Posts from the "" category

Are you ready for some smart, sexy, stylish, hard-boiled fun?
Wisecracking San Francisco PI August Riordan parlays a run-in with a machine-gun-toting cable-car brakeman into a guided tour of the city’s cemeteries, hunting for … wait for it … Evita Peron’s perfectly preserved corpse. His deadly cat-and-mouse game involves surviving both the murderous intentions of some shady members of Argentina’s ruling class and the seductive advances of several beautiful Latin American women.

By Stephen Windwalker

Editor, Kindle Nation Daily
©Kindle Nation Daily 2011

Do you miss the late Robert B. Parker and his Spenser novels?

Me, too. In fact, if you’re like me, you may not be above going back and reading some of the best Spensers a second or third time. There’s no shame in that, really.

But sooner or later we have to move on, and I’m here to propose what the helping professions sometimes call a geographical cure.

How about a trip across the country?

Fly first class, and it will only cost you $2.99 a trip. Because I’m going to introduce you to a new friend, August Riordan, a San Francisco Shamus who is every bit as funny, as august, and as tough an Everyman PI as his Boston counterpart Spenser.

Where to begin? Novelist Mark Coggins makes it easy for us by providing an action-packed 13,000-word free excerpt for us right from the beginning of The Big Wake-Up, the fifth book in the Riordan series.

If you’re enough of a suspense fiction fan to begin reading the free excerpt, I’m pretty sure you’ll keep going right to the end of this novel, and then it’s up to you. You can go 5-4-3-2-1, or you can go 5-1-2-3-4, it doesn’t matter.

But don’t be surprised if by the time you finish all five you’ll be asking me for Coggins’ email address so you can write to him begging him to put on some speed in delivering #6….

Scroll down to begin reading the free excerpt

Here’s the set-up:

The odyssey of María Eva Duarte de Perón–the Argentine first lady made famous in the play and the movie Evita–was as remarkable in death as it was in life. A few years after she succumbed to cervical cancer, her specially preserved body was taken by the military dictatorship that succeeded her deposed husband Juan. Hidden for sixteen years in Italy in a crypt under a false name, she was eventually exhumed and returned to Buenos Aires to be buried in an underground tomb said to be secure enough to withstand a nuclear attack.

Or was she?

When San Francisco private eye August Riordan engages in a flirtation with a beautiful university student from Buenos Aires, he witnesses her death in a tragic shooting and is drawn into mad hunt for Evita’s remains. He needs all of his wits, his network of friends and associates, and an unexpected legacy from the dead father he has never known to help him survive the deadly intrigue between powerful Argentine movers and shakers, ex-military men, and a mysterious woman named Isis who is expert in ancient techniques of mummification.

The fifth novel in the August Riordan series, The Big Wake-Up plunges everyman PI Riordan and his sidekick Chris Duckworth into their most terrifying and anguishing case ever.

From Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review):

Coggins’s outstanding fifth mystery to feature San Francisco PI August Riordan (after 2007’s Runoff) successfully blends an over-the-top premise with an unrelentingly grim plot. Soon after flirting with an attractive young woman in a Laundromat, Riordan watches in horror as an apparently deranged cable car operator guns her and an older woman down at a cable car stop. Riordan pursues the killer and stops his bloody rampage. The Argentine family of the first victim, 23-year-old Araceli Rivero, hires him to investigate an unrelated matter, the location of Araceli’s dead aunt, whose body was transferred from a Milan cemetery to somewhere in the Bay Area. After quickly getting a promising lead, Riordan learns that his clients have been less than straight with him-the missing corpse is actually that of Evita Perón. Coggins pulls no punches as the suspenseful action builds to a violent act of vigilantism.

Scroll down to begin reading the free excerpt now

The Big Wake-Up

(August Riordan Series)

by Mark Coggins

Kindle Edition

List Price: $2.99

Buy Now

Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

Click Here to Buy Now in the US Kindle Store

(UK CUSTOMERS: Click on the title below to download The Big Wake-up)

Six for the Kindle by Mark Coggins

The Adventure of the Black Bishop by Mark Coggins (Kindle Edition – Oct. 21, 2008) – Kindle eBook Buy: $0.99

The Immortal Game (August Riordan Series) by Mark Coggins (Kindle Edition – Aug. 3, 2010) – Kindle eBook Buy: $2.99

Runoff (August Riordan Series) by Mark Coggins (Kindle Edition – Aug. 3, 2010) – Kindle eBook Buy: $2.99

The Big Wake-Up (August Riordan Series) by Mark Coggins (Kindle Edition – Dec. 29, 2009) – Kindle eBook Buy: $2.99

Candy from Strangers by Mark Coggins (Kindle Edition – Apr. 13, 2009) – Kindle eBook Buy: $10.00

VULTURE CAPITAL (August Riordan Series) by Mark Coggins (Kindle Edition – Feb. 28, 2008) – Kindle eBook Buy: $2.99

Free Kindle Nation Shorts – March 10, 2011

An Excerpt from

The Big Wake-Up

“An August Riordan Mystery”

by Mark Coggins

Cable Car Crunch

ARE YOU HOPING FOR A SOUVENIR or checking to see if they’re your size?”

The woman doing the talking was holding a towering stack of pastel-colored panties. We were the only two in the Missing Sock Laundromat. I was there because doing my own laundry in the middle of the workday seemed the best investment I could make in my flagging private eye business. She was there-apparently-because even Victoria Secret underwear models have to do the wash.

There’s no question I’d been staring at her. I don’t usually associate tweed with sexy, but she’d shoehorned her extravagant curves into a vest and jacket made of the stuff and on her it was positively prurient. The jacket just came over her hips and then a pair of clingy jeans took charge and traveled the length of her long-stemmed legs to some pointy brown boots. Given the alternative between watching my Fantastic Four bedsheets go through the spin cycle and taking her in while she folded and stacked her unmentionables, the question of eyeball allegiance was never in doubt.

I sat up straighter in the plastic lawn chair I’d been camped in. “Doesn’t matter what size they are. They’re not my color.”

A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth and she leaned down to put the stack of panties in the nylon duffel bag at her feet. When she had them situated just so, she yanked the draw string closed and swung the bag over her shoulder. She flipped back apricot blond hair, then reached into the open dryer.

Mirth and green light shone in her eyes. She gestured for me to hold out my hand and pressed something warm and spongy into it. “Well, here’s your souvenir, then.”

A fabric softener sheet.

I laughed and watched as she plopped a tweed newsboy cap onto her head, collected an oversize umbrella from near the door and went out onto Hyde Street and a driving San Francisco rainstorm. She gave me a two-fingered wave through the plate glass and then jogged across the street to stand with an older woman at the cable car stop on the corner at Union in front of the Swensen’s ice cream parlor.

That particular Swensen’s was the original-opened in 1948 by Earle Swensen himself-and the promise of a couple of scoops of Cable Car Crunch after I finished my laundry was the main reason I picked this place over the laundromat in my apartment building. The pantie girl had been an unexpected plus.

Sighing, I pocketed the fabric softener sheet and let my gaze return to the bank of Speed Queens in front of me. The machine on the end was shaking violently due to my decision to throw a pair of dirty Converse Chuck Taylors in with my sheets. I moved to rebalance the load, then heard the deep, coffee grinder rumble of an approaching cable car. It pulled in front of the ice cream parlor, blocking my view of the girl and the older woman. It looked completely devoid of passengers and I thought how lucky the girl had been to catch an empty car so quickly.

I’ve never been more wrong in my life.

On sleepless nights, I can still see the next five seconds replay when I press my face into the pillow. The cable car seemed to pause on its tracks, there was a harsh unzippering noise synced to lightning flashes, and the car accelerated from the corner. By the time I thought to look to the gripman, his face was turned away from me, but I could just make out two pug-ugly Uzi machine guns dangling from leather straps that crisscrossed his chest. I yelled something inarticulate and plunged across the room to the door.

It was a short, drenching sprint to the cable car stop. The girl and the woman lay in a jumble with packages and bags in the gutter, their open umbrellas twitching and rocking in the rain like things possessed. There was no question of either being alive. The 9mm slugs had stitched a slashing line across faces and chests, and although there was relatively little bleeding, the damage was horrific. The older woman, in particular, simply had no forehead. The pantie girl had less damage to her face, but the tweed fabric of her vest was chewed to shreds and bright red arterial blood welled in shallow pools across her throat, sternum and breast. Both women peered up into the downpour with unblinking eyes.

The awful transformation from teasing, flirtatious girl to broken rag doll left me vapor locked. I didn’t know what to do. I sat on my haunches in the street, my hair plastered to my scalp, my fingers squeezed against my kneecaps, swaying from side to side. I might still be there if an aproned teenager hadn’t poked her head out the door of Swensen’s and let off a strangled scream.

I blinked, then blinked again. I squeegeed hair and water off my face with my palm and reached across to close the eyes of the dead women. By the time I stood up, the teenager had retreated into the store. She tried to block me from entering, but I bulled my way through to stand dripping on the tiled floor while she scampered back behind the ice cream freezer. “Go away,” she squeaked.

“Call 911,” I said. “Tell them that a gripman on the Hyde cable car line is shooting people with machine guns.”

Whatever response she made to that was lost in the sound of me flinging open the door again with the little bell attached to it caroming wildly off the glass. I ran across Hyde to the alley that bordered the laundromat. I had parked my 1968 Ford Galaxie 500 halfway on the sidewalk in an illegal spot near the corner. I dove onto the bench seat, shoved the key in the ignition and cranked the starter while I worked the gas pedal. The car shook while the starter turned, but the engine didn’t catch-an all too common occurrence with the Galaxie. I wrung the steering wheel in frustration, pumped the pedal some more and forced the starter into an extended series of arias. The engine still didn’t join the performance.

The smell of raw gasoline wafted into the car: flooded. Hissing a rosary of curses, I laid my hand flat on the dashboard in a kind of anti-blessing, pressed the gas peddle all the way to the floor and twisted the key. The Galaxie shimmied in an off-kilter rhythm, fired once, missed a beat, then fired again. Finally all the cylinders caught and the engine rumbled to life. A cloud of blue gray smoke that not even the driving rain could knock down billowed up behind me. I yanked the transmission into gear and jolted off the sidewalk in a squealing left turn onto Hyde.

The maximum speed of a cable car is ten miles per hour. That was still enough for the car I was chasing to travel six blocks to Washington where the tracks turned left to go down the hill to Powell. It was just making the turn as I gave the Galaxie all the gas I dared, winding the car up to 50 miles per hour by the time I hit the depression in the roadway where Hyde roofed the Broadway tunnel. The Galaxie bottomed out, scraping up yards of asphalt and swamping the aged shocks. We bucked in a seesaw oscillation that, combined with the fogged front windshield and the wheels slipping on the slickened steel of the cable car tracks, made controlling the car an iffy proposition at best.

The turn at Washington proved the point. I pressed the brakes to slow for it, but hydroplaned on the tracks. I torqued the wheel over anyway, provoking a skid that snapped the rear end wide and knocked over a scooter that was parked at the corner. I turned into the skid to regain control and side swiped two more autos. By the time I had fishtailed into the middle of Washington, the cable car had crossed Levenworth and was approaching the crest of the hill at Jones.

Then came the bullets. I had hoped the gripman would be unaware of my pursuit but the orchestra of crashes accompanying my turn must have alerted him. He swung wide out of the cable car, clinging to a white pole on the side while squeezing off a long, stuttering round from one of the Uzis. The slugs tattooed the hood of the Galaxie, then flew up into the windshield, chiseling a constellation of starburts in the glass. I tried to crawl into the dashboard ashtray, but flying glass sliced my right cheek before I could take cover.

The cable car rolled over the edge of the hill and the gripman lost his sight line. He swung back inside the car just as it slid from view.

Up until that point, the Galaxie had had little to recommend it as a pursuit vehicle. It was old, mechanically unreliable, hard to control and not particularly fast. All of that changed now. A two-ton hunk of 1960s Detroit iron makes an excellent guided missile.

I slapped the gearshift into low and tromped hard on the gas pedal. The rear wheels chirped and the car shot forward with a jolt that knocked more of the fractured glass from the windshield. In an instant, I was at the top of the hill. In another, I was sailing over it.

Any worry about how the shocks would handle another hard landing was misplaced. The Galaxie pancaked onto the back of the cable car-flattening the panel with the car number and the Rice-A-Roni ad-and firmly embedding the front end at a height that didn’t permit the wheels to touch the ground. My forehead punished the steering wheel, and by the time I unstuck my frontal lobe from the inside of my skull, we were barreling down Washington as a conjoined unit at a speed much greater than the nineteenth-century cable car designers had contemplated.

Not that the gripman wasn’t doing his damnedest to stop us. Plumes of sparks flew up from beneath the car where he’d employed the emergency break-basically a steel wedge that is crammed into the slot between the tracks-and I could smell and almost taste the acrid wood smoke coming off the old fashioned wooden track brakes. When the brakes didn’t seem to be working he resorted to the Uzi. Bullets nickered overhead, but I put a stop to that by tromping even harder on the gas.

We shot past Taylor and then Mason. I realized I had a death squeeze on the steering wheel even though there was no steering to be done and I was screaming at the top of my lungs. The tracks turned right abruptly at the next street-Powell-but I didn’t think we would be joining them.

There was a hard jolt at the intersection and I felt the cable car wrenching away from the Galaxie. My front wheels bounded onto the ground. The last thing I registered before slamming on the brakes and bracing myself for the inevitable was the cable car heeling over like a yacht-the grip beneath the car still attached to the cable, which was being pulled from its slot like a gigantic rubber band.

The back end of the Galaxie spun around to the left and I skidded kitty-corner across the intersection to broadside a street lamp, and when that didn’t hold, the storefront of a Chinese market. I heard the light pole crashing down, glass from the storefront shattering, and above it all, a tremendous snap and an awful whipping sound.

I rattled around the interior of the car like a bean in a rumba shaker. I must have lost consciousness for a moment because the next thing I remembered was the near zen-like sound of rain water dripping through the broken windshield onto the dash. Then a whispered, “Are you okay?”

Okay I was not. I sat up in the seat and immediately discovered about ten places where I hurt, including a stinger to my neck that made my left arm feel like it was on fire. Outside the driver’s side window, next to a store display of ceramic figurines, was the person inquiring about my health: an old Chinese man in a sweat suit and a Cal Berkeley baseball cap. The way out to the left was blocked, so I crawled across the seat, encrusting my knees with a mosaic of broken glass and ceramics as I went, and pushed open the passenger door. I lumbered out and stood on trembling legs by the base of the felled street light, transfixed by what I saw across the way.

“Hey,” said the Chinese guy, no longer whispering. “You smashed my store.”

