Tag Archives: Crime

WHY HARDBOILED DETECTIVE FICTION REMAINS SO POPULAR

The old-fashioned private detective with hardboiled ways has been around since the 1920s. He/she’s still here a hundred years later and shows no sign of going away. There are good reasons—many good reasons—for hardboiled detective fiction’s popularity, but one seems to stand above the rest. That’s escapism. You can safely escape into the fictional, fast-moving, danger-filled crime world and let your hardboiled detective kill your enemies for you.

This post is timely for me as a crime writer. I’ve recently taken the plunge onto the mean streets of hardboiled fiction writing after a coincidental brush with the film industry. I was going about my way putting out based-on-true-crime books in a planned 12-part series when I got an unsolicited call from a New York City film producer. It was about a historic serial murder case I’d worked on and published an article about.

Google being Google, the film producer found me and we had a nice long chat about the true crime case. He’d done his homework before our Zoom call and was somewhat familiar with my books. Being the diligent and always-on-the-look film producer that he is, he asked the 64,000-dollar question, “So what else you got going?”

What I had on the go—in the back of my mind for the last few years—was a concept for a hardboiled crime fiction series based on the 1920s style but set in the 2020s. I said, “Here’s the logline. A modern city in dystopian crisis surreptitiously enlists two private detectives from its utopian past to dispense street justice and restore social order.”

There was a long pause before he said, “Reeeeally… This is exactly what my colleague at (leading net-stream provider) is looking for. Can we set up a joint talk?”

Not being one to look the proverbial gift-horse in the mouth, I readily agreed. Now, I’m on a full-time mission to figure out how to do this and get something in place by the fall. Regardless if this ever gets “Green Lit” in film, I’m retaining the ebook, print, and audio rights to the series titled City Of Danger.

I’ve researched hardboiled detective fiction for the past three months. It’s utterly consumed me, and I’m completely hooked on a fascinating genre. I’ve always believed that the best way to learn something is by writing on it or, better yet, teaching it. With that in mind, a month ago I wrote a post on The Kill Zone about hardboiled crime fiction’s popularity. Now, I’ll steal back my own work and republish the piece here on DyingWords. Here goes:

—   —   —

Crime doesn’t pay, so they say. Well, whoever “they” are, they aren’t in touch with today’s entertainment market because crime—true and fiction—in books, audio, television, film, or net-streaming, is a highly popular commodity. One solid crime writing sub-genre, detective fiction, is hot as a Mexican’s lunch.

Detective fiction has been hot for a long, long time. Crime writing historians give Edgar Allan Poe credit for siring the first modern detective story. Back in 1841, Poe penned Murders In The Rue Morgue (set in Paris), and it was a smash hit in Graham’s Magazine. Poe’s detective, C. Auguste Dupin, used an investigation style called “ratiocination” which means a process of exact thinking.

Poe’s style brought on the cozy mysteries, aka The Golden Era of Crime Fiction of the 1920s. Detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple solved locked-room crimes. They intrigued readers but spared them gruesome details like extreme violence, hardcore sex, and graphic killings.

The golden crime-fiction genre evolved into the hardboiled detective fiction movement, circa 1930s-1950s. Crime writers like Dashiell Hammett gave us the Continental Op and Sam Spade. Raymond Chandler brought Philip Marlowe to life. Carroll John Daly convincingly conceived Race Williams. And Mickey Spillane, bless his multi-million-selling soul, left Mike Hammer as his legacy.

The ’60s to 2000s gave more great detective fiction stories. Anyone heard of Elmore Leonard? How about Sarah Paretsky and Sue Grafton? Or, in current times, Michael Connelly, Megan Abbott, and a wildcard in the hardboiled and noir department, Christa Faust?

These storytellers broke ground that’s still being tilled by great fictional detectives. Television gave us Perry Mason, Ironside, Columbo, Jack Friday, Kojack, and Magnum. Murder She Wrote? How cool was mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher? And let’s not even get into big screen and the now runaway net-stream stuff.

So why the unending popularity of detective fiction? I asked myself this question to understand and appreciate the detective fiction part of the crime story genre. I worked as a real detective for decades, and I know what it’s like to stare down a barrel and scrape up a cold one. But once I reinvented myself as a crime writer, I had to learn a new trade.

