Writing a book in 365 days – 179/180

Days 179 and 180

Writing Exercise – Change the plot using these words: dormant, stoop, and maelstrom

…

Secrets, by their very nature, are pieces of information that are destined to come out, eventually.

I was told right from day one that no one, no matter who they were, or how many Bibles they swore an oath on, would always give that secret up. And when they least likely expected it.

Mt family dealt in secrets. Our own. Secrets were sworn from the day we were able to understand what giving your word meant, that we would never tell anyone ever what we knew.

Secrets that were passed down from generation to generation, since time immemorial. And those secrets could only change hands if there was no successor to the family.

There were four such families, in different parts of the world, who only knew their quarter of the puzzle. None was known to the other, and wouldn’t unless a certain event happened.

Until then, it lay dormant within the minds of the keepers. All they knew when the time came, they would receive instructions.

…

The day I turned thirty, I began having dreams.

Well, dreams might not be the right word, but over time, a little more would be revealed.

I was in a schoolroom, or what looked like a schoolroom, with a dozen other boys of the same age, and for some weird reason. looked like me. Every day, we had to write down a sentence. Some were long, some were short, none made any sense. They were in a language that I didn’t understand.

The day I turned forty, the dreams stopped, and I went about my life as if nothing had happened.

The thing is, I had other secrets I was supposed to keep, secrets that went with my job, national secrets that other people, if they knew I held them, would try to extract them. It was coincidental that I finished up in a position that required such knowledge.

And the part of the whole situation which was ironic, if it could be said it was anything. Someone else had a secret that pointed to me holding a secret, which wasn’t the secret that mattered. Except if it fell into the hands of the wrong people.

Confused?

Not for long. Like I said, secrets by their very nature are pieces of information that are destined to come out, eventually. It just took the right person to unlock it.

Jack Moreno was a tough kid, and then an even tougher grown-up. All he ever wanted to be was an agent who had some small part in saving the world. I had known Jack from grade school, and we came from the same neighbourhood. We both did Military training at school, a stint in the National Guard, a few tours in the Army with foreign deployment, and when we returned, he stayed on, and I went into the intelligence branch and drove a desk.

I’d seen enough death and mayhem as a soldier; I didn’t want to see more as an agent of some ultra-secret squad who undertook black ops wherever and whenever it was required. We crossed paths from time to time, when he was on deployment, and I was on holiday, but the last time had been three years, and I had heard he’d died, but it was never confirmed, and I’d thought no more of it.

Then, while I was having a coffee and watching the Trevi fountain, or more to the point, the bustling crowds trying to catch a glimpse of it, I thought I saw him, or someone who looked like him. I shrugged, maybe not, and went back to watching people casting a coin and making a wish. I made a wish earlier, one I knew would never come true.

That’s when the brash American and what looked like his girlfriend strolled past, he happened to look in my direction, and he seemed to recognise me. Not that recognising me made any difference, it was just that I preferred anonymity.

But, in the seconds that followed, something else happened. The girl he was with looked at me and our eyes met, and in that moment, I had a vision of her and me very close together, under a stoop, watching the total and instant destruction of everything in front of us.

And then it was gone.

“As I live and breathe, Rex Barnard. Amy, this is Rex, my oldest friend.”

I shook my head and opened my eyes. Jack Moreno. The man who was supposed to be dead.

“You seem well for…”

“… a man going through a new lease of life, of course. I call it the Amy effect.”

Clearly, he didn’t want any mention of the fact that he was supposed to be dead, which I gathered equally as quickly as he was on a black op. Good thing, then, I didn’t use his name.

She smiled. “You give me credit where none is due Rich.” The look she gave me was one of momentary surprise, then it just disappeared.

I wondered briefly if she knew who I was, and then dismissed the thought.

“Care for a coffee?”

“We would, but we have to be somewhere, you know, the life of a celebrity is never his own. We’ll catch up, you’ve got my number?”