I didn’t answer him because I had already broken into a shuffling, windmilling trot to get to the far corner. The cable car was flipped over on its side, part on the roadway and part on the sidewalk. The gripman was on his back in the street, lying parallel to the overturned car. As I got closer, I could see that he was alive and conscious, but given his injuries, I doubted he wanted to be either.

This was my first good look at him. He was young, red-haired, and probably had a last name that started with O’. He had a bandanna tied around his head that matched his brown SF Municipal Railway uniform, with a special cable car division insignia embroidered over his chest. I reluctantly abandoned my theory that he was a random crackpot who hijacked the car.

It was no theory that he was suffering. The skin on his face was so pale and so wet that it appeared almost translucent. His eyes were marbles of agony. He watched as I approached, then gasped, “I can’t feel my feet.”

I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. “That’s because you don’t have any.”

He nodded like I’d passed along a ball score, then closed his eyes. “The cable,” he mumbled.

“Yeah. The cable. But you won’t need your feet for the gurney ride to the lethal injection chamber. Now shut up while I save your miserable life.”

I yanked off my belt and leaned down to cinch it above his left knee as a makeshift tourniquet. The first cop car showed up as I was tugging at his belt for the other leg, my fingers slippery with blood.

A Universe of Stars, a Galaxie of Dents

THE GRIPMAN TURNED OUT TO BE A GUY named Darragh Finnegan, which is about as Irish a name as you can get without starting the last part with O’. He had been caught up in a sting involving undercover security guards who were put on cable cars to find crews pocketing fares from tourists. Finnegan and the conductor from his crew had been suspended for allegedly skimming over $25,000, his girlfriend had dumped him and-thanks to his high profile from press coverage-he was also under investigation by the INS for being in the country illegally. And he was pissed.

On the day of the shooting he donned his Muni uniform and met his old cable car at the second stop up from the turnaround at Beach Street. He shot and killed the replacement crew and three passengers who had waited in the rain to ride a cable car on a miserable February afternoon. Two of the three were tourists from Germany and the other was the undercover security guard who caught him skimming fares. Finnegan then rode the car to the stop across from Lombard-the “crookedest street in the world”-and critically wounded another tourist from Lawrence, Kansas. The next stop was the one in front of Swensen’s, where the two women waited.

The pantie girl’s name was Araceli Rivero. She was twenty-three, a native of Argentina, and was in the U.S. on a visa to study pharmacology at UCSF. The older woman was the organist at the New Korean Methodist Church and was known to her friends as “Snowflake.”

The only thing that wasn’t known was where exactly Finnegan managed to get hold of the machine guns. There were dark rumors about connections to the Irish Republican Army, but since Finnegan wasn’t talking the rumors came to naught.

That left yours truly. The cops weren’t exactly ready to pin any medals on me-I caused an estimated $100,000 worth of personal and municipal property damage for starters-but there was no denying that things would have been a whole lot worse if I hadn’t shown up. The cable car was due to pass through the popular Union Square shopping district, and rain or no rain, there were plenty more people in the line of fire. Finnegan was ready for them, too. A duffel bag full of loaded magazines was found dangling from one of the control levers of the wrecked car.

I got kicked loose from the Bryant Street station well after midnight. One of my few friends in the department-a lesbian beat cop-helped me sneak out the employee exit to avoid the feverish piranha school of reporters who were waiting to interview the only guy who could add a little color-if more color was needed-to tomorrow’s lead story: “SF Muni Gripman Goes Postal; Hijacks Cable Car for Death Tour.”

I shared a cab with a released prostitute who wanted to be dropped off on Polk near California. After the driver and I both politely declined to join her in a nearby alley for reduced cost favors, we continued to my apartment at the corner of Post and Hyde, where I promptly hid under the covers of my unmade bed and remained there for three days, not answering the phone or the door buzzer, or paying attention to the TV, the radio or the transmissions from Alpha Centauri that I sometimes received from the fillings on my back molars.

The thing that finally roused me was a pounding that sounded like someone using my apartment door for serve and volley practice. Theoretically it could only be a neighbor or the apartment manager since the lobby door was on a buzzer system, but the occasional wastrel had been known to make it through. I padded up to the door in my bathrobe and looked through the peep hole. I nodded to myself. It was one of the biggest wastrels I knew: Chris Duckworth.

Duckworth and I had met on a case several years ago, and although it surprised me to admit it, he had probably become my best friend. It surprised me because I doubted that in a hypothetical survey of our eHarmony “29 dimensions of compatibility” we would come up with a single match. Not that Chris would be allowed to use the service in the first place since, to quote one of the many pithy expressions he used to convey his sexual preference, he was “gay as a fondue fork.”

I slipped off the security chain, undid the locks and pulled open the door. He stood in the hallway with two packages carefully wrapped with butcher paper and string. He was slight man-barely five foot and a half-and the packages came up nearly to his chin. But to the casual observer, details about height and what he was carrying would hardly have rated a mention. What could not have gone unremarked was the fact that he was dressed as a French maid-a very sexy and convincingly female French maid.

“I didn’t ring for service,” I said with mock severity.

“There’s no service in this dump, much less a place to ring for it. I’m doing the early show at Aunt Charlie’s.”

Aunt Charlie’s Lounge had a drag queen revue where Chris sang torch songs under the stage name of Cassandra. I often played bass in the band that accompanied him. “Why are you here then?”

“I’m just checking to see if you’ve grown out your fingernails or started collecting your urine in jars.”

“Fingernails take time, but I’ve been doing the urine thing for years. It’s best to go with pickle jars because of the wide-“

“Spare me.”

“You started it. What’s in the packages?”

Chris sauntered into the room and dumped the packages on the folding card table I use for dining (if consuming TV dinners and burritos could properly be referred to as dining). He pulled off a cashmere top coat, folded it carefully and set it down on the arm of my ratty sofa. After brushing a few Oreo cookie crumbs from a cushion, he perched on the edge of it and surveyed the room. “I like how you’ve remained true to your original artistic vision. The bowling pin lamp, for instance, is a nice touch.”

“Yeah, well, the lava one fell off the cinder block.” I shoved the door closed and walked over to the card table. “So, what’s in the packages?”

“See for yourself.”

I yanked the cord off the top one and tore open the paper. A pair of Converse Chuck Taylors with new white laces were inside. My Chuck Taylors. The bottom one had my sheets and towels from the laundromat neatly folded and pressed. “Wow. You didn’t have to do that, Chris-but thank you. How’d you even know where to find them?”

He reached up to resettle the headpiece of his costume atop his blond wig. “Well, while you’ve been playing the Howard Hughes recluse, the rest of the world has been busy broadcasting stories about the ‘Cable Car Hero’-meaning you. Most of them mentioned that you were doing your laundry when the whole thing started. I found everything in a big pile on the folding table.” He looked down at his hands. “Did you really see those two women get killed?”

I slumped into one of the rickety chairs that went with the table and pushed the laundry to one side. “I couldn’t actually see it. The cable car was in the way. But it was certainly one of the worst experiences of my life. One second they were there, and the next they were lying on the ground. The arbitrariness of it was what got me. It reminded me of the Flitcraft story-only with a bad ending.”

“The Flitcraft story?”

“It’s a sort of parable from The Maltese Falcon. The point is that there is no master plan in the world. No karma. Your actions on this earth have no bearing on what happens to you.”

“Jeez, August, I didn’t realize we were going to be diving into metaphysics here. Is that why you’ve been holed up for the past three days?”

I picked at the wrapping paper from one of the packages, then forced a grin onto my face. “That, and I was waiting for the maid to bring me my damn laundry.”

Chris smiled back at me-more, I suspected, from relief at having the subject changed than amusement. “Well, it wasn’t just your laundry you abandoned, you know. And this maid can’t help you with it. You need a wrecker.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your car-or what’s left of it. They’ve got it at the impound lot. Gretchen told me they’re towing it to the junk yard unless you claim it by this afternoon. I didn’t think you’d care, but-“

I jumped up from the table. Gretchen was my admin, so they must have called my office when they didn’t get hold of me here. “Did you drive?”

“Y-e-s. I checked out one of those car share Priuses. Why?”

“You’re taking me to the impound lot. Hold on while I get changed.”

Chris started to say something about missing his rehearsal, but I closed the bedroom door on him before he could finish.

–

WE GOT TO THE IMPOUND lot just as the “Pick Your Part” tow truck was hooking up the Galaxie. I told the driver he wouldn’t be picking any of my parts and sent him and the Galaxie to Cesar’s Garage on Turk instead.

Cesar did a brisk business in fixing German makes that were out of warranty or whose owners refused to pay full boat for dealer repair. He’d arrived in San Francisco from Ecuador in 1971, penniless with almost no friends, but thanks to a burning sense of entrepreneurship, had worked his way up from a tiny two-man car repair shop to a multi-story garage that now occupied the whole block in the admittedly seedy Tenderloin neighborhood. Since my own apartment was right on the fringes of that same neighborhood, I rented a parking spot from him and used him for the limited amount of maintenance I saw fit to underwrite on the Galaxie.

It was late in the day and no one was at the customer entrance of the garage when we arrived. Chris barely managed a full stop, hustling me out of the Prius and humming the opening bars of “Falling in Love Again” under his breath before he yanked the door closed and sped off to Charlie’s.

The tow truck driver just chuckled as he lowered the Galaxie onto the concrete ramp. Both doors and both quarter panels on the left side were smashed, the hood was crumpled and the bumper was tied on with rope. The capper came when the front end hit the ground and the left wheel canted out thirty degrees. “Good luck, chief,” said the driver, and drove off whistling an out of tune rendition of “Turkey in the Straw.”

I heard steps echoing down the ramp from upstairs and gradually Cesar came into view. He was dressed in the garage uniform of navy blue pants and shirt, both of which were spotless and crisply pressed in spite of the hour. His shoes were shined to a high gloss and his jet black hair was combed back, accentuating the gray wings at his temples. Give him a corn cob pipe and a few inches and he could have been the MacArthur of garage mechanics. “Your parking space is downstairs, Señor,” he said.

“Yeah, I know. The thing is, I’m having a little trouble making it there.”

He grinned at me. “Did you run out of gas?

“I might have, but there seem to be contributing factors.”

He made a slow circuit around the car, touching dents here and there and finally stopping in front of the hood. He laid a pair of latex-gloved hands on one of the few uncumpled spots and pressed down. The car yielded only an inch or so, making a terrible grating noise as it moved. “That will be your tie rods or your axle or both.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I’ve seen the news stories about the cable car, Señor. What you did was very brave.”

I felt heat rise in my cheeks. Cesar and I rarely exchanged words-and most of those were taken up by the good-natured jokes he and the other mechanics made about my car. I wasn’t exactly comfortable incorporating hero worship into the relationship at this point. I made a show of straightening the radio antenna. It didn’t straighten worth beans. “You would have done the same,” I said finally.

“I don’t know. I think that is one of those things you can only know when it happens.” He peeled off his gloves and put them in his back pocket. “The car is totaled, Señor. There is no point in repairing it. Get a new one. I have a nice Mercedes I can give you a good price on.”

“Totaled just means it costs more to fix than the car is worth for resale. By that measure it was probably totaled before the crash. But as much as I’d like a Mercedes, this car has sentimental value to me. I want to repair it.”

“Even if I fixed the front end and all the body damage, it still has a forty-year-old drive train. I’ve seen the exhaust rolling out of this thing. Every time you came out of the garage, you nearly gassed us to death. I’d be surprised if half the cylinders have compression.”

“Then rebuild the engine-and the transmission if you have to.”

He shook his head. “That is silly. If you really want to drive around in a 1968 Galaxie 500, you should buy one that has already been restored. It will be much cheaper.”

“Are you saying you won’t do it even if I pay you the money?”

“No, I’m saying that it doesn’t make sense. Perhaps you are a little rattled from the-from the accident. Anyone would be.”

My hand closed around the Saint Apollonia medal I carried in my pocket and I squeezed. I strained to keep my voice level. “Look, this was my father’s car. It’s the only thing I have from him. I don’t want to lose it.”

“Oh. That is different. Why didn’t you say so?”

“I just did.”

He nodded like someone trying to be reasonable when the other party wasn’t. “I’ll run an estimate and call you tomorrow. But I have to close now.” He came up to where I was standing and reached over to touch my shoulder. “You know the girl, Araceli Rivero?”

My mouth went dry. “Yes?”

“She was a member of our church, Mission Dolores. There are many people from Central and South America in the congregation. They are holding a vigil for her this evening. I think you should come.”

Necrophobia

THE LAST TIME I ATTENDED A VIGIL OR WAKE was when my great aunt died when I was five. They put her coffin on a big table in the darkened living room of her gingerbread bungalow, lit candles, turned the mirrors to the wall, and lifted me up over the satin-quilted maw of the box and made me kiss her goodbye. Afterwards I locked myself in the bathroom and used a bar of Boraxo I found under the sink to eradicate the pink powdery taste of her. I quit scrubbing only after my lips were skinned and bloodied-and have suffered from an irrational fear of embalmed bodies ever since.

The vigil for Araceli Rivero wasn’t held in a gingerbread bungalow or even a church, but in the “visitation” room of Pietro Palermo & Co. Funeral Directors. I had gone back to my apartment to change into the only black suit I owned, and by the time I pulled open the heavy, iron-bound door to the room, it was approaching 8:00 p.m. The casket was at the front in a niche lit by a pair of art deco torche lamps and two candles in tall brass holders. A life-sized crucifix yawned out from the wall above an oak and green velvet kneeler situated in front.

Clumps of people sat on pews with heads bowed or stood together holding whispered conversations. There wasn’t a priest, nor was there anybody I could pick out as family. But Cesar I spotted immediately. He was bent over the kneeler, his fingers moving ponderously through the beads of a rosary, his slicked back hair glistening under the light.

An obvious funeral parlor employee stood by the door near a podium with a sign-in book. As I came up, he handed me a memorial card with a picture of Jesus blessing a young woman. “The family appreciates your attendance. Would you sign the mourner’s register, please?”

I looked down at the book. There were spaces for name, address and an unlabeled column that people had used to write things like, “God bless Araceli” and “There is hope in Christ’s resurrection and glory.” I felt like a fraud and intruder and wished for the hundredth time that I hadn’t let Cesar guilt me into going.

“I don’t know-” I started.

The funeral parlor guy arranged his face into a look of professional concern and held out a silver fountain pen. I sighed and took the fancy writing implement from his hand, scratching out my name and address in what I hoped would be an illegible jumble. I left the final column blank.

Pietro Palermo & Co’s man leaned over the book to inspect what I’d written, and frowning slightly, relieved me of the pen. “Thank you, sir. If you’re not familiar with the custom, may I suggest that you take a seat in the pews until you have the opportunity to go up to the departed.”

