Eight Mystery Writers You Should Be Reaing Nowwww

by Michael Guillebeau

  “Well, I know something about mothers who choose a love life over their kids.”

  “Yeah,” Luke wandered over to my pile of supplies and picked up a portable easel, “me, too.”

  There wasn’t much more to say unless someone started handing out shots of Jack with a Loretta Lynn song on the jukebox. I let Luke futz around with my easel while I took another tour of Dustin. There was no “angel viewing” angle with my height. Cooper had the coffin jacked up unnecessarily high. I held my sketchpad under one arm and stood on my toes peering over the coffin. Dustin looked pretty good. The police hadn’t revealed how he had been killed, but there was no obvious injury to his face, thank the Lord.

  “I could lift you up so you can see more than the coffin handles,” said the soft baritone hovering above my head.

  “That’s original. A joke about my height.” I resisted the urge to turn around. “You want to give me a little space? I don’t know Dustin well enough to get this friendly with him.”

  Luke stepped back but shifted to my side instead of leaving. His hands dropped to rest on the coffin’s edge. “He would have liked to know you’re hanging all over him now. Harassing his parents to get a chance to spend time with him.”

  “Wasn’t going to happen while he was alive, so I guess I can give him some attention now.”

  Luke tried to crack a smile, but you could have bounced a penny off those tight shoulders.

  “Do you know how he died?” I asked.

  “Somebody smacked the back of his skull with something heavy.” Luke stared at his stepbrother. “Probably walked up to him and beamed him in one blow.”

  “How could someone do that?”

  “Easy. I could’ve knocked you a good one. Hidden something in my pocket or picked something up in the room. You knew I was in the room and didn’t turn around. I stood right…”

  The hair rose on the back of my neck. “Yeah, I know where you were standing, and you’ve done it a few too many times today.” I looked at him askance. “I don’t like my personal space violated.”

  “That’s not what I remember…”

  “You can stop right there, Hugh Hefner. Let’s get something straight. I’m all grown up. I’m not, nor was I ever, some piece of trash you could get drunk on Boone’s Farm, have your way with in your truck, and leave at the Waffle House with an unpaid check.”

  “Man, that was a long time ago. You really do hold a grudge.”

  “You did it more than once!” I tossed my sketchbook to the floor. Placing my hands on my hips, I took a step closer and flung my chin up.

  “Hell, you’re just mad because you wanted me so bad, you let me get away with it.”

  “You want to try that again?”

  “You know I’m right.”

  “You are a…” I struggled for appropriate words to use in a funeral home. “Pig! I’ve news for you, Luke Harper.”

  He edged closer. I resisted retreat and took another step forward until we stood inches away. I glowered and poked a finger into his chest.

  “You start messing with me, you’re gonna end up with an ass full of buckshot. Not only do I still have that piece of crap yellow truck, I also have my daddy’s shotgun, and I know how to use it.”

  Snatching my hand, he folded the offending finger to rest within his palm. “And if you don’t keep your fingers to yourself, you’re going to lose one.” He released my hand.

  I stepped back and retrieved my sketchbook from the floor. “It’s time I got back to work. Now that I’m done with SCAD, I’ve crazy student loans to pay off, not to mention a few other bills. Make yourself useful. Ask Cooper how to lower this table so I can get a good view.”

  He stared at me a beat, then left the room.

  I scrambled through my tackle box looking for a good piece of charcoal. Quality art supplies were expensive, and I tried to balance the line between conservation and cheapskate. I opened a larger sketchpad of heavier bond, luxuriating in the feel of the soft, bumpy surface on my fingers. Flipping through the pages, I found a blank sheet, set the sketchpad on the easel with the charcoal, and waited for the return of Luke with Cooper.

  No Luke or Cooper.

  I eyed the oak-paneled casket. As usual, a discussion with Luke spun me away from reality. Had we just gone another round while a dead body lay before us like a pitcher of beer and plate of nachos? I needed to refocus on the reason I stood in a funeral home with a sketchbook and empty pockets. This time when I peered over the side of the oak paneling, I wanted to see Dustin as his mother would. Or stepmother, in this case.

