My “The Exchange” in Midnight Garden

I asked fellow Midnight Garden anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do appeared in previous Midnight Garden posts for the past week or so.

Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to Midnight Garden (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).

Anywho, having run out of authors to post about, I now turn my posting eye on myself.

We’ll round out Midnight Garden posts with my five contributions to the anthology, this time…

The Exchange:


Continue reading “My “The Exchange” in Midnight Garden

The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 43 Section V Mega Chapter 2 (part 10)

The Alibi – Chapter 43 Section V Mega Chapter 2 (part 10)

 
Cranston stood in his kitchen going through the cupboards. An empty, resusable cotton grocery bag lay on the counter in front of him like a sleeping kitten. “Leddy? Dr. Cuccello invited us over to her place for dinner. She gave me a list of things to bring. Care to help me find them? What we don’t have here I’ll have to pick up on the way. Leddy?”

Leddy, in a “Go Pats” neck to knee nightshirt, slid across the kitchen’s linoleum flooring on stockinged feet. “You have a list?”

“No.”

“She didn’t give you a list? C’mon, Pop. She’s more anal than you.”

Cranston kept shifting things around in the cupboards. “She TXTed me.”

Leddy sat on the countertop facing her father. “She TXTed you and you lost it, right? Deleted it by accident?”

“Damned phone.”

She held her hand out. He gave her his phone without looking. A few swipes and taps later she read off, “Hot or sweet Italian sausage. From Buello’s, not Brüdermann’s. Hey, Maria’s cool. She even umlauted the u in Brüdermann.”

“Women. And it’s Dr. Cuccello.”

“She lets me call her Maria.”

Cranston turned to her. “Maria? Not even Maria Francesca?”

“Just Maria.”

“She never let me call her just Maria.”

Leddy raspberried her father. “You know she likes you, right?”

Cranston stopped going through the cupboards and looked at the grocery bag. “She tell you that?”

“Women know these things.”

“Yeah, right. And since when are you a woman?”

“Pop, I’ve been having my period for two years now.”

“Do I need to know this?” He looked at his daughter. “For two years now?”

“You never noticed the box of mixed tampons in the shopping cart every month or so?”

He went back to filling the grocery bag. “I know I don’t need to know this. And where’d you learn about tampons?”

“Maria told me. She asked before my period started and told me to get ready and what to do.”

Cranston sagged. “Oh, god.”

“She even gave me a couple tamps and told me to keep them handy just in case.”

Cranston focused on the grocery bag. He roved his cupboards and moved items, desperate to return them to their place.

“It’s a Sisterhood thing, Pop. We Sistahs know things about each other.”

“Can we change the subject?”

She pumped her arms up over her head and sang, “Sistahs, are doing it for themselves!” She kept pumping her arms and shaking her head. “Come on, Pop! Sing! Sistahs, are doing it for themselves.”

Her father kept moving cans and tins back and forth on cupboard shelves. “What else is on the list?”

She read the remainder of the list and glanced at the clock on the stove: 8:30am. “Hey! We’re making pizzas, right?”

Cranston closed his cupboards, rolled the grocery bag into a ball, and took his phone back. “We’re going shopping.”

Friends offered to back Maria Francesca Cuccello should she want to open a pizza parlor. She politely refused. “I make pizza for friends, not for money.”

She had lots of friends. Her pizza was known from Portland to Atlantic through Central Canada, down to Chicago and Denver, over to Atlanta, DC, Baltimore, NYC, and back to Boston. Also overseas. In Naples. Where her life was jokingly threatened if she didn’t give up her recipes. “Watch me. Learn that way.”

But it didn’t matter. Each time things were slightly different based on the feel of the flour, the taste of the water, the freshness of the yeast, what vegetables were local, …

Leddy, ready in short order, came back into the kitchen with her backpack over one shoulder. She grabbed the car keys off their hook by the back door. “I’ll drive, Pop.”

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Previous entries in The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery)

The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 43 Section V Mega Chapter 2 (part 9)

The Alibi – Chapter 43 Section V Mega Chapter 2 (part 9)

 
John Rhinehold palmed his BPD Detective’s shield as he stepped out of his blue Suburu WRX. He parked across the street from the police barricades and crime scene tapes and the WRX, modified well beyond Suburu’s specs, locked itself and went on stand-by as he walked away. He pulled a pair of heavier than usual RayBans out of his shirt pocket, put them on, and put in some earbuds.

His phone pinged a TXT message. The phone had four SIMs which activated randomly and he routinely switched these with a number of SIMs he kept specifically for randomizing purposes. The incoming TXT came from one of his burners planted at locations from Portland through Portsmouth to Boston then onto Providence, Hartford, and NYC. It’d be pointless to TXT back because whoever knew about the phone would know enough to destroy the SIM and smash the phone for double-good measure.

He read the TXT and his eyebrows lifted momentarily.

A foot patrol officer came up to him. “Something I can do for you?”