I nodded like I appreciated the advice and took a seat in the pew closest to the exit, resolving to slip out the door as soon as he was distracted. To avoid catching anyone’s eye in the meantime, I made a close inspection of the card he had given me. The side without Jesus had Araceli’s full name and a birthday of December 2nd, twenty-three years ago. Her “heavenly birth date”-that is, the day she was killed-was printed below it. At the bottom came a short prayer titled “Eternal Rest” that I recognized from my Catholic upbringing. It was given in three languages: Latin, Spanish and English.

I heard the door open again and I turned back to watch the funeral parlor employee give his spiel to a pair of young women who had to be classmates of Araceli’s at UCSF. The first one had barely taken hold of the pen before her lip started trembling and she sobbed out loud. As her companion reached over to hug her, I felt a tap on my arm.

“I’m glad that you came, Señor.” Cesar stood in the aisle beside me wearing a black suit that probably cost twice as much as mine, but somehow didn’t make him look any more dressy than his smart garage uniform.

“That makes one of us,” I said.

He shook his head. “No, the family and Araceli will appreciate it, too. “

“The family maybe-and maybe for the wrong reasons. But you’re making an assumption about dead people that I can’t share.”

“Please. Now is not the time to debate the existence of the afterlife. You must do the expected thing-if only to comfort the family. Go up and say goodbye to her, and on the off chance you are wrong about God, pray for her soul.”

“I don’t even see anyone from-“

“Please.”

His hand found its way around my wrist and tugged. I gave into the inevitable. I stood like a zombie and tottered down the aisle towards the niche. The memory of my great aunt sent my heartbeat past redline and my vision darkened and narrowed. My extremities tingled. Then I caught sight of Araceli over the edge of the polished mahogany and all the anxiety seemed to lift. It’s going too far to say she looked angelic, but for the first time I appreciated why someone would ever leave a casket open.

She lay in ivory satin in an ivory satin dress with a silver-beaded rosary clasped in her hands. Her apricot blond hair was arranged carefully on the pillow and her expression was serene and composed. She wore modest silver earrings and a plain silver bracelet. Her skin was a vibrant rose-petal pink, and there was no trace of wounds, bullets or madmen who hijack cable cars. But neither was there much of the flirtatious girl from the laundromat. She’d been transformed into a sort of virginal madonna.

I stood over her, fingering the fabric softener sheet she’d given me in my pocket. I had brought it on a whim with the idea that I might return it to her, but I realized now it would be wildly inappropriate. After an awkward interlude, I sank to my knees, put my elbows on the rail and bowed my head, but I was just marking time to make it look right. Whatever small connection I had with her seemed to be lost. I had been her avenger, but I didn’t really know her. And I was hardly the one to make a case for her soul if she-or any of us-had one.

My eyes were closed, but through the sound of rustling fabric and little fidgeting movements, I became aware of someone standing off to the left. I stayed on the kneeler for another long minute, then stood and stepped back-and because I figured it had to be family-made a clumsy attempt at crossing myself.

“Mr. Riordan?” came the expected request.

It was family all right, but not the sort I expected. A taller, lither version of Araceli stood waiting: more ballerina than underwear model, but with the same hair, green eyes and cheek bones. She wore a simple black dress and plain silver jewelry that seemed to match Araceli’s.

“I’m August Riordan,” I agreed in a too loud voice.

“Melina Rivero. Araceli was my sister.”

I took her extended hand and managed to get something across about how sorry I was. Then, feeling the need to account for my presence, I blurted, “I hope you don’t mind my attending. My friend Cesar is a member of your church, and since I was-since I was involved, he encouraged me to pay my respects.”

“Did you know Araceli, Mr. Riordan?”

“I didn’t. We had just met that day. At the laundromat.”

“That is what the newspaper said, but we wondered if it could be true. We are very grateful for what you did.”

I looked down at my feet, then forced myself to meet her gaze again. “I’m afraid what I did was more of a postscript. It doesn’t change…” I gestured over to the niche.

“No, it does not change that.” Her eyes strayed to the coffin and she seemed to go away for a moment. Then she twitched her head sharply and brought her arms up to hug herself. “My father and brother are in the director’s office. When they heard you were here, they asked that I bring you back to meet them. They want to thank you and they have a question.”

“A question?”

“I am sorry. English is a second language. A better way to express it is they have a job. A job they wish to offer you.”

Cementerio de la Recoleta

THE FUNERAL DIRECTOR’S OFFICE WAS BIG, cold and Gothic-looking, and didn’t exactly convey a feeling of sympathy or desire to help you through troubled times. The ceiling was vaulted with massive oak beams running beneath it, and light came from a single lancet window and a couple of heavy plaster wall sconces that you could have fried turkeys in. Melina Rivero’s heels clicked across the stone floor as she led me to the corner of the room where a bald man with a Jimmy Durante nose and large, square-rimmed glasses waited behind a carved desk. To his left was a younger version of the same model-including the eggplant-shaped shnoz-but with more iron-gray hair remaining on top of his head. Given Melina and Araceli’s appearance, I decided Mrs. Rivero had to be a real looker because dad was watering down the handsome genes something fierce.

Both men stood, barrel-chested and stolid, and Melina introduced us. Senior was named Reynaldo and compensated for his plain looks with a grip like a crimping tool. Junior was named Orlando and reached across with his left to give me a backhanded shake. As he sat down, I noticed his right arm hung limp at his side.

There was only one other chair by the desk and Rivero senior made it clear that it would just be us boys talking when he said, “Melina, I expect you are needed in the chapel.”

She said, “Yes, father,” and pausing only to give my bicep a reassuring squeeze, turned and walked out.

Rivero didn’t waste any time. “Tell me how you knew Araceli,” he said after he nodded me into the remaining chair. His speech was clipped and precise, and like everyone else I’d met in the family, carried a trace of that not quite familiar Latin accent.

“Melina asked about that, too. We didn’t know each other. We had just met at the laundromat.”

“I don’t understand that. She had no need to wash her clothes in a public laundry, especially her intimate clothing. It seems to me that could only invite unwanted attention.”

I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about Araceli’s big stack of panties and our exchange about souvenirs. I licked my lips and hoped I didn’t look like a complete pervert. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Why did I do what?”

“Why did you risk your life to stop the gunman?”

I shifted in my chair. I’d been off-balance and uncomfortable since I walked in the funeral parlor, playing a part that I didn’t believe, but not wanting to offend or show disrespect. I was done with all that now. “I did it for the reward,” I said snidely.

free kindle nation shorts Free Kindle Nation Shorts, mark coggins, the big wake-up

In Richard Jackson’s sci fi thriller of futuristic “extreme broadcasting,” everyone gets what they have coming in the end. Here’s a free sample of Fall from Grace, our Kindle Nation eBook of the Day at just 99 cents!

August 17, 2011March 10, 2011 by KND

In today’s Kindle Nation eBook of the Day, “caster” Tyler is living a life of action and adventure–until he loses his job and comes face to face with the darker side of a futuristic broadcasting industry. He soon learns there is much more for him to lose … and much farther to fall. Just 99 cents on Kindle!

Here’s the set-up for Richard Jackson’s Fall from Grace:

Imagine futuristic broadcasters giving you not only the images and the words of news events, but the emotions as well. It would take a special kind of reporter to let you tune into his fear, anxiety, hope, exaultation and passion by way of special implants, a special kind of journalist like Tyler.

As a Caster, Tyler uses cybernetic implants to broadcast his emotions and experiences to the viewers at home. He is living a life of action and adventure–until he loses his job. Now he must hustle illegal broadcasts and take odd jobs to survive.

When his agent is killed, Tyler is framed for the crime. With his only allies–an ex-cop turned criminal and a bartending medical student–Tyler is plunged into the middle of a mystery and comes face to face with the darker side of the broadcasting industry. Tyler soon learns there is much more for him to lose…and much farther to fall.

A Reviewer Summarizes:

Extreme Broadcasting…

Imagine a world where you not only see the news but you can also experience it while it’s happening.

Now meet Tyler, a `caster’ who would do anything for a great story. After this superstar falls from grace, he begins to see life through new eyes.

Jackson does a terrific job creating a world that’s sure to put you on the edge of your seat. Not only is the main character well done, but all the supporting characters are finely tuned as well. Even the psycho killer is someone you will love to hate. Take the time to read this adventure packed thriller, a great read and an author worth watching.

And here’s your free sample:

IF YOU ARE READING THIS POST IN AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE THE SAMPLE DOES NOT COME UP, JUST ENTER

http://bit.ly/gracefall

INTO YOUR COMPUTER BROWSER TO READ YOUR FREE SAMPLE

Free Kindle Nation Shorts — March 7, 2011: An Excerpt from “Invisible Path,” a Tempe Crabtree Mystery by Marilyn Meredith

August 17, 2011March 7, 2011 by Steve Windwalker

Jesus Running Bear is the only suspect in the murder of a popular Native American near the recovery center at the far end of the Bear Creek Reservation. While investigating, Deputy Tempe Crabtree learns the victim wasn’t quite what he seemed, and crosses paths with a militant para-military group who pique her curiosity and end up being a threat.

By Stephen Windwalker

Editor, Kindle Nation Daily
©Kindle Nation Daily 2011

Have I told you lately that I have the best job in the world for a man who loves to read?

I won’t put too fine a point on it, but for me, the only thing better than a job where I get to spend over half of my working hours reading is one where I get to share my greatest discoveries with other folks who love to read.

And here we go again, with a terrific “police procedural” series that is — as you’ll see in Marilyn Meredith’s generous 8000-word excerpt herewith — so, so much more, thanks to her ability to infuse the narrative with Native American legends and traditions.

Somehow, until now, Marilyn Meredith has managed to escape my attention while creating these exquisitely imagined 5-star “Tempe Crabtree mysteries.” But no longer will she fly below the radar if I have anything to do with it.

Here’s the set-up from Amazon reviewer Cheryl Malandrinos:

Deputy Tempe Crabtree is back in this superb addition to Marilyn Meredith’s award-winning series that blends Native American mysticism, the beauty of the Sierra foothills, and a mystery to solve.

Tempe’s son, Blair, returns home to celebrate Christmas, bringing along his college roommate. The boys are curious about some pseudo soldiers they’ve seen driving through town and ask Tempe what she knows, which isn’t much.

When a young Indian is found dead near the recovery center on the reservation, Tempe is once again called in to investigate. Jesus Running Bear, a newcomer to the reservation who has been getting help with his addictions, is the prime suspect. But Tempe isn’t so sure he’s guilty. A secret, a quest to find an Indian legend, and a visit to the para-military compound put Jesus and Tempe in danger.

Can Tempe solve the mystery and save both their lives?

Invisible Path is phenomenal! The series improves as time goes on. The last book, Dispel the Mist, included the Native American legend of the Hairy Man. He also helps to move the plot in this new installment along. This, and Tempe’s continued confusing dreams, which Nick Two John (the innkeeper and Tempe’s friend) doesn’t really help Tempe decipher, give this mystery series a unique element.

What the author has always done well in both her series is showcase how a law enforcement career can impact family life. While for Tempe that usually means missing dinners or working on her day off, this makes her a character that readers can relate to.

I eagerly await the next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery novel.

Click here to begin reading the free excerpt now

Invisible Path

by Marilyn Meredith

Kindle Edition ~ Release Date: 2010-10-01

List Price: $4.99

Buy Now

Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

Click here to download Invisible Path (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!

UK CUSTOMERS: Click on the title below to download Invisible Path

Free Kindle Nation Shorts – March 7, 2011

An Excerpt from

Invisible Path

“A Tempe Crabtree Mystery”

by Marilyn Meredith

Chapter 4

Tempe and Hutch had been grocery shopping and arrived home to find a black Ford Escort they didn’t recognize parked in front of Blair’s Honda. “Looks like Blair’s friend is here,” Tempe said.

Entering the cottage, both of them carrying bulging paper bags in their arms; they were greeted by Blair and a handsome black man around the same age. His dark hair close-cropped, he was about three inches taller than Blair’s six feet. His smile was bright, contrasting with his dark skin. He wore a T-shirt proclaiming loyalty to the college both young men attended, and crisply ironed Chinos.

Both jumped up from the table and took the sacks and put the groceries on the counter top.

“Mom, Dad, this is my roommate, Chad Underwood.”

Chad put his hand out to Tempe first. “Ma’am. Pleased to meet you.” He shook Hutch’s hand next. “Sir. I want to thank you both for inviting me to your home.”

“You are certainly welcome,” Hutch said. “Please, sit down.”

After the amenities were over and Hutch and Tempe had stored the groceries in the cupboards and refrigerator, Tempe suggested they sit in the living room where it was more comfortable. Though small like the rest of the house, the room had a worn but plump overstuffed couch and two big armchairs, all facing the stone fireplace. A braided rug, left from another era, nearly covered the plank floor.

When they’d chosen places to sit, Blair warned they would only be there for a short while since he planned on taking Chad up to the fire station and introducing him. “Remember, Chad is majoring in fire science like I am. He’s never seen a small volunteer fire station.”

Chad chuckled. “No insult intended, but I’ve never been to a town as small as this one either.”

“Before our son whisks you away, tell us about yourself,” Tempe urged.

“There’s not much to tell, Ma’am. I’m an orphan. I don’t know if Blair mentioned it, but my parents came to California from Uganda. They had their own business and were trying to become citizens. I was born here. It was very important to them that I be an American and we only spoke English in our home. When I was five and starting school, they took me to kindergarten and on their way home, a speeder drove through a red light in a SUV and ran into my parents’ car when it was in the intersection. They both died.”

“I’m so sorry,” Hutch said.

Tempe’s hand went to her heart. “How horrible. What happened to you?”

“Well, Ma’am, at first, I didn’t really understand. A social worker came and got me and took me to my first foster home. I guess they tried to find other relatives of mine, but there weren’t any except maybe in Uganda, but they couldn’t be located. Actually, I was blessed.” He flashed another huge smile. “My second foster home was an African American family and it wasn’t long before I felt comfortable there. My foster dad is a minister….”

Blair interrupted. “See? I told you Chad and I had lots in common.” He grinned at Hutch.

Chad continued, “and my Mom is a typical minister’s wife.”
“Which my Mom isn’t.” This time Blair beamed at Tempe. He patted her hand.

Chad continued. “Ordinarily, I’d be spending Christmas with them. They’re not taking in foster kids anymore. Everyone they’ve cared for have grown up and started their own lives. Lots of us still go home for the holidays, but this year my folks are on a mission trip to, of all places, Uganda. They’ve promised to see if they can find out anything about any relatives I might still have there.”

“How exciting,” Hutch said. “The only mission field I’ve ever been called to is right here in Bear Creek.”

“Wouldn’t that be something if they did find some of your relatives?” Tempe asked.