“Of course. Great to see you, Rich.”

“You too.” He waved, and they disappeared into the crowd.

He could have just wandered past and ignored me, but he didn’t. That charade was for a reason. Long enough head start, I got out of the chair and went in the same direction.

…

The day was hot, the typical midsummer day in Rome, where the temperature was high and the breeze non-existent. I had toured the ruins near the Colosseum the day before, and I had nearly melted. How the Romans, thousands of years ago, handled the heat was anyone’s guess, but then there were buildings, not ruins, and they were probably cool. I know I sought relief inside the Colosseum, where it was shady.

I’d almost made it to the Spanish Steps before I saw them again. Anyone would have mistaken them for a couple on their honeymoon. Until one minute they were together, and the next, both had disappeared. It was not possible because I was staring straight at them.

I moved forward slowly, trying to reacquire the targets, without success.

Suddenly, I felt a shiver go through me, then a voice in my ear, speaking in a language I had only heard in my dreams, “You are one, are you not?”

The girl was behind me, leaning against the wall. Rex was nowhere to be seen.

“He is not here. He does not know.”

She was not speaking; she was communicating without talking.

“I understand the language, if that means anything.”

“You were called here.”

That might have been true. I woke up three days ago, and Rome was in my mind, and the idea of going there was so strong that I went to the airport and got on a plane. “Yes.”

“Then it is going to happen. The other two will be here, somewhere.”

“The other two?”

“We are four. Direct descendants of the Roman Gods. Why, I don’t know, but I think we’ll find out soon enough.”

It didn’t surprise me that there were more. Nor did it surprise me that I knew my way around the Roman ruins, or that I’d been drawn to them.

“An attack, from the sky.”

“You saw it too?”

“Did you recognise where?”

“I think it was the ruins near the Colosseum. I was there two days ago and had some very vivid images in my head.”

“Then that’s where we need to be.”

…

Perhaps one of my foibles that others didn’t understand was my obsession with flying saucers, in fact, the whole concept of there being aliens in outer space. It was not as if it was something i picked up reading comic books, or watched all the documentaries that purported to say there was evidence of visits over the centuries.

After all, we had to come from somewhere, and I wasn’t buying the idea we came from the apes. Or that the evolution of man back when the unexplainable buildings and technology were built, and we still couldn’t replicate it.

The only answer I could attribute it to was the fact that aliens from outer space, people who had evolved much further than we had, even now, had come and left behind the beginnings of humankind, only to be struck down by weather events and asteroids, causing life extinction, and the remains of wonderous ruins hinting at how more clever they were than us.

Or other aliens came and killed off those on the planet, and seeded it with their version of humans. It was not a theory I told anyone else, nor of my obsession, I tried that once and nearly got locked up in an asylum.

It took time to get to the Colosseum, time to have a conversation, which was odd since we were not communicating in the normal manner, all while having short spasms of shivering, which i think we finally agreed was a warning.

For what?

From a day that started without a cloud in the sky, by the time we arrived at the Colosseum, there was no blue sky to be seen, but it was no cooler; if anything, it was hotter.

Then, suddenly, the clouds started swirling, and a very strange sound came from the sky.

Two more voices were in my head, and I looked sideways to see another man and a girl. Four of us. There were no introductions; we just joined hands.

“What now?” we all said in unison.

“Each of you has an incantation. Say it now.” It was another voice, not one of us.

As we did, out of the maelstrom above us were the first signs of a very large spacecraft, slowly hovering. It was slowly moving over us as we spoke the lines we had taken ten years to learn, and when we’d finished, all at the same time, a huge bolt of something emanated from the ground near us and went straight up to the craft and sent crazy lightning strikes through it.

This lasted for a few minutes, and suddenly, as quickly as the craft came, it left, taking the clouds with it.

After that, I remembered nothing until I woke, sitting in the chair back at the Trevi fountain, everything as it had been before I had seen Rex and Amy.