I’m on an even-newer venture right now, and that’s developing a net-streaming style series. It’s a different—but not too different—delve into hardboiled detective fiction, and the series is titled City Of Danger. To write this credibly, and with honor to heritage, I’ve plunged into a rabbit hole of research that’s becoming more like a badger den or a viper pit.

What I’m doing, as we “speak”, is learning this sub-genre of crime writing—hardboiled detective fiction—and I’ve learned two things. One, I found out I knew SFA almost nothing about this fascinating fictional world that’s entertained many millions of detective fiction fans for well over a hundred years. Two, detective fiction has far from gone away.

My take? Detective fiction—hardboiled, softboiled, over-easy, scrambled, or baked in a cake—is on the rise and will continue being a huge crime-paying moneymaker in coming years. There are reasons for that, why detective fiction remains so popular, and I think I’ve found some.

I stumbled on an interesting article at a site called Beemgee.com. Its title Why is Crime Fiction So Popular? caught my attention, so I copied and pasted it onto a Word.doc and dissected it. Here’s the nuts, bolts, and screws of what it says.

Crime fascinates people, and detectives (for the most part) work on solving crimes. But the crime genre popularity has little to do with the crime, per se. It has far more to do with the very essence of storytelling—people are hardwired to listen to stories, especially crime stories.

Detective fiction is premiere crime storytelling and clearly exhibits one of the fundamental rules of storytelling: cause and effect. In detective fiction, every scene must be justified—each plot event must have a raison d’etre within the story because the reader perceives every scene as the potential cause of a forthcoming effect.

Picture a Roman arch bridge. Every stone is held in place by its neighbor just like story archs with properly set scenes. Take away one scene that doesn’t support the story arch and the structure fails.

Well-written detective fiction has a bridge-like structure. Each scene in the storytelling trip has some sort of a cause that creates an effect. This subliminal action keeps readers turning pages.

The article drills into detective fiction cause and effect. It rightly says the universe has a law of cause and effect but we, as humans, can’t really see it in action. But we’re programmed to know it exists, so we naturally seek an agency—the active cause of any actions we perceive.

Detective fiction stories, like most storytelling types, provide a safety mechanism. A detective story is built around solving a crime by following clues. A cause. An effect. A cause. An effect. The story goes on until you find out whodunit and a well-told story leaves you with a satisfying end where you’ve picked up a take-away safety tip.

But detective fiction stories aren’t truly about whodunit. Sure, we want the crook caught and due justice served. However, we want to know something more. We want to know motive, and this is where the best detective fiction stories shine. They’re whydunnits.

Whydunnits are irresistible stories. They’re the search for truth, and in searching for truth in detective fiction storytelling—why this crime writing sub-genre remains so popular—I found another online article. Its title Why Is Detective Fiction So Popular? also caught my attention.

This short piece is on a blog by Swiss crime writer, Cristelle Comby. If you haven’t heard of Cristelle, I recommend you check her out. Her post has a quote that sums up why detective fiction is so popular, and it’s far more eloquent than anything I can write. Here’s a snippet:

“Detective novels do not demand emotional or intellectual involvement; they do not arouse one’s political opinions or exhaust one by its philosophical queries which may lead the reader towards self-analysis and exploration. They, at best, require a sense of vicarious participation and this is easy to give. Most readers identify themselves with the hero and share his adventures and sense of discovery.

Cristelle Comby

The concept of a hero in a detective story is different from that of a hero in any other kind of fictional work. A hero in a novel is the protagonist; things happen to him. His character grows or develops and it is his relationship to others which is important. In a detective story, there is no place for a hero of this kind. The person who is important is the detective and it is the way he fits the pieces of the puzzle together which arouses interest. Thus in a detective story it is the narration and the events which are overwhelmingly important, the growth of character is immaterial. What the detective story has to offer is suspense. It satisfies the most primitive element responsible for the development of story-telling, the element of curiosity, the desire to know why and how.

Detective stories offer suspense, a sense of vicarious satisfaction, and they also offer escape from the fears and worries and the stress and strain of everyday life. Many people who would rather stay away from intellectually ‘heavy’ books find it hard to resist these. Detective fiction is so popular because the story moves with speed.”

