Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You
Page 27
“No,” I said softly.
“There you have it.” He leaned over and kissed me very gently on the cheek.
We sat there for a long time in silence, our hands just touching, listening to the quaking leaves above our heads.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has been twelve years in the writing, so there are many people who deserve my thanks.
It started a long time ago in a far-off galaxy called Flint Hill Prep where Colonel Alan Ferguson Warren and Lucy Gard Redfield fed the flame my Mother had ignited and nurtured: the power of stories and the beauty of language. My debt to these three people can never be repaid.
In more recent times, James Gordon Bennett pushed me to “just write”; I’m grateful for his persistence, guidance, and witty charm. David Bradley generously provided extensive analysis on several stories and taught me a great deal about writing in the process. Rodger Kamenetz showed me the importance of word choice and line editing. My thanks also to Tim O’Brien, Marianne Gingher, Rosellen Brown, Margot Livesey, Tom Gavin, and Lois Rosenthal for their feedback and encouragement.
Deep bows of thanks and a pitcher of Library beer to the LSU MFAers of 1988–1991. A tip of the hat and a wink to The Bobs. And cyberhugs to the Online Women Writers’ Group who made teaching more joy than work.
Support in the form of coffee, wine, meals, and much more was provided in the early stages of writing this book by Helen and Stanley Miller, Leila Levinson, Jean Rohloff, Erin Johnson, Robin Roberts, Sigrid King, Betsy Williams, Bill and Monica Moen, Ralph LaPrairie, and John McLain. My thanks and love.
The Writers’ League of Texas deserves a nod of gratitude for their many kindnesses, especially the amazing Sally Baker. My thanks also to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, particularly Cheri Peters. And I’m indebted to the entire staff of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts for providing a true haven (and a puppy!) while I finished the final revisions on this book.
I am blessed to be a part of the St. Edward’s University community. My students, past and present, have enriched my life more than they’ll ever know. The administration has generously supported my endeavors through a variety of grants, full-time employment, and a sabbatical leave. Many of my colleagues made the juggle of teaching and writing much smoother and definitely more fun, especially Anna Skinner, Mary Rist, Lisa Martinez, Catherine Rainwater, Alan Altimont, Br. John Perron, Bill Quinn, Father Lou Brusatti, and Sandra Pacheco. Bill Kennedy took fabulous photographs. Brett Westbrook provided information on Victim Services. My former student and now colleague, Elizabeth Sibrian, provided the Spanish translations for “Where I Come From.” Eric Trimble, Janet Kazmirski, Pam McGrew, and Anita Sing solved computer, postal, and photocopying challenges with aplomb. Muchas gracias one and all.
Portions of this book were written at the homes of Bob and Margy Ayers in Tennessee, Nancy Napier and Tony Olbrich in Idaho, and Barbara Duke in New Mexico—your generosity was huge, the luxury of time and solitude invaluable.
I’m immensely grateful to “Marjorie LaSalle,” a true warrior of the heart, who trusted me to honor her truth while taking her experience off into fictional realms.
For over thirteen years Dinty W. Moore has provided the feedback I trust the most: honest, kind, thoughtful, thorough. Namaste, my friend.
My always sister Lynn has been an enthusiastic reader and is one of the great blessings of my life, as are my nephews Chase and Cole. Oodles of kisses to you all.
Those whose gestures, both large and small, often made the difference, whether they realized it or not: Paige Elizabeth Pozzi, Sherry Scott and Michelle Burns, Catherine MacDermott, Sanchi Reta Lawler, Patrick Ricard, Judy Kahn, Jack and Carolyn Hall, Casey Miller and Pat Jackson, Kathy Brown, Pamela Cromwell, Bonnie Jean Dickson Winsler, Mary Janecek-Friedman, Katrina Dittemore, Lynda Shannon and James Vance, and Ted Rader. Abundant gratitude for your presence in my life.
I am humbled by the love and support I’ve received from my Alayans: Annie Province, Kimmie Jo-Jo Atkins, Beverly Alexander and Eldon Bryan, Molly and Russ and Tommy Fleming, Joan Raskin, Leebob Edwards, Steve Milan, Jerry-bear Rutledge, Bev Davis, Pete Erickson, Wendy Vermeulen, johnsmith, Tom Kimmel, and Abu Ali Abdur ’Rahman. Your beauty and courage fill my heart.
