Book Excerpts

TITLES

Mazurka by Aaron Paul Lazar

The Storks of La Caridad by Florence Byham Weinerg
Shadows Over Paradise by Anne K. Edwards
Spirit Lake by Carol Guy
Murder Past, Murder Present - Eds. R. Barri Flowers/Jan Grape
Doggie Biscuit by Darrell Bain
Enchanted Hunt by Dorothy Ann Skarles
Spice Up Your Writing by Billie Williams
The Accidental Spy by John R. Lindermuth
The Devil Can Wait by Marta Stephens
Mazurka
literary mystery
Aaron Paul Lazar
Format: PDF, HTML, Palm, pdf arc available now.
Fictionwise -or- OmniLit -or- Sony eBookstore
List Price: $6.50 USD
Format: Trade Paperback Available now!
Order this book via check or credit card
~ or visit ~ Amazon; Bamm.com; Barnes & Noble Borders; Indy Bookstores
List Price: $16.95 USD

Chapter One

  We're going to die on our wedding day.
 l lThe right wing dipped and the storm raged, battering the massive Boeing 747. Overhead bins snapped open, disgorging travel bags and paraphernalia into the aisle. Cries of alarm filled the air and cold sweat wetted my brow.
  Camille grabbed my arm.
  "Talk to me, Gus. Take my mind off it."
  Her complexion waxed green and she brushed damp curls from her forehead, leaning back with eyes squeezed shut. A bolt of lightning burst against the window as the aircraft wobbled its way toward Paris.
  I forced a smile. "I think we're over land now. Almost there."
  Her eyes blinked open, searching mine. Hope glinted momentarily until the plane shuddered again, reinforcing her deep-seated flying phobia. I wondered how I'd ever get her back on the plane for the return trip to East Goodland, New York.
  I twisted the overhead air vent, letting the tepid air ruffle my hair. With a deep breath, I collected myself and tried to sound natural.
  "You'll love Paris, honey. It's so full of color and motion and … people. An amazing assortment of people."
  Her eyes darted to the window. "Uh-huh. Tell me more."
  Another bolt of lightning flickered, blinding me. I braced myself as the plane rocked. The wing quivered in counterpoint to my heartbeat; its metallic stutter growling in protest.  She shifted in her seat and shot me a glance.
  "You were there with Elsbeth, right?"
  I looked into her eyes. No jealousy lurked there.
  "Yes. Ten years ago. Our anniversary."
  My throat clogged. Elsbeth, my soul mate, my fiery partner, had been murdered five years earlier—shoved from the cliffs of the Letchworth Gorge.
  Camille kissed her fingertips and gently pressed them to my mouth. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you sad."
  I flashed a half smile.
  "It's okay."
  She sat up with interest, ignoring the rocking aircraft.
  "Let's talk about Paris."
  I turned to her, taking her hands in mine. "What's the first thing you want to do when we arrive?"
  "Besides kiss the ground?" she asked.
  I laughed. "Yeah. Besides that."
  Rain splattered against the window, dancing in parallel conga lines as the high wind smeared it against the glass.
  "I want to walk along the Seine and find a café. I was craving fresh croissants and strawberries before my stomach started to flip flop."
  A sudden gust caught the plane, sheering it sideways. I nearly lost my lunch. Mopping my forehead with my sleeve, I tightened my seatbelt. Camille froze, plastered against her seat. When the plane stabilized, the captain's voice boomed over the loudspeaker.
  "Folks, this is Captain Wilcox. Sorry for the bumpy ride. I'm going to try to fly above the storm. Meanwhile, please remain calm. Observe the seatbelt sign and stay in your seats. As soon as it's safe to move about the cabin, I'll let you know."
  Camille took a deep breath.
  "Where's our hotel?"
  "On the right bank. Just around the corner from Notre Dame. Walking distance to the Musée D'Orsay, the Louvre, the Jardin de Tuileries. A perfect location."
  The left wing dropped and the plane pitched. She grabbed my hand.
  "If we make it at all," she said.
  Without warning, the jet plunged, diving through the clouds. A volley of flames erupted from the engine outside our window. Camille's eyes widened and a sob burst from her lips. My head snapped against the headrest and the force of the descent pinned me to the seat.
  Oxygen masks dropped and dangled elusively in the air. I pried one hand from the armrest and fumbled for my mask. Reaching for it, I snagged it and stretched the elastic strap around my head. Camille caught her mask, placed it over her mouth, and looked at me. Terror flared in her eyes.
  I clutched her hand as a kaleidoscope of images flitted through my brain: Camille in her wedding dress, my grandson's impish smile, our dogs, Max and Boris, asleep by the fire.
  We plummeted through a time continuum that blended slow motion with eternity. I struggled to remember the crash position as my heart drummed beneath my ribs. The captain's voice thundered over the loudspeaker, words muffled beneath the roar of the descent. Craning my head against the heavy force, I faced Camille. It was surreal. A dream. A nightmare.
  Abruptly, the aircraft stabilized. A stainless steel coffeepot rolled down the aisle and lodged against my foot. The fire in the engine extinguished and the plane ascended as innocuously as it had hours earlier from Dulles Airport.

Chapter Two

  The air filled with a hubbub of shouts in assorted languages. The nearest attendant unsnapped her belt and walked the aisle, scooping up items that had become airborne during the dive. As she deftly comforted passengers, I marveled at her rapid recovery. A faint, haunted expression lingered in her eyes as she went about her duties.
  The captain's voice blasted through tinny speakers.
  "It's okay now, folks. We made it through the worst of it. If anyone needs help, press your attendant button. Sorry for the drop. We have mechanical failures, but nothing we can't handle. Just breathe normally and ignore the masks until we come around and pack them back into the consoles. We'll be touching down in about an hour. The temperature in Paris is sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit."
  I released her hand and unfastened the mask, shaking my head to clear it. Camille ran her fingers through her hair, stifling a sob. Her hand flew to her mouth and she exploded with emotion.
  I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to me. She convulsed against my neck, gulping through tears. Stroking her back, I inhaled the familiar scent of her. Relief shuddered through me as we collapsed against each other.
  She lifted her tear-stained face to mine. Urgently, I pressed my lips to hers. She kissed me back, let out another small sob, and lay her head against my chest. After a while, she settled back in her seat and leaned against my shoulder. Her eyes glazed over as she stared into the black night. Fat raindrops slid along the glass, intertwining in black ribbons that pelleted and split in the wind. With sudden resolve, Camille sat up and looked at me. Strength and purpose returned to her eyes. I watched her pull herself together as she dabbed at the tears and pulled her hair into a ponytail.
  The plane banked slowly to the right. A field of lights twinkled below.
  "We're almost there," I said. The words sounded trite, yet vibrated with magnitude born of near disaster.
  She snaked her arm through mine and leaned against me. I reached for her hand, needing the closeness of her touch, and rubbed my thumb across the soft skin on her hand. She was warm and real. Alive. We lay back against the seats as the rest of the plane returned to a semblance of normalcy.
  The calming aroma of coffee filled the air. Without warning, the giant figure across the aisle sat up and threw back the blanket partially covering his enormous body.
  "Professor? Was ist passiert? (What happened?)" Siegfried asked in his thick German accent.
  He pushed his long blond ponytail over his shoulder and rubbed huge fingers over sleep-soggy eyes, resembling a child waking from a nap. I turned to face the brother of my departed wife and smiled. He'd slept through the whole thing.
  "A little turbulence, Sig."
  The word wasn't in his vocabulary. I raised one hand in the air and mimicked a plane flying rapidly up and down. He nodded briefly and flashed a drowsy half-smile, closing his eyes again as he snuggled under his blanket. While the passengers queued at the restrooms, I decided to follow his example and closed my eyes. Memories of the bizarre phone call that caused Siegfried to join us on our honeymoon panned across my brain like a flickering eight millimeter movie.
  Frieda Hirsch, Siegfried's great aunt, issued the summons to Germany when the cancer within her claimed her future. Her doctors gave her only months to live, thus prompting the middle-of-the-night phone call that shocked me from my sleep.
  "Siegfried must come to Germany," she pleaded. "I have something very important to give him." Her stumbling English was translated with the help of her grandson on the extension. After the long and complicated call, Camille and I agreed to deliver Siegfried to Germany en route to our honeymoon in Vienna.
  I tried to shake myself from the reverie, but couldn't wrench my eyelids open. They were weighted closed, sealed with sticky taffy. The plane's engines thrummed with a steady whir, as if we hadn't been plunging toward the earth moments earlier with fireballs erupting from the engine outside our window.
  Across the aisle, Siegfried began to snore. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the quiet rhythm of the sound.

Chapter Three

  "Sir?"
  I forced my eyes open and glanced at my watch. Almost eight in the morning, Parisian time. I'd been asleep for twenty minutes. The flight attendant offered a steaming face cloth with a pair of tongs. Smiling thanks, I accepted and tossed it from hand to hand to cool it, wiping it across my face. The warm, moist heat felt soothing. Camille did the same with her towel and stretched as if waking from a long nap. She smiled at me with her eyes and reached for her toiletries bag, slipping past me and heading for the tail of the plane. I decided to follow her example. In the tiny restroom, I washed my hands with fancy eucalyptus-scented lotion soap and brushed my teeth. Feeling a bit more human, I wiped the sink with paper towels and looked in the mirror.
  The fellow who looked back appeared haggard. Smudgy gray circles beneath my eyes reflected the hectic days before the wedding and the near-calamitous ocean crossing. I wet my comb and pulled it through my wavy black hair, inspecting the crop of silver sprouting near my temples.
  After straightening my clothes, I opened the door and collided with a pale-eyed blond in a black leather bomber jacket. He stumbled and fell against the bulkhead, cursing in German.
  "Scheisse!"
  I'd heard the same word escape Siegfried's mouth when he accidentally hit a thumb with a hammer or stubbed a toe. I reached to apologize and help him up. Grasping his hand, I pulled. His jacket receded, revealing a swastika tattoo on his wrist. Startled, I let go of his hand as if it burned my fingers. He got to his feet and glared, then shoved past me into the restroom. A cold sensation pooled in my stomach.
  Black bomber jacket? Swastika tattoo?
  I froze.
  Is he a Nazi?
  I shook the thought from my brain like a dog shaking off bathwater.
  Probably just a rebellious teenager who thinks it's cool.
  Idiot.
  Camille perched sideways on my seat, chatting with Siegfried. I leaned against the seat back and listened to her explain our plans.
  Most of Siegfried's life revolved around our hometown of East Goodland. Located in the rolling hills of the Genesee Valley in upstate New York, the quiet farming town was flanked on one side by the valley and on the other by Conesus Lake. North of the village sprawled the historic college town of Conaroga. Ten Finger Lakes spread over the state in an easterly direction, their hills dotted with dozens of wineries.
  The idea of traveling abroad unnerved him. When Camille and I offered to accompany him to Germany, he gratefully accepted. The last time he'd flown, his family had emigrated from East Germany, a memory too distant for recollection. He'd been only four years old.
  I flattened myself against the seat as an elderly gentleman passed, aiding his wife. He guided her with loving hands toward the restrooms.
  My fond memories of Siegfried continued.
  Sig and his twin sister, Elsbeth, had thrived in East Goodland. They lived next door and became my best friends. At the age of twelve, however, our small world changed. A boating accident left him with diminished mental capacities. Eventually, and with much difficulty, Siegfried graduated from high school, in spite of having lost most of his knowledge of the English language. When his parents passed away years later, he moved in with us and began to work with my daughter Frederica in her veterinary clinic. His gentle spirit and love for animals made him perfectly suited for the job.
  Camille's musical voice interrupted my reverie.
  "We'll spend a couple days in Paris, then we'll drive you to Denkendorf. Once you're settled with Frieda, Gus and I will head for Vienna."
  She smiled and her eyes flirted with mine. A worried look crossed Siegfried's brow.
  "But, you are just married. I don't want to be—to be in the way."
  He looked at me with apprehension. Acutely aware that he'd never enjoyed the warmth of a romantic relationship, I reached over to comfort him.
  "Don't worry, Sig," I said. "We want to spend time with you. You're part of the family."
  He looked at Camille for reassurance.
  "We wouldn't have it any other way," she said.
  He brightened with relief. As Camille reviewed her planned itinerary, I lounged beside them on the armrest of an empty aisle seat, observing the passengers around us. They bustled about, gathering belongings and drinking coffee. My gaze connected with the elderly man who had returned to his seat three rows behind Siegfried. He flashed an ethereal smile and reached to take his wife's hand. I returned his smile as a lump formed in my throat.
  Would our lives change after our near-death experience?
  The Nazi wannabe scowled two rows behind the couple. Rooting around in his knapsack, he finally raised his head with ear buds and an iPod tucked in his pocket. His head began to bang to the beat. I frowned, thinking about his probable choice of music.
  Chastising myself, I squelched the sarcasm and uncharitable thoughts.
  Who am I to judge? Maybe he's a really decent kid.
  We'd been granted a second chance at life. Silently, I vowed to make it count.
  "Sir? Excuse me, sir; you'll need to take your seat now. We'll be landing soon."
  The flight attendant politely shepherded me into my seat and continued down the aisle, asking passengers to raise their seat backs and return their trays to their upright position. I gathered my personal belongings, including the first five chapters of the book I had begun to write on Frederick Chopin. It was to be a complete analysis of his works, and I hoped to squeeze in some research as we worked our way from Paris to Vienna.
  I zipped the briefcase, shoved it under the seat, and handed my headphones to the attendant. Camille nudged me gently.
  "Seatbelt, Gus."
  I snapped the belt into place, linked arms with her, and whispered in her ear.
  "Thanks, love. What would I do without you?"

Author Bio

Aaron Paul Lazar writes to soothe his soul. The author of LeGarde Mysteries and Moore Mysteries enjoys the Genesee Valley countryside in upstate New York, where his characters embrace life, play with their dogs and grandkids, grow sumptuous gardens, and chase bad guys. Visit his websites at http://www.legardemysteries.com and http://www.mooremysteries.com and watch for his upcoming release, Healey's Cave, coming in 2010.

TTB title: Firesong
Healey's Cave
Mazurka
Tremolo: cry of the loon

Author web site.

Mazurka Copyright © 2008. Aaron Paul Lazar. All rights reserved by the author. Please do not copy without permission.

Author News
Aaron Lazar's virtual book tour for his latest release, Tremolo, is underway.
Check out Mayra Calvani's interview with Aaron Lazar:

Reviews

"The author has outdone himself with this book! Each page propels the story forward with a series of clever surprises. There is a sense of history and destiny within these pages, as the characters seek to reconcile the past with their futures. Gus and Camille start their lives together, but need to understand the mental abuse she suffered with her former husband. Frieda Hirsch has a story to tell that is filled with the melody of love. And the Neo-Nazis live with a historic hatred for a group of people. There is an amazing blend of the past, present and the future, as these situations tie together.
"Sorrow-filled scenes, delicate details and exciting escapes will satisfy all readers. Well-turned phrases and excellent writing causes the plot to come alive with a sense of reality and purpose."
Mazurka marches forward with a solid story that beats with passion!

Reviewed by Joyce Handzo, for In The Library Reviews.

*******

"I'd heard of Aaron Lazar's Gus LeGarde mysteries, but hadn't read any yet, so I had slightly mixed feelings when I got the chance to read the fourth in the series before trying the others. On the one hand, Mazurka starts in Paris , the location of some especially fond memories for me, so that was certainly an attraction. But on the other hand I was nervous that I might feel I was playing catch-up, chasing after characters that other readers already knew and loved.
"I needn't have worried. Gus, Camille and Siegfried rapidly became real to me, as did the scenes they inhabited. Soon I was smelling and hearing Paris all around me as I sank into the story…
"And tasting it!
"The author's ability to evoke the flavor of a city, and a meal, is truly amazing. I frequently felt like I was sitting at the next table in a street-café. I could feel the texture as a French loaf was torn apart, and taste the crumbs on my tongue. I could see the flowers and hear the birds. And in a heartbeat, I was part of the confusion and fear all around as events transformed LeGarde's beautiful haven to a terror zone.
"The author's wide-ranging skills are equally apparent in love scenes, in evocative passages filled with memories, and in death-defying action. His protagonists are at once believable and just plain nice, leaving the reader pleased to have met them and eager to spend more time in their company. And the enemy in Mazurka one that has indeed been on the rise, in Europe and beyond. Lazar's handling of local history and the global nature of evil was very nicely done.
"Then of course, there's that delightful thread of music through the tale, as befits the book's title, and a fascinating depiction of the world of long ago.
"This was truly an enjoyable book, and an excellent introduction to a series that I'll hope to read more of. Many thanks for the invitation and the opportunity Mr. Lazar."
Reviewed by Sheila Deeth

*******

"Fearing every shadow, every face encountered, the reader experiences exhilaration, trepidation, fear and horror in the masterfully suspenseful tale Aaron Lazar weaves. I felt as though I was there in the Catacombs, one of my favorite sections of this wonderfully written book. Lazar places the reader smack in the middle of the setting."
Reviewed by Kim Smith, author of Avenging Angel and A Will to Live.

*****

The Storks of La Caridad
historical mystery
by Florence Byham Weinberg
Publisher: Twilighttimesbooks.com
print: $18.50; Trade paperback; B&N; Amazon; Borders
Ebook: $4.50 Fictionwise.com; Twilighttimesbooks.com

Chapter one

Limbo

I am a priest. I am a Jesuit.

These words help me remember; help me believe. I've repeated them throughout my eight years of prison and pain, more so these past three sweltering days in this dusty coach. My wrists aren't infected yet, but surely my ankles are. With each jolt of these iron-shod wheels on the rough road, the manacles and leg irons cut deeper into my flesh, tormenting me.

We're three days north by northwest of Madrid. My next prison, the monastery of Nuestra Señora de la Caridad, Our Lady of Charity, is not far away.

I am a priest. I am a Jesuit.