As a former detective, and now someone who writes this stuff, I think detective fiction is so popular because you can safely escape into a dark & dangerous world of wild causes and wild effects—full of fast-reading suspense—and you get powerful insight into what makes other people (like good guys and bad girls) tick. Yes, escapism. You can safely escape into the fictional, danger-filled crime world and let your hardboiled detective kill your enemies for you.

So that’s what went up on The Kill Zone blog. Now for a little bonus here at DyingWords. Here’s the City Of Danger series product description:

The City Of Danger is in peril. It’s in 2020s dystopian crisis with infrastructure crumbling, social systems collapsing, corruption infesting all civic layers, and crime overflowing from clogged gutters of every alley—gushing gangland and political blood onto its streets. The City Of Danger urgently needs help it can’t get from its mainstream. For salvation, it surreptitiously enlists two private detectives from its 1920s utopian past.

Susan Silverii and Al Monagham share a split-room office with frosted glass doors in the city’s low rent district. They’re ex-police officers who weren’t a good fit. It’s the Roaring Twenties, and they’ve struck out on their own. Al with his street justice vengeance. Susan with her social change agenda.

And they have a past, Susan and Al. A past of personal passion and poisoned positions. But when the City of Danger assigns, they put professionalism first and inter-conflict second as Susan Silverii and Al Monagham step from runnin’-wild, Charleston-dance speakeasies onto the mean streets in the ugly world of a modern city—an interconnected city sick with immoral chaos.

Dispense street justice. Restore social order. Treacherous tasks ordered by a desperate client— the City Of Danger.

Now for a double DyingWords bonus: Here’s a sneak peek at Scene One in the City Of Danger Pilot Episode:

CITY OF DANGER

Pilot Episode

Scene One

Monday, October 31 ­­- 7:50 a.m.

Setting:

Noir. Bleak. Dense urban. Icy drizzle has stopped. Civic lights are still on — what still work. Hard gusts blow wet leaves that stick to cracked brick, condemned structural glass, and corroded staircase metals. A failing foghorn on the waterfront echoes off battered buildings smothered by smog — its rhythm competes with sirens screeching hopelessly towards smoke, sickness, and sadness in the slums. Closing in — methane eerily seeps from open sewer grates. It nauseates. Yet, the taste is somehow sickly sweet — almost tolerable — and now expected; unapologetically not urbane, unlike those who fight entropy’s ultimatum in the City Of Danger.

Fade In:

Camera view:

Germanic Expressionist style. High-angle, downward capture. Sharp and dull shadows through contrasted lighting. Follows six feet back on quarter-rear sides as well as directly behind.

Narrator:

The City

Voice In:

A 2021 Beamer X3 SUV, deep-sea metallic blue, brakes to a halt behind a solid-black Tesla on Mean Street, a pock-marked route with water-filled potholes in the low rent district. A stunningly attractive and stylish high-status lady — exceptionally fit — a natural brunette, except for dyed umber highlights, showing dolphin-smooth skin — in her fifties with impeccable dark brows accenting mahogany eyes and classic red wine lipstick, steps out. Her Lululemon-clad legs hit hard on crumbling asphalt. Immediately, she clicks her fob and locks her doors then rapidly scans the streetscape. Her right hand subconsciously checks her shoulder-holstered .32 auto cloaked by her unzipped yellow & black Arc’teryx rain jacket, and she hurtfully limps into the claustrophobic narrows of Peril Alley.

On the lady’s left, angle-parked with one rear door propped open and its running engine spewing propane fumes, is a mid-2000s FedEx panel van parked beside a gold-trimmed 1999 Caddy Eldorado. A greaseball Latino takes a brown paper bag from the black F/X operator who glances at the lady with his one good eye. Twice and once more.

Further, on her right, the lady’s right, is an ‘85 Chevy Impala, a boring beige four-door with a flat front tire. A prune — a sun-wrinkled old olive-skinned guy with a faded white Masters golf cap and perpetually-down fly has it jacked-up. He curses the C-Word.

The lady pauses. She frowns. In Italian, she says, “Tua madre non ti ha insegnato le buone maniere”. He replies, “Ciao bella!” She blows a kiss at the ground, flips him the bird, and falters on. She quick-lefts a shoulder check then watches straight ahead, closing at the back end of a 1976 F150 Styleside, red and silver with a lichen-spattered canopy. A loosely attached, non-local plate catches her eye. Looks abandoned, she thinks. It’s at a chokepoint in the center of tightening Peril Alley. She stops. Slightly backs up. Sniffs. Nitrogen fertilizer with trigger device? No. Probably just organic sludge in the box of a stolen pickup dumped here as usual.

