sometimes daily musings on writing..

I've started my new novel. Well, I've actually started two of them. One is a sequel (or a prequel? haven't decided) to the first, and the other one is a murder mystery set in the small townships in and around the banks of the Tombigbee River. In it, a series of 8 unsolved murders comes back to haunt the area when a new body surfaces, carrying the 30-year-old identification of one of the prior victims. The case is reopened, and DNA testing on all of the murdered women is planned, but all of the coffins are empty. Amid the conspiracies of a small community and ghost tours that interfere with the investigation, Police must work quickly to find the killer to prevent another murder. Or three...

Earline Walker came in, waving her arms and firing off a string of profanities. Her frizzy, auburn hair was flying in every direction. She was in pajamas, or what looked like pajamas. A raggedy, white purse swung wildly from her left shoulder as if it were alive and desperately trying to escape from the hysterical woman. She was screaming in short, incoherent sentences and pointing to the preacher with a shaking right hand. Barely breathing between bursts of accusations and threats, the veins in Earline’s neck stood out, straining to carry oxygen-starved blood back to her heart. While she yelled, the preacher did his best to interject. It didn’t work. He only understood a few snippets about her daughter, about rape, about murder. She stopped for a quick breath, gritted her teeth and reminded him of God and how God should damn him, would damn him to hell and the fires were going to burn him forever and how could he do that to her baby…and then he realized, not knowing at which point it had happened, that she had pulled a gun out of her purse.

Spit-laced snot lay in a wet stripe across Earline’s right cheek. Tears of rage flowed over her taut, reddened cheeks. The chrome-plated pistol shook in her unsteady hands. Shhe shifted her weight from one foot to the other, bouncing like a prize fighter going into a final round against a bitter rival. Only boxers didn't usually wave loaded weapons at people.

The Pastor’s hands went up in defense, his head shook back and forth. “No, please, NO…” His mind frantically tried to sort through the jumble of choices: Grab the phone, scream, or dive under the desk. He must do something, anything but die at the hands of this screaming, spitting woman over a drug-induced encounter he vaguely remembered. He tried to reason with the crazy vision standing before him. Her stupid daughter just couldn't have kept her mouth shut about the abortion. But who the hell had been murdered? He'd only threatened that to keep the girl quiet. He hadn’t…he wouldn’t. Would he?

So much had gone wrong in the past few months. So many things were blurred into crazy patterns and crystal-clear vignettes of euphoric stupor. The surreal, pure oxygen-like highs of doing things he’d never thought of doing; daring fate, dancing with danger, never running out of breath…the lack of fear, and then being consumed by it, only to cheat death, salivating over the triumph of surviving the whole, surreal experience. Drugs and money and women…they had all smashed together into a fast-forward, science fiction movie of sexy, whirring, colorful dreams; he didn’t actually do all of those things. Had he? Had it pushed him on to go higher, get wilder? Or was it all something he’d made up because he was losing his mind?

His eyes widened as a horrible thought occurred to him. “Am I really going to die at the age of fifty-two, in shame-“

Earline pulled the trigger.

Five gun blasts ripped through the sweltering, still air of the room. James McDonald grabbed his chest, spun to the left, and fell out of the creaking chair onto the baby blue carpet of his office.

The empty gun kept clicking as Earline pulled the trigger over and over, screaming a long, wailing howl into the smoky air.

She opened her eyes when she ran out of breath. Focusing on the silvery object clenched in her hands, Earline swallowed and looked past the gun’s barrel across the expanse of desk. It seemed a mile wide, and the room started to sway. She dropped the .38 into her purse as she side-stepped around the furniture to where the Reverend lay, on his left side, right hand clenched to his chest. He wasn’t moving. She didn’t think he was breathing.

“Call,” her mind screamed at her. “Earline Walker, you call 9-1-1 right now, right now, right NOW!”