In fact, I was not sure what had happened, only that I had got up to follow them, and it was obvious I hadn’t. Perhaps it was just my imagination.

I heard the scraping of a chair and looked sideways. A woman my age, obviously American sat down. “This chair is free, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“Thanks. I need it. Just tossed a coin in and made a wish. It came true, I was wishing for a free seat to rest my weary bones. Janice Walker, weary visitor.” She held out her hand.

I shook it, and got a tingle, along with an image. Amy. Then it was gone.

“I think we are going to be very good friends,” she said. “One of those feelings. You have those, too?”

“I think I do. Now.”

“Good. Now, what’s the coffee like here?”

…

In a word: Pad

Here is another of those three letter words that can have so many meanings that it is nigh on impossible to pin it down.

You have to use it in a sentence which all but explains it.

For instance,

A pad might be a writing pad, or a note pad, something on which you can write, notes, stories, anything really, even doodles.

Cats, dogs, a lot of animals have padded feet. I’d say, for a cat, those pads would be like shock absorbers.

You can pad an expense account with false expenditure in an accounting sense, I’m sure a lot of people are tempted to do so.

I know places, where a single man might live, is called a bachelor pad. So many men like to think they may have one, but it takes money to buy the accouterments of seduction.

Then there’s a medical dressing, a square of gauze called a pad, usually absorbent and soaked in disinfectant to help protect and repair a wound.

Shoulder pads, for broader shoulders

KInee pads, for when crashing off a bike

Shin pads for soccer, and ice hockey players

A helipad which is for helicopter landings and takeoffs, much the same as a launch pad for rockets. Unfortunately, rockets do not generally have a tendency to land, not unless they are bombs, like the V1 and V2 rockets of WW2.

It could also be someone walking around a house in socks, the man stealthily approached the thief, padding silently in his socks so he wouldn’t be heard.

And lastly,

A place for frogs to hang out, ie, the flat leaves of a water Lilly.

Any more?

I’m sure there is, just let me know.

An excerpt from “Sunday in New York”

Now available on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

Williams’ Restaurant, East 65^th Street, New York, Saturday, 8:00 p.m.

We met the Blaine’s at Williams’, a rather upmarket restaurant that the Blaine’s frequently visited, and had recommended.

Of course, during the taxi ride there, Alison reminded me that with my new job, we would be able to go to many more places like Williams’. It was, at worst, more emotional blackmail, because as far as Alison was concerned, we were well on our way to posh restaurants, the Trump Tower Apartments, and the trappings of the ‘executive set’.

It would be a miracle if I didn’t strangle Elaine before the night was over. It was she who had filled Alison’s head with all this stuff and nonsense.

Aside from the half frown half-smile, Alison was looking stunning. It was months since she had last dressed up, and she was especially wearing the dress I’d bought her for our 5^th anniversary that cost a month’s salary. On her, it was worth it, and I would have paid more if I had to. She had adored it, and me, for a week or so after.

For tonight, I think I was close to getting back on that pedestal.

She had the looks and figure to draw attention, the sort movie stars got on the red carpet, and when we walked into the restaurant, I swear there were at least five seconds silence, and many more gasps.

Even I had a sudden loss of breath earlier in the evening when she came out of the dressing room. Once more I was reminded of how lucky I was that she had agreed to marry me. Amid all those self-doubts, I couldn’t believe she had loved me when there were so many others ‘out there’ who were more appealing.

Elaine was out of her seat and came over just as the Head Waiter hovered into sight. She personally escorted Alison to the table, allowing me to follow like the Queen’s consort, while she and Alison basked in the admiring glances of the other patrons.

More than once I heard the muted question, “Who is she?”

Jimmy stood, we shook hands, and then we sat together. It was not the usual boy, girl, boy, girl seating arrangement. Jimmy and I on one side and Elaine and Alison on the other.

The battle lines were drawn.