The lady squeezes past the Ford’s passenger side, avoiding its dented, dirt-dripping door and smashed mirror. She looks to her left at a late-60s muscle car, a puke-green Goat — a Pontiac GTO, idling with a leaded gas, throaty rumble. She can’t see the driver, but the Goat’s passenger is a mousey-haired hippy chick giving her a suggestive smile through a part-open window. The stink of shit-grade Sinsemilla scrunches the lady’s ideal nose.

Her right hand raises. Fingers pinch, then release, and her nostrils reopen after she’s passed — cautiously favoring her left side’s now-permanent short-step.

She hesitates. Stops. She looks up.

Chuck Berry’s hit Maybellene blasts from a transistor radio on a shaky fire escape landing. It’s thirty feet above her uncovered head, the same place invasive carrier pigeons roost and fecal-drop and terminally-diseased rats cunningly climb cone-shielded steel poles to steal mildewed barley seed scattered onto delaminating plywood.

The lady shivers. She keeps on.

On her right is an alley business, a family business she knows well, a WW2 era Chinese clothes cleaner and money launderer — Ho Lim’s — tucked into the set-back alcove of a used-brick façade with cast iron plumbing barely hanging from bolts set into breaking gray mortar. The lady moves to her left, avoiding intermittent blasts of perc solvent.

Peril Alley darkens. It cools even more. The buildings grow as she approaches dead end. Twenty stories and more overshadow brownstones and brownstones overshadow antiquated infrastructure of overloaded, overheated, overhead power poles draped with time-twisted lines strung through opaque glass insulators screwed into tired wood crossbars. On the ground — unpredictable ground — foundry-built catch basins guard root-filled, tiled storm drains that swirl-down rancid water mixed with more of the city’s rottenness.

Bang!

She spins left towards the sound. Lowers and goes sideways. Minimizes her silhouette exactly as she’s been tactically trained — intensely immersed during her now-discharged service — and hooks-out her handgun. But it’s the backfire from a red-as-raw-meat ’41 Packard 180 with a badly-floated carb. The owner, a flat-capper in elbow-patched tweed, laughs. She doesn’t. She reholsters. But leaves off her safety.

A bum, a Depression-era hobo with nothing more to her miserable life than a broken broom handle with a half-tied-on, once-gray pillowcase, rummages through an unlidded dumpster with her grease-crusted hands. The hag begs. The lady responds. She opens her overcoat, removes the Calabrian leather wallet handed down through her ‘Ndrangheta family, opens it, and gives the other a five.

Ahead — just before Peril’s dead-end — phonograph sounds of Charleston dance sing-out from inside a welded steel gate guarding a Prohibition speakeasy. It’s trailing off from last night’s steamy start, raucous non-stop laughter, and this morning’s explosive finish. The lady looks right. She smiles, slightly, at the flickering on-and-off red and orange and green and blue neon sign: Topper’s Grill & Bar.

The lady stands where she can go no more down Peril Alley. There’s a large door framed into a soot-stained, rough stucco wall Tommygunned with .45 holes. It’s flanked by a now-glassless window boarded-up after the latest kerosene-wicked, flame-thrown cocktail. The door is a heavy, metal-strapped oak door — not altruistic like her eyes and her soul — more fatalistic as a mix of splintered hardwood and oozing rust. Like her, risking to be shot once again.

Beside the door are two signs, business signs, in black & white Roaring Twenties font. One’s above the other. Al Monagham Private Detective Agency is on top. The other, below, is Susan Silverii Private Detective Agency.

The lady fishes a skeleton key from her outer garment — it’s now changed from her unzipped yellow & black Arc’teryx rain jacket to a peach Flapper coat (virgin wool, of course, and a color perfectly coordinating her stunningly attractive and stylish high-status Flapper headdress). She inserts the key with her right hand — her left hand and forearm so severely injured — they’re nearly impotent — and releases the lock.

She opens the door, and Susan Silverii struggles her step into temporary safety within her shared office workspace.

Fade Out.