Grabbing the phone and wiping the hair out of her eyes long enough to jab three buttons was more of a feat than she thought it would be. The calm, nasally voice came over the line, which made Earline’s subconscious mind think, “She’s sure taking this well.”

“9-1-1; what’s your emergency?”

Earline wasn't handling any of this very well at all. She cried into the phone, taking only one jagged breath before she ran all of the words together, “I killed him, I killed the Pastor, and somebody needs to come and help him. I think he’s dead already. You’ve got to get over here right now!”

She dropped the phone and staggered across the short distance to the doorway. Grabbing the frame with her right hand, she steadied herself to keep from falling. Everything was fuzzy; her eyes wouldn’t focus. Her throat was on fire. She coughed for a few seconds, wiped her eyes with the back of her other hand and then forced herself to walk the ten yards of sidewalk to the parking lot.

For once, the battered Ford revved into life on the first try. The engine roared, making her jump and curse. She’d floored the gas pedal before starting the engine. The transmission thunked into drive, and the rear tires let out a short bark as she shoved the accelerator down to the floorboard. She had to turn herself in; it was the only option.

What she wanted to do was drive. She wanted to speed past the trees and the bars, across town, through the dead brown of buildings with broken windows, away from the dark politics of churches. She ached to peel off the crusty coating of longing and desperation. All it would take would be to press harder on the gas, beat the upcoming yellow light, and keep driving.

The setting sun blazed into her watering eyes as she careened westward on Bouvier Street towards the Sheriff’s office.

My main character is Earline Walker, and she lives in a small, northeastern Alabama town. Earline and the town are fictional. This excerpt does not feature Earline, but another character in the novel along with a corrupt Sheriff. Comments are certainly welcome. Thanks, everyone!

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The ancient window unit air conditioner shuddered and growled its low-pitched protest while the married woman smiled up at the stained popcorn ceiling. She reveled in the four-minute window every time she had good sex, and in about forty seconds it would be time to get up and go back to life outside of Room #21.

In the seventies, someone had actually been paid to decorate the motel in orange, brick red, and yellow; unfortunately, no one had been hired to refurbish it since that time. Warm colors made her ill, but it didn’t much matter. She kept her eyes closed the majority of the time she was in here every week; one reason was to keep her mind off of the putrid décor. The second was so she could escape to exotic places like Jamaica, Paraguay, or Fiji. She imagined herself younger. He might be a spy or an assassin. She allowed her imagination to stifle the arguments raised by her inhibitions, and sometimes, it was electric.

The room was hot when she’d arrived just a scant thirty minutes before, but the urgent encounter they'd shared had only made the temperature rise. Splashing noises coming from the tiny bathroom interrupted the staring contest she was having with a speck on the wall, high above the dead television. He always took a quick shower after his even briefer interlude with her. She’d always had a weakness for a man in uniform, and Sheriff Eric Mandy was hot for married women. It was a perfect match, but really, it was more of a business arrangement.

Married. She was a married woman. The thought rolled around in her head like a bright green marble. It was meaningless, but then it meant everything. There was no substance, no quality and certainly no love there any longer; the excitement had grown cold when he found out she’d cheated the first time. It wasn’t really on purpose then; it had been a momentary lapse of brain function. A whim, if you will. She knew of several times in her life that her mind had called upon her body to do certain things, and she was helpless to fight it. Some dubbed it schizophrenia; some said she was just spoiled and selfish. She called it getting through life. Things happened. Mistakes were made, promises were broken.

Her feet swung over the edge of the too-soft mattress and dropped into bright red espadrilles. There was no way she’d let her bare skin touch the filthy carpet. God only knew what lurked there in the matted, pumpkin-colored fibers. As a matter of fact, her shoes were always the last item of clothing she’d remove for Eric, but they were always the first she’d put back on her ravaged body. He had been particularly rough this evening, but exceptionally quiet at the same time. When she thought about it, she realized that there were never many words shared between them. It was only about desire, and it was about doing what people do best: They get what they need to survive.