Rhinehold put his phone away and flashed his badge. The foot officer nodded and let him past.

SkyHook security didn’t accept the badge as valid until Throne gave him an Okay via a phone call. “Yeah, he was with me yesterday. Let him through but keep your eyes on him. No souvenir hunting.”

The security guard, wearing a dark gray pinstripe suit, open collared pink oxford sans tie, and comfortable loafers, smiled at Rhinehold. “I’ll go with you. Maybe you’ll see something we missed.”

Rhinehold smiled. Smooth, friend. Smooth.

Forensics hadn’t cleared the blast zone for cleanup and grit crunched underfoot as they walked. Rhinehold smiled. The crunching reminded him of his mother’s stories of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, how everybody and their brother scrambled to get a piece of history and offer it to the highest bidders, how the ground crunched underfoot from gravel to grit as more and more people came from around the world to claim this moment of history.

The backwash of daylight grew less and less as they walked deeper and deeper into the garage. Rhinehold pulled a small light out of his pocket and flicked it on. A pale green light misted in the garage like a gentle spring rain.

The guard squinted into the light’s mist.”Doesn’t throw much light.” He lifted his phone. Rhinehold held his hand up. “No thanks. I got this.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to take off your sunglasses?”

“Sensitive eyes.”

Rhinehold splayed the light back and forth like it was a hand-held lighthouse searching for ships lost at sea.

Nothing, nothing.

Nothing, nothing.

They walked towards Shaul’s destroyed Exige.

Something!

Rhinehold stopped walking. His brow furrowed, his hand held the light still and fixed as he focused.

The guard squinted into the dim green light. “What? What is it?”

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Previous entries in The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery)

The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 43 Section V Mega Chapter 2 (part 8)

The Alibi – Chapter 43 Section V Mega Chapter 2 (part 8)

 
Willmette and Seamus sat at Willmette’s Park Plaza suite’s dining table. Willmette led Seamus down a utility staircase at Logan to a waiting limo. The driver said nothing and brought them to the Park Plaza. Another man, not dressed as a doorman, opened Seamus’ door, waited for Willmette to come around the car, and led them both to Willmette’s suite.

Willmette nodded at him. “Thank you. That’ll be all.”

The door clicked shut and Seamus faced Willmette. “Am I kidnapped?”

Willmette pulled back. “Certainly not.”

“A hostage, then?”

Willmette snorted. “No.”

“Then where’s me cousin and why am I here?”

“As I said before, I don’t know where Sean – ”

“How do you know his name?”

“I know his name, your name, your bride’s name, your parents’ names, your – ”

Seamus banged his fist on the table. “Enough. What do you want with me?”

“Me? I’d love to learn more about this amazing discovery you and your cousin made under Boston Harbor. The people I work for? Pretty much the same thing.”

“Pretty much?”

“They want information.”

“Ah, I’m Number Six now, is that it?”

“The Patrick Magoohan series was so much better than the McKellen-Caviezel one, don’t you agree?”

“What’s to stop me from walking out that door right now, Number 2?”

Willmette shook his head. “I really am Red Willmette. At some point you’ll have to start trusting me.”

“Where’s Sean?”

“I’m famished. Would you like some breakfast?”

The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery) – Chapter 43 Section V Mega Chapter 2 (part 7)

The Alibi – Chapter 43 Section V Mega Chapter 2 (part 7)

 
Penny and Tommy emerged from the Logan side of the harbor tunnels. She glanced occasionally at stores, traffic, pedestrians, and remained quiet as they drove up 1A towards Revere. “Long way home, don’t you think?”

Tommy glanced at her in the rear-view mirror. “Making sure we’re not followed, Ms. Lane.”

“I have to piss.”

“You didn’t go before we left?”

“The espresso. I can piss the seat if you’d like.”

He pulled into a gas station.

“Are you kidding? Look at this place. I’ll get the clap just asking for the key.”

“Suggestions?”

She pointed to a 7-11 a block down. “That place looks clean enough.”

He pulled into the 7-11. “I’ll be right here when you’re done.”

“I’m so comforted.”

Penny walked up to the cashier. They exchanged words, the cashier pointed to a hall at the rear of the store. Penny nodded and headed in that direction.

Tommy played ten games of solitaire on his phone, checked the time, and made a call.

Connelly answered. “What do you think?”

“Do I think she’ll keep her end of the bargain? No. Do you?”

“She’s intelligent but not clever. She’ll do what we want, not what was asked. Or do you think we made a mistake letting her go?”

“You think she’ll lead us right to him?”

“I think he’s both intelligent and clever, too clever for that. She’ll get us close and hopefully close enough. There’ll still be a gap we’ll have to cross.” Connelly paused. “Put on a good show of looking for her, just in case, then head on back.”

“Okay.”

“Good work, by the way.”

“Yep.”


Previous entries in The Alibi (A John Chance Mystery)