STEPHEN KING’S SURPRISINGLY SIMPLE SECRET TO SUCCESS

When it comes to being a master of the commercial writing craft, few authors are more successful than Stephen King. The “Horror Guy”, who King calls himself, has tirelessly worked for over sixty years. He’s produced more than fifty novels and countless other pieces in a non-stop career during which he almost died from substance abuse and a nasty vehicle accident. “Prolific” is an understatement when it comes to labeling this writing machine, and there’s a surprisingly simple secret to Stephen King’s success.

Yes, the secret to Stephen King’s success is surprisingly simple. It’s a concoction beyond natural storytelling talent, which he has in spades. It’s a mix beyond craft knowledge and prose perfection. And it’s a blend beyond something else—something most writers simply won’t do in their lives. Yet it’s a simple success secret which Stephen King slyly shares if you follow his work.

Before I disclose Stephen King’s s simple success secret, let me tell you what triggered this post. I’m a big Stephen King fan. I’ve read a lot of his stuff—From A Buick Eight is my mind-blowing favorite—and I know many readers can’t Stand him (pun intended). Certainly, he’s verbose compared to James Patterson, but I’m on Team King all the way, even though Team Patterson outsells him.

I connected with a lady who recently retired from the same police force I served with. I didn’t know her directly, but I worked with her dad in the RCMP years ago. She made a career as a detective with Vancouver’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (I-HIT) and was their high-profile spokesperson for a long stint. Now this fine lady has a keen interest in beginning a crime-writing career, and she was silly enough to turn to me for advice.

I see piles of potential in this unfolding writer. She has the proper package required to be a commercial success and a household name in crime fiction circles, just as she was in the true crime world. Part of our long talk was me recommending resources to study. Stephen King’s On Writing—A Memoir of the Craft was at the top of the list.

Stephen King. Where do you start to explain his success secret? First, Stephen King is self-made. He didn’t come from writing royalty, and that story of him working nights at a laundry and throwing Carrie in the trash isn’t bullshit. His wife, Tabitha, rescued the manuscript and submitted it to Putnam and the success of Stephen King—writer—began.

Stephen King is coming on to 74. He still writes every day that he can and that includes Christmas and his birthday. Mr. King still finds time to read—lots of reading time—and he generously gives what he has to spare in helping others to develop their writing skills. That includes unfolding writers like my retired detective friend who I hope has redlined, yellow highlighted, and made black ink notes in an On Writing copy as I have.

In prepping this post, I reread On Writing. Or, I should say reviewed my red lines and yellow bars along with black ink notations. I’ve paged this prize at least a dozen times as I’ve built my skills, and I’m now at the point that I can legitimately call myself a commercial writer who’s achieved international bestselling status.

Call me a bragger. Just don’t call me a bullshitter, and I attribute my achievements much to Stephen King’s simple success secret which I’ll keep you in suspense from while I do a quick review of what’s in On Writing and why these pages of gold are so, so valuable for anyone who wants to make it in the commercial storytelling world.

Mr. King wrote On Writing in 2000. At least that’s what the copyright page says. That would have made him around 52 which is 11 years younger than I was when I decided to take writing stories seriously.

On Writing opens with this quote in the foreword: “What follows is an attempt to put down, briefly and simply, how I came to the craft, what I know about it now, and how it’s done. It’s about the day job; it’s about the language.”

It’s about the day job and it’s about the language. Commercial writing is a job. It’s bloody hard work that requires a writer to show up every day, sit down with their ass in the chair, and put their fingers on the keys—not just when they feel like it or when they think the muse calls. And it’s about using those keys to transcribe language into a crafted story that’s saleable to a mass market.

Like Stephen King has been doing tirelessly every day for 60 years.

“This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad. I figured the shorter the book, the less the bullshit.”

On Writing is a short book by Stephen King standards. It runs just shy of 300 pages, but those pages contain sage quotes like these:

“You must not come lightly to the blank page.”

“It’s writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you take it seriously, we can do business. If you can’t or won’t, it’s time for you to close this book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe.”

“Simple sentences worked well for Hemmingway, didn’t they? Even when he was drunk on his ass, he was a fucking genius.”

“I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. Good writing is about letting go of fear and affectation. Also about making good choices about the tools you plan to work with.”