Chad nodded. “Yes, Ma’am. But I’m really happy with the folks I’ve got. They’ve been wonderful to me.”

“That’s a blessing,” Hutch said. “Will you two be back for dinner?”

“What are you cooking?” Blair stood.

“Barbecuing steaks.”

Chad grinned and deep dimples appeared in both cheeks. “You weren’t kidding about being well fed.”

Blair stood. “Hutch is a great cook. Don’t worry, we’ll definitely be here. What time?”

“Your Mom has to work, so how about around seven? Maybe she can take a break about then. What do you think, Tempe?”

“I’ll try, since it’s Wednesday it ought to be on the calm side, but who can tell?” Tempe said. “If I find out I can’t make it, I’ll call so you can eat without me.”

Standing too, Chad said, “We’ll make a point of being back on time, Sir.” Once again he shook Tempe’s hand and then Hutch’s.

After the Blair and his friend left, Tempe caressed Hutch’s cheek. “I better get my uniform on. It’s nearly time for me to go on duty.”

“I’ll pray for a quiet night.” Hutch leaned closer to Tempe and kissed her.

* * *

Despite it being Wednesday, Tempe knew as soon as her radio blared to life, and her cell phone rang at the same time, she wouldn’t make it home for dinner.

The dispatcher informed her a body had been discovered on the Bear Creek Indian Reservation and she was directed to go there as quickly as possible to help Cruz Murphy, the reservation’s Public Safety Chief, preserve the scene. The location was reported to be near the Bear Creek Recovery Center, which was located about a quarter mile past the Painted Rock site that sheltered ancient pictographs. The recovery center was at the end of the main road that passed through the reservation.

The cell phone call was from Detective Morrison with the same message, except delivered in his usual curt manner. Once she told him she was already on her way to the crime scene, he added, “Find out what you can from the Indians and let me know. I’ll be out there as soon as I can.”

Though the relationship between Tempe and the detective had improved somewhat over the last year, he still had the mistaken notion that because she had Native American blood in her veins, any Indian would respond to her immediately and tell her everything she wanted to know.

Because it was December, it was already dark as Tempe sped along the narrow curving road to her destination. She’d taken the road often enough in the daytime to know that ranches and homes were tucked in here and there-though at this time of night, she caught only glimpses of lighted windows as she raced by. She had her emergency lights turned on, along with her Siren, just to warn of her approach.

Finally she reached the carved and painted wooden sign that announced she was entering the Bear Creek Indian Reservation. Tempe knew that a reservation was first created at the eastern end of Dennison in 1857 for scattered bands of Indians, but as the town grew, it became inconvenient for many of the local citizens to have so many Indians as neighbors. In 1873, by presidential order, a new location for the reservation was established on 54,000 acres, much of it mountainous.

Narrow and winding, the road continued with dwellings on either side, scattered in the valleys and across the hillsides. She passed the turn-off to Bear Mountain Casino but slowed down as she drove through the part of the rez that contained the public safety building and the medical center. Two churches perched on a hillside off to the left. Across the way was the child-development center and pre-school and the building that housed the tribal council. Other community services and the new fire station were located on other side streets. Once past the hub of the rez, Tempe drove by more homes spread farther and farther apart and deeper into reservation land.

When she passed the place where the old lumber mill once operated and was now used for rodeos and Pow Wows, she knew she was getting close. The asphalt ended and she continued driving. On her right were the huge boulders that created the cave that protected pictographs of the legendary Hairy Man and his family, as well as other colorful Indian symbols.

The Hairy Man was a Yokut legend considered sacred to the tribe. She knew he was also believed to be powerful medicine. When Tempe was a little girl, her grandmother told her stories about the legend. Over the years, many Indians reported sightings of the Hairy Man.

Tempe had experienced her own encounter with the Hairy Man. The startling event wasn’t something she’d shared with anyone except Hutch and Chief Murphy. During the investigation of the murder of a county supervisor a few months earlier, she’d learned more about the Hairy Man. When she’d been trapped by the supervisor’s killer, the legend had saved her life.

As time passed, the memory of the event became less and less real-sometimes she wondered if she’d imagined the whole thing.

Ahead, red, blue and white lights flashed from emergency vehicles: the Bear Creek Public Safety truck that Chief Murphy drove, an ambulance, and a fire truck. Numerous people milled about in the shadows.

She parked behind the other vehicles. She didn’t see the vans belonging to either the coroner or the crime scene investigator. Before Tempe even had her door open, Chief Murphy appeared out of the shadows, striding toward her. Cruz Murphy’s mother was Yanduchi like Tempe, but his father was Irish-hence the unusual surname. His skin, hair and eyes were dark, but his features displayed more of his Irish heritage. Muscular, he filled out his tan uniform.

She slid out of the truck, and hurried toward him. “Chief Murphy, good to see you. What’s going on?”

“Cruz, please. I think we know each other well enough by now to be on a first name basis.”

“Cruz it is.”
“I’m glad you’re here, Tempe. The victim is from the reservation. The crime scene has been seriously contaminated. One of the residents of the recovery center discovered the body. Once he set off the alarm, the staff and other clients were all over the place. Soon as I got here, I shooed everyone away and cordoned off the area with tape. Too late, I’m afraid.”

“Has the crime scene investigator been called?”

Murphy nodded. “And the coroner. They should arrive fairly soon.”

Since they had to come all the way from Visalia, it would be awhile. “Have you identified the victim?” Tempe followed Murphy toward the crowd of spectators.

“A young Indian named Danny Tofoya.”

His name sounded vaguely familiar. “You say he lived here on the rez?”

“Yes, he and his extended family are long time residents.”

“Any suspects?”

“There are plenty of rumors. People are saying a young man named Jesus Running Bear probably did it.”

“Who is he?”

“Someone who recently graduated from the recovery program. Instead of going home, he decided to hang around. Rented a room here on the rez from the parents of another graduate, Russell Sanger.”

Tempe knew Indians with drug or alcohol problems from all over the state were either court-ordered into the recovery program or voluntarily checked themselves in. The program had a reputation for a high success rate in changing men’s lives. As she’d been told by one of the elders, “White people have their 12 Step Programs and Alcoholics Anonymous, Indians use their own ceremonies and sweats to heal themselves. Liquor is a curse that kills more Indians than any of the white man’s diseases or bullets.”

“What’s the motive? What are they saying is the reason Running Bear killed Tofoya?” she asked.

“From what I can gather, Running Bear was sweet on Tofoya’s cousin. A girl named Jolie Tofoya. There’s plenty of folks around who’ll tell you about it.”

Off to the right and away from the crowd, with inside lights blazing, was the long, low building housing the Bear Creek Recovery Center. As they approached the crowd made up of mostly Native American men of various ages-residents of the recovery center, Tempe guessed-the voices grew louder and angrier.

“Shoulda gone back where he came from.”

“Jesus-wrong name for a murderer.”

“Tofoya was right when he said Running Bear was a snake.”

“Can’t imagine what Jolie sees in that killer.”

“Bet the Singers are sorry they took him in.”

In a loud voice, Cruz commanded, “Let the deputy through.”

The noise subsided as the onlookers turned to stare at Tempe. They moved aside enough to create a narrow path. She made her way through until she came out to the clearing where the sweat lodge was located. The crime scene tape went around the canvas-covered sweat lodge and beyond, but she couldn’t see the body.

She turned and peered at Cruz Murphy.

He lifted the yellow tape and ducked under it, holding it up for her. “Follow me. The body’s back here.”

After passing the sweat lodge, she spotted a dark mound that resembled a pile of discarded rags tucked between two large fir trees. Two Native Americans in their turnout gear, black jackets and pants, with Bear Creek Fire Dept. stenciled in yellow on the back, stood guard.

Drawing nearer, Tempe noted the many footprints in the dirt. As Cruz had warned, this was clearly a contaminated crime scene. It wouldn’t matter if she took a closer look.

Stepping within two feet, she knelt down, turned on her flashlight and shone it over the corpse. He was lying on his back, with a dark hole in his chest. Oddly, there was no blood anywhere around him, but there was blood on his neck and face, and even some on his arms and hands.

“He wasn’t killed here,” Tempe said. “He was transported after he was shot. At least that’s my guess.”

“Mine too. No rigor mortis-no real odor. This happened within the last couple of hours.”

“Once Dr. Crandall gets here, she’ll be able to tell us more. Did anyone hear the shots?”

“Folks have had plenty to say, but nothing about hearing gun fire.”

“Who was the first person to find the body?” Tempe glanced around at the gathering of men. Not a single female could be seen.

“Jared Davis.” Cruz pointed to a young man, obviously Native American like everyone else who had gathered. He shuffled his feet, kicking up puffs of dirt.

Tempe went over to Davis. “Hi, I’m Deputy Crabtree. How did you happen to find the body?”

Davis was short and skinny, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, but drug or alcohol abuse had aged him prematurely. His skin was spotty. Deep lines accented his mouth and forehead. His nearly black hair was pulled back into a pony tail. His eyes darted about. “All I was doing was walking around. I been in the program about three weeks. Sometimes these guys are more than I can handle and I have to get away by myself. I was just walking around thinking and I almost stumbled over that dead guy. I couldn’t believe my eyes and started hollering for help.”

“Did you touch him?” Tempe asked.

Shaking his head vigorously, Davis said, “No way. I could tell he was dead by looking at him. His eyes were open, but his spirit was gone.”

“Do you know the victim?”

“Not really. I’ve seen him around is all. They say he lives, lived, on the rez. My home is in Dennison with my wife and kids. That’s where I’ll go back once I get out of this place.”

“Did you hear or see anything unusual before you found the body?” Tempe asked.

Again he shook his head. “No. My head was filled with other things. Missing my family. Wondering how much longer it would be before I can get out of here.”

“So that means you’ve still got some time left and will be here if I or someone else needs to talk to you again, right?”

“I ain’t going nowhere ’til I graduate.” He stepped away from her, blending into the shadows.

The sound of an approaching vehicle caught Tempe’s attention. She watched the headlights coming over the hill, hoping it was Dr. Crandall. Instead, she was surprised to see it was a Honda, but not so surprised when it parked beside her truck and the doors flung open. Blair popped out of the driver’s side and his friend, Chad from the passenger side.

Cruz Murphy frowned. “You know them?”

“Sure do, that’s my son and his friend from college.” She strode toward them. “Don’t tell me you heard the call while you were at the fire station.”

Blair grinned. “Nope, actually we were eating a great steak dinner when my scanner went off. I told Hutch what happened and he said that explained why you hadn’t come home. We finished eating and when I told him we wanted to see what was going on, he gave us his blessing.”

“He probably wanted you to check up on me,” Tempe said.

“I have a hunch he wanted to make sure you were safe, Ma’am,” Chad said.

She smiled. Not only was Blair’s roommate polite, he was also diplomatic. “As long as you’re here, son, maybe you can help. The victim’s name is Danny Tofoya. Have you heard of him?”

Blair nodded. “He was a couple of years ahead of me in school. Popular guy. Football player. Known for his bad temper. Got in a lot of fights. Think he was suspended once. He was a good enough football player that he got counseling instead of being expelled. Kids grumbled about that a bit-especially the white kids. Some thought he got special treatment because he was a Native American. I doubt if that was so, too often the Indians weren’t treated as well as the Mexican or white kids.”

“What can we do to help, Ma’am?” Chad asked.

“Since no one knows you, why don’t you wander around and listen to what people are saying.” Tempe turned to her son, “Blair, see if you can find people you do know and ask what they saw, especially right after the body was discovered.”

The young men began to mingle. The sound of more vehicles coming up the hill caught Tempe’s attention. This time it was two vans with the county’s logo. A trim blonde woman stepped out of a Ford minivan, Dr. Andrea Crandall, the crime scene investigator who also served as medical examiner. A portly man with a bald head, wriggled out of the gray coroner’s van, along with a younger male helper. Things would begin moving now.

Dr. Crandall stepped into the small area, eerily illuminated by the emergency lights on the county vehicles flashing red, and blue. Those and the outside flood lamps on the recovery center were all that lit the scene. “Who’s in charge here?” she called out. Her fair hair was cut short and she wore a navy blue no-nonsense pants suit and carried a large case by the handle.

“I am.” Cruz stepped up to her, hand extended. “Cruz Murphy, Public Safety Chief for the reservation.”

She shook his hand and peered around. “I don’t suppose the crime scene has been preserved.” Recognition showed in her eyes when she spotted Tempe. She grinned. “Deputy Crabtree, how nice to see you again.”

Despite Dr. Crandall’s fair complexion and light hair, the crime scene investigator also had Indian blood. She and Tempe had shared their experiences of being women in male dominated professions. Dr. Crandall had confessed to keeping her ethnic background quiet so she didn’t have to endure more jokes or prejudice.

“Same here. Can I help you with your case?” Tempe asked, but Cruz reached for it before she could take it.

“Allow me,” he said. The doctor released it to him. “As to your question about the crime scene, when I got here people were milling all around the victim. I don’t think you’ll find much of value except what you can get from the body itself.”

“The sooner I get started the better.” Dr. Crandall followed Cruz, with Tempe bringing up the rear. The crowd parted once again, allowing them through.

When they were about five feet from the corpse, Dr. Crandall said, “Stop here. Deputy, would you please play your flashlight beam in a circle around the body?”

Tempe took her flashlight from her utility belt and did as directed. Like she’d noted before, the dirt around the body was marred with many footprints.

Dr. Crandall sighed. “Okay.” She moved closer. “Chief Murphy, if you’ll put my case right there, please. And Deputy, hold the light steady. When I want you to move it, I’ll ask.” She opened the case, lifted out a large battery powered light and set it up and turned it on.

At first the doctor peered at the victim, moving around him. Bending down at times, not touching anything, she finally asked, “Deputy, would you please hand me my camera.”

Once the doctor had the camera, she took photos of the victim from every angle, some from a distance, some up close. She put the camera back and took out a notebook and wrote quickly for several minutes. She also drew some simple sketches of the body. Again, reaching in her case, she drew out a pair of latex gloves and put them on. She inserted what resembled a thermometer into the corpse’s side. Pulled it out, stared for a moment, and wrote more notes.

She stood with one hand on her hip. “He’s probably been dead only a couple of hours. He was shot in the chest, but it didn’t happen here. If you’ll note the blood on his face, arms and hands, I suspect he was transported with his head hanging down. What I want you two to do is walk a grid and see if you can find tire tracks or anything that might give us a hint about how he got here.”

Tempe and Cruz followed her instructions, each of them with their own flashlight. Tempe stared at the ground as she walked back and forth, but there was nothing significant there except the multitude of shoe prints in the dirt. Finally the cleared ground gave way to matted weeds except for the narrow road that disappeared into the mountains. Nothing appeared out of place or unusual.