Special thanks to Anniebelle for finding the Robertson Davies quote and being willing to go the hard way with me, again and again.
Marjorie Braman has been passionate from day one; thank you for saying yes and for your keen eye and fierce commitment to this book. Thank you, Kelly Bare, for your always cheerful support and bottomless supply of answers.
Jandy Nelson, my angel of an agent, you’re a peach! Your enthusiasm was boundless, your patience endless, your expertise invaluable, your faith my great good fortune. That we could talk food and books for hours on end was simply icing on the cake. Thanks as well to Dru, Stephanie, Mark, and Lucy.
I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of help from so many of my former colleagues with the Baton Rouge Police Department: former chief Greg Phares and Chief Pat Englade for allowing me access and Lieutenant Mike Gough for facilitating that access; Lieutenant Ricky Cochran for tracking down the original crime scene photos of “Jeannette Durham” that I saw so long ago; Sergeant Roger Tully and Barbara Spears for finding, in a box, in a storeroom, the traffic reports I wrote some eighteen years ago; Sergeant David Worley and Sergeant James Kurts for stories, great debates, and always the coffee; Sergeant Brenda Miceli for her expertise in latent fingerprints; Lieutenant Sam Miceli and Detective John Colter for stories and answers; Captain Mike Coulter for Ed’s coat and for patiently reminding me these many years later what I’d forgotten; Sergeant Marian McLin for always being there and still making me laugh at the most inappropriate times; and Sergeant Ike Vavasseur for his friendship, trust, insight into working homicides, letting me ride along, lending me books, opening doors, and answering my bazillion questions with grace and good humor. Ray Jackson, whatever heavenly universe you inhabit, I have never forgotten the values you instilled and the example you set. To all the men and women I rode with, both at LSU Police and BRPD, thank you for the backup.
Finally, this book would never have been finished, let alone started, without the guardian angels of my heart: Linda Lue Kelly Woodruff, Linda Gayle Manning, and Kenneth Robinson. Thank you for helping me find my voice, my truth, my center.
About the Author
LAURIE LYNN DRUMMOND’S short story collection, Anything You Say Can And Will Be Used Against You, was published by HarperCollins in February 2004 and won the 2004 Violet Crown Texas Book Award in Fiction. Laurie’s stories and essays have been published in Story, Southern Review, Fiction, Black Warrior Review, New Virginia Review, Louisiana Cultural Vistas, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, and River Teeth, among others, and translated into Farsi for Golestaneh: Iranian Cultural & Arts Monthly. She was a Tennessee Williams Scholar in Fiction and a Walter E. Dakin Fellow at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and she received an AWP Intro Award in Fiction and two fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is working on a novel, The Hour of Two Lights, also for HarperCollins, and a book-length memoir, Losing My Gun. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
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PRAISE FOR
Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You
“Riveting…. [Laurie Lynn Drummond] makes all of the crime novels and television shows seem like amateur guesswork…. So compelling that it’s difficult to stop reading.”
—USA Today
“Tough, scary, and riveting.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“A superb debut sheaf of procedurals about policewomen…. With marvelous command of fear and sensuous involvement, Drummond sucks us into ten stories…that hint at only the faintest suggestion of fiction. Prose that weighs like a gun in your palm.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred revie
w)
“In very few words, a short story must convey a sense of place, character identity, and plot. The five tales in this debut collection…do these things successfully. This is an exceptional body of writing.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Combining Southern grace and urban brutality, ex-cop Drummond debuts with ten short stories grouped into five blistering fictional portraits of Baton Rouge policewomen…. Choosing original characters over clichés and gritty detail over simplification, Drummond continually surprises with her profiles in courage, which focus on a captivating minority on the force.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[Drummond is] writing what she knows, in an elegant, graceful, unexpected, and completely haunting fashion…. [Her] details capture us and won’t let go. Drummond brings a major new talent to the crime fiction scene.”
—New Orleans Times-Picayune
“Forget all the police novels you’ve read. If you want to know what a cop’s life is like, read this book.”