A storm was almost upon us. In the gathering gloom, I stared out the dirty coach window and watched black clouds ink out the sunset, trying to forget my pain. Flashes of sheet lightning lit the countryside every so often, reflecting on the man opposite me, riding backwards — my jailer. My plight was not his concern. He'd given me a little water and some dry bread, and allowed me to relieve myself on this journey, but I was baggage to him, nothing more. The horses were better treated.

In the space of a few heartbeats, gloom became darkness. A sudden, blinding flash and ear-splitting thunderclap lifted me from my seat. The horses bolted, tipping the coach almost on its side, and I slammed against the coach door. There was no way to lessen the impact, such was my surprise, and an involuntary cry escaped me as new pain mixed with old. Until that moment, I'd managed to endure my plight in silence.

I heard the coachman's angry shouts and the crack of his whip. He regained control, the coach righted itself with a jarring thump and I struggled back into my seat. The throbbing of my wrists and ankles now provided a dull background of pain to sharp new stabs from my shoulder, but I was still alive. I offered up a silent prayer, thanking God we were still upright, and reflected on my helplessness, mine and my brother Jesuits.'

We'd been helpless from the moment we were expelled from Spain and its colonies, and from all of Western Europe as well. Recently I'd heard our Society was suppressed completely by order of the Pope. Our Holy Mother Church had reduced us to nothing.

My own ordeal was now beginning its ninth year. I was arrested in 1767, near my mission in the Sonora Desert. I survived the death march across Mexico and that suffocating voyage in coffin-size cells on the prison ship bound for Cadiz. Twenty-six Sonora missionaries survived along with me, but twenty-four did not. Perhaps those martyred dead on the road to Vera Cruz were luckier than I.

Eight years of beatings and interrogations followed.

It was the gold, of course. No one, not even King Carlos III, believed we didn't know where it was hidden. There were gold and silver mines in Sonora, and we missionaries must each have had our secret hoards. After all, we were — once were — Jesuits! I shook my head with a bitter smile.

Another flash of lightning, almost as close. I caught sight of my reflection in the window glass, and a face still recognizably north European stared back at me. Yes, the eyes were still familiar, intense blue with pure whites. My hair was still blond, but now mixed with gray, cut short and combed straight back from my high forehead as always, plastered in place now by dust and grease. Otherwise, I hardly knew myself.

Repeated bouts of malaria had emaciated my frame. My left cheek was disfigured by a whip scar; a split right eyebrow testified to another whiplash, and a ruptured vein under the left eye to someone's fist. By some miracle, my hawk nose was still intact, as were my teeth. I'd been beaten, yes, but not yet broken. Not as long as I could remember who and what I was.

I am a priest. I am a Jesuit.

The lightning this time played back and forth across the sky, bringing with it a brief squall of rattling hailstones. Bracing myself against any further jolts, I pressed my face to the window. The stark white light revealed a walled complex of buildings ahead, atop a low rise. It had to be the monastery at last. Caridad! There lay my dark future, and an involuntary shiver shook me. That brief glimpse showed me a huge church dominated by a round tower over the transept, a separate bell tower rearing itself above the façade, several buildings and perhaps some ruins as well.

As I risked more pain to rub my shoulder again, my hands brushed against the edges of a letter, sealed with wax and tucked into the inner breast pocket of my robe. It was a message from Abbot Dom Gerónimo, back in Madrid, to his peer in Caridad, to be presented sealed and unread upon my arrival. He'd been abbot there once, and described the place to me. If his letter denounced my so-called crime, committed in Madrid, my imprisonment at Caridad would be real martyrdom. Yet, his friendship had saved me worse persecution up to now. Could it be my load of chains was simply official reaction to my 'misdeed?'

The brief hail turned into pounding rain. The coachman cursed loudly and lashed the horses into a trot, only to slow them to a walk once they topped the rise. We turned right and halted before a massive gate in the monastery wall, surmounted by a fan-shaped iron grille under an ornate stone arch. The coachman jumped down and ran to the entrance, where he rang a bell and pressed close against the heavy double doors to shelter from the steady rain.

We waited for what seemed like many minutes. At last the bolt rattled and the doors creaked open. A hooded monk motioned him inside. The coachman took the nearest horse by the bit and led the whole equipage into a courtyard the size of a parade ground, past stone posts with heavy, ornate chains suspended between them, up to an open doorway. I could see light streaming out, glimmering on the streaks of falling rain, but no movement inside, just a stone wall with an arch and darkness beyond.

The church was straight ahead. A pair of wide stone steps led to brass-studded doors twice a man's height. Above them, barely visible in the darkness and the rain, loomed the bell tower. I squinted and made out the silhouettes of three bulky storks' nests, clinging to the side ledges and top of the tower.

My jailer stepped out first, then opened the door on my side and offered his hands to help me down. It was his first courtesy, a gesture I supposed was meant for show. My stiff legs threatened to buckle when I stood, and the pain in my wrists and ankles forced me to draw a sharp breath. I stared down. The coach's steps were twenty inches apart, but the chain between my leg irons only a foot long. Each time I'd left the coach during the journey, I'd hopped down, but this time I could not. Both his hands were extended, meaning I'd have to let go of the doorframe.

I managed the first step, but on attempting the second, the chain caught and I fell, helpless, my knees grazing the muddy ground before the bailiff caught me, thank God! My knees were saved, but my ankles were cut still deeper, bleeding into my shoes as I shambled along.

I followed him through the pelting rain until we were inside the antechamber, where light from oil lamps flooded us with a warm, yellow glow. There, a stoop-shouldered monk met us, hands thrust together into the black sleeves of his robe. His face and even his tonsured head had high color compared to my own. The reflection I'd seen in the coach window during that lightning flash showed me as pasty white.

He'd seen my fall, I judged from the sympathetic twist of his mouth. After a moment's hesitation he extended a hand. "Welcome to Caridad. I'm Brother Eugenio, the scribe here. You must surely be?…"

I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath, gritting my teeth once more against the waves of pain. My voice came out hoarse; my words were halting. I could not control my own hand's trembling as I met his.

"I am… Ygnacio Pfefferkorn, Society… of Jesus."

*****************

Storks of Caridad Copyright © 2004. Florence Byham Weinberg. All rights reserved by the author. ***************

SHADOWS OVER PARADISE
by Anne K. Edwards
Publisher: Twilight Times Books
Arc for sale at http://twilighttimesbooks.com/ttb_arc_order.html
ISBN: 1-60619-135-7
Genre: Suspense
trade paperback out April, 2010 $16.95

Chapter 1

  It never failed. Plan something and someone else would try throwing a monkey wrench in the works. Like now.
  Julia stared at Captain Martinez. “What do you mean, telling me that I shouldn’t have come?” The audacity.
  “I said, Miss Graye,” the old sailor answered, “this is no time for visitors. There’s trouble on Tiboo.” He waved a hand in what was, she supposed, the general direction of her destination. “You might find the trip isn’t worth it.”
  Unbelievable. He was simply supposed to meet her at the airport and deliver her to Tiboo, but, instead, was trying to talk her into going home without seeing Suzanne. He certainly took a lot onto himself.
  “What kind of trouble?” She spoke loudly to be heard over the babble of passengers and echoing announcements from hidden speakers.
  “Political, Miss.” His wide jaw tightened.
  “How can the political situation in the Mantuan Islands have anything to do with Suzanne’s wedding?” she demanded, impatiently shoving hair out of her eyes.
  He put on his cap. “If you insist on staying, remember, I warned you. Another time, I’d be the first to make you welcome.”
  “I won’t be turned away without seeing her.” His attitude was most irritating.
  The captain ran a sun-darkened hand over his stubbled chin and shrugged.
  He hailed a tall, scrawny porter who looked like he might break in two as he bent to pick up her bags. The man stacked them in his handcart with a flourish. Julia tagged along behind as he led them through heavy glass doors into the warm, muggy evening air. Taxis waited beneath a brightly lighted mural of native Mantuans in the act of worshipping the island gods.
  The porter set her luggage in the trunk of the nearest cab, an aged vehicle painted bright green. Motor idling loudly, it belched small clouds of blue smoke into the air. Peeling gold lettering on the doors spelled out “Moltani’s Taxi”. The interior smelled of mildew and dampness. Julia slid carefully onto the rear seat, hoping the grimy upholstery wouldn’t soil her new blue suit. She sank into the rump-sprung seat with the sensation of being swallowed alive.
  Captain Martinez tipped the porter, receiving a wolfish grin of thanks in return. Pulling the empty cart after him, the man disappeared into the crowd. The captain climbed in beside her and closed the door with an emphatic thud.
  With a roar and blue plume trailing, the taxi edged into a long line of bicycles and slow moving autos. In the background, the honking of horns beat out the rhythm of island traffic.
  They rode in silence for several minutes until Julia could bear his obvious annoyance no longer. “Captain?”
  “Yes?” He kept his gaze fixed on the passing lights, hands resting lightly on his knees.
  “Could you tell me what’s wrong?”
  He shifted his weight and adjusted his cap, before looking at her. “Some of the locals don’t want strangers on Tiboo.” His deepset, brown eyes contained an expression she couldn’t read.
  “Why?”
  The captain shook his head. “I’ve said enough, Miss. I didn’t intend to alarm you. I thought it would be easier on the family if they didn’t have to worry about a visitor right now.”
  Something in his demeanor made her wonder what lay behind his words. The suggestion that a wedding could involve local politics was a poor invention. Why?
  Julia had read about the growing movement in this Pacific Island paradise to attain statehood or their independence. Could that somehow be the problem? “I don’t intend to get involved in anything other than Suzanne’s wedding.”He shrugged, returning his gaze to the night.
  She sank into brooding. Why had Suzanne invited her to the wedding? Because there was no email service on the islands, their infrequent letters had been the only method of communication. Suzanne had written little on the progression of her latest romance, then, suddenly, came the news of her impending marriage.
  Julia accepted the invitation with enthusiasm. She eagerly looked forward to seeing her old friend and visiting the exotic Mantuan Islands she’d heard so much about.
  She was certain many changes had occurred in Suzanne’s life during the six years that had passed since their college days. Would they still be friends?
  What she knew of Suzanne’s family had been gleaned from casual conversations in those days and more recent letters that contained little news. Her mother, Margaret LaBoudrie, devoted her life to her family. The older sister, whose name Julia couldn’t recall, had died unexpectedly about three years ago. How full of sorrow that letter had been. There was a stepbrother, Beau, who’d given up his life at sea to run the family plantation when his father succumbed to cancer just before Suzanne graduated. Julia recalled meeting Lou, her friend’s brother, on his visit to their school. In spite of his shyness, he’d worked up the courage to ask Julia out. She’d refused because she had a steady.
  Briefly, her thoughts touched on her old boyfriend. Steady? Charles? She tried to remember just why she’d been so attracted to him. His good looks had covered a flawed character--always taking the easy way out. He desired the good life and found it with Bitsy Warden, a pliant wife who gave it to him with her father’s money. Poor girl didn’t get a very good bargain.
  Annoyed at herself for wasting time on him, Julia closed her mind to those recollections. She had come to relax, not rehash a past she could do nothing about. Not that there weren’t regrets.
  Like Charles, her youthful hopes were just memories. The challenge of everyday life left little time to chase dreams. Her routine was dull, safe, while she struggled to finish the one novel a publisher would accept.
  She gave herself a mental shake and thrust such thoughts back into the corner of her mind where they belonged. This was a vacation and she was determined to enjoy herself.Her writer’s eye turned to the passing traffic. Through her own reflection on the window, she watched as pedestrians and cyclists moved unhurriedly in the golden haze of sunset. How different Orinda was from her imaginings. As the capital of the Mantuan Islands, she’d thought it would bustle and hum like New York or San Francisco. Instead, the city had the introspective atmosphere of a small town that closed in on itself at night. If the capital was this quiet, how lonely the scattered plantations on the different islands must be. Apparently, the trouble on Tiboo hadn’t spread to Marcora, the largest island of the Mantuas.

* * *

  The cab discharged Julia and Captain Martinez on the waterfront where odors of oily brine, fish, and salt-seasoned wood perfumed the damp air. She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the stench of gasoline and diesel fuel coming from the dockside pumps. Stories and movies didn’t portray the waterfront as it really was.
  She peered closely at the boats tied to the dock as they danced slowly on their lines. One of them, a squat-bodied vessel, resembled a cross between the ocean-going tugs and converted fishing boats she’d seen on a trip to New York City harbor. Large old tires gently repelled the little ship from the pilings as the watery slap-slap of the tide crept in. Scarred woodwork and peeling paint scarcely showed in the growing dark. Below deck, sturdy engines chugged softly, gurgling exhaust. In the gloom created by the dock light, Julia could see faded letters on the prow “The Flighty Maid”.
  The Maid shared the dock with a charter boat that catered to tourists and several fishing boats. An inter-island ferry was tying up for the night. Out in the deep water of the harbor, a brightly lit cruise ship was anchored. On shore, a few late tourists sought out straggling locals for authentic island flavor.
  Near a pile of unmarked crates a greasy-haired, unshaven man in a torn shirt emerged from the shadows. He walked with a seaman's swagger, swinging his muscular torso and arms from side to side. This rolling gait gave him the appearance of being larger than he actually was.
  Captain Martinez stiffened at Julia’s side as the man approached. His small, close-set eyes raked her in bold appraisal as he gave her a broken-toothed grin of approval. She looked away with a grimace.
  Removing a red-banded cigarette from his lips, he said, “I gotta have a word, Martinez.” Thrusting hanging hair from his round face with dirty fingers, he peered down at the shorter man. “The boss wants you.” He exhaled a cloud into the air, then took another draw.
  The acrid smoke drifted into Julia’s face. She sneezed.
  “I don’t want to see the boss, Long,” the captain said quietly, his hand slipping into the sagging pocket of his worn black leather jacket. “You understand?”
  Long tapped the rough leather knife sheath on his belt. “I get whatcha mean, but the boss ain’t gonna like it none.” His light blue eyes narrowed. “And that gun yer carryin’ won’t give you much pertection.” He crushed the smoke under his worn boot.
  “Make sure you tell your boss what I said,” Captain Martinez growled, straightening his shoulders. “I carry the gun to use on vermin.”
  Long’s coarse face hardened as he gave the old sailor a look of hatred. “One of these days we’ll have a long chat about that.” The words sounded like a threat.
  Julia sidled behind the captain when the man cast another leer in her direction and strutted away. Captain Martinez waited until he vanished around the crates before starting for the ship with her close on his heels.
  “Who was that awful man?” she asked in a low voice.
  “Just someone who had something to say,” he said.
  His curt manner stung, reminding her that she was an unwanted visitor.
  The shadowy figure of another man lurked at the edge of the light beyond a pile of barrels. Tipping his dark cap to her, he departed behind Long.
  At The Maid’s berth, dockhands shifted cargo aboard. Julia trod carefully, her leather soles slippery on the aged wharf’s wet surface. She envied Captain Martinez’s surefootedness as he leaped aboard. He turned and stretched a hand toward her. “Easy now. Grab my hand.”
  Taking the gap between ship and pier in a jump, Julia landed clumsily at his side as the deck rose beneath her feet. She gripped his arm for support. The nearest dockside worker handed her luggage over the rail.
  A tall sailor appeared from the hold as the laden cargo net swung out to hover above the open hatch. He quickly unloaded it, lowering heavy boxes one at a time to unseen hands below. The captain watched for a moment, before speaking, “Beau’ll stow your bags in the passenger lounge. We’ll be getting underway soon.” Then, he moved off to supervise the tying down of a large crate on deck.
  Julia watched with interest as Beau emptied the net, slammed the hatch, and shoved the bolt home. Was he the stepbrother Suzanne had adored from afar during their college years?
  He came forward wordlessly to pick up her baggage, disappearing with it through a narrow door on the port side marked “Lounge”.
  Rebuffed by the chilly reserve of her first contacts in Marcora, Julia looked longingly at the dock as a second taxi stopped under the light. A black-haired woman in white got out and approached The Maid with obvious distaste. The cabbie followed to hand bags and boxes aboard.
  “Andre?” Her throaty voice quavered slightly. She avoided Julia’s curious gaze.
  “Yes, Miss Isabelle.” Captain Martinez extended a hand to her.
  She came off the dock with a graceful movement, her white skirt flipping up to reveal long, shapely legs. Scanning the deck as if searching for someone, she spoke rapidly, before the captain could make introductions, “I’d like to go to the lounge. I’ve got a terrible headache.” As she passed, Isabelle gave Julia a sly, malevolent glare.
  Julia reacted instinctively to the hostility in those brown eyes. She turned away, head high, to show her contempt for such behavior. Why waste time trying to get acquainted?
  Captain Martinez escorted Isabelle to the lounge with the courtesy due a queen. He reappeared in moments, muttering to himself, “That woman will drive us all crazy. Why I ever let myself get drawn into her schemes, I don’t know.”
  He shook his head, growling orders to the dock hands to cast off the lines. Aggravation showed in the tautness of his prominent jaw as he spoke to Julia. “You should go inside, Miss. The sea’s rough and the spray’ll ruin your nice clothes.”
  “I’d prefer to remain on deck,” she told him. Being alone was better than sharing the lounge with that snotty woman.He nodded, touched his cap with a callused hand, and went up to the pilothouse.
  The Maid was soon underway, engines murmuring farewell to Orinda. Once beyond the Marcora Harbor breakwater, the ship encountered rough seas. Windborne spray coated the deck with a skin of greasy-looking water. Clutching the dripping stern rail, Julia shivered as the wet penetrated her thin jacket. Her sightseeing guide had mentioned the rough currents around some of the islands, but she had never imagined this.
  The lights of the city sank on the horizon. The Maid seemed pitifully small when measured against the waves. Julia desired nothing more than the feel of solid earth under her feet instead of pitching, wooden planking. Her stomach jerked in time to the movement of The Maid. The dark was all the more alarming because she could see nothing beyond the faint glow cast by the ship’s running lights.
  Julia’s resolve to remain on deck weakened and died. Bested by nerves and weariness, chilled by the wind, she made her way hand over hand along the rail to climb the metal steps to the pilothouse where the captain stood behind the wheel.
  “Captain, may I stay with you?” She tried to keep the tremor from her voice as she stepped uninvited through the doorway. His bluntness would be preferable to staying on deck or spending the trip confined with the woman he’d called Miss Isabelle.
  His grunt was noncommittal as his eyes remained on the invisible horizon.
  The motion of the ship caused the door to swing shut. “I’m sorry to be a bother,” Julia apologized lamely, grabbing the rail in front of her as a surge staggered The Maid, “but I’ve never been on a boat at night.”
  “No matter,” he said gruffly, drawing on his pipe as The Maid’s engines resumed their even beat. “The current gets a bit rough at times.”
  “Please tell me about the islands.” Anything to get her mind off those waves that could swallow the little boat in one gulp.
  The lines on his brow deepened thoughtfully. “When I sailed a small trader, we had a spiel for the tourists. That do?” He exhaled slowly and watched the smoke be pulled through the open window.
  “Yes.” She closed her eyes against another roll of her stomach.
  “The Islands were discovered in the seventeen eighties by a trader out of India who got blowed off course. Didn’t stay too long. Took on water and sailed away. Later, traders out of the Orient made contact with the natives, followed by whalers, explorers, and missionaries. Weren’t many natives left after their diseases got spread around.”
  She wondered at the hint of anger as he spoke. Was he a native?
  He continued, “They had a King Kaluma killed by a French pirate named Avenduc. He claimed the islands as his own and set up a government with himself as king.”
  “What happened to Avenduc?”
  “Spanish came. Killed him. They was pirates too. Gave the islands their name.”
  A wave passed under them. The Maid shuddered, seemed to hesitate, before plunging gamely on. Julia shut her eyes, waiting for her landlubber stomach to subside. She prayed the captain would soon tell her they’d reached their destination.Captain Martinez fell silent, his attention on The Maid broken only to relight his pipe. For several minutes he seemed oblivious to Julia’s presence, his thoughts gone like the wind-grabbed smoke.
  At last, unable to bear the water-filled stillness any longer, she broke into his reverie. Returning to the subject of the islands, she hoped her interest sounded genuine. “When did the islands become a U.S. possession?”
  “After World War Two. They’re a tourist attraction these days. Lot of new hotels going up.” His words were tinged with regret. “Time used to stand still in Mantua. Now we’re being caught up in the rush to modernize. What was a paradise is going to disappear one day.”
  “How do the islanders make a living? Do they grow coconuts or pineapples?”
  She blushed as her ignorance brought a wry smile to his lips. “We have pineapple and some sugar plantations. Many of us are fishermen or traders.” He sucked on his pipe, then held it aloft, as if addressing it. “And there are the tourists. They’re welcome, but too many stay. They put pressure on the natives who sell out without realizing they’re betraying their children’s heritage.”
  “When did the LaBoudries come to the islands?” She tried to think of other questions to keep him talking.
  “Beau’s grandfather came from France to take employment as a manager of the Duchense plantation and married the owner’s daughter.” His eyes took on a faraway look as though remembering a time gone by.
  Julia could see the captain didn’t like the changes occurring in the islands. She understood, but that was the way of the world. Change. Sometimes it brought good and sometimes, it didn’t.
  “Is Tiboo very big?” Suzanne’s description of her island home came back in bits and pieces. Green mountains, few valleys, sparse population.
  “Big enough.” He gave the wheel a twist and suddenly she realized they had passed into much calmer water.
  Julia breathed easier. She asked, “Is Ramon de Cordova from Mantua?” Suzanne’s letter containing the invitation to share in the festivities had given no information about the groom.
  Curiosity glinted in his eyes. “He comes from an old island family.”
  She sensed his skepticism. How, as a friend, could she not know about the man Suzanne intended to marry?
  Captain Martinez withdrew into himself.
  The ensuing silence told her much. Judging by the rigid set of his jaw, he did not view the impending nuptials with favor any more than he approved of her visit.
  “You don’t think Suzanne should be getting married, do you?” His manner showed that he was uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken.
  He raised a shoulder and let it fall, his darkened profile giving no clue to his private thoughts. His eyes were fixed on something she couldn’t see outside the range of the boat’s dim lights. She tried to follow his gaze and saw only the reflected glow of gauges, one of which blinked steadily like the beat of a heart.
 &nbap;Abruptly, the throb of the motors slowed as the distant light of a single beam reached toward the ship. The moon sank out of sight behind the dark form of a tall, cone-shaped mountain as The Maid entered a harbor where glittering ripples performed a watery ballet of welcome.