Cruz had as little success as she. They both returned

An Excerpt from 13 Days: The Pythagoras Conspiracy, a Novel by LA Starks – Free Kindle Nation Shorts — March 6, 2011

May 6, 2011March 6, 2011 by KND

Fair Warning: You May Not Want to Start Reading Today’s Free Excerpt if You Have Other Things to Do, Something Cooking on the Stove, or Anything Else Going On That You Can’t Afford to Ignore….
As Top 500 Amazon Reviewer Detra Fitch put it:
“This tale will keep readers engrossed to the point that they forget all else going on around them.
Truly fantastic!”

By Stephen Windwalker

Editor, Kindle Nation Daily
©Kindle Nation Daily 2011

It’s Sunday, and there’s a fair chance that, as a citizen of Kindle Nation in good standing, you’ve set aside some time to read.

What works for you?

A murder mystery?

A frightening conspiracy thriller?

A new “female sleuth” protagonist in the form of a heroine with advanced degrees who has risen to the highest rungs on Big Oil’s corporate ladder but now must fight threats against her own life, disloyal employees, catastrophic hurricanes, international espionage, and a French saboteur?

A gripping, global-stakes mix of suspense and thrills ripped from today’s headlines, written with so much intelligence and experience that you’ll be moved to think in new ways about turmoil in the Arab world, skyrocketing gas prices, and the relentless series of catastrophes that have challenged New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico the past few years.

How about all of the above?

All you need to do is click here to begin reading today’s generous 9,000-word Free Kindle Nation Shorts excerpt to discover that you can have it all in one smart page-turner, because L.A. Starks’ 13 Days: The Pythagoras Conspiracy has it all.

Here’s the set-up:

Energy executive Lynn Dayton thinks her challenge is fixing the troubled Houston refinery her company just bought. But she discovers she must save it, and hundreds of people in nearby Ship Channel plants, from injuries and deaths directed by a French saboteur. Simultaneously, she fights off threats to her own life. As Lynn deals with chemical leaks, disloyal employees, a new season of hurricanes, and mounting casualties, corrupted idealist Robert Guillard plans to manipulate her through her vulnerable sister. But Robert underestimates his prey…

Click here to begin reading the free excerpt now

13 Days:

The Pythagoras Conspiracy

by L.A. Starks

4.7 out of 5 stars 6 Reviews

Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

List Price: $4.99

Click Here to Buy Now in the US Kindle Store

Visit Amazon’s L. A. Starks Page

Click here to download 13 Days – The Pythagoras Conspiracy (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!

UK CUSTOMERS: Click on the title below to download

13 Days – The Pythagoras Conspiracy

What Reviewers Say

“13 Days has an excellent plot….L.A. Starks has contributed a fine murder mystery to the genre.”

— Alan Paul Curtis, Who-dunnit.com

“A knock-down conspiracy exposing the darkest secrets of the oil industry. Starks has made an impressive debut….”

— Michael Lucker, Screenwriter, Vampire In Brooklyn, Mulan II

“We never seem to learn. No matter the price of gasoline we just keep on truckin’. L. A. Stark was inspired by our gluttony to pen 13 Days. 13 Days takes readers on a fast paced ride into the world of petroleum. I would describe this book as espionage, thriller, suspense and entertaining. The quality of the plot and character make it difficult to believe this is a debut novel. The characterization is exquisite. The plot is exciting and informative.”

–Readers Favorite, Vine Voice

Notes for Understanding

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a colorless, potentially deadly gas routinely produced in oil refineries when sulfur is removed from crude oil, gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, and heating oil. H2S never leaves the refinery. It is converted to a safer, more useful, solid form-elemental sulfur.
The OSHA safe limit for H2S is a maximum of 10 parts per million (ppm) over eight hours. Low concentrations of 100-200 ppm irritate the eyes and upper respiratory tract. A half-hour exposure to 500 ppm results in headache, dizziness, staggering, and other symptoms, sometimes followed by bronchitis or pneumonia. Higher concentrations paralyze respiration. Exposure to 800-1000 ppm may be fatal in half an hour. Even higher concentrations can be fatal instantly.

Pythagoras was a Greek mathematician and philosopher who lived from 582-496 BCE. He is best known for the Pythagorean Theorem, which states that the sum of the squares of the short sides of a right triangle equals the square of the longest side, the hypotenuse.
Pythagoreans-Pythagoras and his students-discovered the relationship between musical notes could be expressed in numerical ratios of whole numbers. Indeed, Pythagoras and his students believed everything was related to mathematics. They were the first to describe something we now take for granted-the abstraction of numbers. For example, two stones plus two stones equal four stones is abstracted and generalized to 2+2=4. Pythagoreans believed whole numbers and their ratios could account for everything in nature, and that these geometrical relationships were sacred. One Pythagorean belief which resonates today is equality of the sexes.
The group of students that gathered around Pythagoras was similar to a cult in its communal living and its insistence on secrecy. A student named Hippasus challenged Pythagoras by postulating the existence of irrational numbers, such as the square root of two. When, in the eyes of the Pythagoreans he worsened the crime by publicizing the disagreement, he was killed.

Free Kindle Nation Shorts – March 6, 2011

An Excerpt from

13 Days:

The Pythagoras Conspiracy

A Novel by LA Starks

This book is dedicated to my family, to the memory of Karen Phillips, and to all who care for New Orleans.

Thursday morning, Houston, Texas

Summer

“What’s wrong with the flare?” Lynn Dayton, executive vice president for TriCoast Energy’s US oil refining operations, pointed to one of the giant, sentry-like structures visible through the refinery’s conference room window. The yellow flame should have been soaring at least fifteen feet above its 120-foot stack. The three executives meeting with Lynn turned to look a quarter mile away at the feeble smear of orange and smoke.

Lynn’s job had traditionally been held by men, a tradition hard to change. Khakis she’d thrown on at four thirty this morning for the flight to Houston hinted at her long runner’s legs. “Is a unit down?”

“I’ll check.” Reese Spencer’s short, white hair seemed to bristle to attention. He hurried out of the conference room with his cell phone. She’d hired Reese, ex-navy pilot and long-time friend, to run this refinery she had convinced TriCoast’s board to buy just before it hit bankruptcy court. She’d promised the board she would make it profitable by refitting the refinery to produce more gasoline at lower cost.

Four weeks left. A blink of an eye compared to the time required to find the perfect piping changes that would increase efficiency, make the calculations, bid it out, get the welders on site to install it, and restart the unit, hoping the whole time the fix worked and you didn’t have a fire on start-up. A nanosecond when it took weeks to find additional crude-oil supply, unload tankers, run the crude, pipeline the resulting gasoline to wholesalers, and get paid. And you’re the only one in this room who cares if you don’t meet the deadline because you’re the only one who’ll be toast.

This too-small flare meant yet another setback.

A group of the refinery’s executives, including the two resentful people in front of her, had also tried to purchase the refinery in a management buyout but hadn’t been able to raise the cash.

A frown pulled at Dwayne Thomas’s tobacco-stained lips. Lynn glanced at him and the woman sitting next to him, angled back in metal-frame chairs.

She wondered if she could get all four of the VPs to pull together before she and they lost their jobs or worse, were reassigned to suffocate in Special Projects. “We want to answer questions about the merger of Centennial with TriCoast. Where are the others?”

Dwayne hacked a smoker’s cough and clamped his ham-sized hands together. “Riley Stevens told me he had a morning meeting.”

Riley’s probably at a banker’s breakfast. If he valued his job he’d be here. Lynn had met the Centennial CFO only twice. But in the last few weeks she had heard rumors about his attitude toward women.

Jean-Marie Taylor, a six-foot-tall woman who was VP in charge of safety and pronounced her name “John-Marie,” nudged Dwayne and rolled her eyes. “And Jay’s on a golf course somewhere.”

They’re accounted for so your worry is irrational. Hurricane season was starting. Luckily, only a few TriCoast employees had been missing after Katrina. But it took weeks to find their bodies.

Dwayne kept staring out the window. Lynn followed the gaze of the operations VP. An easy-to-read beacon of the refinery’s health, the flame atop the ten-story, needle-like structure telegraphed in a glance whether operations were normal. The same flame was still too short, too skinny. Dwayne turned. “Lynn, when you combine your existing Ship Channel refinery with ours, how many of us will you fire?”

What will you say this time to reassure him? “We need everyone. Now more than ever.” Except one.

“I don’t mean now. I mean . . .”

“Five operators down!” They heard Reese’s yell just before the wail of hydrogen sulfide alarms echoed off every tower, exchanger, and furnace.

The three of them jumped and rushed to the window, as if they could spot the source of the poisonous gas. But they knew hydrogen sulfide had no color.

“Where?” Lynn strained to hear over the high whine of the alarms.

Reese sprinted in from the hallway. “Adric thinks the leak is at a pretreater.” That’s why the flame on the flare is so short and skinny. The control center supervisor, Adric Washington, had likely turned off oil flowing into the pretreater to isolate it. By stopping the oil he was stopping the production of deadly gas.

“How many souls on board?” Reese asked quietly.

Souls on board. What a pilot says when the plane’s going down.

“A hundred and twenty of our own. Thirty-five contractors.” Dwayne wrapped big hands around the rim of his hard hat. “We gotta go see.”

Jean-Marie blocked the exit, hands on hips. “Stay here and don’t panic.”

“You can’t stop us,” Reese said.

“Yes, I can.” And she could. The safety officer pulled up to her six-foot-plus height. “The operators don’t need you big cheese in the way.”

After she strode away toward the refinery gate her command kept the room silent and motionless for only a moment.

“Now look at it!” Lynn ground her teeth in frustration as she put her hands on the conference room window and wrenched sideways for the best viewing angle. Pressurized liquid spilled out of a smaller flare and ignited as it hit oxygen and heat. Bright orange fireballs splattered the ground. She felt the glass vibrate against her fingers. We have to help those who might be hurt!

“I can’t let my men drop like flies!” Dwayne shouted, echoing her thoughts. “I don’t need Jean-Marie’s permission to go into my own refinery. Reese, you?”

Exclusion happens. Lynn interrupted, “Adric thinks the release is near the catalytic crackers. We’ll detour around them. Let’s find our folks.”

“You’re too pricey a chief to take a chance out there,” Dwayne said.

“Taking chances ‘out there,’ as you call it, is one reason I am the chief. We’ll go together. Reese has a truck.”

She grabbed a hard hat and safety glasses from a peg board in the bright white hallway. She and Dwayne raced outside to an old, red refinery truck with Reese and crammed themselves into it.

The truck rattled as the former navy airman ground gears. A guard waved them past razor wire fence and through the gate separating Centennial’s office building from its several acres of giant, spiky refining hardware.

Lynn heard the normal thunder of gas and liquids rushing through masses of pipes all around. Hot, sticky air swept in until they rolled up the truck’s open windows.

The processing towers were clumped in one area. Huge vessels two to five stories tall, each with manhole-sized inlets and outlets, were connected by bundles of either battleship gray or shiny insulated pipe. Pipelines of various diameters formed trellises over the roads. A complex network of more piping, heat exchangers, chillers, compressors, and pumps filled between the towers like metallic kudzu.

Everything had a number. Rushing through the C-200 area, they all jumped as a siren blast ricocheted off every exposed metal pipe, drum, and vessel in the refinery.

“Pull over!” Dwayne shouted. “That’s the H2S alarm again. We could be in the middle of another release!”

“We’ll be safer at the control center,” Reese said. He gunned the engine.

Staring over the black asphalt between the silver pipes, Lynn saw five mounds she at first thought were sacks of blue jumpsuits. “No! Stop! Our people are over there!” Oh Lord, none of them is moving.

Reese braked so hard his passengers braced themselves against the dashboard. Dwayne reached across Lynn to open the door but Reese yelled, “Don’t get out! You need respirators.” He gunned the truck again and they screeched up to a bright yellow kiosk.

“Hot zone!” Lynn shouted when they jumped from the truck and grabbed their equipment. Rotten-egg odor filled her nostrils. It’ll be even deadlier when you can’t smell it once your nerves are paralyzed.

“Drive to the control center,” Lynn told Reese. “Tell Adric to clear a space near the lockers. We’ll drag them in. We can’t wait for body boards.” She flipped on her oxygen mask making voice communication no longer possible.

Dwayne put a finger between the mask and Lynn’s face to check that her respirator was sealed tightly. She did the same for him. His practiced care with this simple safety gesture touched her.

They ran toward the bodies.

Two limp forms lay motionless next to an orange flag at the huge metal drum known as the catalytic cracking pretreater. Another operator was draped over the big bypass valve wheel. Two more lay twenty feet farther. Hydrogen sulfide for sure.

Thousands of butterflies wanted out of her stomach. Lynn told herself to stay calm. Slow down. Don’t screw up. Everyone’s depending on you.

She saw the first person. His shirt was pulled up over his mouth and his eyes were open.

Maybe they’re just unconscious. Maybe the concentration’s not high enough to kill them. Have to get them out and start CPR. Lynn pointed to a gap in the pipe near the valve and dragged her finger across her throat. The source.

Dwayne nodded and pointed toward the bodies farthest from the gap, the ones most likely to survive.

He knelt next to a man, Lynn behind a woman lying face up. They hoisted the operators under their armpits and dragged them toward the control center. Steel reinforcing in the toes of the woman’s boots caused her feet to splay out and hit the ground. The boot heels scraped mercilessly on the cement pad and caught in cracks as Lynn dragged her. The woman’s hard hat banged into Lynn’s chest with each step. She tried to forget that the most she’d lifted in a weight room was forty pounds. She tried not to think the words “dead weight.”

Her mask began to slip on her sweaty face. Surely Dwayne didn’t loosen the seal when he checked it. She smelled sour gas but didn’t dare lay the woman down to tighten the seal. If only she could make it to the control center.

She spared Dwayne a glance. Intent on moving another victim, he grunted, his face revealing only the strain.

They were still fifty yards from the cement-block control center when Jean-Marie, Adric, and a man Lynn didn’t recognize ran past. Also bulked up with respirators, they were looking for victims, too. Lynn nodded toward the pretreater valve.

The harder she panted, the more the sulfurous smell seeped into her nose. Twenty yards to go.

Reese held open the door of the control building that led to the lockers. She looked over her shoulder to make sure Jean-Marie and the others found the remaining operators. Can’t leave anyone behind.

Lynn pulled the woman in, laid her down on the tiled floor, and cradled her head as it rolled to one side. She ripped off the mask she’d put on only minutes before, pressing her fingers to the woman’s smooth, brown throat, then to her wrist. Where’s her pulse? God, help me find it! The woman’s black curls were damp against her head. The smell of hydrogen sulfide steamed from her skin.

“I can’t feel anything,” Dwayne yelled.

