Rausch & Donlon - Can Be Murder 03 - Writing Can Be Murder

Writing Can
Be Murder

Praise
from readers of the Can Be Murder Series:

Headaches
Can Be Murder
(Book One)

“A roller coaster ride with some murders,
some romance, some mystery, some heartache and lots of humor throughout. Loved
it!”

“A great read…funny, clever and oh so
entertaining.”

A romp that leads from intense to bucolic
and back again.”

“Definitely a must read by two sharp
up-and-coming authors.”

“The two story structure is fresh and
beautifully done.”

“I can’t wait for the sequel.”

Love
Can Be Murder
(Book Two)

“I
read it in one weekend because I didn’t want to put it down.”

“The
book has some fantastic, unexpected twists that keep you turning pages into the
night.”

“…quick,
fun and smart.”

Copyright
© 2014 Marilyn Rausch and Mary Donlon

All
rights reserved.

ISBN
978-0692307236

This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products
of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First
Edition: October 2014

Printed
in the United States of America

For my dear sister Carole,
red shoes and blue shoes together forever. MJR

For Bob, Tom, Bill,
Jane and Larry, my original brothers and sister in crime. Thanks for making
room for one more in the club. MJD.

Acknowledgements

Our
gratitude to Pat Frovarp and Gary Shulze, owners of the marvelous
ONCE UPON A CRIME
bookstore, for their permission to be included in this story and for their
support and encouragement to us and so many other crime writers.

Thanks
to those who have so graciously shared their expertise: John Kess and Julie
Saffrin, for publishing advice and Eric Ernst MD and Eloise Loeffler MD for
medical advice.

To
our fellow writers who have offered their insights and provided guidance
throughout the writing of this trilogy, many thanks to Kathy Nelson, Linda
Pinnell, Lesley Ackerberg, Nico Taranovsky, Deb Mackay, Elise Schadauer, Jane
Beauchamp and Maureen Kelleher.

Appreciation
for their professional service to Judy Bullard, cover designer, and Ethan
Boatner, photographer.

Love
to our cheering section, Peter, Jessica, Rachel, Ted, Ela and Jon and our
extended families and many terrific friends.

Iowa

Early
September

C
HIP
COLLINGSWORTH HAD WRITTEN
about
murder…victims shot, brutally mutilated, suffocated, poisoned. But that was all
fiction. He hadn’t seen a real murder scene until he stood and stared at the
inert body.

The man was dressed in jeans, a purple
University of St. Thomas sweatshirt and Nikes. He looked as if he had fallen
asleep while reading the book that was open on his chest. But his face was ashy
and his body stiff-looking with what Chip assumed was
rigor mortis
. A thin trail of blood seeped beneath the pages of the
book. It pooled on his left side, a dark red, sticky puddle. There was little
doubt that he was dead

A knot of nausea formed in Chip’s
midsection and started to rise up his chest, his gag reflex forming a bitter
taste in his mouth. He quickly turned aside and took a deep breath, then
another.

It was his friend Patrick Finnegan.

***

Early that morning Chip Collingsworth drove from
Turners Bend, Iowa, to Minneapolis. For as far as he could see, orange cones
blocked off one lane of Interstate 35. He thought of himself as a fairly
intelligent man. Yet, the workings of the Department of Transportation were
beyond his understanding. There were no signs of any work being done, no
workers, no heavy equipment, no torn-up asphalt, only a long line of
slow-moving traffic inching north at 35 mph.
The road crew is probably off drinking coffee and eating donuts waiting
for their lunch break.

Chip had recently traded in his Volvo
convertible for a new state-of-the-art hybrid, a Ford 2014 C-Max with a SYNC
voice-activated system. He hadn’t tired of ringing all the car’s bells and
tooting all its whistles.

“Call Jane,” he commanded. “Hi, darling.
How’s my blushing bride?”

“I’m in Hjalmer’s barn treating a nasty
case of scours. Neonatal calf diarrhea is no fun. Being a vet is not all cute
kitties and puppies, you know. Are you in Minneapolis yet?

“Not even close. I’m caught in road
construction traffic. Being on the road trying to promote my books is no fun
either, especially when it takes me away from you. If it doesn’t let up, I’ll
be late for my signing at
ONCE UPON A
CRIME
bookstore. What’s that bellowing I
hear?”