“I love this job. I want you to love it, too. But if you don’t want to work your ass off, you have no business trying to write well—settle back into complacency and be grateful you have even that much to fall back on. There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust over your typewriter or computer. He lives underground. He’s a basement guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think this is fair? I think it’s fair. He may not be much to look at, that muse guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist (what I get from mine is mostly surly grunts, unless he’s on duty), but he’s got the inspiration. It’s right that you should do all the work and burn the midnight oil because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There’s stuff in there that can change your life. Believe me, I know.”

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others. Read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

“Constant reading will pull you into a place (a mindset, if you like the phrase) where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness. It offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn’t, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or your word processor.”

“A radio host once asked me how I write. I answered ‘one word at a time’. Day in and day out. Not surprisingly, it’s that simple. It’s the secret to my success.”

In my humble opinion (IMHO), Stephen King’s surprisingly simple secret to his success as a commercial writer is tirelessness. He’s tirelessly written one word at a time for over six decades and shows no sign of letting up. Long live the King.

———

Post note from Garry: There is a book karma god or some kinda benevolent page muse out there. I published this piece on Saturday, 20Feb2021 and on Sunday, 21Feb2021, I went into a used bookstore in Parksville on Vancouver Island. What did I find? A first edition, hardcover of On Writing in pristine condition. SCORE! Start the f’n car! Even the dust jacket had no fading or marks. I’m going to have this baby framed in a shadow box.

BEYOND THE LIMITS — NEW BASED-ON-TRUE-CRIME SERIES BOOK RELEASE

Book #7 in my Based-On-True-Crime Series is out. Beyond The Limits is now available in e-format on Amazon, Kobo, and Nook. (February 06, 2021) Here’s the product description (blurb / jacket copy) and the first two chapters.

What really happened to Kita Southern? A vibrant entrepreneur with high ambitions suddenly disappears from a small Vancouver Island city. She seems to have it all. Beauty. Charm. And a passion for channeling the metaphysical. But Kita has a lifestyle most don’t know of, and you never know what goes on in people’s minds. The truth in Kita Southern’s case is beyond the limits of imagination—an incomprehensible tragedy.

Beyond The Limits is Book 7 in the 12-part Based-On-True-Crime series by retired homicide detective and coroner Garry Rodgers. This story comes with a warning: Explicit descriptions of the crime scenes, factual dialogue, real forensic procedures, and actual police investigation, interview and interrogation techniques are portrayed. If you crave graphic realism in crime writing, Beyond The Limits is your book.

Chapter One — Monday, December 21st – 9:00 a.m.

“Kita. Kita Southern.” Kari Lyons dammed back her tears as she said her sister’s name. Gwen Southern, their mother, didn’t. Gwen’s silently flowed. She sat with Kari on the couch in our police interview room adjacent to the Serious Crimes Section office.

“This… is… completely out of character for Kita.” Kari choked. “So, so out of character.”

Now Kari broke down. She pushed her face into her mom’s shoulder and began to bawl. Both ladies were emotional messes.

I gave them composure time. There were tissue boxes in what we called the “soft” interview space we used for victim, witness, and complainant statements. Gwen and Kari took Kleenexes and soaked them.

Kari raised her head. She spoke in hesitant spurts. “She… Kita… she would never be away… this long… without telling someone. Never.”

Gwen, too, said a nearly inaudible, “Never.”

——

Kari Lyons and Gwen Southern came into the Nanaimo police office to report Kita as a missing person. The desk officer took brief details at the front counter but, hearing the alarming circumstances, referred them to a detective. I was the only one in the Serious Crimes Section with a current spare moment, and I was the one who inherited the Kita Southern file.

Nanaimo is a small coastal city of a hundred thousand on the southeastern shore of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It’s straight across the Salish Sea from the City of Vancouver which is one of the most exotic, erotic, and expensive places on the planet. Although much smaller and somewhat cutoff, Nanaimo has a disproportionately large share of hardcore crime intertwined with the black market drug trade.

Drugs. It was always drugs. Drugs were the main source of sorrow.

——

“I need to get some details.” I had my pen out and my notebook open. I also had a video camera and audio recorder running, although Gwen and Kari couldn’t see it. “Can you give me Kita’s full name?”

Kari responded. “It’s Kita Rose Southern. Kita is spelled K-i-t-a. The other two are just as they sound.”

“And how old is Kita?”

“She’s thirty-four.” Kari sniffed. She dabbed her eyes and nose. “Just turned thirty-four on October seventeenth.”