The door opened. Jean-Marie, Adric, and the third man dragged in the other three operators. They looked even worse than the woman Lynn was treating.

“Medics are on the way. They said to focus on the ones we can save.” Jean-Marie’s words tapered off until they were almost inaudible.

Lynn pumped the woman’s chest through her thick blue shirt. Nothing. When she glanced up she saw heads shaking. Lynn kept pushing. “We have to try harder!”

“Christ, none of ’em has a pulse or is breathing,” Dwayne said.

“My man’s got a heartbeat!” Adric shouted. “Help me!”

Lynn pumped the woman’s chest again. She hadn’t breathed nor had her heart pumped a beat during the time Lynn had been with her. Probably not for fifteen to twenty minutes before that.

“We have to help the ones we can save,” Jean-Marie repeated.

Lynn made the horrible choice she had to make and placed the woman’s hands across her chest. Her palms were already cool. She shuddered and moved next to Adric. Her throat burned with the sob she stifled.

Adric’s black forehead glistened. He shook the man’s thin shoulders. “Are you okay?”

No response.

Lynn tilted the man’s head back and lifted his chin to establish an airway while Adric put his ear next to the man’s nose and mouth so he could listen and watch his chest.

The door to the adjacent room opened and other operators crowded in. “What’s wrong?” “Who’s hurt?” Voices rose to shouts.

“Get them out!” Lynn heard panic in Dwayne’s yell. The voices stilled and the door closed. The heat from the extra bodies abated.

Pinching the man’s nose shut, Adric breathed twice into his mouth.

“Come on buddy, you can do it,” Lynn implored.

“Breathe, goddamn you! Breathe!” The big engineer knelt over another body nearby.

Still no response. Adric repositioned the man’s head and blew breath into his lungs again.

Lynn heard a gasp. Thank God. She clamped an oxygen mask to the man’s mouth. The man gasped several times more and coughed. Every person in the room sighed deeply, as if holding extra air for him. Adric leaned against the lockers.

“He’s going to make it,” Dwayne said.

The applause stopped as soon as it started. We saved only one, not five. The muscles in Dwayne’s arms convulsed.

Lynn stood up and moved back to the woman she’d brought in. The woman wore no ring because safety rules forbade jewelry. Wonder if she’s married. Has kids. Sifting out thoughts of her own boyfriend and his children, she clasped the woman’s cold hands, then those of each of the three men on the floor nearby. Tears she’d been trying to hold back gathered in her eyes.

“Let’s get him next door to the monitor room and wait for the ambulances,” Dwayne said. “It’s not good for him to see these others.”

“But Reese, would you . . .?” Lynn didn’t have to complete her question before Reese nodded. He would wait behind with those they hadn’t found fast enough.

She and Adric carried the lightly built man into a room lit with dozens of glowing screens. They laid him on a pallet of raincoats.

“Dwayne, have you met this man?” Jean-Marie asked.

“Armando Garza. Contractor, but he used to work here full-time. Knows Centennial as well as any of us.”

The now-conscious man stiffened, tried to sit up, and fell back. He clutched the oxygen to his face and took longer, deeper breaths.

“Easy, cher,” Jean-Marie said.

After a few minutes, two operators boosted Armando up and led him to the eyewash basin.

“Water’s the next course,” Dwayne murmured to silent nods. They’d all seen mild hydrogen sulfide poisoning before. Usually the victim went to the hospital, rested awhile, then stood up and went back to living. This was much worse.

The bigger operator braced himself and clamped his arms around Armando’s chest. The other held the man’s head over the basin. They opened jets and water shot into his face. Armando jumped back when the water hit his eyelids, then slumped to allow his face and eyes to be flushed.

Lynn asked Adric what had happened.

“My operators went out about eight thirty to do a pipe inspection. I can’t believe it. Not all four . . .” He stopped, choked.

A cramp knifed through Lynn’s calves. A cramp as fast as a light switch being flipped. She stretched up and down through her toes to ease the excruciating clutch, a physical betrayal of the emotion she always had to hide.

After a few minutes over the sink, the husky operator tilted the man’s head back and the other rinsed his eyes with saline solution. Then they led him to a shower around the corner.

A squinty-eyed man pushed in next to Adric. His mustache almost covering his big teeth, he was the stranger who’d helped Jean-Marie and Adric with the victims. “Like Adric said, the operators had left for rounds. Armando was standing around telling jokes and got a call-out to the cracking unit. When he radioed his crew chief for help, they notified us because we were a half mile closer. Said they thought it was H2S.”

Adric recovered his voice and picked up the story. “After the call, I had my crew turn off flow, then sound the alarms.”

“I’m glad you were right on top of the situation,” Lynn said.

Turning off the oil had also cut the gas flow to the flare and explained the flare’s dimming they’d seen from the conference room, as Lynn had assumed. This refinery still has its expert operators. But what caused the leak?

free kindle nation shorts Free Kindle Nation Shorts, L.A. Starks

Free Kindle Nation Shorts — March 2, 2011: An Excerpt from The Haunted e-Book, A Novel by JL Bryan

May 6, 2011March 2, 2011 by KND

“Read any good books lately?”

We’ve all been asked the question hundreds of times, but once you begin reading J.L. Bryan’s The Haunted e-Book that question is likely …

To send chills up your spine?

To creep you out?

To ruin e-books for you forever?

Probably not the last thing, but prepare to be scared.

“Think Ur Meets The Bookman’s Promise.”

By Stephen Windwalker

Editor, Kindle Nation Daily
©Kindle Nation Daily 2011

I don’t know about you, but as a reader, a former bookstore owner, and an author, I’ve always been a sucker for books about books … about booksellers … about libraries … and lately, about ebooks.

I loved Stephen King’s Ur and I was thrilled when John Dunning’s Cliff Janeway books became available on Kindle.

But King’s novella was short and had a bit of the “made-to-order” product placement about it, so now I’m happy to share with you the news that a terrific full-length novel by JL Bryan has become available on the Kindle and … yes … about the Kindle. And it’s a real treat to be able to share this 5,000-word free excerpt with you through our Free Kindle Nation Shorts program!

Click here to begin reading the free excerpt

The author is in the midst of a blog tour to promote the book, and he is giving away some nice prizes. You can find out more about those here — http://www.jlbryanbooks.com/thehauntedebooktour.html — but to be totally truthful I should let you know that I called him up at home this evening and told him “Jeff, I’m happy to mention the blog tour and the giveaways, but you’ve got a terrific book here and I don’t want the other stuff to get in the way of that/”

So here at Kindle Nation, we’re all about the book, and here it is. Enjoy….

The Haunted E-book

by JL Bryan

4.1 out of 5 stars – 10 Reviews

Kindle Price: $2.99

Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

UK CUSTOMERS:

Click on the title below to download

The Haunted e-Book

Click here to begin reading our free excerpt

Here’s the set-up:

Dee escapes her dreary librarian job and unfaithful boyfriend by reading romance and fantasy on her Kindle.

She tries The Haunted E-book, the story of a 19th century tramp printer whose ghost awakens whenever someone reads a book he created. The ghost stalks his readers and threatens them with death if they stop reading the book. Though she doesn’t usually like ghost stories, Dee can’t stop herself from reading it.

Then Dee learns the stories in the book are true, the malevolent ghost is real, and Dee might be the next character to die.

Free Kindle Nation Shorts – March 2, 2011

An Excerpt from

The Hauted e-Book

A Novel by JL Bryan

CHAPTER ONE

“Don’t that thing hurt your eyes?” asked the children’s librarian, Cloris Measley. Cloris was in her fifties, her hair a shade of red that could not be found in nature.

“No, it’s not like a computer screen.” Dee tapped the Amazon Kindle in her hands. “It’s made just for reading.”

“Seems like it’d hurt your eyes.” Cloris sat across from Dee at the picnic table.

Dee was enjoying her half-hour lunch break. The picnic table behind the library was under a stand of old oak trees, and it offered the only shade in sight on a hot September day.

“These kids are worse every summer,” Cloris said. “I can feel my hair turning gray. Mind if I smoke?”

Dee shook her head.

Cloris glanced back over her shoulder at the back door of the library, then slipped a Virginia Slim into her mouth.

“Sorry,” Cloris said. “Have to sneak when I can. Leslie still don’t let me smoke on library property. Which don’t make it easy, listening to kids holler and cleaning snot off their books.”

“I’m sorry,” Dee said.

“I’m sorry for you, too,” Cloris said. “You should have been promoted to Circulation Librarian II. I don’t see why Maggie got it, she’s not all there.”

“Maggie’s in Leslie’s bridge club,” Dee said. “I’m not, and I haven’t been invited, either.”

“Would you play, if they invited?” Cloris asked.

“No!”

They both laughed.

“And how is that boyfriend?” Cloris asked. “You still seeing Justin?”

“I see him, but I’m not sure he sees me,” Dee said.

Cloris gave an uncomfortable laugh. She looked at the Kindle and changed the subject. “What are you reading?”

“It’s a seventeenth-century romance,” Dee said. “The Pirates of Paris.”

“Why on Earth would there be pirates in Paris? There’s no ocean.”

“They have to spend their loot somewhere,” Dee said. “In this case, the rugged pirate captain Jacques Forquois is wooing a young noblewoman, Mireille. But she’s engaged to an aristocrat, the Marquis du Chappelier. So they have to meet in secret places, brothels, playhouses…”

“How exciting!” Cloris said. “Do they got it as a real book, too? Or just a computer thingy?”

“I’m not sure.”

The back door of the library swung open, and branch manager Leslie McKenna stood there, hunched over her cane. Cloris heard the door open behind her and visibly panicked, looking down at the burning cigarette in her fingers.

“Cloris?” Leslie asked. “Cloris, what are you doing back here?”

“I’m just looking at Dee’s new computer book whatcha-callit!”

“There are two children in need of reading recommends,” Leslie sang. “Why don’t you come in now?”

Cloris crushed out her cigarette.

“Now, Cloris!”

Cloris crammed the cigarette butt down between two boards of the picnic table. She stood, brushed off, and gave Dee a nervous smile.

“Cloris!” Leslie yelled.

“Good luck,” Dee whispered.

Cloris walked to the back door of the library. Leslie took up most of the doorway, leaning on her cane, and refused to move. Cloris had to turn sideways and squeeze past her. Leslie sniffed at Cloris and shook her head.

Leslie cast Dee a suspicious look, then slammed the heavy metal door.

Dee’s cell phone rang, for the third time today. Justin. She didn’t want to hear about how he was working late again, or going out to Danny O’s with the boys again. She could tell when he was lying.

Instead, she turned off her phone and dove into the world of charming pirates, French court politics, and eager Mireille’s heavy and passionate bosom. It was her only escape from Leslie, from Justin, from the hot and dying town of Elmer, Georgia, where she’d gotten trapped somewhere between the end of college and the start of her real life, the one that would begin on some yet-to-be-determined day on the future.

Dee read:

“I will love you forever,” Jacques proclaimed, grabbing Mireille hastily in the wardrobe room of the theater. Out beyond the stage, the audience sighed at a sad moment in the play.

“But we cannot be together!” Mireille sighed. “My father would forbid it!”

“In my world, the world of pirates, nothing is forbidden,” Jacques breathed suavely, caressing her.

“Oh, but in my world, everything is!” Mireille sighed.

The rest of her day at the library was as dull as the morning had been. Dee suffered under the hawkish stare of Leslie, who had never adjusted to the county assigning a black woman to work in her library, though Dee had been at the library four years now.

Dee went home to an empty apartment. It was small, tucked into the upper corner of a rundown brick building. The building had four apartments in all, and the two downstairs had been empty as long as she’d lived here.

The apartment was cramped but comfortable, with secondhand bookshelves along most of the walls. These were stuffed with poetry, plays, fantasy, romance. Most of her books were tattered paperbacks scrounged from flea markets and garage sales.

Dee walked into the kitchenette and pressed the automatic can opener. Skitter bounded into the room as fast as his heavy belly would allow. The fat orange cat must have been sleeping in her bed, or on the cool tiles of her bathroom floor, since those were the only other rooms in her apartment.

“There you are.” Dee scratched Skitter’s neck. He purred while she poured dry food in his bowl. “You decide to make an appearance?”

She was convinced Skitter had the power to turn invisible. Even in this tiny apartment, he could disappear for days at a time. The only evidence of his existence would be the magically disappearing cat food and the magically dirty litter box.

“Where do you think Justin is?” she asked Skitter. “Working late, grinding the sausage? Shooting pool with the guys? What do you think?”

Skitter had no opinion. He crunched into his cat food.

Dee called Justin’s phone, but he didn’t answer.

“Justin, we don’t have much to eat,” she said to his voice mail. “Since you’re at the grocery store, grab us something. Not pickles and bacon again, either.” She hung up.

He probably wasn’t at the Farm-N-Fresh Grocery Mart, making yet another “special meat order.”

Ella Rae was a cashier at the Farm-N-Fresh. She was twenty-four, ten years younger than Justin, but always looking at Justin with her chest poked out, twirling her purple hair around her fingertip and snapping her gum. Dee saw how she winked at him, how she punched him in the arm and giggled, and now Dee couldn’t stand to shop at Farm-N-Fresh anymore. She had to drive twenty miles to the Kroger in Americus.

Dee picked up the Kindle again.

Jacques kissed her full, ripe, red, strawberry-like lips. He kissed her with great ardor, caressing her curvaceous bosom.

“Oh, Jacques,” Mireille sighed. “You are such a dangerous and manly pirate.”

“I can’t do it anymore, Skitter,” Dee said. “This book is too stupid.”

Skitter licked his paw indifferently.

“I’m sick of romance. It’s all bullcrap. In real life, your boyfriend isn’t a dashing and suave pirate who ties roses to your doorknob as a secret message. He slices bologna at the Farm-N-Fresh and forgets to wear deodorant and then he sleeps with some drugged-out checkout girl and pretends you don’t know it. And you wonder what you were thinking, dating a townie.”

Skitter jumped into the easy chair and curled up. He closed his eyes.

“Thanks for your support,” Dee said.

She picked up the Kindle and clicked the bookstore link. Dee’s neighbor BJ had a wireless internet thing, and let her feed it off it. She supposedly paid him a few dollars a month for this, but he never really accepted the money.

Dee stared at the bookstore page. She wanted something dark and twisted. Like real life. Something where the characters seemed real, everybody suffered, and nobody was happy at the end.

This mood eventually led her to the horror section. Each book had a cover graphic, so this meant sifting through pages of skulls, castles, candles, tombstones, sinister red churches, countless pale and sallow vampires.

One oddball book caught her attention. The cover was plain and black-no lingerie models dripping blood from their mouths, no rotten hands jutting out of the grave. The title, in ghostly letters, was:

THE HAUNTED E-BOOK

By Unknown

Dee snickered at the title. It might as well be called The Evil Penguin or The Demonic Shoelace. And the author hadn’t even put his name on it, a pretty bad sign.