Jimmy was looking fashionable, with the permanent blade one beard, unkempt hair, and designer dinner suit that looked like he’d slept in it. Alison insisted I wear a tuxedo, and I looked like the proverbial penguin or just a thinner version of Alfred Hitchcock.

The bow tie had been slightly crooked, but just before we stepped out she had straightened it. And took the moment to look deeply into my soul. It was one of those moments when words were not necessary.

Then it was gone.

I relived it briefly as I sat and she looked at me. A penetrating look that told me to ‘behave’.

When we were settled, Elaine said, in that breathless, enthusiastic manner of hers when she was excited, “So, Harry, you are finally moving up.” It was not a question, but a statement.

I was not sure what she meant by ‘finally’ but I accepted it with good grace. Sometimes Elaine was prone to using figures of speech I didn’t understand. I guessed she was talking about the new job. “It was supposed to be a secret.”

She smiled widely. “There are no secrets between Al and I, are there Al?”

I looked at ‘Al’ and saw a brief look of consternation.

I was not sure Alison liked the idea of being called Al. I tried it once and was admonished. But it was interesting her ‘best friend forever’ was allowed that distinction when I was not. It was, perhaps, another indicator of how far I’d slipped in her estimation.

Perhaps, I thought, it was a necessary evil. As I understood it, the Blaine’s were our mentors at the Trump Tower, because they didn’t just let ‘anyone’ in. I didn’t ask if the Blaine’s thought we were just ‘anyone’ before I got the job offer.

And then there was that look between Alison and Elaine, quickly stolen before Alison realized I was looking at both of them. I was out of my depth, in a place I didn’t belong, with people I didn’t understand. And yet, apparently, Alison did. I must have missed the memo.

“No,” Alison said softly, stealing a glance in my direction, “No secrets between friends.”

No secrets. Her look conveyed something else entirely.

The waiter brought champagne, Krug, and poured glasses for each of us. It was not the cheap stuff, and I was glad I brought a couple of thousand dollars with me. We were going to need it.

Then, a toast.

To a new job and a new life.

“When did you decide?” Elaine was effusive at the best of times, but with the champagne, it was worse.

Alison had a strange expression on her face. It was obvious she had told Elaine it was a done deal, even before I’d made up my mind. Perhaps she’d assumed I might be ‘refreshingly honest’ in front of Elaine, but it could also mean she didn’t really care what I might say or do.

Instead of consternation, she looked happy, and I realized it would be churlish, even silly if I made a scene. I knew what I wanted to say. I also knew that it would serve little purpose provoking Elaine, or upsetting Alison. This was not the time or the place. Alison had been looking forward to coming here, and I was not going to spoil it.

Instead, I said, smiling, “When I woke up this morning and found Alison missing. If she had been there, I would not have noticed the water stain on the roof above our bed, and decide there and then how much I hated the place.” I used my reassuring smile, the one I used with the customers when all hell was breaking loose, and the forest fire was out of control. “It’s the little things. They all add up until one day …” I shrugged. “I guess that one day was today.”

I saw an incredulous look pass between Elaine and Alison, a non-verbal question; perhaps, is he for real? Or; I told you he’d come around.

I had no idea the two were so close.

“How quaint,” Elaine said, which just about summed up her feelings towards me. I think, at that moment, I lost some brownie points. It was all I could come up with at short notice.

“Yes,” I added, with a little more emphasis than I wanted. “Alison was off to get some study in with one of her friends.”

“Weren’t the two of you off to the Hamptons, a weekend with some friends?” Jimmy piped up, and immediately got the ‘shut up you fool’ look, that cut that line of conversation dead. Someone forgot to feed Jimmy his lines.

It was followed by the condescending smile from Elaine, and “I need to powder my nose. Care to join me, Al?”

A frown, then a forced smile for her new best friend. “Yes.”

I watched them leave the table and head in the direction of the restroom, looking like they were in earnest conversation. I thought ‘Al’ looked annoyed, but I could be wrong.

I had to say Jimmy looked more surprised than I did.