Chapter 2

  Beau leaped onto the dock, his white shirt gleaming in the cloud-pocked light as the moon returned. He seized a line tossed by another sailor and made it fast. Julia watched his catlike quickness with admiration.
  A pale wraith shrouded in blowing white, Isabelle, glided on deck. Her black hair trailed in the wind as she swept imperiously by Julia, favoring her with a disdainful glance. To the captain, she said, “Andre, I’m ready to go ashore. You can send my things along.”
  He touched his cap with an automatic obeisance and removed the safety chain at the rail. Beau stepped up to help Isabelle over the side.
  She wrapped her arms around his neck, her rich voice taking on a caressing lilt as her feet found the dock. “It’s good to be home.”
  “Yes, it is,” Beau replied stiffly, letting his hands drop quickly from her waist.
  Julia watched them with interest. He paid scant heed to Isabelle as she stood before him, peering up into his shadowed eyes. Isabelle drooped forlornly as he retraced his steps to the ship, then she slowly took the flight of steps to the ground where she paused to look back at him.
  Eager to get ashore, Julia moved to the gap in the rail, her blue skirt rising in response to the wind. She jumped back in alarm as The Maid skittered coyly from the dock before settling back with a slighting gurgle. Reassured by the captain, she stepped forward again.
  Beau caught her as Captain Martinez handed her off. As she looked into his dark eyes, she felt a little thrill surge through her tired body in answer to his masculinity. Immediately censuring herself for acting the silly schoolgirl, her ‘thank you’ was uncertain as he set her on the dock.
  He nodded curtly. “You’re welcome.” His attention shifted immediately to The Maid.
  Julia stared at him, nettled. What had Suzanne seen in such an abrupt man?
  “Need any help aboard, Andre? Truck’s ready to load.” He raised his voice to be heard above the whine of the single winch.
  The captain turned from supervising the offloading of a large, heavy crate. “You can take over after this box comes off. I’ll drive Miss Graye to the house.” He gestured seaward with his pipe. “Starting to build out there. Clouding up.”
  “Be a blow tonight,” Beau agreed, hoisting a box to his shoulder. He carried it down the steps to the dinky parking lot and slid it onto the bed of a green truck.
  She pushed windblown hair out of her face and glanced involuntarily to where Isabelle waited in a small gray car. The woman watched with narrowed eyes.
  Further conversation among the men was restricted to occasional grunts that had meaning only to themselves as they shifted the cargo. After several trips up and down the steps, Beau took her luggage to the truck and deposited it with the boxes and crates.
  She trailed behind, hanging onto the wooden handrail for support against the increasing wind. The bags landed in the battered bed with a thud. He turned to her. “Do you need some help?” He indicated the high step to the door.
  Aware of Isabelle’s eyes on them, Julia shook her head. She tried to pull herself up and nearly lost her grip on the clammy door handle. Reddening, she was about to make a second try when he put his hands around her waist and lifted her very neatly onto the seat. Face burning, she refused to look at him as he closed the door and walked away.
  Captain Martinez got in beside her. “Ready to go, Miss?”
  “Yes,” she muttered through clenched teeth.
  He looked at her with a puzzled expression, then inserted the key into the ignition. The motor grumbled to life as the gray car containing Isabelle and a man Julia couldn’t see, pulled out ahead of them. The captain put the aged truck in motion and it rolled noisily out of the parking area onto the unpaved road.
  Julia regretted her irritability, but it was unnerving to meet with constant rejection. “I’m sorry. I’m very tired.”
  “Figured as much.”
  She thought she heard a trace of sympathy in his voice.
  Behind twin tracks of flickering yellow headlights, the truck bounced up the rutted road. She gripped the seat to keep her head from hitting the cab roof, gasping breathlessly, “Aren’t the roads on Tiboo paved?”
  “No. Not enough traffic.”
  Playfully, the gusting wind tugged at the truck. “Have you lived here long?”
  “Yes.” He pushed the gearshift forward, then back. The clutch grated as he released it.
  They bounded over a few more soul-jarring bumps. The road banked to the right and the vertically-grooved face of the mountain emerged on the driver’s side. Julia shut her eyes to guard her jittery stomach from reacting to the drop into black nothingness that appeared without warning beside her. One little slip and--oblivion. Shuddering, she dug into the broken fabric of the seat cover seeking a tighter hold against the brutal bouncing.
  Her nervousness drew the captain’s attention. “Not much farther. The road’s steep, but plenty wide. Two cars can pass if need be. Never been any accidents,” he told her.
  There was always a first time, she thought. If only it weren’t so dark. The flickering of the headlights worsened as the vehicle lumbered up the steepening road. Suppose they failed... “Does the family live at the top?” She peered up at the ragged outline of jungle blocking her view.
  “No. Down a bit on the other side. This is the steep side of Mount Sestri. Other side’s flatter. Sort of surprises you the first time you see it.”
  They rounded a bend and, lying in the broken moonlight before them, a gentle decline fell away into the dark. Small squares of light shone faintly as the truck turned into a winding drive. Julia shivered as they passed into the shadow of overhanging trees at the gate. Seining the sea-dampened wind, their leafy tendrils reached for her and she felt a tingle of fear.

* * *

  Julia looked eagerly toward the house through the spotty windshield. She expected something with the grace of a southern manor house with tall white Corinthian columns and had to hide her disappointment as the truck drew up before a huge, vine-covered pile of stone.
  The house loomed darkly against the encroaching storm, reminding her of the opening scene in a ghost story she’d seen recently on television. Twining flowers screened the porch that encircled the lower floor. Place looked haunted.
  Despite her first impressions, she felt quite important when three people came out to greet her. In stepping from her high seat, her foot came down hard on a small, pointed rock. A tall, angular man with light brown hair caught her as she automatically recoiled from the pain.
  “Haven’t gotten your land legs yet, eh, Julia?” He grinned crookedly, hazel eyes alight with pleasure.
  “A stone--” She gathered her dignity, freeing herself from his arms with a smile. Her savior was Suzanne’s brother, Lou. “I’m glad to finally be here,” she said fervently, tugging her blue jacket into place.
  “It’s wonderful to see you.” Suzanne hugged Julia. “I’m glad you could come for my wedding.”
  Julia received the display of affection in awkward surprise. Suzanne held her as though she might try to escape.
  This was followed by an introduction to a handsome gray-haired woman in black. Julia couldn’t help but notice the chill reserve in Margaret LaBoudrie’s green eyes. Except for those eyes and the fact that they were the same height, the resemblance between mother and daughter was slight.
  Margaret took her hand with limp, cool fingers. “Welcome to Tiboo, Miss Graye. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay.” Her conventional greeting held little sincerity.
  “Of course, she will, Mother. We’ll see to it,” Lou inserted into the conversation as he struggled by with her large bag.
  Captain Martinez took his departure as the women followed Lou inside.
  The foyer opened onto a long, wide hall on which doors of several rooms faced. Julia was shown into the first room on the right which proved to be a small parlor. Dark, polished tables burdened with small figurines and vases filled the corners. An overstuffed gray sofa and two well-padded flowered satin chairs around a huge mahogany coffee table formed a pleasantly intimate grouping in the center of the room. Colorful cushions drew attention from the dimmer recesses. Out of the corner of her eye, Julia became aware of the painted curiosity of potraits hung high on pale walls.
  Wearily sinking onto the sofa, she tugged her blue skirt into place over her bare knees. Mrs. LaBoudrie offered her a cup of coffee from a tray already set on a table beside her chair.
  Julia smiled and accepted it with gratitude. The liquid’s warmth spread outward comfortingly as she sipped.
  Lou reappeared. Grinning, he sat beside her, eager to renew their acquaintance. “How was the flight?”
  His mother handed him a cup of coffee. Julia noticed how the woman's hand shook.
  She answered Lou, “Rough and tedious. From Chicago to Mexico City, I sat with a girl who kept crying. It got very tiresome.” She hid a yawn behind a hand, studying him. Lou’s smile did have a certain boyish charm beneath the tracings of time on his forehead.
  “You can relax now.” Setting his cup aside, he leaned toward her, his eyes fixed on her face.
  Blushing, she avoided meeting his gaze, finding his tendency to stare disconcerting. “A woman, Isabelle somebody, came with us. Do you know her?”
  “Yes. Why?” Suzanne twisted a lock of chestnut hair between her fingers.
  Julia couldn’t help noticing how pale her friend was. “Nothing, really, but I found her very strange.”
  Glancing at her mother as if expecting a reaction, Suzanne let her hand drop to her lap. “Don’t worry about her. She goes to Orinda to see her doctor every week.”
  “She probably thinks you’re going to chase after Beau,” Lou put in, watching Julia intently. “She’s very possessive of him and gets paranoid about every pretty girl who comes to Tiboo.”
  Julia shook her head in disbelief as she set her empty cup on the tray. “She sounds sick. I feel sorry for her.”
  “Isabelle does have problems.” He made a face. “She thinks someone is trying to kill her.”
  She stared at Lou in astonishment. His expression was that of a cat watching a mouse. He seemed gladdened by the idea.Before he could continue, Mrs. LaBoudrie mildly rebuked him, her words sandwiched between gasps, “Louis, you shouldn’t speak ill of her. You know Isabelle is very sensitive.” She picked up a piece of green crocheting. Her fingers trembled as she smoothed it on her knees. “Isabelle hasn’t been sleeping well.” Her eyes held a distinct warning to her children as she glanced at them.Trying to hold back a yawn, Julia said, “The trip over that mountain--”
  “Sestri?” Lou broke in. “She’s a good old girl. Protects us from eighty percent of the storms coming off the ocean.”
  “Oh,” she answered with a fleeting smile.
  “You can’t monopolize Julia,” Suzanne chided him. “We want to indulge in a bit of girl talk.”
  “Of course.” He rose, bowing gallantly. “Ladies, I shall leave you.”
  “Good night,” they chorused in unison.
  Julia smothered her relief at his departure. “Where’s the mysterious groom-to-be?” She asked between more yawns.
  “Oh, he’s due to come in early on Saturday, our wedding day,” Suzanne responded without enthusiasm while giving her mother’s bowed head a quick look.
  “Well, tell me all. You still had a crush on--” She caught a look of alarm on her friend’s face and let the sentence go unfinished. An undercurrent emanating from Mrs. LaBoudrie brought an abrupt end to the teasing.
  “I was always in love with someone.” With false brightness Suzanne covered the break. “Ramon is Isabelle’s brother. He came to visit her last March and we started seeing each other. We’ll live in San Francisco after the wedding.”
  Julia looked at her ringless finger.
  Raising her left hand, Suzanne waggled her long, fine fingers experimentally. “I’m to get my ring just before the ceremony. Ramon wants to buy a set he saw on the mainland. He said the engagement ring was three carats.”
  “Wow. That’s a lot of diamond. Will it be safe to wear something so expensive for everyday.”
  Suzanne’s laugh rang glassily. “Of course. I won’t be going any place where it can be stolen.” She looked again at her mother, then let her gaze fall.
  Julia saw the play of strong emotions on the older woman’s face and switched to another topic. “Remember Annette Snow in Public Speaking?”
  “You mean the girl who wore those old fashioned clothes?”
  “Yes. She married Jack Waters.”
  At their laughter Mrs. LaBoudrie raised her eyes inquisitively from the crocheting spread over her lap. Her hand crept up to touch the dainty links of a gold chain around her neck.
  “Oh, Mama. She always told us how terrible he dressed, his beads and sandals and all. Like a beatnik of the sixties. He’s tall and skinny with black braids that he wraps around his head. Annette’s very straight laced. What a pair they’ll make,” Suzanne explained with a giggle that was too shrill.
  Her mother regarded her seriously. “We might say the same for you and Ramon. Really, I can’t see why--” She broke off midsentence to refocus on her handiwork, brushing what looked like a sleeve.
  Briefly, resentment showed on Suzanne’s face. She moved onto another subject, telling Julia. “Lou’s awfully glad you’ve come.”
  As soon as she spoke, an uneasiness filled her eyes. She began twisting her fingers in the soft fabric of her pink dress.
  The older woman finished her row and set aside her yarn and hook. Gripping the chair arm, she rose with some effort. “It’s getting late. Your guest is probably very tired.” She started for the stairs.
  Julia wondered at the coldness in her voice, so close to being open disapproval.
  “Come on, Julia. I’ll show you up.” Suzanne got slowly to her feet. “’Night, Mama.” She kissed the wan cheek.
  “Goodnight, my dear.” Mrs. LaBoudrie looked from one to the other, adding, “Miss Graye.” Gripping the broad bannister for support, she made her way laboriously up ahead of them. She paused at the top to peer down at them, lines visible on her brow. Then, she vanished through the first door on the left.
  Julia was uncomfortably aware that Margaret did not want her as a guest. She followed Suzanne up the old staircase, wishing she had taken the captain’s admonition seriously. The polished rail offered relief to her tired legs. Rest, wonderful rest. Tonight sleep would come quickly in spite of the reception she’d gotten.
  Suzanne led her to a hand-carved door facing the center of the hall and opened it. “This is your room. It used to be Eleana’s. Our stepfather had this door made special for her eighteenth birthday. He was very fond of her.” A wistful expression passed over her face. “The bathroom you'll share is at the end of the hall and breakfast is set out at seven.”
  Julia put a detaining hand on her arm. “Suzanne, is something wrong?”
  Although Suzanne didn’t move, a sense of increased distance came between them as her expression changed to one of wariness. She shook her head.
  “I asked because you and your mother seem sort of--well, tense.”
  Suzanne looked close to tears. “I’d hoped you’d miss that. Everyone’s on edge these days. Mother doesn’t want me to get married, but calling the wedding off wouldn’t solve our differences. All we do is argue. I haven’t been able to enjoy one minute of planning it.”
  “If I can help, please let me.”
  “I need a fairy godmother to wave her magic wand and make everything all right.” She grimaced, eyes clouding.
  “I didn’t mean to pry.”
  “You couldn’t know. Now, I’d better let you get to bed.” Suzanne stepped into the hall and drew the door shut.
  Once alone, Julia slumped onto the flowered bedcover to pull off her shoes. “Peace at last.”
  Captain Martinez was right. The last thing the family needed was a visitor. Ruefully, she forced herself up to change for bed, dropping her clothes on a nearby chair. Shaking the folds from a peach cotton nightgown, she slid it over her head.Julia examined her reflection in the ebony-framed mirror. The blue eyes that gazed back at her were smudged with fatigue, her blonde hair as limp as she felt.
  The mirror showed a room possessed of a warmth not found on the floor below. She turned to look at it. Large and airy, its creams and blues made one think of sunny days. The dark furniture was of the same Victorian style as that found in the parlor, but lost its formality here.
  Above the carved dresser hung a portrait that watched her with mildly concerned eyes. The girl belonged to the room. Her oval face bore a strong resemblance to Suzanne. She had the same reddish-brown hair and wide green eyes. Julia liked her friendly expression at once. It was the face of someone vividly in love with life. The thought followed Julia into sleep where she dreamed the portrait wept.