“What’s Kita’s description?”

“She looks exactly like me.”

“Kita and Kari. Are you twins?”

“No. But everyone thinks we are. Kita is a year and a bit younger.” Kari opened her phone and flicked. “Here is a recent photo of Kita… taken on her birthday.”

I looked at a happy image—lusty skin, charcoal mane, turquoise eyes, and crimson lips circling a Hollywood mouth. Kari scrolled again. I saw more pics of Kita. I looked at Kari, then back at Kita. Could be twins. Very attractive women. Curvaceous. Full-figured. Vibrant. If old Hef were alive, they’d have a shot at Playboy’s center. “What’s Kita’s address and contact information?”

Gwen stayed silent but attentive. Kari replied, “She lives at five-twenty-three Park Avenue. The old section of Harewood off Fifth. It’s a gorgeous character home. Her cell number is… here, I’ll write it down for you.”

Kari printed 250 668-8972. She also gave me Kita’s email, kita1@gmail.com, as well as Kita’s social media accounts. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. And a website titled TheTarotLady.net.

“Now, when was Kita last seen? Last heard?”

Kari went teary again. Gwen still was. Kari set her phone on the coffee table between us. She clasped her mother’s hand.

“She… the… from what I can determine… Kita was active until about noon on Saturday. This past Saturday the nineteenth. She went to pick up something from a friend. A close friend who has a store downtown on Commercial Street.”

“Her friend’s name is?”

“Jasmine Koch. They’re extremely close. Since elementary school, and I’d say Jasmine is probably Kita’s closest friend. Jasmine is freaking out. So is everyone else, and a lot of people in this town know Kita. But no one knows anything at all about what’s happened to her. This is so, so out of character.”

“Fill me in about what happened when Kita was last heard from.”

“I haven’t spoken to Jasmine in person. Just on the phone. But Jasmine says Kita came to the store at noon or just after. The group had a Christmas party planned for the evening, and Kita picked up something for it from Jasmine’s store. Then Kita left… she was alone… and that’s the last anyone can say they know…”

Gwen leaned forward and took Kari’s other hand. I thought she was going to crush it.

“Did Jasmine say where Kita was headed next?”

“No. Not specifically. But from what I’ve put together from phoning around… driving around… Kita had a few appointments, and I can’t say for sure if she made them. I didn’t know anything was wrong until yesterday afternoon. Then I tried calling, texting, emailing, messaging her website, but Kita didn’t answer. This is absolutely not like her. Kita has never done this before. She would never just take off and not leave a reason to not be available. She has so many contact forms, and she’s a very busy person. She needs to constantly keep in touch with people. Friends. Clients. Business associates. She would never, ever, up and disappear. It’s just beyond the limits of my imagination.”

“Sure sounds like something’s seriously wrong.” I spoke my thoughts, and it wasn’t good. Kari and Gwen went nearly hysterical.

Kari hugged her mother who was full-on vibrating. I gave them a few minutes. Then I asked a question that had to be asked. “Do you have any suspicions?”

Chapter Two — Monday, December 21st – 9:15 a.m.

Did Gwen Southern and Kari Lyons have any suspicions? Yes, they did. And to their admission, those suspicions made no sense. Looking back, they made no sense to me either. However, I’d learn as I investigated the Kita Southern file that a lot of things didn’t make a lot of sense. Especially things that went on in other people’s minds.

I’d been a detective for a long time. Probably too long, and I was nearing retirement. I’d seen a lot of things, and something I learned was never to assume things are as they first appear. I let Kari and Gwen tell me what they suspected.

——

“I don’t know how to say this.” Kari looked towards a taupe wall with non-descript artwork in the softly-lit room. “It’s Dan. He is acting… strange. Not himself. At all.”

“And who is Dan?”

Kari turned back to me. “Dan is Kita’s other. Kita’s life partner. They’re not officially married, but they’ve been together for nearly ten years. I… I can’t imagine Dan doing anything to harm Kita… but… there’s something wrong with the way he’s acting. Really wrong.”

“Dan’s last name is?”

“Porter. Dan… Daniel Porter.”

“So how is Dan acting that raises suspicions?”