She decided she could use a laugh, so she downloaded the free sample chapter of the book.

The first page of the book said:

WARNING: Publisher not responsible for any supernatural incidents, events or hauntings that may result from reading this book.

“Ha!” Dee said. “Cute. Skitter, you should read this.”

Skitter was asleep on his back, snore-purring, his fluffy white belly exposed to the world.

Dee pressed the arrow button to flip the page. The story began:

THE HAUNTED E-BOOK:

Chapter 1.

Madison was alone on the seventh floor of the university library. She sat at her favorite table, by the windows. Outside, the night was as dark as death. The full moon stared at her like a cold yellow eye, watching and waiting.

Madison had not noticed as the handful of other students left over the past hour, taking their books and notes with them. She liked the ninth floor because it was quiet, especially at night. The floor held odd-sized books, like art folios. It was the top floor, the most remote.

She liked being away from everyone. People always stared at the twisted pink burn scars on the left side of her face and down along her neck.

If she had noticed everyone was gone, she would have been glad. The library was her retreat from her annoying, peppy roommate, who didn’t mind having loud and squealy sex with her boyfriend Tyler, even when Madison was trying to sleep in the same room.

Madison didn’t notice she was alone because she was absorbed in the Kindle reader in her hands. The story had completely drawn her in, and she lost all sense of her own surroundings. She was reading something called The Haunted E-book. It was kind of stupid, but also kind of scary. And it was getting scarier.

Madison read: 4

THE HAUNTED E-BOOK:

Chapter 4.

Parker stalked away from her friends, who still laughed at her from the food court. Her face was red and angry. It wasn’t funny that Brenden had cheated on her with Misty. She didn’t see how that was funny at all.

To be alone, she walked down the mall’s south wing, where a lot of the stores had permanently closed. The storefronts were either covered in plywood or just staring out like blank glass eyes. The only two stores still open up here were a Candy’s Candles and a Buddy’s Book-A-Rama.

Parker glanced into Candy’s Candles. It was illuminated only by candlelight, with dozens of odors swirling together-jasmine, vanilla, cherry blossom, chocolate, musk. The combination of so many smells was sickening.

Inside the store, an elderly clerk slumbered at the checkout. Her wrinkled eyelids were closed behind her glasses, which had slid down to the tip of her nose.

Parker walked past the candle store. At the end of the south wing was Buddy’s, her favorite place when she was a child. On Saturdays, they used to have people dressed like famous book characters, Peter Pan or the grinning Cheshire cat. Their children’s book section was a wonderland that took up half the store, with fairy castles and furry hand puppets.

She’d lost interest in Buddy’s around age eleven, when she started middle school. Now she stepped into the store for the first time in five years.

Buddy’s had not thrived. The linoleum floor in the grown-up part of the store was filthy and cracked. The bright orange carpet in the children’s half was spattered with dark stains, and some areas were frayed and showed the concrete floor beneath. The handpainted castle was peeling and dusty.

The Storytime Land behind the cheerful picket fence, where the children’s specialist used to read stories to young customers, had once been decorated with brightly colored chairs and cushions. Now it was a storage area crammed with cardboard boxes, bulging garbage bags and empty rotating paperback racks.

Puppets lay strewn on the floor of the children’s section like bodies after a war. She saw Larry the Lion, his arm sheared off, his eyes gouged out, his mane clotted with years of snot. The smiling puppet clown Pupeeto had a pencil stabbed through his mouth, and it looked like he was choking on it.

Half the lights were out overhead, and the remaining yellow fluorescent bars sizzled and flickered, giving the store a shuddering, nauseating look. She didn’t see any customers, or any employees in their smiley-face yellow Buddy’s Book-A-Rama aprons. The four checkout lanes were empty, their jaunty twirling lights switched off.

Parker walked past aisle after aisle of books, seeing no people. The bookshelves seemed understocked and dusty, with large empty gaps in every section. Torn books were scattered on the crumbling linoleum floor.

“Hello? Is anybody here?” Parker heard herself ask. It was a stupid question. The store was open, so obviously somebody was here. They must be working in the back. A great chance to swipe something.

Parker walked down the horror aisle, looking for books with the scariest, goriest covers. She didn’t care about reading them, but she wanted Brenden to see her reading books like that. Then she could look up at him with cold, glaring eyes over a black book with snarling red corpses on the cover, like she was plotting revenge. Maybe she could do that at school Monday.

She found the grossest zombie paperback the store had, with a guy’s face eaten up by maggots. She looked around. She didn’t see any cameras, or any of those weird rounded mirrors she was convinced might be cameras, too.

She shoved the book down the front of her jeans. She adjusted her wide belt, then quickly covered the bulging waistband of her jeans with her shirt.

A loud squeaking, clacking sound echoed through the store the moment she had the book covered. She looked up again, panicked, but still couldn’t see any sign of security cameras. No way anybody had seen her swipe the book way back here in the aisle.

Parker strolled as casually as she could out of the aisle, listening to the squeaking and clacking as it slowed down. She stepped into the open central space of the store.

She still didn’t see anybody, but she found the source of the squeaking. In the story-land-turned-storage-area, one of the empty paperback racks was spinning. Something tacked to it kept clacking against the other empty racks. It looked like someone had tied something to the rack, given it a hard spin, and then run away.

Parker walked past some cheesy display with a big projection screen above it. She stepped over the fence into the children’s section and approached the rack as its spinning slowed. It stopped when she reached it. Whatever had been tied to the rack was behind it, caught on another rack.

Parker lay her shaking hand on the rack. She slowly turned it until she saw what had been attached.

It was Pupeeto the clown, pencil impaled through his mouth, pinning him to the rack.

She held the clown in her hand. Its big orange wig and puffy shirt buttons were stiff with years of kid saliva. One button eye dangled by a thread.

“Pupeeto?” she said aloud.

There was a loud clattering, then a crash. Parker spun around.

The store was closed. The wire mesh security wall had just rolled down across the entrance, trapping her inside.

“Hey!” Parker yelled. She ran to the mesh and tried to pull it up, but it wouldn’t give. It felt locked into place. She pulled as hard as she could, and the middle fingernail on her left hand bent backward and snapped.

“Ow!” Parker slapped both palms against the wire security mesh. “Hey! Somebody help me!” she yelled into the deserted south wing of the mall. Empty storefronts stared back at her.

free kindle nation shorts Free Kindle Nation Shorts, jl bryan, the haunted ebook

Free Kindle Nation Shorts — February 27, 2011: An Excerpt from Madeline Mann, a novel by Julia Buckley

August 18, 2011February 27, 2011 by Steve Windwalker

“Madeline’s zany family and humorous narrative make this series debut a pleasurable cozy read … definitely a writer to watch.”

—The Library Journal

By Stephen Windwalker

Kindle Nation readers, do you have any idea how important you are to emerging authors?

Several times a month some of the best indie authors publishing on the Kindle platform share generous excerpts of their work here through the Free Kindle Nation Shorts program, and they are counting on you, and on our small staff here at Kindle Nation, to help separate work of distinction from the vast rest of it.

So far, it is working. We’ve seen Free Kindle Nation Shorts authors whose books have moved into the top 100 in the Kindle Store, and others who have signed contracts with AmazonEncore and other publishers, and others for whom entire series have caught fire. Just a couple of weeks ago one of the very first authors to be featured in this program received a rave review in the Sunday New York Times Book Review for her newly released novel. But the proof is always in the pudding, and in the few cases where you our readers have stamped “mediocre” on one of our selections, it has tended to fall where it belonged in the first place, by the wayside.

That won’t be the case this week, because we’ve got an emerging star in the house.

I’m especially pleased and confident this evening to share a generous excerpt from the debut novel in Julia Buckley’s Madeline Mann Mysteries, entitled, appropriately enough, Madeline Mann. If you’re a fan of suspense from the woman’s angle, I believe you’ll love … wait for it … “the Madman.”

Madeline Mann

(The Madeline Mann Mysteries)

by Julia Buckley

Kindle Price: $2.99

Text-to-Speech: Enabled

Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.

UK CUSTOMERS: Click on the title below to download

Madeline Mann (The Madeline Mann Mysteries)

“bright debut” –Kirkus Reviews

Click here to begin reading our free excerpt

Here’s the set-up:

Madeline Mann is a small town reporter whom nobody takes seriously until her old high school friend disappears; when Maddy begins her search for Logan Lanford, everyone takes notice.

This might be because just about everyone is a suspect in Logan’s disappearance, from his neglected wife to the shady mayor to Logan’s jealous brother. Even Madeline’s boyfriend seems to harbor some resentment toward the AWOL Logan and his reputation as a philanderer.

In searching for her old friend, Madeline is also searching for vindication of her career choice and a chance to be independent from a family that threatens to drive her crazy.

What the Reviewers Say

“In her bright debut, Maddy is a welcome addition to the cozy scene.”

–Kirkus Reviews

“An intriguing debut in an engaging, fresh new series. Make mine Madeline Mann!”

–Julia Spencer-Fleming, author of I Shall Not Want

“This tightly plotted mystery is a fast-paced exhilarating ride, and investigative reporter Madeline Mann is by far the best female lead to come along since Stephanie Plum. A cool, clever, funny read, and the beginning of an absolutely delightful series. Julia Buckley rocks.”

–Anne Frasier, bestselling author of Hush and Pale Immortal

“Madeline Mann is an absolute delight. Oh, that all murder mys-teries could be so much fun to solve. I love Buckley’s flawless style; her small town American settings are perfect, and her characters are so real it wouldn’t surprise me to discover one of the brothers rummaging in my refrigerator. Julia Buckley has a winner here-charming, intelligent, and exciting. More ‘Mad-man,’ please-and soon!”

-Robert Fate, author of the Baby Shark series

“Reporter Madeline ‘Madman’ Mann is a great character: smart, warm, witty, and just wacky enough for spice. I hope this is the beginning of many, many Madman books to come.”

–Barbara D’Amato, author of the Cat Marsala Mysteries

Free Kindle Nation Shorts – February 27, 2011

An Excerpt from

Madeline Mann

A Novel by Julia Buckley

For my brothers and sisters:

Bill, Claudia, Christopher, and Linda.

You have helped me know the warmth of family;

as a result, Madeline knows it too.

one

My capricious episodes have made me notorious in my family. Often unexpected, even by me, they are whimsical impulses I sometimes feel compelled to follow. Often my motivation is clear–as in the doll-head-shaving incident when I was seven, prompted by my older brother’s comment that my Beautiful Chrissy was “too girlie”–but sometimes the notion is a bit more mysterious, like the infamous wild ride I took in my father’s gray Celebrity when I was seventeen. I’d been a sedate driver previous to the incident and ever since, but on this afternoon some demon caused me to rocket down Alder, Webley’s quietest side street. I shot past a playground, glimpsed the pale, shocked faces of an elderly hand-holding couple in matching sweat suits, and set some aged doggies to barking. Despite some passionate last-minute braking, I rear-ended a newly minted Mr. Whippy ice cream truck and consequently alienated my father for a full month.

These sorts of occurrences earned me a nickname from both of my brothers: Madman. It wasn’t a clever creation on their part, since it’s merely an ironic combination of my first and last names, Madeline Mann, but I have a feeling Madman would have become my nickname even if I’d been christened Jill Smith. Though I’m basically a quiet, thoughtful person, I can sometimes be ruled by my impulses–based upon what I like to call the “floating vibes” I feel in a given situation. Sometimes I need to take vibe-restoring action. It’s hard to explain, but there’s a certain rightness about it within me. It’s the only way to begin this story, I’ve decided, because I never would have become involved in a murder investigation if I hadn’t, in fact, been mutinously reacting to something else.

A case in point is my hair. Jack, my upstairs neighbor for two years and my boyfriend for one, loved my brunette locks; they were fairly thick and smooth and hung straight and simple to my shoulders. When Jack and I had our first big argument one autumn night and I stormed out of his apartment and flew down the stairs to mine (we lived in the same three-flat), I was definitely in one of those unstable moods. I felt it was over, and I felt it was Jack’s fault. I was miserable but furious.

Who knows where wacky ideas come from? I simply had one. I took out my barber’s shears and carefully cut off two or three inches of my hair. I ran out to the drugstore and bought L’Oreal Preference blonde dye–“Because I’m worth it,” I murmured throatily to myself in the store aisle. I hurried home and applied the smelly stuff without further thought. I had to let it sit for forty-five minutes, during which time I played Peter, Paul, and Mary’s Ten Years Together CD and sang along with every song while I perused a Cat Fancy magazine. (I don’t have cats, but I fancy them. My landlord doesn’t.)

I took a shower, rinsed out the dye, and pampered myself with some scented powder before slipping into my favorite jeans and a gray T-shirt with Shakespeare’s face on it. I flopped into my papasan chair and considered the reading material on the steamer trunk that was my coffee table. My brother had lent me a biography of Howard Hughes and I had a Nora Roberts book from the library. Not in the mood for either, I decided. My life needed a little mystery. I opted for an Agatha Christie off the shelf above me. Eventually, three chapters into What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!, I wandered back into the bathroom to take a look at what I’d done.

I was expecting the worst. I’d burned myself on numerous occasions–the bad perms, the “no Novocain” decision, the jalape-o eaten on a dare, the downright loony choice of watching my cousin’s colicky six-month-old for a weekend–I could go on. To my amazement, I liked what I saw in the bathroom mirror. Not only did I look perky as a blonde, I looked like I’d been born a blonde. I have green eyes and pale skin, and I’d serendipitously chosen a shade that accentuated them.

Jack had told me on more than one occasion that I was beautiful; my mother had told me that I had “good German bones.” Now, for a moment, I thought I could see what they meant. I fancied that I looked like a sort of poor man’s Elke Sommer. I pouted in front of the glass like a ferocious supermodel until I was quite sick of myself; then I decided to prowl around the building in hopes of a purposely accidental meeting with my brand-new ex, Jack.

I found him in the tiny laundry room, a small addition Mr. Altschul had built on the back of the ground floor of his large Victorian house (now three apartments accommodating the aforementioned German landlord, attractive ex-lover, and newly blonde me). Jack was stuffing all his clothes into the washer, darks and lights alike. He was obviously still angry about our fight, because he was jamming things in with extra force, as though his clothes offended him. I stepped casually into the room, ostensibly to check for an unused washing machine. Jack took one look at me and his hands flew to his stomach and one knee came up, as though I’d hurled a softball into his abdomen.

“What did you do to your hair?” he gasped.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I asked, curling a blonde strand behind my ear.

“Are you nuts?”

“Is the washer available?”

“For God’s sake, you couldn’t just talk it out with me? You had to go and turn yourself into someone else?”