There was that odd moment of silence between us, Jimmy still smarting from his death stare, and for me, the Alison and Elaine show. I was quite literally gob-smacked.

I drained my champagne glass gathering some courage and turned to him. “By the way, we were going to have a weekend away, but this legal tutorial thing came up. You know Alison is doing her law degree.”

He looked startled when he realized I had spoken. He was looking intently at a woman several tables over from us, one who’d obviously forgotten some basic garments when getting dressed. Or perhaps it was deliberate. She’d definitely had some enhancements done.

He dragged his eyes back to me. “Yes. Elaine said something or other about it. But I thought she said the tutor was out of town and it had been postponed until next week. Perhaps I got it wrong. I usually do.”

“Perhaps I’ve got it wrong.” I shrugged, as the dark thoughts started swirling in my head again. “This week or next, what does it matter?”

Of course, it mattered to me, and I digested what he said with a sinking heart. It showed there was another problem between Alison and me; it was possible she was now telling me lies. If what he said was true and I had no reason to doubt him, where was she going tomorrow morning, and had she really been with a friend studying today?

We poured some more champagne, had a drink, then he asked, “This promotion thing, what’s it worth?”

“Trouble, I suspect. Definitely more money, but less time at home.”

“Oh,” raised eyebrows. Obviously, the women had not talked about the job in front of him, or, at least, not all the details. “You sure you want to do that?”

At last the voice of reason. “Me? No.”

“Yet you accepted the job.”

I sucked in a breath or two while I considered whether I could trust him. Even if I couldn’t, I could see my ship was sinking, so it wouldn’t matter what I told him, or what Elaine might find out from him. “Jimmy, between you and me I haven’t as yet decided one way or another. To be honest, I won’t know until I go up to Barclay’s office and he asks me the question.”

“Barclay?”

“My boss.”

“Elaine’s doing a job for a Barclay that recently moved in the tower a block down from us. I thought I recognized the name.”

“How did Elaine get the job?”

“Oh, Alison put him onto her.”

“When?”

“A couple of months ago. Why?”

I shrugged and tried to keep a straight face, while my insides were churning up like the wake of a supertanker. I felt sick, faint, and wanting to die all at the same moment. “Perhaps she said something about it, but it didn’t connect at the time. Too busy with work I expect. I think I seriously need to get away for a while.”

I could hardly breathe, my throat was constricted and I knew I had to keep it together. I could see Elaine and Alison coming back, so I had to calm down. I sucked in some deep breaths, and put my ‘manage a complete and utter disaster’ look on my face.

And I had to change the subject, quickly, so I said, “Jimmy, Elaine told Alison, who told me, you were something of a guru of the cause and effects of the global economic meltdown. Now, I have a couple of friends who have been expounding this theory …”

Like flicking a switch, I launched into the well-worn practice of ‘running a distraction’, like at work when we needed to keep the customer from discovering the truth. It was one of the things I was good at, taking over a conversation and pushing it in a different direction. It was salvaging a good result from an utter disaster, and if ever there was a time that it was required, it was right here, right now.

When Alison sat down and looked at me, she knew something had happened between Jimmy and I. I might have looked pale or red-faced, or angry or disappointed, it didn’t matter. If that didn’t seal the deal for her, the fact I took over the dining engagement did. She knew well enough the only time I did that was when everything was about to go to hell in a handbasket. She’d seen me in action before and had been suitably astonished.

But I got into gear, kept the champagne flowing and steered the conversation, as much as one could from a seasoned professional like Elaine, and, I think, in Jimmy’s eyes, he saw the battle lines and knew who took the crown on points. Neither Elaine nor Jimmy suspected anything, and if the truth be told, I had improved my stocks with Elaine. She was at times both surprised and interested, even willing to take a back seat.

Alison, on the other hand, tried poking around the edges, and, once when Elaine and Jimmy had got up to have a cigarette outside, questioned me directly. I chose to ignore her, and pretend nothing had happened, instead of telling her how much I was enjoying the evening.