“It’s the calf, Chip. Have to go, love.
Sell lots of books and drive safely.”

That’s
the same thing Lucinda said to me…only with venom not sweetness in her voice.

Lucinda Patterson Williams was his
literary agent. She always found time to promote his career, as well as make
his life hell. For a brief period Chip thought romance and marriage might
soften her, but he was sadly mistaken. She wanted him in the public eye making
appearances and promoting his crime novels. And, as if that wasn’t enough, she
was pressuring him to sign another three-book contract.

“Play Lorde.” Strains from “Royals
”
filled the car’s interior and Chip
sang along
…”I’ve never seen a diamond in
the flesh...”

He was on his way for a joint signing
with a fellow crime writer, Patrick Finnegan. Finnegan was moderately
successful, while Chip’s books were hugely popular.
There’s no under-estimating the reading public’s desire for tall,
handsome doctors and strong, sexy female FBI agents!

He liked Finnegan. They had met in New
York at ThrillerFest, a writer’s convention, and discovered they both lived in
the Midwest, Chip in Turners Bend, Iowa, and Patrick in Minneapolis, and that
they both wrote police procedural novels. Shortly after, they started sharing
and critiquing each other’s work, emailing chapters back and forth. Chip
trusted Patrick’s opinions and respected his writing skills. He was pleased to
be seeing him again in person and sharing a signing event at
ONCE UPON A CRIME
.

Chip placed a call to Patrick, but got
his voice mail box. “Hi Patrick, this is Chip. I’m meeting Pat and Gary at
Common Roots before the store opens. Meet us there, if you can. Otherwise I’ll
see you at 11:00.

The bookstore was a popular site for
mystery readers, and author signings drew large crowds. Jane’s son, Sven, was a
student at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. MCAD was within walking
distance of the store, and Sven had promised to bring a bunch of his college
friends to the book signing.

Chip had done some research on the
college when Sven first expressed an interest in the school. He thought it
would make a great location for a crime story, or better still, a ghost story.
The Minnesota Paranormal Society reported that a student who was raped and
murdered haunted the school, and students had claimed to be awakened in the
night freezing and hearing screams.

“Call Sven.”
Sven would say this voice-activated system is “sick.”

“Sven, it’s Chip. You hear any ghosts
screaming in the night yet?”

“Nah, I sleep with ear plugs. This
on-campus apartment is noisy until the early morning hours. It’s usually two or
three in the morning before the partying stops.”

“Still plan on coming to the signing
today?”

“Sure, and we’ve decided to all come as
our favorite detective. I found this dirty, rumpled trench coat in a thrift
store; I’m coming as Colombo.”

“How in the world do you know Colombo?
That show was off the air before you were born.”

“We studied it in our Television History
class. My friend Bart has a shaved head so he’s coming as Kojak.”

“I can always count on you for added
entertainment, Sven. See you soon.”

Chip’s mind turned to Jane’s kids, Sven
and Ingrid. He had grown fond of them, but he tread carefully in his
relationship with them. They had both suffered from their parents’ divorce. Now
their father was a fugitive from the law. Not easy for teens to cope with. Both
kids had seen a slew of federal agents hunting for their dad and had their own
brushes with crimes, Sven as a perpetrator and Ingrid as a victim. Sven had
proven to be resilient and seemed to be enjoying college, but Ingrid had become
fearful and withdrawn.

Chip left Iowa’s wind farms behind and
passed the
Welcome to Minnesota
sign.
The orange cones disappeared and traffic began to flow at or above the posted
70 mph. He would arrive just in time to meet the bookstore owners, Gary and
Pat, for coffee at Common Roots. He was badly in need of a cup of coffee to
quell his traffic-jangled nerves.

Chip admired the bookstore owners. Gary
was tall and slender with a wry smile and quiet demeanor. He usually hung out
behind the sales counter. Pat was petit and intense. She scurried around amongst
the book cases and racks, always busy. They were a perfectly matched couple of
opposites, and they ran a thriving business in an economy that was not kind to
independent booksellers.

