“When she was here, there were these twins, Sara and William. They went to live with an aunt and uncle in Muscogen County about the same time as Tasha went to her grandparents out there. Only now they’re back in care, and the little boy’s gone missing. They’re mounting a house-to-house search, and I thought maybe Tasha would want to help. They’ve bumped into her a couple of times. William knows her, and maybe he’d come out for her. If he’s only hiding. He’s got to be only hiding.” Her voice shook, as if she was begging me to make this missing child be a hidden one, not something worse. “You can call the sheriff’s department if you think I’m lying.”
I didn’t speak. Not initially. My recent experience with liars and deception was too raw to accept her words at face value. And yet, the conversation was punctuated by bursts of another voice in the background, like she was being hurried along to come help with something. Her urgency seemed so real. “I’ll talk to Natasha,” I finally said, “and I’ll call the sheriff’s department. They will be able to tell us where to meet.” If this is real. If you aren’t calling from some rented phone trying to lure my foster daughter into danger herself, under the pretext of a rescue mission. If June isn’t about to come back around and bite us in August.
I hung up the phone. “What do you want to do?” I asked Lance.
“You wake up Natasha,” he said. “I’ll wake up Officer Carmichael.”
Over the course of the investigation in June, we had become friends with a deputy, a junior detective, at the county sheriff’s office, and he could be trusted to give us honest information, even if we dragged him out of bed from a sound sleep.
Lance got out his own phone and started dialing while I walked down to Natasha’s room. As soon as I said Nelly Penobscott’s name, she leapt out of bed and started pacing. “Why didn’t you let me talk to her?”
“For all I know, she’s one of those crazy people.” I didn’t finish the thought. I didn’t need to.
“Let me see the number. She’s in my book.”
I handed Natasha the phone. “This one came up without a name.”
Natasha studied her call history. “If it’s really Mrs. P,” she finally said, “she’s calling from someone else’s house.”
“Agreed.”
“But she knew so much! I saw Will and Sara at the pizza place yesterday and again earlier this afternoon. Sara was the little girl talking my ear off while we waited in line. You might have noticed her, but Will’s quiet. He doesn’t talk much. He’ll wander off where nobody can find him. Wait! Did Mrs. P. say kindergarten? Anywhere in the conversation, did she use that word?”
“No-o-o, why?”
“It’s our safe word. So I’ll know it’s her. But if she was upset, and confused because you answered, she might not have remembered.”
Lance poked his head into the room. “Be right back,” he said.
“Why? Where are you going?”
“Drew says it’s all legit. I want to check out the place where the volunteers are gathering.”
“Don’t go.” Natasha, who had blazed at me for withholding her phone call, sounded frightened. “Let me call Mrs. P back first.”
“If it’s not . . .”
“She didn’t say kindergarten. If it’s her, somebody is going to answer at either this number or the one in my book. And then we’ll know at least one thing.”
Natasha’s wariness since June was equivalent to that of a jealous spouse. And she was right. A call to a trusted number could at least establish some things. “Use your contacts first,” I advised her.
She shifted the phone from hand to hand after she dialed. From the look on her face at the answer, something was wrong. She handed me her handset and buried her head in her pillow. “This is all my fault!”
“I . . . uh . . . kindergarten . . .”, I blurted out.
The woman who answered had obviously been asleep. “Natasha? Honey, it’s the middle of the night,” she said.
“I’d better call Drew back,” Lance said. “I’m going to bet that kid didn’t wander off.” He snorted. “It’s like one of those problems in your mother’s advice column. ‘Dear Nora: Stalkers keep trying to lure my teen into danger. Please help or send thread.”
I appreciated my husband’s stab at humor, but I doubted we would be seeing my mother tackle this issue in “What’s Next Nora?”. I briefly outlined the situation for the real Nelly Penobscott, but hurried her off the phone. I needed to make another call, this one to a federal agent. And I needed to see about getting Natasha a new cell phone, one with a better protected number.