She had her ‘secrets’. I had mine.

At the end of the evening, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I was physically sick from the pent up tension and the implications of what Jimmy had told me. It took a while for me to pull myself together; so long, in fact, Jimmy came looking for me. I told him I’d drunk too much champagne, and he seemed satisfied with that excuse. When I returned, both Alison and Elaine noticed how pale I was but neither made any comment.

It was a sad way to end what was supposed to be a delightful evening, which to a large degree it was for the other three. But I had achieved what I set out to do, and that was to play them at their own game, watching the deception, once I knew there was a deception, as warily as a cat watches its prey.

I had also discovered Jimmy’s real calling; a professor of economics at the same University Alison was doing her law degree. It was no surprise in the end, on a night where surprises abounded, that the world could really be that small.

We parted in the early hours of the morning, a taxi whisking us back to the Lower East Side, another taking the Blaine’s back to the Upper West Side. But, in our case, as Alison reminded me, it would not be for much longer. She showed concern for my health, asked me what was wrong. It took all the courage I could muster to tell her it was most likely something I ate and the champagne, and that I would be fine in the morning.

She could see quite plainly it was anything other than what I told her, but she didn’t pursue it. Perhaps she just didn’t care what I was playing at.

And yet, after everything that had happened, once inside our ‘palace’, the events of the evening were discarded, like her clothing, and she again reminded me of what we had together in the early years before the problems had set in.

It left me confused and lost.

I couldn’t sleep because my mind had now gone down that irreversible path that told me I was losing her, that she had found someone else, and that our marriage was in its last death throes.

And now I knew it had something to do with Barclay.

Sunday In New York

“Trouble in Store” – Short stories my way: Jack, the girl, and the shopkeeper

I have reworked the first part of the story with a few new elements about the characters and changed a few of the details of how the characters finish up in the shop before the policewoman makes her entrance.

This is part of the new first section is the one that involves the Jack, the girl, and the shopkeeper

Jack exchanged a look with the shopkeeper, who in return gave him a slight shrug as if to say he had no idea what this was about.

He could see the girl was not strung out on drugs; if she was it would be a good bet both would be shot or dead by now. She was just the unfortunate partner of a boy who was on drugs and had found herself in a dangerous position.

Beth, his wife, had told him she didn’t like nor trust the shopkeeper and that her friend in the same apartment block had told her he had been seen selling drugs to youths who hung around just before he closed. She had warned him it would not be safe, but he had ignored her.

It was a bit late to tell her she was right.

He took a half step towards the door, judging the distance and time it would take to open the door and get out.

Too far, and he would be too slow, his reward for running; a bullet in the back.

Perhaps another half step when she wasn’t looking.

The shopkeeper changed his expression to one more placatory, and said quietly to the girl, “Look, this is not this chap’s problem.” He nodded in the direction of the customer. “I’m sure he’d rather not be here, and you would glad of one less distraction.”

He could see she was wavering. She was not holding the gun so steadily, and the longer this dragged on, the more nervous and unpredictable she would become.

And in the longer game, the customer would sing his praises no matter what happened if he could get him out of the shop alive and well.

This could still be a win-win situation.

The girl looked at Jack. The shopkeeper was right. If he wasn’t here this could be over.

But there was another problem. It didn’t look like Simmo was in any shape to getaway. In fact, this was looking more like a suicide mission.

She waved the gun in his direction. ‘Get out now, before I change my mind.’

As the gun turned to the shopkeeper, Jack wasn’t going to wait to be asked twice and started sidling towards the door.

Writing a book in 365 days – My Story 25

More about my story

…

The reason why this story has spent so much time on the back burner is that I have never quite captured the ending. That is to say, I was not sure how it was going to end for all of the characters.

My trouble is, as it always is, is coming up with an idea that has a ripple effect going back in time and requiring changes to earlier material.