**************

**********

Spirit Lake
by Carol Guy
http://www.goodmysteries.webs.com
Devine Destinies Publishing
http://www.devinedestinies.com

  IT WAS DUSK BY the time Erica took her walk down the flagstone path to the dock. It was a quiet evening, and she welcomed the solitude. The sound of the water lapping softly against the dock’s pilings was very soothing, almost hypnotic. The dream she’d had on the bus still haunted her. She’d never experienced anything quite like it.
  Me as a pioneer woman, that’s rich! I think I’m roughing it if the dishwasher is broken. Still it seemed so real and I swear I could smell that fresh, damp earth my husband held in his hands. Are you supposed to be able to smell in dreams? A sudden chill raked up Erica’s spine and she instinctively hugged herself to get warm. Her gaze was drawn to the center of the lake where a filmy mist seemed to be hovering just above the waterline.
  All at once she had an overwhelming feeling of sadness bordering on melancholy. Tears sprang into her eyes as she watched the mist thicken, the cloud widen. Then, it swirled around even though there was no breeze.
  When the aroma of jasmine rushed up her nostrils, she backed up and almost fell.
  Help me.
  The words seemed to spring into her mind and she looked frantically around to see who had spoken, but there was only the gathering darkness. And, of course, the swirling mist. Okay, this is spooky. I’m out of here. I’ll give this another look in the morning.
  “Do you know why they call it Spirit Lake?” spoke a deep, resonant voice from just behind her.
  Gasping, Erica spun around, her heart pounding like a jackhammer in her chest.
  The moment she saw him she felt her knees go weak and grabbed the back of the nearby bench for support. He was not quite six feet tall, with dark hair and bottomless eyes. She could see that he was well built under the tan shirt and blue jeans he wore. His features were rugged, his skin the same copper tone as Evelyn’s.
  “Where did you come from? Who are you?” she stammered, her heart racing faster as he moved closer. Finally, he sat down on the bench and looked out at the water. “This area is rich in folklore, you know. One of the legends has it that the spirits of the dead tribal leaders were confined to the lake so they could oversee their successors. That mist is them, rising out of the water.”
  “I don’t know much about this part of the country. I’m sorry,” she finally managed.
  He turned his black gaze on her and her skin felt as though a thousand tiny volts of electricity were running just below the surface. When he got up, she willed herself to stay where she was, even though she wanted to move toward him. “Do you believe in spirits?” he asked.
  They were only inches apart as he passed by, and she could almost feel his body heat. Or was it her own? What the hell is happening to me? I can’t believe this? What’s going on here? He stopped near the second bench and faced her. “You know, when the spirits talk, we should listen. They might have something important to tell us.”
  She was lost in those eyes and her throat was dry as sandpaper. Finally tearing her gaze from his, she closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, he was gone.

Excerpt from Echoes of the Past:

  THE BASEMENT DOOR WAS in the kitchen, next to the pantry. It was kept locked and Erica got the key from Evelyn’s desk. The minute she opened the door, the smell of mold, decay and something else utterly unpleasant wafted up her nostrils. “Ever been down there?” Paula asked from behind Erica.
  “No. And I’m not crazy about going down there now.” Erica replied, feeling around for a light switch, but when she flipped it on, nothing happened. “Great.”
  Paula retreated. “There’s a flashlight on the desk, I’ll get it.”
  Moments later, flashlight in hand, Erica led the way as the two women descended into the dark cavern below. Erica played the beam around the floor and walls. There were boxes stacked on her right. To her left sat the furnace and water heater, so she gingerly headed that way, pushing cobwebs out of her face as she went.
  The gas water heater looked fairly new. She squatted beside it, looked underneath and saw the pilot light’s blue flame flickering steadily.
  “I don’t understand it.” Erica stood up, trying to make sense of it all.
  Suddenly the aroma of flowers was so strong it almost made Erica gag. She couldn’t quite place it. Mimosa Gardenia? No. More like a combination of several, along with something musky. “Do you smell that?” Paula whispered.
  Erica nodded as she felt the air grow heavy. She tried to move, but could not. It was as though her feet were glued to the floor.
  “It’s right next to you,” Paula’s voice sounded hoarse and her gaze was riveted on a spot just over Erica’s right shoulder.
  “What?” Erica managed to croak through a throat that felt nearly closed shut.
  “Who are you?” Paula asked, her voice trembling slightly.
  Then a sound like the wind whistling through the trees surrounded them and the air became so cold, their breath made vapor clouds under their noses.
  Erica felt something that reminded her of death brush past her. Then she heard a gasp and shone the flashlight that way. Paula was standing still, her body rigid, her eyes closed. Fear curled itself around Erica’s insides as she watched her friend begin to tremble.
  Suddenly it was gone and the room swam back into focus. The air was once again damp and clammy. The floral smell had dissipated, and was replaced by a mustiness that made Erica’s stomach recoil. “What was that?”
  Paula let out something like a moan and opened her eyes. “Let’s get out of here,” was her reply as she hurried toward the stairs. Then she grabbed the banister and Erica was afraid she might collapse.
  “Did you smell it? Flowers. And that wind. There’s no way...”Erica babbled.
  Once they were safely in the kitchen with the basement door once again locked, Paula turned to Erica. “I felt it. Inside of me. Such sorrow and despair.”
  Erica led her to a chair. “What is happening here, Paula?”
  “I told you this place is alive with spirit activity. We just encountered one. And it’s asking for our help.” Paula replied.
  Not again! Erica remembered her previous experience here. “Who is it?”
  “I don’t know.”
  “This is just too much!” she exclaimed, feeling shaky all of a sudden. She sat down in the chair next to Paula. “What do we do now?”
  Paula looked at her. “Go back upstairs and check the shower. My guess is that the water is fine now.”
  And it was.

************

**********

Murder Past, Murder Present
mystery
R. Barri Flowers and Jan Grape, Editors

A list of contents.

Introduction by Jan Burke
"Murder Past, Murder Present" by R. Barri Flowers
"For the Love of the Grape" by Kris Neri
"A Jury of His Peers" by Jay Brandon
"Dead on the 4th of July" by Meg Chittenden
  Others are establishing themselves as talented mystery authors, such as Taffy Cannon, Twist Phelan, and Pari Noskin Taichert.
  In all, this is an amazing group of authors and their collective imaginations in creating page-turning, truly unforgettable mystery stories will speak for themselves.
  We hope you enjoy the anthology and will check out the authors’ other published works as well.

The Editors,
R. Barri Flowers & Jan Grape

***

For Love of the Grape
by Kris Neri

  Louis Caruso always thought the worst crime of which he'd stand accused was making cheap wine, a sin of staggering proportions in the environs of California's Sonoma Valley wine region. Never did he think he'd be suspected of murder.
  If only he hadn't risen during the night to work in his winery that night. Naturally, the police suspected him--nobody believed that someone whose wines carried the ridiculous names "Pizza Louie Red" and "Pizza Louie White" would care enough to work in his cellars in the middle of the night. But making a quality product mattered to Louis, even if his grapes were grown just outside the Sonoma Valley and his wines were sold in grocery stores and low-end outlets instead of fine wine shops.
  Louis had loved winemaking since, as a kid, he'd helped out on his parents' winery. He loved the way the morning light filtered through the yeast that forms on the surface of the Chardonnay grapes, like lace at a window. He loved the rich vibrancy of the Cabernet and Merlot grapes. Mostly, though, he loved that wine was so pure. Sure, vintners could improve it with aging techniques, but the product itself was a miracle produced by nature.
  The night of the murder, Louis went to the stone building that housed his cellars to check on the temperature of one of his cooling tanks. The dank smell of fresh manure carried on the breeze overcame the delicate scent of grapes, causing Louis's jaw to tighten. In the moonlight that lit the path he took, he noticed an SUV parked in the shadows alongside the building where it was too dark to say whether the car was navy or dark green. Had to be navy--his neighbor's car. Who else would sneak around Louis's property at that hour? His neighbor, Denny Lawson, the redneck lettuce farmer who lived up the road, kept trying to force Louis to sell his winery to him. Now he must be sinking to sabotage.
  Louis quietly opened the sliding door and crept inside. Someone had left the lights on, and the sudden brightness caused him to squint. Since he'd been the last one to leave the evening before, and he'd turned the lights off, he figured the intruder must still be there. Yet it was awfully quiet; eerily so. A flicker of panic told Louis he needed a weapon, in case things got ugly. He looked to the wall where tools hung beside the blackboard noting tank temperatures. But the heavy wrench that usually hung there was missing.
  He snatched a flashlight instead and crept up the dim aisle along the far wall. But he stopped a few steps along where a man lay sprawled at his feet, dead.
  Louis flicked his flashlight at the face lost in the shadows cast by the big barrels. Strange, he'd never seen this man before. But that made what he saw next inexplicable. In his stiffened hand, the dead man clasped a piece of the winery's thick chalk. On the concrete floor, he had written, "Lou struck me."
  Stunned, Louis fell to his knees. He could see someone had parted the man's skull with a wrench. His wrench, he realized,when he spotted the tool to the right of the corpse. He stared at the jerky lettering accusing him, especially the last letter, which curved up, as if the man's hand had twitched in the moments before death.
  Louis heard something outside and hastily grabbed the wrench for protection. He took it in his left hand, even though that meant reaching across the body. He was strangely ambidextrous. He always reached with his left hand and returned with his right. His handwriting was equally bad with both hands.
  When he heard the sliding door open, Louis clutched the wrench tighter. Was the killer returning? The careless strut that came to a stop behind him only belonged to Julio Martinez, a worker Louis had fired days earlier for laziness.
  "What are you doing here, Julio?" Louis demanded.
  "I saw the light outside and I--" Martinez stared. "Why'd you do it, Louis? Why did you kill the juice broker?"

* * *

  In life, the juice broker's name had been David Halloran. Though Louis had never met him, Halloran was well known in the Sonoma wine community. A juice broker bought grape juice in bulk from some wineries, often those outside the region, and sold it to others. The practice wasn't illegal as long as wineries disclosed when they mixed in other varieties of grapes or used juice from outside of their region. But too many wineries used inferior juice on the sly, to stretch their harvests' yields. It was a dirty little secret within the Sonoma Valley.
  The police took Louis in for questioning. The detective assigned to the case was a cute blonde, whose curly hair formed a pale cloud around her pretty freckled face. She reminded Louis of a teacher he'd had a crush on as a boy. Only Detective Patty Ransom wasn't as encouraging as his teacher had been.
  With a frown that cut between her eyebrows, Detective Ransom said, "We take dying declarations seriously."
  She meant what the dead guy had written on the floor. If only Louis had erased it before Julio walked in. But why would the dying man have written that? Louis truly had never seen him before.
  "What reason would I have to kill Halloran? I didn't know him," Louis insisted.
  Sergeant Wickenberg, Detective Ransom's boss, showed Louis a note they removed from the body. A small, precise hand had written: "Pizza Louie Winery, 1:30 am," followed by several dollar signs.
  "That tells the story, Caruso. From what I hear, Halloran called on wineries in the middle of the night for only one reason--to sell juice the vintners didn't want anyone to know they were buying."
&nbps; "Not me," Louis swore. "Look, I make decent wines for ordinary meals. Nobody would care if I bought juice, but I never have. If you knew anything about wine--"
  "Can't prove it by me," the sergeant said. "I'm a beer drinker." He patted a big round belly that proved his claim.
  Great. Louis had to run into the one person in Northern California who didn't regard himself as a wine expert. What if he ended up with a jury full of beer drinkers or teetotalers? But he was right. Louis really would have suffered no shame in buying juice. Only the fine wine producers needed to hide it.
  The one thing Louis didn't like about wine was the snobbishness that accompanied it, the unspoken collusion among the posh wineries, the wine merchants, and the awards judges. They couldn't look past the elegant trappings of the overpriced vineyards. They didn't have the guts to say when a wine wasn't as good as it should be, or when wines like Louis's were better than expected. Nobody in wine would admit when the emperor was naked.
  "Then again, you might have killed him for something that had nothing to do with wine. I've heard that Halloran would have done anything for a buck." The sergeant smiled menacingly. "Hey, is it true the Environmental Protection Agency once fined you for spraying your grapes with a banned pesticide?"
  While he couldn't follow the logic of that conversation, anger mushroomed in Louis. A banned pesticide had been sprayed in his fields, and someone anonymously called the EPA to report it. But Louis hadn't done it. He wouldn't risk his reputation or his vines. His nasty neighbor, Denny Lawson, had to have been the one who sprayed--the poison was one approved for lettuce. Lawson would do anything to force Louis to sell. He thought the wine growers should stick to Sonoma and clear out of his neighborhood.
  "Seems to me," Sergeant Wickenberg said before leaving the interrogation room, "you had lots of reasons for killing Halloran."
  Once the sergeant left, Detective Ransom seemed to look at him more kindly. Or maybe Louis just wanted to believe that. He never had much success with women. He was too shy and his timing was awful. As evidence of that, he seized the moment alone with Detective Ransom to awkwardly ask if, when the case was over, she might consider going out with him.
  Was that a flash of interest he saw in her blue eyes, or indignation? "Mr. Caruso, this case isn't going to end the way you'd like."
  Louis gulped. The law, it seemed, was as blind to the truth as the wine world could be.

Author Bio
R. Barri Flowers
  R. Barri Flowers is an award winning, best-selling literary criminologist with more than forty published books and dozens of short stories to his credit. His published mystery novels include the legal thrillers, State's Evidence (Dorchester, 2006), Justice Served (Dorchester, 2005), and Persuasive Evidence (Dorchester, 2004). Justice Served was nominated for a Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award.
  Flower's best-selling true crime book, The Sex Slave Murders (St. Martin's Press, 1996) was excerpted in Cosmopolitan magazine and was the basis for crime documentaries on the Biography Channel's Crime Stories and Investigation Discovery's Wicked Attraction series.
  The author's noir tale, "The Wrong End of a Gun," appears in Seattle Noir (Akashic Books, 2009), as part of an award winning noir anthology series. A number of Flowers mystery short stories are part of the Amazon Shorts program, including "Ripper-Part 1," "Deception-Part-1," "Gone But Not Forgotten," "No Going Back," and "The Jury Has Spoken."
  Apart from writing fiction and true crime, R. Barri Flowers is a distinguished criminologist and has written such criminology titles as College Crime (McFarland, 2009), Female Crime, Criminals and Cellmates (McFarland, 2009), The Adolescent Criminal (McFarland, 2009), Sex Crimes: Predators, Perpetrators, Prostitutes, and Victims (Charles C Thomas, 2006), and Murders in the United States (McFarland, 2004).
  The author is a recipient of the Wall of Fame Award from Michigan State University's renowned School of Criminal Justice. He has been interviewed on the Biography Channel, Investigation Discovery, and by ABC News as well as many popular online sites.
  R. Barri Flowers is the editor of Murder Past, Murder Present, a mystery anthology by award-winning, best-selling mystery author members of the American Crime Writers League. The anthology will be published in the summer of 2009 (Twilight Times Books).
  The author is currently working on a thriller novel, Death Cries, procedural mystery series, A Killer in Paradise, and a narrative nonfiction essay anthology for the International Thriller Writers, True Thrills.

TTB title: Murder Past, Murder Present

Jan Grape
  Jan Grape is an award winning writer with a mystery series and more than two dozen short stories to her credit. Her novels include Dark Blue Death (Five Star, 2005) and the Anthony nominated Austin City Blue (Worldwide Library, 2003). Both feature Austin police detective Zoe Barrow.
  The author is a double award winner with an Anthony for Best Short Story, "A Front Row Seat," and Macavity for a co-authored nonfiction book, Deadly Women (Carroll & Graf, 1997). She has also been nominated for an Edgar, Shamus, and Agatha.
Grape's mystery stories have appeared in a number of anthologies, including "Cat O'Nine Lives," in Cat Crimes through Time (Book Sales, 2001) and "A Front Row Seat," in Vengeance is Hers (Signet, 1997).
  Jan Grape is currently the President of the American Crime Writers League and former Vice President of the Private Eye Writers of America and the Southwest Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. She is a regular columnist for Mystery Scene magazine.
  She recently completed a mystery novel titled, What Doesn't Kill You (Five Star, 2010).
  Jan is the co-editor of Murder Past, Murder Present, a mystery anthology by award-winning, best-selling mystery author members of the American Crime Writers League. The anthology will be published in the summer of 2009 (Twilight Times Books).

TTB title: Murder Past, Murder Present

Murder Past, Murder Present Copyright © 2009.R. Barri Flowers and Jan Grape. All rights reserved by the authors. Please do not copy without permission.