Interview
Michael Guillebeau: What kind of reader should give your stuff a shot?
Jessie Bishop Powell: My writing appeals primarily to youngish, middle-aged dowagers with crumbling finances, trust funds, and purse poodles. Also cat ladies.
Seriously, though, I write cozy noir mysteries. My subgenre barely exists. Cozy noir stories have the humorous elements of cozies, but they also dip into some of the more intense ideas that are verboten in straight-up lighthearted fiction.
The Rue and Lakeland series is set in a rural area, and a primate sanctuary features heavily in all the storylines. There is guaranteed monkey mayhem. But my main character, Noel Rue, was a battered woman, and that shapes her perceptions. Both the humor of the sanctuary and the seriousness of Noel’s past are necessary for the books to work. Other elements of the novels play off each other in a similar way.
I would recommend myself to those who like a good laugh but don’t require the whole story to hinge on the humor. Parnell Hall, Mary Daheim, and Joan Hess fans should give me a whirl.
MG: What do you want the world of your stories to feel like? Sad? Warm? Funny? Dark?
JP: You’re asking about mood. Let me answer you in a roundabout way. As a reader, I’m incapable of suspending disbelief. But it’s a mistake and an oversimplification to think one must believe something in order to believe in it. I always believe in the stories I enjoy. And I want to create worlds that make others feel the same.
The stories I believe in most are the ones that show multiple moods. Cozy Noir really does combine two extreme opposites in the mystery genre. Cozies are lighthearted and humorous. There’s often romance, and the main characters have new high jinks in every chapter. Noir is dark. It features hard-nosed sleuths and hard-edged crime. So my worlds, in order to be plausible, have to offer strong middle ground for readers. When I’m world building, I incorporate details I feel readers can identify with, anchors to hold onto when the roller coaster starts to fly on the hills.
MG: What’s the significance of your online handle, Jester Queen?
JP: Let me first say that it has nothing to do with Yu-Gi-Oh. I was slightly familiar with the card game and cartoon, but my son was five before I realized it had a Jester Queen. I’m nothing like her.
For me, the name Jester Queen means three things. First, it relates to my ability to write both hilarious and dark fiction. People think of the court jester as the funnyman, the clown, the guy who amused the nobility. But in reality, the jester often used humor as a means of getting at the realities people didn’t want to face. He was the one person who could be totally honest. Sometimes, he got strung up by the toenails anyway. But if anyone in the court could speak truth to the king, it was the fool.
Second, the Jester Queen was a character in a story I wrote when I was seventeen. I submitted the piece to a magazine, and it was rejected, as everything I submitted at age seventeen was. But my pages were returned with a note scrawled on the front. “Not for us. Try my friend X at this other magazine.”
I didn’t understand editor-speak. All I saw was the rejection. It was years before I realized the guy seriously meant I should have submitted it to his friend at the other magazine. I might have published that story, if I’d paid attention, and it was one of my favorite pieces.
Looking back, I’m glad it never saw print. I’m touchy about my errors, and it has more than a few “I can’t b
elieve I wrote that” moments. If I ever publish it, I’ll revise heavily. But at seventeen, I should have sent that story out again. I was devastated by the rejection. I should have been elated by the advice. So using the Jester Queen handle is also a reminder to myself that I’ll always be out-of-step with the world, but that’s actually a good thing and no reason to hold back.
Finally, my husband’s last name is Merriman. The name Merriman is derived for another title of the court jester, the court merry man. (And you’ll see the name spelled Merryman in some places.) It seems only appropriate that the Merriman should be married to the Jester Queen.
MG: What writing advice do you have for other aspiring authors?
JP: This advice isn’t original to me, but it’s useful. Drop the word “aspiring” from your vocabulary. There isn’t a mystical line between “aspiring” and “real” writers. An aspiring author is the person you meet at the office Christmas party who plans to write a book one of these days, but who has not taken steps towards doing so. That’s someone who wants to write, who aspires to it.