You can’t have things happening without the reader having at least one earlier hook to say, when he or she gets there, they had an inkling it was going to happen.

Whilst in stories, random events just turning up without explanation is not a good idea. Making the character suddenly arrive, die or worse, can be confusing because there always had to be a backstory and that needs to be told.

Nothing worse than reading a story, and then asking, When did that happen?

The previous new ending to this story was about 45 pages long and didn’t quite make sense. Now it is about 80 and does make sense, but it seems a bit long.

Then I thought, why not have Book 1 and Book 2 and make them independent of each other, but loosely linked?

The point is, the end didn’t make sense because we didn’t really know who was aggrieved and who was causing all the problems.

Now, everyone’s side of the story is there, leading up to a single event after which who, what and why become clear.

Does anyone get revenge?

Is there really anything like revenge to get?

And is it true that when you seek revenge, first dig two graves?

You will only know when the book is published. Soon.

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to go on a treasure hunt – Episode 75

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

The sheriff calls

…

It’s not often a patrol car stopped outside your residence without a reason for doing so.

I just happened to be looking out the windows when it pulled up, and I first thought it was the sheriff here to visit my mother.

It was hard to imagine my mother being the object of men’s attention, particularly one the top lawman in the county, and the other, a top criminal.

Both were charming in their own way, but it was the baggage both brought with them that bothered me. I tried not to think of the ramifications if she married either one. At worst, I could not see Alex as a brother, nor Charlene as a sister, not after what we had done at the last school summer camp

The pounding on the door interrupted that thought. I heard my mother’s muffled voice from upstairs telling me to see who it was, and when I opened the door, it was one of the sheriff’s deputies, Anderson, big brother to a school friend, and the most unlikely to become a lawman. I guess he turned his life around.

“Sam.”

“Joel.”

“The sheriff would like to see you.”

“He could have rung.”

“He likes the personal touch.”

It must be serious if he sent a deputy. “When?”

“Now.”

“And if I can’t come now?”

He took a pair of handcuffs out of his belt. “There’s the hard way and there’s the easy way.”

Serious enough then. “Why?”

“I learned a long time ago to follow orders, not question them. I don’t know, and I don’t care. Did you do anything wrong?”

“No.”

I heard my mother coming down the stairs behind me. “Who is it?”

“Deputy Joel.”

“What can we do for you?” She asked.

“The sheriff would like a word with your son, ma’am.”

“Why?”

Was that a look of exasperation on his face?

“He didn’t confide in me, ma’am, just asked me to escort him down to the station.”

“This’ll be to do with that Nadia,” she muttered. “I told you she is trouble.”

I shrugged. “Let’s go.” Time to escape a lecture.

I had time to think why the sheriff would want to see me, and remembered that I’d spoken to Charlene, and it had to be that she had as I suggested, spoken to her father and it must have something to do with that.

Anyone outside the sheriff’s office seeing Deputy Joel and I arrive might have got the impression I’d just been arrested, except I was not in handcuffs. There was no doubt Joel had wanted to use them, all the more reason to be co-operative.

We walked through the foyer towards the rear where the sheriff’s office was, and he sat me down on an uncomfortable bench. At the other end was a girl in a party dress looking hungover. The foyer was a hive of activity.

The sheriff put his head out the door. “Sam, come in.”

It was the first time in his office, not the first time in the station. My father had a few run-ins with the law, in the early years of the current sheriff’s tenure, as part of the alumni group of my mother, father, the sheriff, and Benderby. It was the fact he was a friend of and worked with Benderby that he found himself under suspicion so often, and my memories of him were when my mother and I came to bail him out.

It was probably one of the reasons why I couldn’t understand why she let Benderby in the door.

The room was small and it felt crowded surrounded by files and papers. His desk was a mess, with two half-drunk mugs of coffee sitting to one side.

He looked like a man under great stress.

He picked up the phone and pressed a number, then said, “Can you join us?”