Format: PDF, HTML, Palm, pdf arc available now.
Payment Method
PayPal -or- Credit Card -or- eReader -or- Fictionwise -or- OmniLit -or- Sony eBookstore
List Price: $6.50 USD

Format: Trade Paperback
Available now!
Order this book via check or credit card
~ or visit ~ Amazon; Bamm.com; Barnes & Noble Borders; Indy Bookstores
List Price: $19.95 USD

************* **************

Doggie Biscuit!
mainstream humor
by Darrell Bain

Publisher: Twilight Times Books

CHAPTER ONE

  My wife Betty and I used to laugh at those old folks who own a house dog and speak to it as if it were human. They even refer to themselves as Mama and Daddy when talking to the dog, and take it everywhere they go and spoil it rotten and ...well, you get the picture. You've seen them, too, haven't you? Betty and I both agreed there must be something really peculiar about that type of person and that you'd never catch us making such idiots of ourselves.
  Yeah, right. This just goes to show that you should never laugh at other people's quirks, because guess what? In the prime of our Golden Years we unaccountably lost our sanity one day and saddled ourselves with a house dog. A reddish-brown, shorthaired dachshund, to be specific, weight sixteen pounds, going on forty when lap-sitting, which is his preferred position.
  It isn't the fact that we got a dog which is so puzzling; it is that we allowed it to become a house dog. Shucks, we've had other doggies and they stayed outside most of the time on our hundred-acre farm where we grow Christmas trees and pretend we're making a living at it. How did this one turn out to be a house dog who gets treated like a people--and acts like one most of the time? Maybe it's because for the first time in our lives we actually paid money for a pet, the princely sum of a hundred dollars.
  I've forgotten why we decided on a dachshund to replace the Chihuahua we had before, who guarded us, the house and the farm with all the fierceness and determination of a hundred-pound German shepherd until the day he died.
  I guess it really doesn't matter now anyway. What I do remember is that appealing little whine coming from the cardboard box we were bringing him home in.
  The sounds were so appealing, that I just had to take the sleek, wiggly little sausage doggie out of the box and cradle him on my lap, thereby setting a precedent which is carried on to this day. In fact, on this very cold morning as I'm beginning this tale, we're all out in the office, converted from a two-car garage, and with a cheery fire going in the Franklin stove. The new kitten, named Velcro (for obvious reasons) is playing with a lizard that made its way inside with some of Betty's house plants, brought in for the winter. I am at the computer, writing (and also pretending to be making money). Betty is sitting in her easy chair reading. And the doggie is asleep in her lap. He loves laps almost as much as he loves doggie biscuits.
  Naming a dog Biscuit wasn't one of our brighter ideas, even though it seemed appropriate at the time. As I recall, we had gotten a couple of different kinds of puppy food the day we brought Biscuit home. While Betty began fixing breakfast, I put some dry food out in a bowl for our new doggie. He sniffed at it, looked up and whined.
  Obviously, I was missing a signal somewhere. Over the next half-hour, I tried him with canned dog food, cat food, a piece of leftover steak and some bread. He whined and sniffed, and sniffed and whined, but wouldn't touch a bite.
  As Betty was cooking and I was trying to think of something else to offer our new doggie, we discussed names for him. Somehow, every one we came up with sounded trite, unsuitable for his countenance or silly. Then we thought of names one of us liked, but the other didn't.
  The naming session went on until breakfast was ready. Betty put the eggs, bacon and biscuits on the table and we sat down. Immediately, our new little house guest scattled over between us and sat up on his hiney with his little front paws in a perfect begging position--and I promise you that we neither taught nor encouraged him to sit up like that.
  It must have come with his genes because that part of his life not spent draped across Betty's lap, he spends sitting up on his hind end, looking around like a people. Well, shucks, if I was only three inches high and fourteen inches long and had four legs when I was a little fellow, I probably would have done the same. Besides, he is perfectly balanced like that and it leaves his forepaw free to wave at us like a band conductor when we don't understand immediately what he wants.
  Anyway, there he was, sitting up between our chairs and whining. I broke off a piece of buttered biscuit and held it for him. I'm lucky he didn't grab a couple of fingers in the process, the way he snatched that piece of biscuit. I tried some more. He gobbled those bits of biscuit as fast as I could break them off and reach down to feed them to him. In fact, he ate all my biscuits and I didn't even get any that morning.
  "Why don't we name him Biscuit?" I asked Betty, wiping off my mangled fingers on a napkin. "He sure does like them. And fingers, too."
  "Well, okay," Betty agreed.
  I think she still wanted to name him something like Prince or Rex, but she finally gave in when it was obvious how silly anyone would look calling a Dumbo-eared, short-legged, long-bodied, snuffly-nosed little Dachshund by a name like that. So Biscuit he became. And thus we became the ones sounding silly.

Cheers

  It's a good thing we don't have close neighbors. I know I'm a little eccentric, but there's no sense having the world think I've gone completely around the bend, which is what would happen if anyone lived within screaming distance of us. Screaming distance? Yup.  Now fast forward to the football playoffs. The first time I saw a great play I yelled and hollered madly--until I saw poor Biscuit clawing at the door trying to get outside, thinking he'd done something really bad. I rescued him and then tried to keep my voice down. No way. I mean it was a playoff game, right? I had to yell. And every time, Biscuit cowered and started trembling, wondering what in the hell he had done that was bad enough to make me yell like that.
  It was too cold to put him out for more than a few minutes. He would scratch the paneling if I locked him up in another room. He didn't believe my reassurances after I yelled that he was being good when I would holler again every few minutes. He was getting paranoid and I was getting frustrated. Finally, I hit on the obvious solution.
  And that's why I don't want nearby neighbors around during the football games. They would think I was crazy, hearing me yell, "Good Doggie! Good Doggie!" or after a particularly great play, "Good Doggie! Good Doggie, Biscuit!" And since I don't have nearby neighbors, the solution worked great.
  Well, almost. After three hours of hearing me yell about how good he is, Biscuit doesn't think he can do anything bad for two or three days afterward. This means I really have to guard my socks, telephone cords and anything else remotely chewable.
  He catches onto other words real fast. Irresistible other things, too, like learning to drive which I'll tell about later. Nowadays, knowing how intelligent our little Dumbo-eared doggie is, we're careful of what we teach him, but at that time we didn't know any better.

Smart Doggie

  Learning how smart Biscuit is all started with me giving him a ride up the drive to check the mail. Remember, we live on a big farm and it's a quarter-mile up the dirt and gravel road to the mailbox. That was simply too far for my old bones to walk most of the time especially after spending a hard morning writing stuff that mostly doesn't sell for beans. Or playing around with some of the thousands of Christmas trees which earn even less money than my writing but have to be tended to anyway, because otherwise, Betty would make me go out and get an honest job. Back when I started the business, one of my good friends told me not to plant any more trees than my wife could take care of, but I didn't listen much better than Biscuit being told to leave the steering wheel alone while I'm driving.
  Once he tried riding a few times, Biscuit decided he liked to go in the truck as much as a kid likes to go on Merry-Go-Rounds. Pretty soon, he was begging to go everywhere I went. As soon as I make a move for my truck keys, he starts bouncing up and down and yelping and turning in circles and squealing as if he has a giant flea tickling him in a spot he can't get to.
  Well, Biscuit hadn't been much trouble going to get the mail or newspaper so I began letting him go along to town with me while I ran my errands. At first, he just sat quietly on the seat beside me, but pretty soon he graduated to my lap (remember, he's a lap dog by temperament), and since my truck has no air conditioning, before long he was sticking his head out the window and barking at all and sundry who were using his road. Yep, every road we drove on belonged to him.
  I thought it was pretty funny and the trips continued. I would come home and tell Betty about him barking at squirrels and crows on his road or cows and horses leaning their heads over fences as if they were just itching to climb over and invade his road, and yelping at people walking on his road, and in particular, warning cars in front of us to get off of his road.
  On rainy or cold days, of course I left the windows up and since he couldn't stick his head out the window, Biscuit would sit in my lap. And that's what led to the trouble.
  Sitting in my lap gave him a better view and he began to prefer that to hanging out the window, other than when we stopped and a strange dog, cat, any animal or person approached his truck on his road. In that case, he had to stick his head out (if the window was open) and tell them in no uncertain terms to get the hell off his territory.
  Besides the vantage point given by sitting in my lap, Biscuit occasionally honked the horn by accident. He's a pretty smart dog, like I told you. Before long, he learned where both horn buttons were and that they were responsible for making all those neat, loud noises.
  The first time we pulled up in front of the house after Biscuit had leaned on the horn the last hundred yards in order to let everyone know Biscuit, the boss of the farm, was home, Betty ran out the back door all atwitter, thinking I was in dire trouble. I was, but I just didn't know it yet.
  Besides scaring Betty when we drove up, until she got used to it, Biscuit learned other uses for the horn. For instance, he soon found out that he could get me moving faster if he gave a couple of toots on the horn when I slowed down or stopped for some reason or other.
  Now that was fine on country roads, but there is no getting out of it; I have to stop when I come to a busy highway and attempt to cross it in order to get into town. Biscuit can't read of course, (at least I don't think so, but he's learning to spell so reading probably isn't far off) and he doesn't pay any attention to stop signs. To him, they are probably just something he would like to pee on if I would just let him out of the car while we're stopped.
  One day, we pulled up behind a big, off-road pickup waiting to cross the highway. Biscuit gave the driver about two seconds to get out of our way, then began tooting the horn. I could see by the line of traffic that the truck couldn't move yet, so I pulled Biscuit's paws off the horn. He slobbered my face and while I was busy wiping it off, he tooted some more.
  Biscuit was busy wetting down my face again when I saw the door of the big pickup ahead of me swing open. A burly redneck with sleeves rolled up over biceps about the size of my thighs got out. He hitched up his pants, spit on his hands and slowly walked back to where I sat with Biscuit in my arms, wishing now that I had signed up for that concealed handgun class and was armed to the teeth, instead of having to depend on a sixteen-pound idiot-savant dog to protect me.
  "You in a hurry, bud?" the big fellow asked.
  "It was my dog," I said as quickly as I could.
  "Yeah, I bet. I think you're looking for trouble."
  "No, really. It was my dog. Here, I'll show you. Biscuit, blow the horn for the nice man."
  Biscuit slobbered on my face some more and barked rudely at the redneck. I began preparing myself for the afterlife.
  I guess maybe the big boy liked dogs, because he looked disbelievingly at me, and then reached into the cab of the truck and scratched Biscuit's ears.
  "You got a nice dog, bud. You oughten to blame things you do on him. Now don't honk at me again, you hear?"
  "I won't," I said, holding Biscuit tight.
  The highway cleared. The big-wheeled pickup began moving. I let go of Biscuit to start up again.
  Biscuit promptly honked the horn.
  I cringed, but the big truck couldn't stop, he was already out on the highway. Biscuit gave him a final toot to hurry him on the way while I silently prayed that our paths would never cross again, at least, until I could go take that handgun course and arm myself.

***

  Besides honking at vehicles, Biscuit tended to honk for me if I took too long in the grocery store or convenience store or post office. The manager of the grocery store got real uptight one busy day when Biscuit honked for five minutes straight until I could get outside to quiet him down by offering my face as a sacrifice.
  As time passed, Biscuit got the idea, accidentally at first, but soon purposely, that the little arms sticking out from beneath the steering wheel would do interesting things when he tweaked them, like making the windshield wipers work, or making the turn blinkers come on and so forth. I got to where I was very careful never to leave the truck running with Biscuit in it by himself for fear he would suddenly decide to see what the gearshift lever would do if he moved it to a different position.
  One day Biscuit and I were out running errands, had already crossed the highway and were headed to the post office when we got behind a slow-moving state patrol car.
  It was going way too slow for Biscuit. He began honking the horn.
  I pulled him away from it, crossing the yellow line momentarily while wrestling with him.
  He promptly turned on the left side turn signal. The wrong one, since we were turning in the opposite direction (he never has learned left from right).
  I put the blinker back to where it belonged.
  Biscuit honked the horn again as I let go of him long enough to turn the corner.
  The cop car slowed down.
  Biscuit honked the horn again.
  I pulled him off of it.
  He turned on the blinker and the windshield wipers both.
  The cop car turned on his blinker, only his was on top of his car.
  Biscuit thought it was for him and honked the horn again.
  I pulled him off while coming to a very erratic stop.
  "Now you've done it," I told Biscuit while I reached for my driver's license. That gave him room to honk the horn again.
  The state trooper walked slowly toward my truck, hand hovering over his holster. He got to the window of my truck. Biscuit barked at him.
  I shushed him (or tried to) and held out my driver's license.
  The trooper ignored it.
  "Sir, it appears you may be driving under the influence."
  "No way," I said, truthfully. "Not only am I cold sober, but I don't even drink any more."
  That might possibly have gone over, except that the trooper looked a little familiar and suddenly I recognized him. He was the same officer who had got me for DWI ten years ago, the last time I ever took a beer with me when I drove.
  "I'll just bet you're sober," he said. "Get out of the car."
  "It's a truck," I said, not very wisely.
  "I don't care what it is. Get out."
  I did so, while Biscuit barked and barked. He didn't like all that blue color, apparently. Or maybe it was the threatening tone the officer was using to talk to me and he wanted to protect me.
  "Officer, I can explain," I said. "That was my dog honking the horn and turning on the blinkers and all."
  "Sure it was. See that white line on the road? Let's see how straight you can walk."
  I walked as straight as I ever have in my life. Remembering that night in jail, I probably walked straighter than the line was. The officer appeared a little puzzled, but he wasn't giving up easily.
  "All right, let's see you touch your nose with your eyes closed."
  Heck, that was easy. I knew where my nose was almost as well as Biscuit did. I touched it several times.
  "How come you were acting so funny?" the trooper asked, stymied from proving me drunk with field sobriety tests.
  "I keep telling you, sir, it was my dog. He likes to honk the horn and play with the blinkers and stuff."
  "Okay, have him honk the horn for me."
  We walked over to the truck.
  "Biscuit, honk the horn," I said.  "Well, turn on the wipers and blinkers," I pleaded.
  Biscuit barked, looking pleased at all the attention.
  The officer reached in the window and scratched Biscuit's head.
  Biscuit retaliated by extending his extra-long Dachshund body through the window and slobbering all over the trooper's face. At least it shut up the barking.
  "He just does it when he wants to," I said.
  "What's his name?" the officer asked, wiping off his face with his hand.
  "Biscuit," I said.
  Biscuit barked. And then, thankfully, he decided we had spent enough time in that one spot. He honked the horn, loud and clear.
  The officer smiled.
  I breathed easier for about two seconds.
  "Okay, I guess you're not under the influence, but I'm still going to have to issue a ticket for erratic driving. Give me your license."
  I did so, wondering what Betty was going to say about this. She's the one who's always getting tickets, and here I was, going to have to explain one.
  The officer finished writing, tore off the ticket and handed it to me to sign.
  I wrote my name without paying much attention, mainly because I had left my spectacles at home. By that time I just wanted for me and Biscuit to get on our way, preferably in a direction opposite of the county jail.
  The officer walked off.
  I started up my truck and we drove away. Biscuit gave another honk and I got out of there as quick as I could without going over the speed limit.
  When I got home, I looked at the ticket before going inside, then began laughing. The officer had written the ticket in Biscuit's name, citing him for driving without a license.
  I went in the house and told Betty the story, then showed her the ticket.
  She laughed, too.  The next week, Biscuit and I drove to the county seat so I could take him to the traffic court. We could have saved our time.
  They told me, no dogs were allowed in the courthouse.
  I showed them Biscuit's citation.
  The guard said he didn't care what was written on that paper, no dogs were allowed inside.
  As soon as I returned home, I wrote a nice letter and included a copy of the citation, explaining the circumstances. I've never heard anything about it since then, but give us time. Biscuit has been pawing at the gearshift lever lately. If he would ever learn left from right, I would just give him the keys and let him run the errands.

Doggie Biscuit! Copyright © 2004. Darrell Bain. All rights reserved by the author. Please do not copy without permission.

Author Bio
Darrell Bain is the author of more than three dozen books, in many genres, running the gamut from humor to mystery and science fiction to humorous non-fiction. For the last several years he has concentrated on humor and science fiction, both short fiction, and suspense thrillers.
  Darrell served thirteen years in the military as a medic and his two years in Vietnam formed the basis for his first published novel, Medics Wild. Darrell has been writing off and on all his life but really got serious about it only after the advent of computers. He purchased his first one in 1989 and has been writing furiously ever since.
  While Darrell was working as a lab manager at a hospital in Texas, he met his wife Betty. He trapped her under a mistletoe sprig and they were married a year later. Darrell and Betty owned and operated a Christmas tree farm in East Texas for many years. It became the subject and backdrop for some of his humorous stories and books.

TTB titles:
Alien Infection
Darrell Bain's World of Books - autobiography
Doggie Biscuit!
Hotline to Heaven
Human By Choice with Travis 'Doc' Taylor. Book 1 Cresperian series.
Laughing All the WayMogollon Rim: Seeds of Destruction PG-13; not suitable for all readers - explicit language.
Savage Survival
Shadow Worlds with Barbara M. Hodges
Space Trails
Strange Valley
The Dog Who Thought He Was A Cat - Children's story book
The Focus Factor with Gerald Mills
The Melanin Apocalypse
The Y Factor with Stephanie Osborn. Book 2 Cresperian series
Toppers
Warp Point

Series
Medics Wild - Prequel to the Williard Bros. Series
Post War Dinosaur Blues - Book 1 of the Williard Bros. Series
Bigfoot Crazy - Book 2 of the Williard Bros. SeriesSpace for Sale - Book 4 of the Williard Bros. Series

To order this book:
Format: PDF, HTML, Palm
  Payment Method
PayPal -or- Credit Card -or- eReader.com -or- Fictionwise
List Price: $4.95 USD ebook
Format: Trade Paperback
Available at Amazon; Bamm.com; Barnes & Noble; Borders; other Bookstores
List Price: $14.95 USD

Reviews

5 DiamondsReviewed by Barbara M. Hodges, author of The Emerald Dagger for the eBook Ecstasy newsletter.

Author Darrell Bain amuses readers with the antics and adventures of his delightful dachshund, Biscuit. Written with an engaging tongue-in-cheek style, readers will almost be able to feel Biscuit's tongue on their check for a sloppy doggie kiss! The humor is genuine, as are these amazing anecdotes.