  Dustin usually had stringy blonde hair, worn long and unkempt, but Cooper had his beautician brush and trim it. Now the smooth, blonde locks fell gently, pillowing his head. Death softened his face, hiding the angry lines that held a scowl and a scornful set to the eyes. Dark eyebrows relaxed above blonde eyelashes tipped in brown, permanently closed. I sighed, trying to imagine Dustin singing with angels. Too hard. More than likely a giant pitchfork poked him right about now.

  My eyes drifted over the blue suit to the clasped hands. The long fingers had beautiful shape and an undisclosed strength. I’d be willing to bet they would have been skilled at fine arts and crafts. Such a waste to have those beautiful hands and not the mind to match them. I wanted to capture the slight turns and creases of the knuckles, the long digits that portrayed an artistic suppleness. Even the nails appeared smoothly squared and buffed.

  Of course, the nails looked nice. He just had the manicure to end all manicures. Literally.

  I took a deep breath and gave myself a mental shaking. I had my focal point. No need to get all artsy-fartsy.

  I turned away from Dustin and walked to the doorway in search of living beings. Glancing around the empty reception area, I took a right down the hallway. Voices murmured from the kitchen. I quick-stepped through the hall and stopped in the archway.

  Intent on their heated discussion, Luke and Uncle Will didn’t notice me. Their voices remained low and tense. Will used his bulk to tower over Luke. He gestured with one hand, the other rested on his holster. Luke stood ramrod straight with arms crossed and chin high.

  I didn’t guess they were arguing about baseball since the Braves only had a few games under their belt. The Bulldogs still had about four months until their first game. NASCAR wasn’t that controversial. That left me out of ideas. I backed out of the doorway and got my nose out of their business.

  Interview

  Michael Guillebeau: Introduce us to your series protagonist, Cherry Tucker. What is it about her that appeals to you as a writer?

  Larissa Reinhart: Cherry Tucker is a short and sassy spitfire living in small town Georgia. She’s a bit of a redneck but also a classically trained artist. Her family dysfunction is something from a Jerry Springer episode, but she was raised on a farm by her traditional grandparents. I love paradoxical characters. There’s a lot of room for humor when you have contradictory characteristics.

  MG: How would you categorize your mysteries? Do you find there are advantages/disadvantages to labeling it as such?

  LR: The Cherry Tucker books are considered cozy mysteries. I’d call them humorous mysteries. Readers know what to expect from a cozy. Not a lot of language, sex, or violence. Generally small town humor. It’s something I think about as I’m writing, because I don’t want to let down my readers.

  MG: How much of you or your experience is in your book/series?

  LR: My wheelhouse for the Cherry Tucker series are small towns and art. I try not to use any people I know as characters—that’s a sure way to tick someone off—but I’ll compile character traits from certain types of people. In her fifth book, The Body in the Landscape, I did get my idea for setting a murder mystery at a Hogzilla hunt based on a remark at a wedding from a cousin who has a ranch and who had a certain celebrity visit his property for a wild hog hunt. Wild hogs are tearing up farm land all over the U.S, but particularly the South. It seemed like a good place for someone to get killed on p
urpose.

  MG: Describe your writing environment.

  LR: I write at home in a mid-century, Danish wingback chair with a matching stool we inherited from my husband’s grandparents. They brought it home from Europe after the war. It’s very comfortable. I sit with my laptop in my lap and a notebook and pencil at my side. I can’t write sitting up at a desk because my ADD kicks in and I squirm more than I think.

  MG: Besides writing do you have any other creative pursuits to cross-train your brain?

  LR: I live in Japan, so every day is a cross-training pursuit in communication. I love to binge read novels and binge watch Netflix. On the weekends, we do a lot of travel and sightseeing. I love spending my weekends exploring Japan with my family.

  MG: When did you first know you were a writer?

  LR: I don’t really think of myself as a writer. It’s how I introduce myself but I always feel self-conscious doing that. I’ve always liked writing, starting at age four by making lists of words. That’s pretty much what I still do except my vocabulary, thankfully, has expanded a bit.