A minute later Charlene came in and closed the door behind her. She then sat in the chair next to mine, and rather close.

Was it a form of intimidation?

The sheriff leaned back in his chair and it creaked under his weight. “Charlene tells me you think young Benderby is involved in what happened to the professor. How did you come to this conclusion? You should realize that making accusations such as this against a member of an influential family such as the Benderbys could afford you some unwanted attention, and not only from their lawyers.”

I had considered that but had expected the sheriff would be more proactive in his investigation. It seemed he was taking a more cautious approach.

“You said you overheard Alex at work,” Charlene added a nail in the coffin.

“It seems unlikely that Alex would be that stupid, Sam, so it leads me to believe you either have some other means of identifying him as being involved, or it’s just a petty act of revenge, which, knowing you as I do, is unlikely. Which is it? The fact you know about this so-called room where mall cops were located, the location of a safe, and where the combination is, is very specific.”

Was this a version of good cop bad cop? I hadn’t thought it through, thinking Charlene might want to take a win. It didn’t take in the possibility the sheriff would be overly cautious in taking on a Benderby.

Except that I forgot it was an election year, and there were a few younger and more qualified candidates in the mix. Age and experience were not going to cut this year. He was going to need a win and taking down a Benderby would put him firmly in the public eye.

“You can’t tell me that Rico was responsible for the professor’s death. He wasn’t killed on that boat, despite the way the body was left. I was there, that crime scene was staged.” Time to come out fighting.

“So you’re a crime scene expert now?”

“Keen observation, no indication of blood spatter from the look of the wounds, which to me looked like torture. I did some research, and the professor apparently had a diary that belonged to the pirate that everyone believes hid the so-called treasure somewhere along this coastline. Did you think to find out why the professor was here, certainly his last movements, and whether or not Alex Benderby contacted him?”

I’m sure they did, not that they would probably tell me.

Charlene glared at me. Perhaps insulting her ability put an edge to her tone. “A timeline of the victim’s last movements was done.”

A reproving look from her father, she should not be discussing case details with the public.

She glared back at him. “Damn it, I will not be insulted.”

The sheriff gave me a rather curious look. Perhaps I was not so off the mark, so I said, “He’s been here before, you know when those coins were pulled out if the cove. He came down to identify them. I think he had the diary then, which was why he came back.”

“How is it you know so much about this professor?”

“Unlike Boggs, I have an interest in historical detail, perhaps Boggs should not have asked for me to help him, but if I’m going to do something I like to be thorough.”

“Yes, it’s been noticed. A session at the library, and surprisingly, a stash of documents scooped up from Ormiston. I know you read his diaries. Then you hit the newspaper office and looked at back issues of the paper.”

She or one of the deputies had been following me around. I wondered briefly whether they’d been following Boggs around too.

“And we know you went to the mall with Nadia Cossatino. So, your information was not gleaned from overhearing conversations, you’ve actually been in that room.”

Guilty as charged, but silence might be the better option here until their objective came clear.

“Knowing you as I do, Sam, I doubt it was your idea to go sneaking about that mall. Your association, for want of a better word, with Nadia is going to lead you down a dark path, and I know your mother is worried about you. The Cossatinos and Benderbys are sworn enemies, and you do not want to get caught in the crossfire. She was obviously motivated by causing trouble for the Benderbys.”

Possible, but unlikely, yet what had she hoped to gain by taking me there? And it was clear my mother was using the sheriff to get me to stay away from Nadia.

“I’m not interested in charging you with trespass, or lecturing you on the dangers of wandering around a place like that, but there may be something to the allegations. We managed to get a stay on the demolition for that room, and it’s now an active crime scene. How long have you known about this.”

…

Skeletons in the closet, and doppelgangers

A story called “Mistaken Identity”

…

How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect it.

In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.

I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.

Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.

There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.

Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.

It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.

For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.

It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!

And a great idea for a story.

That story is called ‘Mistaken Identity’.