—Arizona Republic
“Drummond has a forceful, straightforward detective-novel style that is well suited to her material…[she] manages to make the daily routine of cops fresh and engaging and her characters complex enough that the stories hold pleasures beyond those of a standard whodunit.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“In her powerful debut collection of short stories…former police officer Laurie Lynn Drummond eloquently captures the spirit, emotion and feeling of her eight years patrolling the streets in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.”
—Deseret News
“Strong and wise…like the memory of a loved one passed, these stories linger long past their last breath.”
—San Diego Union-Tribune
“Drummond is writing what she knows in this gripping debut collection…. For readers who like their crime fiction raw and flavored by moral dilemmas, these stories are intriguingly fresh.”
—New York Daily News
“Sincere praise from Elmore Leonard is the equivalent of striking literary gold, and that’s just what Laurie Drummond has done here.”
—Bellingham Herald
“Searing…eye-opening…. [Laurie Lynn Drummond] is a deft storyteller. She has excellent control over language, a deep reach into her characters’ psyches, and an ear for irony.”
—Contra Costa Times
“Drummond’s clear voice shuns distracting, overtly literary first-book flourishes. The author’s mapping of complex terrain…keeps the pages turning.”
—Time Out (New York)
“Drummond’s tough, stark prose, her powers of description, and her subtle readings of character combine to bring her protagonists’ world to raw, vigorous life.”
—Seattle Times
“From now on I’ll read whatever Drummond writes. She’s awfully good: describes astonishing crime scenes with an ironic twist on the book’s title.”
—Elmore Leonard
“These aren’t police stories, they’re human stories, filled with the visceral fact of our own immortality, and touching, too, at the sublime available to us all: the quality of sharp-edged love that can only be forged in a job where everything is a matter of life and death. These are beautiful stories, beautifully told.”
—Bret Lott, author of Jewel
“This chronicle of uniformed policewomen on the job is gritty but also romantic, as high on adrenalin as it is dark with inside knowledge about the bleak reaches of the soul. It is an index of sorrows, a guided tour of compassion, and a gripping adventure by and about strong women.”
—Frederick Busch
“These stories are powerful and amazing—as immediate as Joseph Wambaugh at his best, and like Flannery O’Connor, profoundly Southern, unmistakably female, unafraid to tackle the morally ironic. This is a brilliant book. I couldn’t put the damned thing down and hated having finished it.”
—David Bradley, author of The Chaneysville Incident
“Good, insightful, and interesting stories that step a reader into the characters’ lives…. [Drummond is] so good that you don’t even notice the writing. Reading these first-person narratives is almost like having a conversation with the main characters. Drummond is a wonderful talent.”
—Baton Rouge Advocate
“Laurie Lynn Drummond is the real deal, a former police officer who knows intimately how cops work, think, play, and suffer. What’s more, she’s a gifted writer and a talented street psychologist. Her stories sizzle.”
—Joseph Wambaugh
“Invitingly intimate stories full of instant action and reflective thought. Written with a savage clarity of image and emotion…. As sharp and beautiful as a fine sword, [Drummond’s] writing style reflects an almost photo-realistic quality as she spins her readers into abrupt confrontations with danger and death.”
—South Baton Rouge Journal
“Gripping reading…packed full of taut, vivid fiction that appeals to the senses, the heart, and the gut…. A book you can’t put down.”
—Buffalo News
“In Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You Laurie Lynn Drummond evokes the lives of women police officers with such heartrending moral complexity that I felt as if I too were a member of the force. The pages of these brilliant, utterly absorbing stories made my life larger in the best possible ways.”
—Margot Livesey, author of Eva Moves the Furniture
“Stories that [put Drummond’s] insider’s knowledge to work, offering fresh insights into the lives of police officers and women.”
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“This astonishing debut collection makes it clear that Drummond was a writer long before she was a police officer.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Breathtakingly fresh…remarkable for its clarity of vision, its quality of description and its deft use of language. Drummond is a master stylist.”
—January magazine
“The stories are surefooted and fascinating in their insight into the specifics of a cop’s reality…. Drummond is a fine writer, and her knowledge of police work, and empathy for those who live it, make for compelling truths.”
—Portland Oregonian
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ANYTHING YOU SAY CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU. Copyright © 2004 by Laurie Lynn Drummond. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition April 2008 ISBN 9780061732591
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