  MG: What aspect of writing do you consider your super power and what do you consider your kryptonite?

  LR: Wow. Super power? Hicklit. I’m good at expressing hick speak. Kryptonite would be love scenes. If you notice, in my books strange things happen when the Barry White soundtrack starts playing.

  MG: Lastly, leave us with a quote by one of your characters?

  LR: “Sometimes it takes a person a few minutes to adjust to my creative ingenuity.”— Cherry Tucker

  JADEN TERRELL

  Jaden Terrell is a Shamus Award finalist and the author of a Nashville-based private detective series featuring natural horseman and former homicide detective Jared McKean. Terrell is a contributor to the Killer Nashville Noir, Cold-Blooded short story anthology and to Now Write! Mysteries, a collection of exercises published by Tarcher/Penguin for writers of crime fiction. Terrell is Special Programs Coordinator for the Killer Nashville Crime Literature Conference and has served on the National Board of Mystery Writers of America and as president of the Middle Tennessee Chapter of Sisters in Crime. She’s also a member of International Thriller Writers and Private Eye Writers of America. The former special education teacher has a red belt in Tae Kwan Do, loves ballroom dancing, and is certified in Equine Sports Massage, which she practices on her two special-needs horses. Website: www.JadenTerrell.com.

  SHORT STORY

  Rhapsody In Red

  The foyer of the apartment building where the dead hooker had lived was dank and smelled sour, a blend of unwashed bodies, stale cigarettes, and rancid cooking odors underlaid with a faint hint of urine. A yellowed sign taped to the elevator doors said, “Out of Order. Please Use Stairs.”

  Detective Thomas Booker looked from the sign to the narrow, impossibly steep steps, and swallowed a curse. His partner, Ray Coppinger, tapped two fingers against the sign. “Figures.”

  Booker didn’t answer. The victim’s apartment was on the fourth floor, and he needed to save his strength. Besides, he didn’t care for Coppinger. Booker was a methodical investigator, and Coppinger a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of guy, a description that characterized both his personal life and his investigative style.

  Coppinger rolled his shoulders, flexing muscles so toned they made a carapace across his back. “Okay, Padre. Let’s go catch us some bad guys. See if we can wrap this up before the Super Bowl.”

  Booker ignored the nickname and did the computation. “The Super Bowl is four months away.”

  “I’ve seen you work. You think I’m bein’ optimistic?”

  “Let’s just go.” Booker stepped aside to let his partner pass.

  Coppinger kicked a crumpled beer can out of the way and started up the steps. Booker sucked in a deep breath and plodded after his partner, distracting himself from the climb with thoughts of the case. Coppinger might be right about this one. A dead hooker. How long could it take? Nine times out of ten, a case like this, you’d nail the victim’s pimp or drug dealer within a few hours. They’d work the scene, he’d fill out the paperwork—somehow Booker always ended up doing the paperwork—then maybe drop by Waffle House on the way home, see if Jen was working the counter. It beat fried bologna sandwiches and reruns of Masterpiece Theater.

  By the time they reached the fourth floor, Booker was wheezing. Coppinger shot him a contemptuous look and ducked under the yellow crime scene tape stretched across the doorway of the victim’s apartment.

  4-C, Booker noted, through sweat-stung eyes.

  C is for coronary.

  He had to work out more, that was all there was to it. Lift some weights, dig the running shoes out of the bottom of the closet. Coppinger ran six miles a day, and look at him. Not a hint of a flush or a drop of sweat. Booker, on the other hand, was drenched to the bone.

  He paused to catch his breath, swiped the sleeve of his coat across his forehead, and edged into the knot of people gathered around the body. Against all odds, the medical examiner was already there, along with the uniforms who’d answered the 911 call and a clot of forensic technicians taking photographs and sliding plastic baggies over the dead woman’s hands.

  The woman’s body sprawled at an unnatural angle, a puddle of blood congealing around her head. He took in the curve of her jaw, the sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose, the smear of mascara beneath each eye. Sallow complexion, scabs on her cheeks, the rotting teeth and bleeding gums narc cops called Meth Mouth. Her eyes were open, the color of peridot.