Each chapter highlights a special time in Biscuit's life. From housebreaking to hanging out at home, this dog will make himself welcome in readers' hearts and minds. It should be noted that Biscuit had some unusual adventures. He was the first dog I ever read about who received a traffic ticket! That was a priceless story! In fact, Biscuit had some of his most memorable adventures in a car.
While readers will all understand a dog's desire to chew and dig, Biscuit takes this to new heights! Or should I say, "depths" when I am talking about digging? He introduced himself to snakes, skunks and gophers. He had a special relationship with the UPS driver and was a very welcome visitor at a nursing home. The book even has a special section explaining Biscuit's extensive vocabulary, complete with words, phrases and gestures!
It seems that the easygoing nature of the author and his wife, Betty, allowed this little "weenie" dog to embrace life with his tail happily wagging! It was a pleasure to enjoy Biscuit through the words of this writer. His writing style was friendly and honest. What came through loud and clear was the author's love and wonder of his dog. Readers will feel this and be enriched.
Reviewed by Joyce Handzo for In the Library reviews.

Biscuit is a little dachshund that exemplifies what we all love best about our canine companions. Doggie Biscuit follows this charming canine character throughout his entire life story. Writing with a tongue-in-cheek style humor, author Darrell Bain lays out a remarkable story of love and adventure (Biscuit may be the only dog in the world to have received a traffic ticket!) that will completely engage the reader's full and rapt attention from first page to last. Indeed, it would not be unexpected for readers with canine companions of their own to see in Biscuit some of those special times and qualities that is to be found in their own dog's behavior. Not to be missed is a very special section of Doggie Biscuits that deals with Biscuit's extensive vocabulary and is complete with his ability to communicate through, and respond to, an amazing list of words, phrases and gestures. A pure joy and entertainment, Dogie Biscuit is also a story that is thoughtful and universal in its appeal. Highly recommended reading!
The Midwest Book Review.

*************** A treasure hunt to end all treasure hunts.

Enchanted Hunt
Magic realism
Dorothy Ann Skarles
publisher: Twilight Times Books
http://www.twilighttimesbooks.com
ISBN 1-933353-14-7 (ebook)
Print version coming soon.

Chapter One

The End of the Rainbow

  Out of the thicket, Lee and I heard the doleful sound of dogs and stopped to listen. The cries were far off, as if they were only racing, not heeding any direction or scent of game.
  "Hear that," Lee said, adjusting the rifle around his shoulder. "Those dogs have got themselves a real attitude." He tilted his head so he could hear if the challenge cry of a hot trail would spring to life. "Damn fools. They're supposed to be huntin', Cat, not playin'," his tone indignant. "They're gettin' more and more like you, real scalawags. Always takin' off, chasin' some kind of a rainbow of their own."
  I gave him my best grin and then winked. "I recall Uncle Akana included you when he called us scalawags." I looked up at the sky. "Besides, it's getting late. Dog's know when it's time to quit for a Bud."
  Lee hit at a fern and clumped through the tall grass. "First things first. Beer later. Boar could still be feedin'."
  "Now you sound like that workaholic father of yours," I said following in his foot steps, listening for any sudden change in the tone of the animal's chase, but Lee was right, the dogs were probably only on the track of a mongoose. "Stop being a worry-wart. There's four days left to get that extra pig we need for the luau."
  "This catering job's important, Cat. Can't mess up."
  "I know, old buddy. It's the first one since Uncle Akana passed away. But later or even tomorrow, we'll kill us the biggest damn wild boar in these mountains. You'll see."
  Lee gave a toothy smile. "With you it's always tomorrow, play today."
  I moved up and took the lead. "We go south."
  "South?" Lee gave me a suspicious glance as he moved along side. "Dog's off in other direction."
  "Yeah, I know." I glanced at him and saw his eyebrows lower. "But since the dogs are trailing anyway, and not down to business, I thought we'd take a little time out too." I had the feeling this wasn't going to be easy. "I have something to show you."
  "What, another treasure?"
  "Not exactly."
  "Then what?"
  "You'll have to see for yourself."
  "Humph," Lee grunted. "I no like Cat's eyes glitterin' like yellow gold."
  Lee's stare made me feel hesitant for the first time. He wasn't going to be easy to convince that what I did was right. And if I failed. . . Well, his hot Hawaiian blood would probably boil to the surface, and he'd punch my teeth out.
  "Why we quittin' boar hunt to go on wild goose chase?"
  For a second, I pretended not to hear him. Maybe I thought if I told him a little at a time.
  "Cat got your tongue?" Lee flicked his finger against my head with a snap.
  "Hey, take it easy."
  "Flower no go with black head." He stepped over the red pompom bloom of the Ohia tree. "What you show me?"
  "I found the real thing, Lee. I found the petroglyphs."  Lee groaned and grabbed for the good-luck piece around his neck. He rubbed the round smooth lava a full three seconds before he asked, "The stone drawings Uncle Akana told us about?"
  "The very same," I nodded.
  I stopped to get my bearings, along the slope where we stood, my senses alert to the possibility of a napping wild pig hidden in the underbrush. A sudden hot wind blew a coiling tendril across my face. The frayed ends of the climbing plant reached out like fingers around my throat before I pulled it away. A máhú kona. . . a queer wind. It somehow reminded me of the jungle in Vietnam. I bent over to rub my knee where a piece of shrapnel hit that last day of the war. At thirty-four the knee joint was giving me a lot of trouble.
  "We go this way up the ridge," I said, pointing.
  "You sure?" Lee asked as he noticed the incline and nodded his head at my knee.
  "Do the tough keep going?" I crouched down under the branches of a young Ohia tree and circled to my right, ignoring that twitch of pain in my joint.
  A bird called, rising from the cliff face, wheeling high above, turning out toward the sea. Today, I was in the Kohala Mountains on the Big Island of Hawaii and instead of tracking Viet Cong, I was on the trail of treasure. I not only could smell success, I could feel gold in my hands, and I knew that this time, after so many years, I was going to be a winner.
  "Damn it, Cat," Lee made a face moving in beside me. He squinted and deep lines furrowed the great jutting brow as he slapped at some long grass. "You're like a dog with his nose to the ground hot on the scent for that friggen treasure. What was on those scribbles anyway?"
  "A whole series of pictures Lee, one picture after another." Excitement filled my voice. "A secret burial cave, canoes, a kings club—all kinds of artifacts."
  Lee's mouth popped open and he stared at me. "Jesus! Show treasure chest?"
  "You got it," I nodded. "Right at the bottom of a king's foot." I couldn't help but turn my grin into a big wide smile. "The indentations were deep and easy to read."
  "You crazy, man!" Lee shook his head. "Fire-goddess guard stone drawings!"
  "No one saw me, no one. Not even Pele." Lee's superstition often caused me to flout the very thing he feared.
  "My God Catamount, don't you realize you desecrated those pictures even by touching them!" Lee's voice went up an octave.
  "Honest, Lee. I didn't violate anything." A sudden flash of what I did crossed my mind and I amended. "At least, that wasn't my intentions."
  "If fire goddess take it in her head, she kill you!" he roared.
  "Not a chance," I tried to keep a laugh out of my voice. "I've got the dark looks of a handsome Irishman and the straight nose of an Indian, and they say Pele likes her men."
  "You laugh, Catamount James. Always laugh and joke around." Lee looked grim. He slapped away a low tree branch. "Always take goddess too lightly."
  When Lee used my full name, I knew I was in for one of his little speeches. He pointed his finger in my face. "Thousand times I've told you, Pele not goin' to let you or anyone else get near that secret burial cave much less find treasure."
  "Well, so far I've done all right," I said feeling a bit cocky. "And I haven't seen hide nor hair of the volcano goddess."
  "Pele let you see her when she ready." He pulled his lips tight together.
  I moved beside Lee, momentarily touching him on the shoulder. Sweat plastered his shirt to his back. "Look! I'll be careful, okay."
  His lips turned slightly up. "Sometime, you act like stupid haole when it comes to goddess. Didn't your Grandfather ever tell Cat-of-the-mountain that many things in world you can not see—like your Irish leprechaun?"
  "Would I be forgetin' the invisible fairy or my shaman grandfather," I said in my best Irish dialect. Ever since we were kids, Lee and I would slip back and forth between my brogue and his Pidgin English.
  Lee gave me a withering look. "If it suited you, you would."
  "Sneer all you want, but this time, old buddy, we don't need leprechaun's or shaman's to be revealin' the hidden' place of this secret gold. All we have to do is follow the tabu sticks."
  "Tabu sticks!" Lee croaked. He stared at me as if I had finally lost all my marbles.
  We moved along a narrow trail, the green rain forest enclosed us now on three sides. It was like a miniature Grand Canon running to the top of the mountain, a perpendicular precipice opening only to the sea.
  "Six of them Lee. And right beside the first two sticks was the biggest rock you ever saw. I swear, it was the size of that wooden barrel in your yard with the palm tree in it."
  "When? When you find key to treasure?"
  "Yesterday. Before you got to the tree house."
  "None of your jokes, Catamount."
  "This is no joke. This is Fo'REAL," I said using Lee's favorite saying.
  "No shit!" Lee looked stunned. Little beads of sweat formed on his brow.
  "Think of it! A king's cave! A king as in alii!"
  I watched Lee's face turn several shades of gray. I could feel his fear, mixed with anticipation, rise in temperature. So far so good, I thought. He's dealing with his superstition without loosing his temper or biting my head off.
  "My God, Cat. " Lee's eyes opened wide, disbelief on his face. "Tabu sticks mean not only Pele guard stone, but Kahuna priest. How you find it?"
  "Well. . ." I paused and thought about the Hawaiians who'd hidden their bodies, bones and idols away in caves, and who'd constructed clues in such a way that only a high Kahuna knew about them.
  "Well," Lee repeated, his voice breaking.
  "You won't believe this. . ."
  "Quit stallin', and get on with it!" Lee urged.
  "A rainbow sort of led me to it."
  Lee groaned. "A rainbow he says. Now I'll be gettin' the whole tale. I suppose there was a leprechaun?"
  "Not a leprechaun, exactly. . ." I paused, hardly believing what I was going to say myself.
  "Well what? What?"
  "A boar."
  "What? You caught a wild boar?" Lee's voice cracked.
  "No! Knucklehead. I found boar prints. A rainbow and boar prints They both led me to the petroglyphs."
  Lee glanced up through the trees at the sunlight. "You sure the heats not gettin' to you old buddy? Maybe, you get light-headed, like sometime in cave."

  "No. This was different, Lee." I knew he referred to my fear of being closed in. "I was following this big suckers tracks. The biggest prints I'd ever seen when it started to rain. Then I noticed it." I paused trying to get my thoughts together. "The rainbow. It was all around me. It was as if I was in the center of it, the ground a regular kaleidoscope of colors. Red, yellow, blue, green. . . I saw them all. They moved right along inside each cloven hoof print. One right after the other."
  Lee slowly moved his head from side to side as if he couldn't take it all in. "You tellin' me you found end of rainbow?"
  "That's what scares me. It was as if those boar prints and the rainbow were one."
  "I still think sun fry brain. Could have been your own washed out tobbie tracks."
  I glanced down at the rubber shoes I liked to wear. They did fit like mittens around each big toe, a little like a pig's cloven foot. "Not a chance." I moved a step ahead of Lee and wondered if I should tell him now.
  "Maybe, other hunter wear tobbies, find petroglyphs."
  "That's impossible," I snapped, wondering if I hadn't lost my mind along with my tracking ability to do what I did.
  Lee gave me a probing look. "Why? Rock with pictures still in same place, isn't it?"
  "Oh, it's still there," I said quickly, and looked away before Lee read the half-truth in my eyes. He could always tell if I was keeping something from him and I almost gave a noticeable sigh of relief when we heard the dog's bark and yip, off in the distance, changing Lee's trend of thought.
  "They're heading' this way, but still playin' games." Lee stood a moment looking down at some tangled vegetation, listening. "Think we should call dog's back in? Make sure the youngling is still hangin' in there?"
  "Kaloha is a youngling but. . ." I hesitated, it was only the dog's second time on a pig hunt, "and she's good at tracking after the other dogs. If they don't pick up our scent soon, they'll probably go back to the tree house."
  Lee shook his head. "Never know. With their attitude no tellin' what they do."
  We moved along a rough and stony glade, our senses ever alert to the possibility of a pig hiding in patches of dense undergrowth. Lee adjusted his backpack before falling into step beside me. He had taken his rifle off his shoulder, and held it in readiness for any unseen threat. The .357 Magnum I carried in my holster that day instead of the forty-four, stayed where it was. It, along with the knife strapped on my leg was only used as needed to finish off the boar. In this part of the Kohala jungle, our rate of movement was slow. Often not more than one mile per hour. And I knew we still had another hour to go. At times I would pause, wipe sweat from my forehead with the sleeve of my shirt and point the direction. I was looking for some old rotting stumps, the sign that we were at the beginning of the old priest's trail.
  Lee, breathing hard, was mumbling. He fixed his attention on me and asked. "You follow rainbow prints along loop of trail?"
  "Like a map," I nodded.
  I could read Lee's face like a book. He was going along with me all right, but he didn't like it. That stiff jaw of his, with his teeth clamped shut, put a scowl on his face that would scare even a wild pig. I knew if I'd had any sense, I'd drop this thing now. I adjusted the straps on my backpack and pointed the way along a curved path.
  "Ever wonder why my Uncle told us story 'bout gold?" Lee pulled at a blade of tall grass and put a green strip of it in his mouth.
  I shrugged. "Maybe, just to tease two kids who believed in pirates and hidden treasure."
  "No," Lee shook his head. "You forget. Stories always had a purpose."
  "Maybe, he was wanting to make us rich."
  "You kiddin'. In that, he was a little like my old man."
  "Yeah, I know," I grinned. "It's only hard work and toil that makes you wealthy."
  Lee grunted. "And work is somethin' we both know you're not too attached to." He walked around an old rotting tree. "I think he told us these stories to see what we would do."
*nbsp; "You mean he wanted to see if we'd hunt out the truth? Follow our fortune, so to speak?"
  Lee nodded. "Remember, how he used to say it was our fate. You think he ever see this rock?"
  "If not, he had to know about it," I said walking a little faster. Even with Lee's browned skin, I could see his coloring pale.
  His face took on a puzzled look. "But that would mean some really high priest entrusted him with sacred knowledge."
  "You got that right, old buddy." I knew that even though people still believed in Kahuna's, most of the few remaining priests were too hard to find to even talk to. A hang-up from the old days when they had to stay hidden or go to jail, or worse, be killed. "Probably, it's the same one Uncle Akana used to tell us about."
  "You mean the one who went underground?" Lee skirted around a lizard sunning itself on a tree branch.
  "Yeah, the one who could talk to the trees and wind."
  "Maybe, but I still think that kind of heavy info only passed down from generation to generation."
  "I wonder then how Uncle Akana got hold of it? We should have asked him."
  Lee's eyes opened wide, his mouth at a slight gap. "Ask about Kahuna secrets! Are you crazy, man?" His large hand reached for the stone around his neck. "You must be gettin' haolefied or somethin' to even think of such a thing!" He moved around a bush and quickly glanced from side to side as if to see if someone was there. "Don't you know yet that you never stick nose in Kahuna business!"
  Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a Kamehameha butterfly perched on a knee-high Braken fern. "I wonder," I said out loud as its highly-colored wingspan of about four inches glided into the air.
  "Now what?"
  "The Kahuna who drew those pictures."
  "What about him?" Lee's right foot suddenly slipped on a wet spot from the morning's rain.
  "Nothing," I shrugged. "Only, one drawing looked a little like that century old King Kamehameha."
  "King Kamehameha!" Lee blurted, looking startled. "King in drawings?"
  Oh, oh, I thought seeing Lee's face turn from friendly to fierce to fear. Wrong thing to say. " No," I backed down, trying to appease him. "The drawing only resembled him."
  "Kings, burial a secret. No one go there even if they knew. It is Kapu!"
  Lee's spouting bits of Uncle Akana's teachings along with Kahuna religious overtones didn't look good for me, I thought. I knew to a Hawaiian anything Kapu was serious business. Kapu meant it was forbidden by tradition. I could see Lee was upset even at the mention of the great King's name.
  "Look, I didn't say it was King Kamehameha."
  "Uncle Akana never tell us gold hidden in King Kamehameha's cave."
  "No, he didn't. But he didn't say it wasn't either."
  Lee's face seemed to puff up into one round scowl. "For your sake Catamount, best leave this alone."
  "Listen Lee," I said warming up to my subject. "I'm only saying if a high priest drew those pictures, he'd know who the big cheese was. . . wouldn't he?"
  Lee scowled at me. "Big secret like that not put in drawings."
  "It's logical, Lee. King Kamehameha's birthplace is in the Kohala, why not his burial-cave? It is possible."
  "You bring up damnedest things to worry 'bout," Lee snapped. He twisted around some wild banana trees and walked ahead of me.
  "After all," I continued, "didn't you tell me every high chief had his own Kahuna. Maybe, the one who did the drawings is related to the one Uncle Akana told us about."
  "Will you get off it Cat!" Lee spit the chewed piece of grass out of his mouth. His large, muscled frame pushed through the tall grass like a trashing machine at harvest. "You've been on this kick ever since you gutted your first boar, and found fish hook in stomach."
  I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. "Yeah," I said remembering. "From that time on, I felt as if I were being impelled by some unseen entity to follow in the steps of the ancient Hawaiians."
  Lee nodded. "Uncle Akana said the hook was made from human bone that probably came from some high chief. Gave Hawaiian who had it much mana."
  Mana meant power, I recalled, a supernatural or divine power that every Hawaiian sought. And making fishhooks from some chief's bones or even finding one, gave him that power. "He also said that even though I was a haole, he could see my inner soul would watch over my first spiritual treasure."
  Lee finally gave me a small lopsided grin. "He said the mana you found that day would grow. Give you potency and vigor." He made a rapid gesture with his fist in front of his crotch. "Someday, make you a guarding lion." He laughed and then playfully punched me on the shoulder. "Remember?"
  "Two guarding lions," I said, and punched him back.
  For the next few minutes, we walked along in companionable silence, each with our own thoughts. I could still recall how excited I was as a kid to find out my father was going to be stationed with the army in the twenty-fifth infantry division on the Island of Oahu. I met Lee and his uncle the second day on the base. Uncle Akana was making arrangements with some of my father's buddies to cater a Luau with real Hawaiian wild pig.
  Lee and I hit it off right away. Especially, when we found out our birthdays fell on the same day in August. In a month's time, we would turn fourteen. It was then Lee's Uncle decided to take us both on our first wild boar hunt for a birthday present.
  "We had fun times, didn't we Cat?" Lee said, interrupting my thoughts.
  I gave a soft chuckle. "Remember when I found that old canoe?"
  "Yeah, it took six horses to haul back to the tree house."
  "You thought the Menehune carved it because Uncle Akana told us it came from a Koa tree."
  Lee gave a silly close-mouth grin. "And you said you didn't care who crafted it, you were keepin' it anyway. A Kohala treasure, you called it."
  "Yeah."
  "Was no stoppin' you, all right. Now, tree house look like museum."
  "I guess I really am the guarding lion." I gave another chuckle and put two fists on my chest and pounded like Tarzan.
  Lee grunted and threw up his hands. "Guard all you want puma old buddy, someday. . ."
  "Yeah, yeah, I know. Pele's coming to get me."
  "Yah, damn right! Eventually, she will, you know!" He smacked a hanging vine away from off his face. " Don't know why you do it, Catamount!"
  I shrugged my shoulders, and paused to get my bearings. "It's a fever. The same fever my grandfather had. Each treasure I find only makes me think there's something more, bigger, and better still out there."
 : I had been following a rock wall concealed by dirt, fern and trees for some time when I finally saw the tabu sticks. "There," I whispered. The place had a stillness about it, a primitive kind of enchantment that I didn't want to disturb.
  Off in the distance, a high bark penetrated the warm air that seemed to float overhead. The mournful cry vibrated between the branches of soapberry trees and Hawaiian olives. I knew it was Kaloha.
  For a moment, Lee stood listening with me. Then he made a quick survey of the area. His skin was damp with sweat. I wasn't sure if it was the heat from the sun filtering through the trees or fear.
  Creepers crawling back and forth over the stick's surface, making them almost invisible, covered the long, thick pieces of wood standing about two feet apart. If I hadn't noticed the bird's nest in the center of its growth, I would have missed them. I knew they had been placed here to guard what lay beyond.
  "You're with me aren't you, old buddy?" I whispered again. From the corner of my eye, I was conscious of tiny beads of perspiration standing out on Lee's wide face, the index finger on his right hand tapping nervously on the butt of his rifle.
  Lee made an odd sound in his throat. "Yeah, I guess I always did want to see the end of a rainbow." He hauled back a hanging branch from one of the taboo sticks. "But I bet your ass, some Kahuna is really gonna be pissed."

