a professor at the university. So, no, there was nothing at all out of the ordinary about this scene in the park. The man crossed his legs at the knees and crossed his arms.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” his voice held an accent that one could not place. Maybe it was Irish, or Scottish, or British. It could have been a Maine accent, but it couldn’t be filed under one certain country or part of a country.
“Yes it is. I remember days like this when I was a child. It was a fun time because of the great piles of leaves that came with every fall.”
The young woman looked in the direction of a grove of oak trees just past the gentleman’s left shoulder. There were a few kids playing in the leaves, but not many. The rest of the children were probably tucked inside bedrooms somewhere playing the latest installment of a super violent and bloody video game. Funny how things can change. How technology could change a nation as a whole. The gentleman turned his head in the direction of the grove.
“Yes I quite remember them, myself. My name is John. What’s yours?”
He didn’t look at her when asking this, but at his watch around his wrist as if he was checking to make sure he wasn’t late for some meeting. The twenty something woman pulled her vibrating cell phone from her worn blue jeans and checked the caller I.D.
“Probably the next most boring name in the world besides John. I’m Jane.”
The gentleman, John, smiled slightly at her bit of humour. He also noticed that she cancelled the cell call. Not even letting voice mail pick it up. John stood to leave.
“I’ll see you tonight at Tatum Street House. It’ll be 2100.”
“So late?” a hint of disappointment was caught by John.
“Is there something with the set time, Miss Jane?” John had a smirk on his face as if saying, “Quit you whining.”
Jane pulled her heavy backpack upon her back once more.
“I just have an exam in my first class in the morning is all. I was just hoping to get a little studying done.”
“I promise you Miss Jane you will be safely back in your little apartment by 2300 sharp.”
The smirk went away and it was replaced by a warm fatherly smile, but John’s eyes did not share the smile. They just stayed the same black coldness as with his other emotions.
McKeen and McCabe
A strong bitter wind blew off of Conner Lake bringing with it another moment of snow flurries. Two patrol officers sat in their car, each sipping on a Styrofoam cup of coffee. They were waiting for a detective from “Murder Squad”. A body had been washed up along the shoreline of the lake and was discovered by a couple of kids who were passed curfew and was taking the worn trail around Conner Lake as a shortcut. The body was that of a girl that had been missing for a few weeks, Meredith Call. Officer Rodriguez grasped his cup in both hands trying to use the heat from it to warm his fingers. The heat was out in the patrol car again.
“Who’spose to be showing for this kid?”
His partner, a tall brunette by the name of Linda Carmichael, shrugged. She sat her cup in the cup holder that hung off of the window.
“I haven’t got a clue. All I was told was for us to wait here and there would be two detectives coming shortly.”
“We’ve been waiting for an hour. How long does it take for these detectives to find the place? It’s the only lake in the whole town.” Rodriguez was getting antsy and ready to get back on the beat which consisted of driving up and down Main, the only street in Benton Ridge.
“Calm down, Mikey, you know these guys have to come in out of Lincolnton. It takes at least an hour for that and than they have to ride around until they find the place cause you know old Harrold is on the desk tonight and he can’t give directions for nothing.”
This brought a laugh from both of them. Amidst their laughter a light tap was coming from the driver’s side window of the cruiser. Rodriguez rolled the window down and a man dressed in a black overcoat, gloves and a stocking hat stood before him. Another man ,dressed somewhat the same, stood a few feet behind him.
“You Officer’s Rodriguez and Carmichael?”
Rodriguez was naturally defensive,
“Yea, who’s asking?”
“I’m Detective McKeen and that unhappy character behind me is my partner, Detective McCabe. We’re from Major Case.”
Without apologizing for his attitude, Officer Rodriguez pointed directly in front of him.
“The girl’s down there. You can’t miss her. She’s been washed up pretty far onto the shore.”
McKeen, looked in the direction the Hispanic officer pointed,
“You’re not getting out?”
Carmichael spoke this time,
“Don’t mind Rodriguez, here, he gets grumpy when he’s cold.”
She opened the door and stepped out,
“I’ll show you were she’s at.”