  He jerked his gaze away from her face. His chest felt tight, and he wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like.

  Then Coppinger elbowed him in the gut and said, “What’s the matter, Padre? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  *****

  Her name was Giselle Braun, and it had been almost a decade since she’d walked out of Booker’s life. He could still conjure the look on her face the day they’d met. She sat alone at a window table in his favorite Armenian restaurant, a little crease forming between her eyebrows as she frowned into the pages of a slender, leather-bound book. In her silk skirt and embroidered blouse, she looked like an Impressionist painting.

  She was out of his league, but she glanced up as he passed her table, and he felt heat in his cheeks. His gaze dropped, and he noticed the title of her book. Metamorphosis.

  “Kafka,” he blurted, surprised. “That was my favorite book when I was in high school.”

  “Really.” She smiled and placed her fork carefully on the edge of her plate. “Interesting choice for a teenage boy.”

  His laugh was a nervous bark. “I suppose I had father issues.”

  “A man with baggage. Just what every woman wants.”

  He turned away, embarrassed, then paused, stopped by the touch of her hand on his sleeve.

  “Wait,” she said. Her smile was a brilliant flash. “Let’s see if your baggage likes my baggage.”

  Three days later, she moved into his apartment.

  Three and a half years later, she moved out.

  And in between?

  He closed his eyes and drew in a long breath. He couldn’t think about that yet. Not with her lying in a pool of her own blood, the soft flesh of her inner arm scarred with needle tracks and a network of collapsed veins.

  He turned away and had to do a little hopping maneuver to avoid stepping on a broken picture frame. He recognized it, burnished silver with a treble clef symbol etched into one corner. He’d given it to her himself. The frame was bent, the glass shattered. Whatever had been in it was gone.

  His eyes burned, and the pain in his chest sharpened. He made a small, broken sound.

  “You know her?” asked Coppinger. His smirk made Booker want to put a hollow point through it. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Padre.”

  Booker cleared his throat. “I’ve seen her around.”

  The body had been discovered by the victim’s eight-year-old daughter, Ariana, who had been at a frie
nd’s house for a sleepover the night before. The girl had found the door unlocked and come in to find her mother’s body sprawled across the floor of their ransacked apartment. The child had the presence of mind to run to a neighbor’s and dial 911.

  A daughter, thought Booker. He tried to picture Giselle with a child. Couldn’t quite manage it.

  Coppinger slapped Booker lightly on the shoulder. “Sounds like a job for you, Padre. Why don’t you interview the kid while I canvass the building?”

  Booker knew what Coppinger hoped. That in the course of his interviews, he might happen across a youngish woman, not too fat and not too skanky, who might find it exciting—or useful—to make the beast with two backs with a cop.

  “Fine.” Booker cast a final, despairing glance at the body and turned toward the door, jamming his hands into his pockets. “Don’t be all night.”

  A harried DCS social worker with a bulging briefcase met him in the hall. She was in her mid-forties, built like a wombat and wearing a matching skirt and blazer with a pair of Mennonite-sensible shoes. “You’re looking for the little girl?” she asked. “Ariana?”

  At his nod, she jerked her head toward the apartment behind her. “The neighbor’s willing to keep her for a couple of days. Until we can find a better placement.”

  “No father?”

  She made a dismissive gesture. “Not in the picture.”

  “Same old, same old.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” She brushed a strand of mud brown hair away from her forehead. “The neighbor’s name is Gleason. Peggy Gleason. Widowed. Place smells like cabbage.” She brushed past him, nose wrinkled, as if she carried the stench in her nostrils.

  Booker watched her disappear into the stairwell, then rapped twice on the door to Peggy Gleason’s apartment. He heard shuffling footsteps. Then the door opened a crack and the stink of the aforementioned cabbage hit him. A wrinkled face glowered at him from behind the chain. Peggy Gleason, he presumed. She had a scowl like Ma Barker’s.