celluloid hope.
What had stopped
him? So many times she’d asked
herself that question. They’d had a
few heart-pounding weeks of more-than-friends, gotten tantalizingly close to
sleeping together, and then he’d just shut down. He’d made some lame excuse; she didn’t
even remember what it was, it was so clearly not the real reason. To this day she didn’t know what the
truth was. Too much familiarity,
because they worked together? Their
different cultures? The fact that,
because they worked together, he couldn’t love her and leave her like he did
everybody else? She envied those
other women, sometimes. In some
ways they had more of him than she did. She was his friend. Always
his friend. Which was so much and
yet so much less than what she longed for.
Reluctantly she
returned the photo to its hiding place. It was important to find the person who was killing those writers, she
told herself. The crimes were
heinous. Who knew when the murderer
might strike again? Innocent lives
were at risk. She had a
responsibility to do the right thing, make sure this tip made its way swiftly
to the right hands.
She checked her
cell. Yes, she had Lionel Simpson
among her contacts. And tomorrow,
first thing, she would call him.
*
She couldn’t get away
from it. Not here, not anywhere.
Annie looked out at her
writing students, massed as usual on a Saturday afternoon at the Cookies and
Cozies Bookstore in Berkeley, not far from her parents’ home. Keeping her appointment to teach the
class, as though everything in her life were just hunky-dory, was part of the
Annette Rowell All-Discipline, All-the-Time Program. She’d embarked on it after the divorce
and was still at it. And why? It worked. In the beginning it had gotten her
through heartache. Now it was
getting her through being both a murder suspect and a potential murder victim.
"Sorry, guys,” she
told her students. “I can’t tell
you anything more about the murders than you’ve read in the papers.” She didn’t know how she managed to say that
and sound truthful. Another trick
she’d learned somehow.
She was met with a sea
of incredulous, doubting, and disappointed faces.
"I can't believe
you don’t have inside information." That, snidely, from a dark-haired pseudo-intellectual type whose prose
was as lazy as his posture. "I
mean, you were at Maggie Boswell’s party, right? And you write this murder mystery shit
all the time. Didn’t you get, like,
a vibe from somebody?"
The only vibe she was
getting was that she should expend less effort teaching her future
competition. Sometimes the goal of
“giving back” seemed too noble by half. How had Michael done it all those years?
A gorgeous redhead with
major pretensions of literary stardom piped up from the rear. "Have you been questioned by the
police? Were your prints
taken?"
“I have been questioned
by the police,” she allowed, which roused everyone’s attention. Butts shifted in chairs, heads rose from
laptop keyboards, and even Wanda Kilter's knitting needles stopped
clacking. “Of course, everybody who
attended Maggie Boswell’s party was questioned. And no, my prints weren’t taken.” Not
then, anyway .
Disgruntled sighs all
around. Except from one keen-eyed
woman in her late fifties who, as always, sat in the front row on the far
left. She sported out-of-date
oversized glasses, a tie-dyed tee shirt, and khaki cargo pants, and it looked
as if her long gray hair rarely encountered a comb, let alone a pair of
scissors.
Annie’s mom.
“All right,” Annie went
on, “moving on. We’ve got only half
an hour left so let’s break up into the same four-person groups as last week
and do more of the plotting exercise.” Noisy jockeying for position ensued. Annie raised her voice and kept
talking. “Remember, you need six
elements. Three
What had stopped
him? So many times she’d asked
herself that question. They’d had a
few heart-pounding weeks of more-than-friends, gotten tantalizingly close to
sleeping together, and then he’d just shut down. He’d made some lame excuse; she didn’t
even remember what it was, it was so clearly not the real reason. To this day she didn’t know what the
truth was. Too much familiarity,
because they worked together? Their
different cultures? The fact that,
because they worked together, he couldn’t love her and leave her like he did
everybody else? She envied those
other women, sometimes. In some
ways they had more of him than she did. She was his friend. Always
his friend. Which was so much and
yet so much less than what she longed for.
Reluctantly she
returned the photo to its hiding place. It was important to find the person who was killing those writers, she
told herself. The crimes were
heinous. Who knew when the murderer
might strike again? Innocent lives
were at risk. She had a
responsibility to do the right thing, make sure this tip made its way swiftly
to the right hands.
She checked her
cell. Yes, she had Lionel Simpson
among her contacts. And tomorrow,
first thing, she would call him.
*
She couldn’t get away
from it. Not here, not anywhere.
Annie looked out at her
writing students, massed as usual on a Saturday afternoon at the Cookies and
Cozies Bookstore in Berkeley, not far from her parents’ home. Keeping her appointment to teach the
class, as though everything in her life were just hunky-dory, was part of the
Annette Rowell All-Discipline, All-the-Time Program. She’d embarked on it after the divorce
and was still at it. And why? It worked. In the beginning it had gotten her
through heartache. Now it was
getting her through being both a murder suspect and a potential murder victim.
"Sorry, guys,” she
told her students. “I can’t tell
you anything more about the murders than you’ve read in the papers.” She didn’t know how she managed to say that
and sound truthful. Another trick
she’d learned somehow.
She was met with a sea
of incredulous, doubting, and disappointed faces.
"I can't believe
you don’t have inside information." That, snidely, from a dark-haired pseudo-intellectual type whose prose
was as lazy as his posture. "I
mean, you were at Maggie Boswell’s party, right? And you write this murder mystery shit
all the time. Didn’t you get, like,
a vibe from somebody?"
The only vibe she was
getting was that she should expend less effort teaching her future
competition. Sometimes the goal of
“giving back” seemed too noble by half. How had Michael done it all those years?
A gorgeous redhead with
major pretensions of literary stardom piped up from the rear. "Have you been questioned by the
police? Were your prints
taken?"
“I have been questioned
by the police,” she allowed, which roused everyone’s attention. Butts shifted in chairs, heads rose from
laptop keyboards, and even Wanda Kilter's knitting needles stopped
clacking. “Of course, everybody who
attended Maggie Boswell’s party was questioned. And no, my prints weren’t taken.” Not
then, anyway .
Disgruntled sighs all
around. Except from one keen-eyed
woman in her late fifties who, as always, sat in the front row on the far
left. She sported out-of-date
oversized glasses, a tie-dyed tee shirt, and khaki cargo pants, and it looked
as if her long gray hair rarely encountered a comb, let alone a pair of
scissors.
Annie’s mom.
“All right,” Annie went
on, “moving on. We’ve got only half
an hour left so let’s break up into the same four-person groups as last week
and do more of the plotting exercise.” Noisy jockeying for position ensued. Annie raised her voice and kept
talking. “Remember, you need six
elements. Three
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