Rodriguez didn’t bother to follow suit. He rolled the window back up and went back to sipping his coffee. Carmichael was a tall woman, 5’9”, but McKeen towered over her like she was only 5 foot or it just seemed that way to her. The man must have been at 6’4” or 6’5”. His partner, McCabe, Linda remembered him saying, stayed behind watching her and Rodriguez’s cruiser.
“Your partner, he’s not a talkative sort?”
She was trying to make small talk.
“He talks when he needs to. I mostly do the talking, he does the thinking.”, a small chuckle from McKeen filled the moment. Carmichael didn’t respond.
“It was a joke, Officer. Lighten up some.”
She was cold and didn’t feel the situation warranted a light mood. Carmichael stopped walking when they had got a few feet from the body.
“She’s right over there. Do you have a flashlight? It’s as black as pitch out there.”
McKeen looked over to the area and it was covered with low lying cedar branches. He would have to get on the ground. McKeen hated having to get on the ground.
“Yea, I’ve got a little Maglight somewhere in my coat.”
He begun searching through his pockets and eventually found what he was looking for. McKeen turned the light on and moved towards the area.
“I’ll be here if you need a hand, Detective.”
Carmichael had never dealt with a dead body before in her six year career. Benton Ridge was quiet town and everyone got along so something like the body of a sixteen year old girl washing up from Connor Lake was just too much for her to handle at one time. McKeen knew this and so he continued conversation with her as he looked around the scene.
“How long you been a cop, Carmichael?”
“Six years.”
“You’ve never seen a dead body before, huh?”
Carmichael wished that it was Rodriguez down here instead of her. McKeen could sense that, too.
“That partner of yours, Rodriguez, he’s more scared of being down here than you are. I noticed how he didn’t even volunteer to come along with you. He’s never seen a dead body before, either, I suppose?”
Carmichael could hear branches snapping and the big detective trying to keep from sliding down into the lake.
“Yea, he was in the war?”
McKeen stopped what he was doing and looked back towards her even though he knew she couldn’t see him.
“The Iraqi war?”
“Yea, he just got out of the Marines a few months back.” Carmichael didn’t like talking about her partner behind his back. She had seen his temper too many times to know better.
“Yea, I was in Desert Storm myself. Special Forces. Not a pretty site, war is. I lost some friends during that war and than this war comes along and I lost a whole lot more.” He remembered his brother, Danial, who was killed a few months into the war. He was only 20.
“It doesn’t bother you that young people are over there dying for something that we have yet to figure out?”
So Carmichael was one of those people.
“It’s their job. It’s what they signed up to do. They knew there was a chance that they would be needed in time of war. My brother died, you know, over in Iraq. He was Special Forces, too. He knew that he was fighting for the freedom of the Iraqis, so yes, I, myself have figured out why we are over there fighting.”
Carmichael didn’t want any part of this conversation. She had her views and knew others had their views. As long as her views were respected, she respected others views.
“Did you know this girl, Carmichael?”
McKeen was crawling back out from the underbrush, with the little light in his mouth, that was why his question sounded distorted.
“Meredith Call was a good friend of my little sister. Lisa didn’t have a clue were Meredith could have went. She didn’t seem to think that there could be a reason for her to be dead.”
McKeen stood up and brushed the dirt from his hands, knees, and coat. He shivered.
“Man, it must have dropped a few more degrees. That wind sure isn’t helping at all, is it?”
Carmichael didn’t notice how quickly the detective changed subjects. She turned to go back to the police cruiser when McKeen caught her by the arm.
“Myself and McCabe will need to talk to your sister so we can find out what exactly it is she knows and what it is she ain’t saying.”
Carmichael pulled free from his light grasp.
The beginning of a whole other story
Now I’ve been writing for a long time, unpublished that is, but I do it for fun and for the fact that I find it hard to find books that I like to read so I write what I like to read. This blog is going to be dedicated to the type of genre I like. Sometimes it will be romance (hardly ever though), sometimes drama, sometimes mystery, sometimes noir, sometimes sci-fi, and most of the time weird. I like to write about things that could only happen in someones thoughts and imaginations. I hope whoever visits will enjoy and hopefully I will have something on by the end of today.