***

Chip walked with Pat and Gary to the store thirty
minutes before opening time. He took along a large cup of dark roast, enough to
get him through the two-hour session of meeting and greeting his readers. A
line of customers was already forming along the sidewalk. Chip scanned the
group. He waved to Colombo and Kojak and a pair of girls who looked like they
could be Cagney and Lacey.

“Wow, that’s a pretty impressive
turn-out,” said Chip.

“Oh, we expect you and Finnegan will
draw a constant stream of buyers. Minneapolis is one of the best mystery
markets in the country,” explained Gary. “Maybe it’s the long winters. All I
can say is our little store has survived for twenty-six years, and we sell only
one genre.”

The garden-level store was in an old
apartment building. It was about as far from a big box bookstore as you could
get. Chip felt like he was back East, maybe in Brooklyn or Cambridge or his
hometown of Baltimore.

They descended five steps and Pat
unlocked the door and flipped on the lights. The main room had floor-to-ceiling
books along the walls. Tables and low shelves crowded the cramped space so that
there was barely room to walk. It was a little dated, but charming and
inviting, a book-lover’s haven.

Pat moved toward the back of the store
to set up a table for signing. Chip heard her gasp, and he and Gary walked
toward her. She was on her knees next to a man lying on the floor.

“Gary, quick. Call 911. She reached out
to feel the man’s neck and quickly withdrew her hand. “Oh my God, oh my God,
he’s cold, I think he’s dead.”

***

Not long after the first MPD officers arrived and
called for assistance, Dr. Samuel Cooper, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner,
and Homicide Detective Mario Franco, who eerily reminded Chip of his fictional
detective, Mike Frisco, were on the scene.

“The cause of death is clearly a single
gunshot wound to the chest,” the ME said to the detective. “The TOD is probably
at least twelve hours ago. Weapon was a small-caliber handgun of some kind.
I’ll have more definitive info for you after the autopsy. When the crime photos
are done, send him over to the lab. We have a full house today, two shootings
on the Northside last night.”

“Thanks Doc. There’s no sign of a
struggle in the store. The back door was broken into. He wasn’t murdered here.
The way he’s positioned with the book on his chest indicates the body was
staged,” said the detective. “The perp wanted to send a message. We just have
to find out what and why. The choice of that book is a good place to start.”

He turned to Chip. “The officers told me
this guy was an author and you’re an author, too, Collingsworth. You read his
books?”

“Yes, I’ve read them all. He was a damn
good writer.”

“What about the book on his chest? It’s
one of his, right?”

“Yes. The book was Finnegan’s latest
thriller,
Shanghaied
, a story about
Asian gangs in St. Paul. It contains a lot of factual information about gang
culture and criminal activities, and exposé of sorts.”

“I’d like to talk with you later, find
out what was in his books. Don’t have time to read when I’ve got a murder
investigation on my hands. For starters I’ll need to know what the victim wrote
about as a possible connection to his murder. Of course, that’s only one angle
we’ll have to pursue.”

***

At Franco’s request, Chip checked into the Hyatt on
Nicollet Mall, just a short distance from
ONCE
UPON A CRIME
. He would spend the
night, make a statement at the First Precinct police station the next morning
and then return to his home and Jane. This was the first night away from her
since their wedding in Las Vegas last year, and he would rather have been going
home.

He was shaken and spooked as he walked
down the deserted hallway to his hotel room. He needed a drink to calm his
nerves and wrap his head around the death of his friend.
Hopefully this place has a well-stocked mini-bar.

The bar had his brew of choice, Sam
Adams. With a bottle in one hand, he placed a call to Jane with the other. When
he got her voice mail, all he could think to say was, “Where are you, honey?
I’m missing you something fierce. Call me.”

Then strangely, if he couldn’t be with
Jane, he wanted to be with his characters. They had become so real to him that
he felt a need to communicate with them. He had brought along his new toy, a
state-of-the-art tablet. He set up the stand and keyboard and started the first
chapter of his next book, flushing out an idea sparked by the experiences of
his most unusual day and welcoming the return of FBI agent, Jo Schwann, and Dr.
John Goodman, neurosurgeon. He was pretty sure the two of them could look at a
brutal murder scene without

getting
queasy
.