Kari paused. She glanced at Gwen who nodded a go-ahead sign. “He… he seems worried on one hand. Like almost sick with worry. On the other, he says there’s no problem. He says Kita has just taken some soul time for herself, and everything is just fine. Well, it’s not fine…” Kari started to cry again which set Gwen off.

I let them vent. They were nearly cried out, and that could be a good thing. Venting helps a person focus once they’re all vented out.

Kari continued. “When I first couldn’t contact Kita, I phoned Dan. He didn’t answer, so I left a voice message then a few texts. I also phoned a few of Kita’s friends, and that set the alarm off. People called other people. It was obvious something was seriously wrong. Kita didn’t keep appointments. She didn’t respond to anyone else. She… she… vanished.”

“So did Dan contact you?”

“He did. After maybe two hours and then others were calling him, too.”

“And what did Dan say?”

“Dan said Kita was fine. Not to worry. That was yesterday afternoon. Maybe four or so. He said Kita needed time to herself and she was fine. I didn’t believe it.”

“Did Dan say where Kita was?”

“No. I asked him specifically. He said Kita didn’t want anyone contacting her for a while. I asked him how long. He was… evasive. He said he could pass messages on to her, but she didn’t want to talk to anyone or see anyone at the moment.”

“Did Dan say why she wanted… what did you call it? Soul time?”

“No. I tried to get him to explain, but he walled-up and told me not to worry. ‘Everything was fine,’ he said. I can’t believe that.”

“Has this happened before?”

Kari shook her head. “Never. This is absolutely not like her. Kita would never do anything like go away without telling anyone. She would know people… family… friends… clients… everyone would be really concerned without a good explanation. It makes no sense at all. Excuse my language, but it’s bullshit. Dan knows something. He’s not telling the truth.”

Gwen Southern spoke for the first time. She had an unusual voice. She reminded me of my mother, who was highly educated and articulate but with a peculiar way of pronouncing certain words like sawmon for salmon and toe-matt-toe for tomato.

“I have to say I can’t believe Daniel would ever do anything to harm Kita.” Gwen sat up. She leaned forward and into my space. “Something has happened between the two that I cannot remotely fathom. There has never been any conflict or discontent in their relationship. Daniel is a son to me.”

“Have you spoken to Daniel, Gwen?” I set down my pen and put my hand forward.

Gwen instinctively took it. “I have. Daniel gave me a story that Kita took a hideaway to finish a book. Kita is a writer, among the many things she does. Daniel told me… and he’s never spoken mistruth to me… that Kita had a deadline change and a manuscript rush to complete and be published before year’s end. There is truth to that. But there is no truth to Kita’s intentional lack of contact. Kita would not cut off communication with her family and friends.”

“Did Daniel tell you where Kita was?”

Gwen released her grasp. She reached for another Kleenex. “No. I asked him. He was… evasive. He told me not to worry. That Kita was under pressure. That Kita was fine. That she’d be home in a few days. Well before Christmas which is our main family event. This is the first time I’ve had reason to disbelieve Daniel. However, I have to say Daniel seems very worried himself.”

Kari offered something else. “Dan told Anita Jancovic a different story. He said Kita went on a vision quest. Dan told Anita that Kita had a card reading telling her to take an immediate break from life stress. Kita said… Dan said Kita said she needed to do a vision quest and excommunicate herself.”

“Anita Jancovic? Who’s she?”

“Another of Kita’s close friends. Anita was holding the Christmas party.”

I was getting confused. Soul time? Vision quest? Card reading? Writing deadline? Excommunicate herself? I paused to write the phrases in my notebook.

“So it seems there are two conflicting accounts coming from Dan—” I was going to paraphrase, but Kari cut me off.

“Three. Dan told me Kita wanted soul time. He told Anita that Kita had a troubling card read and went on a vision quest. He told Mom that Kita suddenly dropped everything to go and finish a book. I don’t buy any of it.”

“Okay.” I numbered my phrases with one, two, three, and four.”

“On the other hand… while this is completely out of normal for Kita… it’s also completely abnormal for Dan to act like this. Like I said, what’s happened is beyond the limits of my imagination.”

I leaned forward. “I’d like you folks to tell me more about Kita and Dan. What is going on in their lives and in their minds?”

What I was about to find out was beyond the limits of my imagination too.

——

Download Beyond The Limits — Book 7 in the Based-On-True-Crime Series by Garry Rodgers.