Author Bio

Dorothy A. Skarles who writes under daSkarles has appeared in a variety of publications. She has published more than 200 articles in Trade Journals, Magazines and Newspapers. She earned her first byline as a cooking columnist for a local family owned newspaper in California.
  Along with her love for writing D.A.Skarles also loves animals. She once owned a 99 percent wolf from Alaska who lived to be thirteen years old. She hopes one day to write a book about her experiences with this wonderful wild animal.

TTB titles:
A Scent of Diamonds
Enchanted Hunt
Learning To Write The Easy Way

Enchanted Hunt Copyright © 2002. Dorothy Ann Skarles. All rights reserved by the author. Please do not copy without permission. Previously published with title "The Hunt."

*************
Spice Up Your Writing! Write to Entice
By Billie A Williams
ISBN 1-932794-16-6
978-1-932794-16-8
Filbert Publishing
$11.95
Available anywhere you buy books.

SAGE - healing powers. any genius of the mind family, having two-lipped corolla and two stamens; sages are cultivated for ornament, as the scarlet sage with brilliant red flowers - or for flavoring, aromatic leaves used, when dried, for seasoning meats, cheeses, etc.

Sage

  Writing books abound all offering *sage* advice. Wise, discerning, words meant to encourage enlighten and eliminate all self-doubt. Ways to add beauty and/or spice to your written word.
  A time will come when they’ll all seem to be repeating each other’s message. Think of the proliferation of how to writing books and you will begin to understand everyone learns in a different way. One man’s trash is another’s treasure. You can please some of the people, some of the time-or you can’t please everybody, all ring especially true when it comes to the how to write.
  Think of how many different popular authors there are, not only are their books different their writing style probably is too. So, sage advice for one may be nonsense to another. Here I will list some of the books I love with some of he reasons why they work for me. Take it or leave it. What you don’t agree with now, you may later-or perhaps never. This is after all, only my humble opinion as most books about writing are. And you have a right, even an obligation to test, question and decide for yourself yea or nay to each particular book.“When the student is ready the teacher will appear,” says an old Zen profit.
  That said, let’s begin. The top of the heap comes much repeated “JUST DO IT”- “Ribe Tuchus,” butt in the chair and just write-long hand, with pen/pencil and paper, matchbook covers toilet tissue if you must. Computer keyboard, typewriter-whatever you’re comfortable with, begin! Put words on the page, in a journal, in a computer file, but to be a writer-drum roll please-you must write. No surprise there is there?
  A point I’d like to make here is that Sage Advice needn’t come from someone who has written for a century or more. One of my most favorite books is by a young woman Marcia Golub, author of I’d Rather Be Writing, Her writing reminds me of a younger more modern Brenda Ueland. So warm, friendly and encouraging, she made me wish she had been my English teacher those many long years ago before my creativity had the life red penciled out of it. She is a gentle nudger, she feels to me like person whose lap you could curl up on and listen to her tell stories until you were ready to write or tell your own. With her kind encouragement and sage advice-from some one so young, absolutely, she’s a treasure.
  If you need ways to find inspiration, get past the first sentence, write and still be a good parent, and a zillion other writerly problems, curl up with Marcia Golub and get ready to be inspired, writing, and devoid of guilt about the child busy in the other room.
  Some sage advice from 1934 check out Dorthea Brande’s book Becoming a Writer. Here you will find insights into how everything in your environment affects your writing. How you can harness your unconscious mind. Brande’s advice is as important and on target as it was when she first presented it to her 1920’s classrooms. It is a practical, sound, inspirational approach to writing filled to the brim with charm and wit. As she said herself, “This book is all about the writer’s magic.”In Writing From The Heart, Nancy Slonim Aronie, writes a chapter titled “Before You Knew Everything, Everything Was New.” She says “good writing is not about good grammar. Good writing is about truth.” She reminds us of how it was when we were children. Everything from a rainbow to a spider’s web, a furry caterpillar to a blade of grass, or a found penny were to be viewed with awe and wonder, a first, a prize, a mystery or a treasure.Somewhere between birth and growing up we lose that living on the cusp of the present the living in the moment. As we lose the innocence and urgency, the more it takes for us to be influenced or for things to have an impact on us. Aronie invites us back to that time when we were wide open, when our hearts were full of wonder. She asks us to return, be there, be in the here and now and write from that deep within place of our heart, before it was so hard to surprise us or put us in awe of the world around us. Bonni Goldberg in Room to Write agrees and adds, “You see with your instinct, your intuition and your imagination.” She encourages, “When writing, exercise your full range of vision as well.” [Vision being the seeing as well as the way of seeing]Aronie speaks of the pain we harbor locked deep in our hearts and invites us to cut it loose on the page. She says your reader doesn’t need a detached description, big words or imitations of some other great writer’s voice. “They need you, with your language, your rhythms, your story. They need your heart.” She says.
  If you can conger up a time when you felt the emotion your character needs to depict at that point in your book/story, reach deep inside yourself first-feel that emotion again, see with your heart’s eye, your own reaction - you can better translate that to the page and make your character come to life for your reader as a believable being.
  While Aronie agrees that reading and studying the good authors is an excellent learning experience for the writer, they can be your teachers she says. But, and this is a Huge but, “THEY CAN’T FEEL YOUR PAIN FOR YOU,” She continues, “If the narrator’s heart is not open, we cannot be moved.” And that is only from her chapters on being in the now and pain, there is much, much more to this small book.
  Sage Advice can come from unlikely quarters; even the venerable Stephen King has two books on writing out there to help the aspiring, wanna be. From writing books and magazines that are general in scope, to specific genres there are equally as many geared toward your specific inclination.
  Don’t know what to write about? Open a copy of Shery MaBelle Arietta-Russ’ Write Sparks, or Bonni Goldberg’s Room To Write or and here is one that never runs out too What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers, by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter.
  Have no idea of format? Look into The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing Workbook by Evan Marshall. Writer’s block? If you believe there is such a critter open Jenna Glatzer’s Outwitting Writer’s Block and Other Problems of the Pen. Now that you figured out you’re going to write-where to go for information on the specific genre of your choice? There is almost no limit to your choices here. Writing Mysteries, edited by Sue Grafton with sage wisdom from a number of mystery writers is billed as A Handbook by the Mystery Writer’s of America, OR You Can Write a Mystery, by Gillian Roberts, Writing the Modern Mystery, Barbara Norville and Writing the Mystery, by G. Miki Hayden with interviews by some of the mystery authors you’ve come to know and love. These are only a few of the dozens on my personal writing shelf.

Romance:
Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies, Leslie WaingerThe Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Your Romance Published by Julie Beard.
How to Write Romance for the New Markets, by Kathryn FalkWriting Romances, a Handbook by the Romance Writers of America, Edited by Rita Gallagher, and Rita Clay Estrada

Screen Writing:
Screen Play , by Syd Field and all of the screen plays you can find, such as The Shooting Script for the Shawshank Redemption, by Frank Darabont

Thriller:
Writing the Thriller, by T. Macdonald Skillman

Science Fiction and Fantasy:
Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy by Crawford Killian

Children:
Writing for Children & Teenagers, by Lee Wyndham, revised by Arnold Madison
Story Sparkers, A Creativity Guide for children’s Writers, by Debbie Dadey & Maria Thornton Jones
Writing Fiction for Children, Judy K Morris
Picture Writing, Anastasia Suen

  There are so many more, I wish that I could list all the ones that I have, plus all the ones that are available. So if something doesn’t work for you I encourage you to try another book and another until you find the one that resonates for you-if it isn’t out there write it.
  But there is no excuse, if you can read you can find advice on what, how to, and even where to submit when you’ve written your masterpiece. With many books out as audio now, and voice recognition software, being able to read is no longer a pre-requisite to being a writer.
  The advice you will find in some shape or form echoes Caroline Joy Adams voice in The Power to Write, “Powerful, inspired writing is writing that flows along easily, fueled by a sense of high energy…filled with feeling, an intriguing story line,” And as in everything, there are opinions on writing that are diametrically opposed, have conflicting even radically conflicting advice. Take for instance the absolute need to outline before you begin-to some, it stifles their creativity reminiscent of school English classes where you spent as much time on outline as you did on story. To another, outlining clears the way for them to write up a storm with out worrying about where the story is going or how they are going to get there.
  Neither method is right for everyone. Some do a general plot outline, some begin with a character and after creating a full biography including backstory, they get out of the way and let the character tell the story. Then there are those who simply sit down and start to write and write until the story is told. Pantser or plotter, it’s up to you.If a combination of methods works for you-wonderful. There are two that work for me dependent on the type of story or where the main idea started originally. The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing, by Evan Marshall is done using what he labels Sections. Following his way to outline with this you do sections, each section you make a sheet for Which VP Character (your using), Where the action takes place, When (in relation to your stories time line) and then the characters old goal (from the previous scene if there was one) then you list who or what would be against this VP Character achieving their goal, then list the major conflicts that would occur in this section - what does your character do to try to achieve her/his goal in spite of the against thing/person. Finally and of course, they fail to reach their goal and must decide on another small goal to move the story forward and them toward their major story goal that you decided on as your main Plot/Theme. While you are building your story you are creating a synopsis which is the bonus for using this method.
  The other method I have used successfully is outlined by Robert J Ray in The Weekend Novelist and The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery using the scene card method. Using this method you write out your character sketches, interviews and backstory, each scene that you plan on for your story gets a scene card with the VP characters name, what he wants or needs in this Scene and the conflict he is facing. The storyboard you create to keep your story focused is another way to pull your synopsis together at the end.
  Another method I’ve stumbled upon recently is called The Snowflake and was developed by fellow author Randall Ingermanson. http://www.rsingermanson.com . Visit his web site to get your own free copy of this version. He plans to turn it into a book soon and it will no longer be free on his website. His is a concise and brilliant rendition of the method of story - think of a snowflake with all its branching and connecting - Ingermanson has come up with the better mousetrap, so to speak.
  So while Sage Advice may be the spice your writing needs, in order to work for you it must be accessible, useable, relevant to the current you. Some books I have on my shelves I’ve never been able to get through. Some, after a time I pick up again and wonder how I could have not used it before. The rub her I believe is, as another brilliant and sage author, Natalie Goldberg says in her any books “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Now that is simple, clear, perfect advice. Keep searching, but don’t forget to back track because sometimes the book you put on your self or weren’t ready for once upon a time, suddenly fits like a leather glove.
=============================================

Here’s what they are saying:

“If you’ve struggled, wondering how you can get your writing to sparkle like a bright penny, this book is dedicated to you.
  Written in her typical down-home style, prolific writer, master story teller, and lover of the written phrase, Billie A Williams has laid out an easy to digest palate of sensuous, tangy, salty, and (yes, sometimes) bitter writing techniques you can immediately use to literally spice up your writing.”
Reviewed by B.A. Erickson, author of Filbert’s Guide to Getting Published Without falling for scams, hooks, lines, or sinkers

EXERCISE:

1. Pick a book you thought about giving away or donating to a library because it held no use for you-preferably months if not years ago, revisit it. Is it still a dud? Try this with several books. I’d be very interested in your reaction - email me at billie@billiewilliams.com
2. Decide what genre you prefer to read/write if you haven’t already. Now go to your library, bookstore, your own shelves, pull three how to books for that genre, look for the chapter that lists the rules or the got to haves for that genre. Within every genre there are reader expectations you must fulfill, finding them and fulfilling them, while no absolute guarantee of success, at least gives you a better edge against absolute and certain failure.
3. Write a paragraph about your own sage advice. Send it off to an online writing e-zine. It may be your first publication and introduction to the writing market and your brand new beginning. Good Luck.

*************

Title: Accidental Spy
Author: John R. Lindermuth
Pub: Lachesis Publishing
http://www.lachesispublishing.com
Genre: Historical Suspense
ISBN: 1-897370-56-3