That’s not an accurate depiction of a person who has actually written something with the intent of developing a story, poem, or song out of it. It isn’t appropriate to substitute “aspiring” for “inexperienced” or “unpublished”. Once a person begins to write, the term “aspiring” no longer applies. Unpublished authors deserve validation
Writing doesn’t necessarily come with an apprenticeship program, and there are multiple paths to success in this field. Even with two published novels and a third nearing release, I find myself plagued by fears that I’m a fraud, because I need income from another source. In fact, I teach college English full time, and that’s where I actually earn money. Am I really a professional writer? I hope so.
So my advice for unpublished writers is this: Believe in yourself. Shut down the internal jerk who questions every little detail in a piece. Let that voice help in editing, but don’t let it shape self-perception. If you believe in your writing, you can learn to make others do the same.
LARISSA REINHART
Larissa considers herself lucky to have taught English in Japan, escaped a ferocious monkey in Thailand, studied archaeology in Egypt, and survived teaching high school history in the US. However, adopting her daughters from China has been her most rewarding experience. After moving around the Midwest, the South and Japan, her home address is Peachtree City, Georgia.
In June 2015, she and her husband, daughters, and Biscuit, a Cairn Terrier, moved back to Nagoya, Japan, where she'll continue to write about Southern characters, although some might find their way to the Land of the Rising Sun.
She loves small town characters with big attitudes, particularly sassy women with a penchant for trouble. The Cherry Tucker Mystery series with Henery Press begins with Portrait of a Dead Guy (August 28, 2012), a 2012 Daphne du Maurier finalist, a 2012 The Emily finalist, and a 2011 Dixie Kane Memorial winner. Following Portrait are Still Life in Brunswick Stew (May 21, 2013), the 2014 Georgia Author of the Year and Silver Falchion nominee, Hijack in Abstract (November 5, 2013), and Death in Perspective (June 24, 2014), the 2015 Georgia Author of the Year finalist for Best Mystery. The Cherry Tucker novella, Quick Sketch, in the mystery anthology The Heartache Motel (December 10, 2013) is a prequel to Portrait. The fifth Cherry Tucker mystery, The Body in the Landscape, will launch December 15, 2015.
EXCERPT
Portrait Of A Dead Guy
Praise for Portrait of a Dead Guy
“Portrait of a Dead Guy is an entertaining mystery full of quirky characters and solid plotting. Larissa Reinhart writes with panache and flair, her colorful details and vibrant descriptions painting a vivid, engaging picture of a small Southern town…Highly recommended for anyone who likes their mysteries strong and their mint juleps stronger!”
Jennie Bentley,
NY Times Bestselling Author of Flipped Out
“The story moves at a rapid pace taking you on a curvy road with a disastrous funeral, crazy ex-boyfriends, and illegal high stakes gambling…Portrait of a Dead Guy is pure enjoyment, a laugh out loud mystery with some Southern romance thrown in. Five stars out of five.”
—Lynn Farris,
National Mystery Review Examiner at Examiner.com
“Laugh-out-loud funny and as Southern as sweet tea and cheese grits, Larissa Reinhart’s masterfully crafted whodunit, Portrait of a Dead Guy, provides high-octane action with quirky, down-home characters and a trouble-magnet heroine who’ll steal readers’ hearts…”
—Debby Giusti,
Author of The Captain’s Mission and The Colonel’s Daughter
“A fun, fast-paced read and a rollicking start to her Cherry Tucker Mystery Series. If you like your stories southern-fried with a side of romance, this book’s for you!”
—Leslie Tentler,
Author of Midnight Caller”
one
In a small town, there is a thin gray line between personal freedom and public ruin. Everyone knows your business without even trying. Folks act polite all the while remembering every stupid thing you’ve done in your life. Not to mention getting tied to all the dumbass stuff your relations — even those dead or gone — have done. We forgive but don’t forget.