“I like it. Don’t you like it?” I think my tone made clear that I wouldn’t be happy with anything but an affirmative response.

“Madeline–“

“What?”

We faced each other, our unresolved argument still sitting like an iceberg between us. Since the crux of it was Jack’s tendency to control me, his protest against my hair color choice was not, I thought, the wisest response.

He finished shoving his clothes into the washer, hastily sprinkled some Tide over them, shut the lid, and cranked the knob with energy. I had always admired Jack’s athleticism, being rather sedentary myself; even now I could appreciate his well-shaped, tanned forearms as they strong-armed the coin slot. He turned to face me, trying to keep his emotions in check.

“Okay, I don’t know what you want, Maddy, but I don’t think you do either.”

“You’ve decided that for me?”

“Stop it.”

“Are you going to acknowledge that I’m an adult woman who can make her own decisions?”

“I never doubted it.” He folded his arms defensively in front of his chest. He was wearing a solid black T-shirt and some old gray jogging shorts. I felt a pang of sadness, because I used to borrow the outfit.

“You opened my mail, Jack.”

“It was a second notice–“

“It was my second notice!” I heard my voice shrilling, and I toned it down. “If I got a hundred notices, it wouldn’t change the fact that they were addressed to me!”

Jack ran a hand through his wavy brown hair. He looked around the laundry room as though hunting for inspiration among the detergent and clothespins. I felt for him. In the year we’d been together, arguments had been rare, and always resolved. This one, to his surprise, wasn’t going away.

Jack sighed and shrugged. “I’m sorry I made you angry. But I’ve got to tell you, Maddy, if I thought I was doing something wrong, I wouldn’t have done it. I mean, if you don’t know me by nowÉ”

He let the sentence hang there. We faced each other like duelists.

“I guess I feel married to you,” he continued. “I don’t think it’s a big deal for a husband to open his wife’s mail. I feel like a husband. We love each other, we sleep together, we’re monogamous, we practically live together–“

“In separate apartments.”

“Only because you want it that way. So we both have some control here, don’t we, Madeline?”

I took a deep breath and made myself unclench my fists. “I’ve got to be up early tomorrow to do some work, so I’m going to bed now. I suggest you steer clear of me unless you are willing to address the actual issue. This isn’t about love or marriage or which bed I choose to sleep in. This is about acknowledging my autonomy and my rights, just as you would for a male best friend who was your roommate.”

His jaw dropped. “Are you calling me sexist?”

“If the narrow shoe fits,” I yelled over my shoulder as I stomped out of the room.

I caught a glimpse of Mr. Altschul’s nose as he pulled it back into his apartment, and felt a blush of shame. We had turned this into One Life to Live in a matter of hours. I doubted our landlord would request our departure, since he was obviously thrilled by the fireworks, but I felt shame nonetheless. Aside from my aforementioned erratic moments, which were relatively rare, I was a reasonable, even reserved person. My brothers, Fritz and Gerhard, called this trait “the Too-Teutonic Reserve,” since they saw it as a hereditary flaw passed down by my German-immigrant parents–one that prevented meine Bruder from bonding with numerous women. My brothers liked Jack very much. They weren’t going to be thrilled by my news of a breakup, especially since they thought everything I did was irrational. They thought I chose to date Jack, a rare family-sanctioned decision, because they were there when we met and they helped to influence the outcome–about which they were, of course, wrong.

It was the guitar that made me fall in love with him. He’d been playing it on the day I moved in. (My mother had won me the apartment by chatting with Mr. Altschul in German.) I was sitting, exhausted, on top of a packing box and eating ice cream with my sweaty siblings, who had hauled in all of the heavy stuff. Suddenly, a melody wafted through the window, unmistakably played on a guitar and pretty certainly coming from the apartment above. Then a voice began singing, as though my own troubadour had come

to woo me at my window. I wondered vaguely if the singer was a professional.

“What’s that?” asked Fritz, two years my junior, distracted for a moment from his double scoop cone, his fox-like face alert, his red mustache dripping.

“A guitar, brain,” answered Gerhard, two years my elder, still studying his ice cream sandwich’s label, his dark brows furrowed above his handsome face.

“The song, I mean.” Fritz shoved what remained of his cone in his mouth and then, in an awesome feat, continued to speak: “The awhtist.”

“Gordon Lightfoot,” I ventured. He was playing “That’s What You Get for Lovin’ Me.”

“It’s acoustic,” Fritz sneered.

“That’s right. We forgot you don’t like instruments that can’t be plugged in,” Gerhard quipped.

“Or musicians who play more than one chord progression over and over,” I added spitefully, referring to Fritz’s garage band, the Grinning Bishops, who had once practiced in my parents’ garage but had mercifully moved their act to his friend Chuck’s basement. Apparently things were different now, though, because Fritz actually made more money some weeks with the band than he did working as a manager at Barnes and Noble. In any case, our family tended to remember those appalling years, the discordant notes and loud feedback still echoing in our nightmares.

Some kids grow out of that nasty argumentative phase, but my brothers and I still argue–I think, sometimes, it’s to express our closeness. We feel we have the right to be sarcastic because we’re family. We don’t strike each other or fling things, but we have potentially cruel tongues.

Still, it was my brothers I went upstairs and called now. They share an apartment, so they were able to yell at me on two extensions.

“Wait until Mom hears this,” Fritz threatened. “She’s gonna have a nutty. She was crocheting some sort of little bag for your wedding.”

“Shut up, Fritz, that’s a secret,” boomed Gerhard in my ear.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? She dumped him.” The two of them began an argument of their own, and it comforted me briefly, until I heard Jack playing his guitar upstairs. He knew I could hear him; I’d confided that to him long ago. I could even hear lyrics when my window was open, which it was now. Jack was playing “Devil Woman.” Real subtle.

“We weren’t even engaged,” I protested.

“It doesn’t matter, Madman. He’s the one she wants you to marry. Everyone does. He’s not a total loser, like some we could name, so of course you had to break up with him.” Fritz, as usual, opted for criticism over compassion.

Gerhard was gentler, by a hair. “Really, Madman, we did like him. I have to wonder if the problem isn’t just something you’re manufacturing, maybe for a little drama?”

“Okay, I’m hanging up now!” I yelled just before I slammed down the receiver.

I rubbed at my eyes. There was no one who was going to be on my side here, except maybe good ol’ Gloria Steinem, and I didn’t think she’d be returning my e-mails, or voice mails, or whatever kind of mails I might send her.

This was where Fate intervened. Jack had switched to something more melancholy; it sounded like some sort of sea chantey. I imagine he thought it would send me running up there in a diaphanous gown, seeking a night of passion in his bed. In his defense, I suppose it had happened before. I’m only human, and I do love the guitar. However, despite the sound of the lonely sailor above me, I remained on my couch, and I was back into Agatha Christie and Mrs. McGillicuddy when the phone rang. It was Fritz. He’d forgotten to tell me, in his anger, that Logan Lanford had disappeared. Naturally, Fritz was holding me personally responsible.

two

The following morning I walked briskly out the door, appreciatively sniffing the autumn-scented air, my mind still on Logan Lanford. Logan and I had gone to high school together, and it was I who had recommended Logan for Fritz’s band. Logan was a great musician, and I’d been concerned about him since he’d gotten fired from his public-relations job at the town hall a couple of months before. My mom worked part-time for the mayor, and I tried to pump her for information about Logan’s termination, but she merely shrugged and said that Mayor Paul had his reasons. Logan had a wife and two kids to support, so I mentioned to Fritz that Logan played bass. Fritz needed a bass player, and it seemed like the obvious solution.

I was still thinking about this, and about Fritz’s incoherent ramblings about Logan’s disappearance, when I spied Jack tinkering under the hood of my car. I was tempted to yell something, but I decided instead to catch him in the act. Furtively, catlike, I moved toward him, trying to stay in the cool shadow of the building. He must have seen me out of the corner of an eye, because he let the hood slam shut, which brought Mr. Altschul to the window with surprising speed, considering the arthritis and the lack of knee cartilage. Our landlord lingered at his ground-level window, ostensibly as a noise hunter, but quite obviously as an eavesdropper.

He had to be standing on a chair.

Jack looked ready to hare off in the other direction, but I was quick.

“What are you doing under my hood?”

“Checking your oil.” He was a bold one. He wore a look of complete indifference.

“What gave you the–who do you think–this is just so unbelievably–“

“You never check it, Madeline. Just because you’re mad at me doesn’t mean I’m going to stop caring about your safety.”

“Good timing, Jack. You couldn’t even wait a day before you displayed still another controlling behavior. I’m tempted to call the police. Really. You’ve committed a crime.”

That got his goat. “All right. Call the police. Tell them I checked your oil–which is fine, by the way–and gave you new wiper blades and filled your windshield reservoir. Tell them you’re my recently ex girlfriend, and some old habits die hard!” Jack was the kind of guy who didn’t get loud when he got angry, but he did develop some facial twitches. His one dimple would appear, just as it did when he was happy or mischievous. I stared at his dimple, too upset to meet his slate blue eyes.

He cleared his throat. “Besides. Technically, I didn’t ‘break into’ your car–you left it unlocked again.” He shrugged, as though my carelessness cleansed him of all responsibility.

I lowered my voice, aware of the long, curious nose in the window behind me. “This is what we’re fighting about, Jack: not because you’re not a good person or I don’t love certain things about you, but because you have this pathological need to control my life!”

“A lot of people would be grateful–“

“That’s not the point. All you had to do was come to me and offer, as a friend. I might have said yes, thank you, how nice of you. But you didn’t, and I’ll tell you why. Because you didn’t want to give me the option of saying no. Right, Jack?”

I had the brief satisfaction of seeing him squirm. “I didn’t mean to make you upset, Maddy. I just wanted–I felt–“

“You love her!” yelled Mr. Altschul, impatient with our labored conversation. “Mein Gott!” He slammed his window in despair, sending some very offended birds shrieking away.

We stood in silence for a moment, and then we began to laugh. It was a nice release. I was able to admire again how wonderful Jack looked when he was smiling–friendly creases at the corners of his eyes, straight white teeth, and the solitary, beloved dimple in his clean-shaven face.

“He’s taken our troubles very personally,” I said softly. “After all, that’s one hundred percent of his tenants with unhappy love lives. But I know we’re another soap opera to him. I hear him yelling at his TV all the time, like, ‘Don’t let her walk avay! Tell her you were drugged when Carly seduced you!'”

I imitated his German accent to the best of my ability, and Jack, grinning, nodded in recognition.

“He summarizes the plots for me when I’m stretching before a run. I guess I should stop stretching in front of the Old School.” This is what Jack called our building, because I told him that’s what Altschul means: “old school.” I realized I was softening, so I looked at my watch. “I’ve got to fly. I have to do some, uh–research.”

His eyebrows went up; he was curious. I could forgive that, because I happen to be very nosy about everything Jack does as well. However, he wasn’t going to make the mistake of asking what I was up to, not after two arguments in a row.

“Have a nice morning,” he said.

He looked rather forlorn, standing there with his windshield fluid. Things like that tempt a person to give in, but I had my principles. “Thanks.”

He touched my arm. “I have some bad habits, Maddy. I’ll work on them. You’ve been happy with me for a year, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” I acknowledged.

“Just tell me it’s not over. I don’t expect you to hop back into bed with me. Right away. Just tell me you’re not going to leave me over this, okay?”

“IÉ” I hesitated, confronted by the dimple in a truly earnest expression. “I’d like to see us work things out. We’ll see.” I opened the driver’s door of my rehabbed Merkur Scorpio, a car I’d chosen because it bore my astrological sign.

“Dinner tonight?” he asked, with an appealing amount of humility.

“We’ll see.”

“I’m cooking.”

I shut the driver’s door and rolled down the window a crack. “Let me see how the day goes. If you’re planning some kind of seductionÉ”

“I’m not, Maddy. I said I wasn’t.”

“Because what we need is communication, not sex.” This wasn’t entirely true, as one thing Jack and I had in common was a healthy zest for making love, but I was trying to make a point.

He put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Can you at least call and let me know? Chicken Shea takes two hours to prepare.”

Chicken Shea, I thought, suppressing a smirk. How did I end up dating a guy who named recipes after himself? Still, I happened to know that Chicken Shea was delicious, as was most of what Jack created in the kitchen.

“Fair enoug

References to prices on this website refer to prices on the main Amazon.com website for US customers. Prices will vary for readers located outside the US, and prices for US customers may change at any time. Always check the price on Amazon before making a purchase.

Why should I provide my email address?

It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Orchard Valley Brides: A Romance Novel by Debbie Macomber

The sixth book in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s treasured Little House series: The Long Winter

High school sweethearts. A second chance. Can he grab hold of forever before the lights go down on their love? Dinner, Sex, and a Movie: A Love Story by Sean Develin

An ancient evil has awakened… Kaalchakra: The Rise of Kalki by Aaditya Sengupta Dhar

His touch is her sin. Her love is his salvation… My Fallen Saint: Devlin & Ellie Trilogy (Saints and Sinners Book 1) by J. Kenner

It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Alexandria Rising: Book 1 of The Alexandria Rising Chronicles by Mark Wallace Maguire

“A fascinating medical suspense tale that is sure to keep readers turning the pages from cover to cover…” Ill Intent: A Medical Thriller by Geoffrey M Cooper

She messed with the wrong billionaire… Bought (A New Adult Billionaire Romance) by Em Brown

An undercover angel. A broken doctor. A love that defies the heavens… Chris Gets the Girl: A Sweet Paranormal Romance by Nellie Steele

A small town suspense romance perfect for fans of western thriller dramas and big-city heat… Love Me Dangerous by USA Today bestselling author Dakota Davies

The bestselling story of how someone with a ‘perfect life’ can lose it all–and then find everything…. Something Blue by Emily Giffin

Two teens, two powers—would you die to save your loved ones? Vibrations: Children of Atlantis by A. R. Alexander

Free Kindle Nation Shorts — March 10, 2011: An Excerpt from The Big Wake-Up, “An August Riordan Mystery” by Mark Coggins

Cable Car Crunch

A Universe of Stars, a Galaxie of Dents

Necrophobia

Cementerio de la Recoleta

Free Kindle Nation Shorts — March 7, 2011: An Excerpt from “Invisible Path,” a Tempe Crabtree Mystery by Marilyn Meredith

An Excerpt from 13 Days: The Pythagoras Conspiracy, a Novel by LA Starks – Free Kindle Nation Shorts — March 6, 2011

Free Kindle Nation Shorts — March 2, 2011: An Excerpt from The Haunted e-Book, A Novel by JL Bryan

Free Kindle Nation Shorts — February 27, 2011: An Excerpt from Madeline Mann, a novel by Julia Buckley

Contact Us

Get Great Deals delivered right into your mailbox!