  Lessons learned have value for the future, provided we acknowledge them. Alas, they do us little good in the immediate circumstance. I’d been done in by my own greed and persistent need of coin. That was my situation, but recognizing it did me no service the next morning.
  Hands bound behind us, sad-eyed Jonas and I were loaded like so many sacks of grain into the back of a wagon drawn by two tired horses. Bohner drove while Moser sat at the front of the dray facing us, pistol laid across his drawn up knees, and smiling his insidious smile. The two men who had captured Jonas rode alongside on horseback.
  Thusly, constrained and chagrined, I began the second leg of the journey fate had prepared me.
  As we learned, Moser was the sheriff who had tracked us from Berks County. Bohner and the others were his deputies. Bohner and Souder were cousins and the miller had been a party to the scheme to take us from the start.
  “But, if you knew who I was and where to find me, why did you put us to all this bother?” I asked Moser as we bounced along.
  “Ah, but it would not have been nearly so much fun,” he answered with that putrid smile. “Actually, it was Bohner’s idea. He seldom has much humor and it was such a good idea I could not deprive him the opportunity of following through.”“How did you know where we had gone?”
  “We had the help of your friend.”
  “Flip betrayed us?” Jonas asked.
  “Of course. It was the choice of his neck or yours. You didn’t really think he’d gone off with a girl last night, did you?”
  Jonas and I exchanged a glance. “I never saw the girl,” he said. “Flip only told me about her.”
  “It doesn’t matter,” I consoled the lad. I was in no mood to dwell on the issue, nor did I entertain desire for further conversation.
  Stretching my legs before me, I wiggled my hips seeking as much comfort as was possible on the hard wagon-bed.
  We rode under a sky of flawless blue, the air stirred by our passage crisp but not unbearable with the warmth of the sun that fell on our backs. The countryside between Lebanon and Reading is comprised of wide fertile valleys squeezed between rolling blue hills. The atmosphere made the hills and valleys misty, softening the line of the ridges which seemed to melt into one another. Up the hillsides, the sumacs and maples were showing red, the birches and aspens gold, leading the charge of trees turning their colors. Crows spoke loudly from the ochre fields, scattering flocks of migrating flickers. It was all quite lovely and meaningless to me in my despair.
  I did not take lightly the consequences of our fate. Thanks to the Quaker influence, punishment of crime in Pennsylvania was less severe than in some neighboring states. The criminal code punished with death only two offenses-murder and treason-neither of which we were guilty. Still, there was a good chance we would be dealt with harshly. I desired silence in which to brood but Jonas and Moser would not allow it.
  “What’s to become of us now?” my associate asked.
  “Had my way you’d hang,” Moser said, “or at least get a good flogging. You might lose your ears. But it’s not up to me. I’d say you can look forward to a good long time in gaol. The way things are going, though, who knows, you may be offered opportunity to serve your time in the army.”
  “In the army!” Jonas cried out, shuddering.
  Moser shrugged his big shoulders. “General Washington’s always in need of cannon fodder. Desertions have been heavy, not to mention the usual losses. You might not get paid or fed very well, but it’s an option.”
  “I’d rather take my chances in gaol,” Jonas said. “At least there’s no one shooting at you there or trying to stick a bayonet in your gut.”
  I’d lost my wig, which vanity had cost me dearly, and the sun shone hot upon my shaven pate.
  Moser guffawed. “How ‘bout you, Dan?”
  “I’ve already had the experience, thank you.”
  “Yeah,” he said with another chuckle, “and of desertion as well.”
  I gave him a cold glance. “You seem to know much of my history.”
  “Oh, yeah. You’re a famous man, doncha know? Lots of lawmen have studied you and sought you out.” Beaming and with a swell of his chest, he added, “But I’m the one kotched you.”
  The horses clopped along, the wagon bouncing and swaying in the rutted road, and we were jostled and swayed and bruised to their rhythm. My thin flesh afforded little protection for my poor bones. Moser’s words were as salt to my wounds.“Your mother will be proud of you,” I told him.
  “Here now, watch what you say of my mother.”
  “I’d never speak ill of a woman-even if her son be a bastard.”
  Screwing up his face, Moser bent forward and swatted at me with his big hand. I twisted to the side, but his blow caught my ear a stinging glance. “You’re gonna pay,” he snarled, “oh, how you’re gonna pay.”
  As we traveled, I’d noticed Moser and his men passing back and forth a jug of rum. My lips were dry and my tongue thick and dust-coated but I had reason not to resent their stinginess. I saw it as a gift of another kind for later. The manner in which Moser now slurred his words convinced me that time was drawing nigh.
  Soon the road bent down an incline, swung round the base of a hill and entered a tunnel of tall trees. On one side, the forest rose steeply up hill. On the other, a brushy bank fell into a hollow where a creek could be heard tumbling and singing over rocks. The wagon slowed.
  Bohner slumped in his seat, the reins held loosely in his hands and the tired horses setting their own pace. The two riders swayed on their saddles, heads bent forward, chins digging into their chests. Moser, too, was nodding, eyes going shut then popping open as he rocked from side to side.
  Now was the time.
  “My bladder’s bursting,” I shouted. “Might we stop?”
  Jolted awake, Moser shook his head, looked around him. “What? Huh? Oh, yeah.” He scratched at his chin. “Yeah. Might be a good idea.”
  He tapped Bohner on the shoulder, ordered a halt.
  Standing erect, Moser stretched, scratched some more. Then he leveled the pistol at me. “No funny business, you understand?”
  “All I want is relief,” I assured him.
  Jonas and I slid off the tailboard. We leaned against the wagon a moment, stamping our feet to relieve the numbness before attempting to walk. On my first steps I staggered as much as those who had imbibed the rum.
  Moser jumped down beside us, thrusting the pistol into the top of his trousers. The riders dismounted and tended to their own business.
  “You’ll have to unloose us,” I told Moser as I ambled to the side facing the hollow.
  “Uh-uh,” he said.
  “Then how are we to piss?”
  Scratching his head, he glanced from one to the other of us. “I’ll loose your friend,” he said after a little thought. “Maybe he loves you enough to undo your fly for you.”
  I’d been working my knots since we’d boarded the wagon and now I knew a good shake would free my hands.
  As Moser bent to untie Jonas I threw my weight against them, sending both tumbling down the bank. Then I dove headlong into the brush.
  I regretted leaving Jonas in the lurch; he was a good lad. But, in such circumstances, it was every man for himself.

************

Book Title: The Devil Can Wait
Author: Marta Stephens
Publisher: BeWrite Books (UK)
ISBN: 978-1-905202-86-7
Genre: Mystery/Suspense
Purchase at: http://www.bewrite.net, http://www.amazon.com, http://www.barnesandnoble.com

Chapter One

Chandler, MA

  "Fogerdy!"
  The old man cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled for his dog over the howl of the North Atlantic wind. The shepherd's muted bark came to him from the distance.
  At three in the morning, the stretch of beach between Williams Landing and pier twenty-eight was cloaked in impenetrable darkness. The wind raged with particular vengeance on the pre-dawn hours of November 12. It churned the waters of Chandler Bay and spewed a biting mist off the swells before the waves slammed onto the shore. Still, the cold snap that swept across the isolated section of beach was as expected as Thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie.
  Moist sand sunk under the weight of the old man's steps. He staggered and leaned into the gusts to keep his balance. He aimed the flashlight beam deep into the night and yelled for his dog again. Tiny pellets of snow spat at an angle past the shaft of light before disappearing into the darkness.
  "There you are, you stinker."
  Ten yards ahead, the dog stood poised like a pointer barking incessantly at the incoming waves.
  "Crazy mutt."
  The dog lowered his head and eased toward the water's edge.
  "Fogerdy. Here, boy." He clapped his hands to get the pet's attention. "Get over here."
  The dog remained fixed; his hackles on end.
  "What's gotten into you?" he asked as he bent to leash him. "You're never this …" The man swept the light in the direction of whatever had caught the dog's attention. He squinted, leaned in for a closer look, and recoiled. Disgust hit as hard as the stench that rose from the decomposed body.The Homicide unit of the Chandler Police Department expected the annual hike in crime that seemed to always usher in the holiday season. But the floater cases and a recent outbreak of the flu among the officers had crimped the department's roster. Three of the eleven detectives were out on sick leave; two were recuperating from injuries sustained during a high-speed chase. Those left to serve double duty were on the short end of a fuse with no apparent escape from the madness.
  Sam Harper stirred and moaned at the high-pitched ring of his cell. He frowned at the phone's intrusive shrill. A familiar sound that no longer jolted him out of bed as it once had. He pried his eyes open, tempted to throw the phone against the wall. Instead, he remained face down with the pillow wrapped tight around his head. Unable to block the irritating disturbance, he grunted and snatched it off the nightstand.
  The congested voice on the other end of the line belonged to Dave Mann, Harper's partner of just over a year. Mann had a hell of a cold and his usual laid-back demeanor had given way to irritability. His patience had vanished six murders ago.
  "Didn't you hear me call? Twice. I let the damned phone ring forever."
  Harper winced as the red alarm clock numbers came into focus. "It's four in the morn-"
  "Got another floater."
  "Jesus." Harper didn't have to see the body to know the victim was another teenage boy. This was the third case in a matter of weeks. He knew what they'd find - nothing. They'd have a corpse and a cause of death, but no motive or weapon, no time of death, no trace evidence and no suspect.
  "Where?"
  "Beached a quarter mile south of Williams Landing. Are you coming?"
  "Yeah. I'm up."
  "Sam?"
  "I said I'm up. Just give me a minute!"
  "It's colder than hell out here. Come on, Jack's already done with the preliminary. We're waiting on you."
  Harper wiped the corners of his mouth as he tried to block out Mann's rant. "I'm on my way." He tossed the cell onto the bed, rubbed his eyes and glanced at Kay's empty pillow. His fiery six-month affair with the city's assistant prosecuting attorney ended abruptly with a single phone call she received from the New York D A and his offer to give her a shot at a high profile case. The first teen's body surfaced days after she left. Harper convinced himself that was the only reason he was thinking of her now. He slammed a fist into her pillow, swung his legs out of bed, and forced her from his mind again.
&nbs; Harper parked his Jeep along the shoulder of the road. Jack Fowler's medical examiner's van, three marked units, and Mann's Nissan were parked a few yards ahead. Beams of portable spotlights shone like beacons on the beach below while the usual gathering of city personnel crowded the scene.
  Mann, an ex-college quarterback, was a head taller than the two techs on duty tonight and a hard target to miss from any distance. When the first tech raised his camera for a shot, Mann leaned in, and pointed at the angle he wanted. By the time Harper reached the beach, Mann had moved on to inspect the other tech's initial crime-scene sketches. Jack also stood out among them like a smudge on a page. He was the middle-aged guy with a '60s crew cut sporting his trademark red sneakers. At his feet, the black body bag stretched across the wet sand.
  Harper and Mann had chased after a faceless killer since the end of October when the first teenage boy bobbed up like an apple in Chandler Bay. The corpse in the body bag gave Harper reason to suspect they were dealing with a serial killer. He held that thought and jerked his collar snug around his neck as he made his way down the snow-covered embankment.
  "Hold it, Doc." Harper shoved his hands into a pair of latex gloves.
  "About damn time. What took you so long?"
  "Got here as fast as I could."
  "I've got more bodies than hours in a day to do them." Jack did nothing to disguise his irritation. "I don't have time-"
  "Give me a break, will you? You're not the only one pulling double shifts. What do we have?" Harper reached for the tab on the body bag's zipper and pulled it open while Jack described the obvious.
  "Another male, looks to be in his mid-teens. Has a trace of a tattoo left on his chest, just like the others." Jack paused and gave his watch a quick glance. "The killer's playing with you, Harp. Look at the throat - slit this one wide open."
  Harper frowned and leaned forward for a closer look at the three-inch gash. "Okay, so he beats the crap out of vic number one, strangles the second, and slices up the third. What the hell's pushing this guy's buttons?"
  He swept a glance over his shoulder toward the bay. Every officer on the force knew the water temperatures dropped by early September; the colder the water, the slower the putrefaction process. That single fact meant the murders were weeks old when the bodies rose from the bottom. To Harper, it meant only one thing - a snag.
  "What difference do motives make when we don't have a suspect?" Mann asked. "The guy's probably three states away by now."
  "Or right in our backyard watching every move we make." Anything was possible. Harper understood Mann's frustration, but the worse thing they could do was second guess the killer.
  "Then how do we find him? We have no prints and no trace. Any viable DNA got flushed off the bodies the minute they hit the water. If you've got a new theory, let's hear it."
  "We follow the trail."
  "What trail? We've got nothing."
  "He'll make a mistake. They all do."
  "Not this guy. He's thorough. Empties their pockets, doesn't leave anything behind," Mann said. "Damn near a perfect crime."
  "But not quite." Jack pointed a gloved finger at the caps on the victim's two front teeth. "This one's had some fine dental work done, and where there's a cap, there's a dentist with records."
  "So we'll ID the vic and the doc who drilled him. He'll have an old address and phone for the kid, landing us right back where we started. Nowhere." Mann turned away.
  "He can't hide forever," Harper said. "If he left the state, the shortest way out is north, to New Hampshire. We'll send out another BOLO."
  "And tell them what? What are they supposed to be on the look out for?" Mann asked.
  "The killer's calling card is his choice of victims and location. If he's moved on, you can bet some other detective unit is scratching their heads or worse, not making a connection between murders."
  A frown rippled across Mann's brow as he studied the victim's face. "I say we're looking at this all wrong. Somewhere there's a kid trying to make a name for himself. That's what this is all about."
  "I don't think so," Jack said.
  "Sure it is. It's a territorial thing. No different than a drive-by shooting only this one is up close and personal."
  "We would have heard something by now, someone would have talked. These are anything but random murders." Harper turned his back to the wind and shifted his weight from one foot to another. "The killer chose his victims - street-smart kids without loyalties. Hundreds of kids to choose from, why these three?"
  "It's gang related. Nothing else ties them together." Mann pressed his point.
  "I don't buy it. If that's what the killer wants us to think, he just made his first mistake."
  Mann and Jack seemed to hang on those words.
  "The murders were premeditated - thought out, and that tells me one thing. There was a connection among his victims. Figure that out," Harper said, "and maybe we'll find him before he kills again."
  "We're out of leads, Sam. We have no suspects."
  "Sure we do."
  "Who, damn it? Face it, we've got a thumb up our ass on this one."
  Harper studied his partner for a moment. The case had gotten to the entire detective unit. But now wasn't the time to let tempers blow like pistons.
  "We'll go back and re-examine each of the cases. We've missed something. The kids on the streets don't get tight-jawed for nothing."
  "You think they're protecting the killer?" Mann asked.
  "No, their skin. They're scared, you can bet one of them knows who did this and why."
  "That puts us back on the serial killer theory." Mann shook his head. "It doesn't fit the profile."
  Harper knew the FBI's description of a serial killer concluded offenders were usually white males between the ages of 18 and 32. He also knew there were as many exceptions to the profile rules as there were offenders. No one, including the FBI, wanted to risk misidentifying a serial killer based on a minor point like not fitting a typical profile.
  "The best lead we had was the tattoo artist down by the docks," Mann said, "and you know where that led us - zilchville." He paused to raise his hand to his temple. "This reminds me of the Cromwell case."
  Harper shook his head. Cromwell had worked as a cabby for twenty-three years when he lost his job. He systematically killed every person he blamed, including the doorman at the Hyatt Regency for giving his fares to the other cabs. He knew each of his victims well enough to use a different method to kill them according to their fears.
  "Cromwell snapped; he lashed out," Harper said. "Whoever killed these boys was precise and deliberate."
  "I agree," Jack said. "No seventeen-year-old I know is sophisticated enough to plan an elaborate scheme like this. Kids act on impulse. They leave their victims where they drop." He nodded at the corpse. "This isn't your classic gang killing." Jack stooped next to the body and carefully lifted the boy's arm. "Look at his skin; same rough, pimple-like texture as the others. It's a normal change of decomposition. It happened in cold water - out there - in the deep and you can't dump a body in the middle of the bay without a boat. How many boys have access to the type of vessel needed to maneuver these waters?"
  Mann looked away and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hand. "I'll call the port authorities again. See if anyone reported any unusual activities at the docks since the last murder."
  "I found traces of drug use on the other two kids," Jack said. "If I were you, I'd keep looking for a high-end dealer."
  "That's not all those two had in common. They both had rap sheets; this one probably does too. We need to look at their records again." Harper methodically examined the victim's face and hands. "Bloated, fingertips are puckered. Aside from the missing flesh around the face, there's not much sign of decay."
  "Like I said, twenty-degree water temp acts like a preserving agent. The body fat turns into that soap-like consistency he's covered in. A shot of saline into those fingertips will pop them right up. If not, we have his teeth imprints."
  "How long do you think he's been dead?" Harper asked.
  "You know the process."
  "Right, Jack, would you cut me some slack here? Just answer the question."
  "Can't even come close. You know that. Too many variables."
  "Then damn it, toss me your best guess."
  "Hypothetically, same as the others - weeks. Look at his skin, Harp. He's not the first floater you've looked at. Soft tissue of the nose and ear lobes are gone, adipocere - that soap like substance is over eighty percent of the body. It takes weeks for that to happen."
  Another strong gust of wind cut in from the bay. It threatened to topple the portable spotlights and sent a ripple of snow flurries across the beach.
  "What about those?" Harper stooped down to examine the laceration across the top of the victim's head.
  "This kid floated in face down, head hanging; got rammed against the rocks," Jack said. "In floaters, the blood flows down to the head. If it wasn't for the obvious cut across the throat, I'd say those would be a toss-up between ante- or post-mortem injuries. As it is, I'll wager post-mortem. Want to bet another steak dinner I'm right?"
  "I quit betting against you, remember?" Harper tilted his head and continued to study the corpse.
  Jack looked at his watch again and stifled a yawn. "All right. You guys done here? I have five others to do before I cut him open. Which one of you wants to watch?"
  "I'll do it. Call when you're ready." Harper peeled off his gloves and shoved them into his pockets.
  A moment later, Jack and his assistant struggled to carry the body up the snowy embankment to the city van. While the techs took care of the lights, Harper turned his attention to Mann. His partner's hacking cough sounded worse than it did the day before.
  "Who found him?"
  Mann tried to suppress another cough as he thumbed over his shoulder at the squad car where the dog and his owner were waiting. "Last name, Zirmack, Gene Zirmack. Lives up the road. Retired. Works part-time as caretaker at St Paul's Church. Said his dog got loose. He was chasing after him when he found the vic."
  "Did he notice anything unusual?"
  "Besides the stiff? No. He said if it hadn't been for his dog running off, he wouldn't have been down this far."
  "Must be his lucky day."
  "Yeah, well, we're taking him in for a statement."
  Harper reached for the door handle of his Jeep when the sound of the waves lapping against the rocks below made him shift his attention. The sun wouldn't crest for another half hour. Chandler Bay and the distant horizon were indistinguishable from the black of night.
  "You think Jack's right?" Mann asked.
  "About what?"
  "That the killer's playing with us. You believe that?"
  "These kids weren't killed to impress us. Whoever did this made damned sure the murders couldn't be traced back to him."
  "Then why toss the bodies in the bay? He had to know they'd wash back to shore."
  "Yeah he did. The question is, did he do it because he wanted them to be found or is he cocky enough to think we'll never catch him?" Harper asked himself the same question a number of times. He swung open the car door and again looked over his shoulder toward the bay.
  "Three bodies in eighteen days. Assuming they all decayed at the same rate, he's killed one kid every week. If he's still at it, we're already too late to prevent … Jesus, who knows how many more."

Marta Stephens is a native of Argentina who has made Indiana her home since the age of four. This mild-manner lady turned to crime with the publication of the first in her Sam Harper Crime Mystery series, SILENCED CRY (2007) which went on to receive honorable mention at the 2008 New York Book Festival and top ten in the 2007 Preditors & Editors Reader Poll. The second book in the Harper series, THE DEVIL CAN WAIT, was released by BeWrite Books (UK) http://www.bewrite.net on November 3, 2008.
  Stephens holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism/Public Relations from Ball State University (IN) where she is employed in human resources. She is a member of Sisters in Crime International, Sisters in Crime Speed City Indiana Chapter, and the Midwest Writer's Workshop.
  Aside from her writing, she is trained in graphic and web design. She co-designed the award-winning book cover of her debut novel, SILENCED CRY with friend Scott Parkison (IN), created the book trailer, and designed/administers her website, http://www.martastephens-author.com, her personal blog, http://mstephens-musings.blogspot.com, and the authors’ blog, MURDER BY 4 http://murderby4.blogspot.com.

  Stephens lives in Indiana with her husband, daughter (22), and son (20). She enjoys oil paintings, gardening, the family’s pet Boston Bulls and mini Daschunds, and shared moments with family and friends. 11.14.08