I thought the name Cherry Tucker carried some respectability as an artist in my hometown of Halo. I actually chose to live in rural Georgia. I could have sought a loft apartment in Atlanta where people appreciate your talent to paint nudes in classical poses, but I like my town and most of the three thousand or so people that live in it. Even though most of Halo wouldn’t know a Picasso from a plate of spaghetti. Still, it’s a nice town full of nice people and a lot cheaper to live in than Atlanta.
Halo citizens might buy their living room art from the guy who hawks motel overstock in front of the Winn-Dixie, but they also love personalized mementos. Portraits of their kids and their dogs, architectural photos of their homes and gardens, poster-size photos of their trips to Daytona and Disney World. God bless them. That’s my specialty, portraits. But at this point, I’d paint the side of a barn to make some money. I’m this close from working the night shift at the Waffle House. And if I had to wear one of those starchy, brown uniforms day after day, a little part of my soul would die.
Actually a big part of my soul would die, because I’d shoot myself first.
When I heard the highfalutin Bransons wanted to commission a portrait of Dustin, their recently deceased thug son, I hightailed it to Cooper’s Funeral Home. I assumed they hadn’t called me for the commission yet because the shock of Dustin’s murder rendered them senseless. After all, what kind of crazy called for a portrait of their murdered boy? But then, important members of a small community could get away with little eccentricities. I was in no position to judge. I needed the money.
After Dustin’s death made the paper three days ago, there’d been a lot of teeth sucking and head shaking in town, but no surprise at Dustin’s untimely demise from questionable circumstances. It was going to be that or the State Pen. Dustin had been a criminal in the making for twenty-seven years.
Not that I’d share my observations with the Bransons. Good customer service is important for starving artists if we want to get over that whole starving thing.
As if to remind me, my stomach responded with a sound similar to a lawnmower hitting a chunk of wood. Luckily, the metallic knocking in the long-suffering Datsun engine of my pickup drowned out the hunger rumblings of my tummy. My poor truck shuddered into Cooper’s Funeral Home parking lot in a flurry of flaking yellow paint, jerking and gasping in what sounded like a death rattle. However, I needed her to hang on. After a couple big commissions, hopefully the Datsun could go to the big junkyard in the sky. My little yellow workhorse deserved to rest in peace.
I entered the Victorian monstrosity that is Cooper’s, leaving my portfolio case in the truck. I made a quick scan of the lobby and headed toward the first viewing room on the right. A sizable group of Bransons huddled in a co
rner. Sporadic groupings of flower arrangements sat around the narrow room, though the viewing didn’t actually start until tomorrow.
A plump woman in her early fifties, hair colored and highlighted sunshine blonde, spun around in kitten heel mules and pulled me into her considerable soft chest. Wanda Branson, stepmother to the deceased, was a hugger. As a kid, I spent many a Sunday School smothered in Miss Wanda’s loving arms.
“Cherry!” She rocked me into a deeper hug. “What are you doing here? It’s so nice to see you. You can’t believe how hard these past few days have been for us.”
Wanda began sobbing. I continued to rock with her, patting her back while I eased my face out of the ample bosom.
“I’m glad I can help.” The turquoise and salmon print silk top muffled my voice. I extricated myself and patted her arm. “It was a shock to hear about Dustin’s passing. I remember him from high school.”
I remembered him, all right. I remembered hiding from the already notorious Dustin as a freshman and all through high school. Of course, that’s water under the bridge now, since he’s dead and all.
“It’s so sweet of you to come.”
“Now Miss Wanda, why don’t we find you a place to sit? You tell me exactly what you want, and I’ll take notes. How about the lobby? There are some chairs out there. Or outside? It’s a beautiful morning and the fresh air might be nice.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” said Wanda. “Tell you what I want?”
“For the portrait. Dustin’s portrait.”
“Is there a problem?” An older gentleman in a golf shirt and khaki slacks eyed me while running a hand through his thinning salt and pepper hair. John Branson, locally known as JB, strode to his wife’s side. “You’re Cherry Tucker, Ed Ballard’s granddaughter, right?”
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