The Director

 As a writer of crime, I love reading about crime and the history of fighting crime. The fascination of crime is that such acts represent the breakdown of society, if only temporarily. Government can pass all the laws it wants but unless we each abide by the social contract--a belief in fairness and that the rules protect us and apply to everyone--then civilization becomes meaningless. Ultimately, every crime story is then a search for justice and a reason to believe in the social contract. 

So in my interest of writing about crime and the pursuit of law and order, I recently finished The Director: My Years Assisting J. Edgar Hoover by Paul Letersky with Gordon Dillow (Simon & Schuster). As expected, the book provided a lot of insight into the inner workings of the FBI, especially details about its Director, the still controversial J Edgar Hoover. We got the lowdown on his rumored homosexual romance with Clyde Tolson (there wasn't one), his secretary Helen Gandy (as keeper of "the secret files" was in her time one of the most feared personalities in Washington DC), and Hoover's contentious relationships with all the US presidents during his tenure. While Letersky soft-shoes around the excesses of the FBI in terms of operations against political opponents (to include Dr. Martin Luther King Jr) and its involvement in COINTELPRO (government surveillance of American citizens), he does admit the agency's use of "black bag jobs," meaning warrantless searches, breakins, and illegal wire taps--the spice of a good crime novel. By the end of the book, the social contract holds firm, mostly.

Ripped From the Headlines

 By Thomas Kies

I’m constantly on the lookout for plotlines that I can “rip from the headlines”. More often than not, I don’t.  I make stuff up.

But now and then something comes along that says, “write me into a novel.”

Here on the coast, we have a real-life mystery unraveling right before our eyes. Let me set the scene.  We are just south of the Outer Banks on the coast of North Carolina.  As a matter of fact, my wife and I have a house on Bogue Banks Island.  

There are other banks islands and one of them, Cape Lookout, is run by the National Parks Service.  There’s a lighthouse, some cabins, and lots of space and beaches to camp on.  

On May 23, Jeff West, the Superintendent of Cape Lookout (one of the Shackleford Banks islands) was in my office in Morehead City.  He’s on my board of directors and a friend of mine.  Jeff told me that a young soldier had been camping with seven other soldiers and had gone missing the night before.  

U.S. Army Specialist Enrique Roman-Martinez, stationed at Ft. Bragg, was reported last seen just after midnight on May 22 at the campsite.  He allegedly walked away wearing shorts and no shirt and carrying no supplies, without telling anyone where he was going.  His wallet and phone were found at the campsite. 

Point of information.  The waters off our beaches are home to everything from sharks to venomous snakes to deadly rip currents. 

At the time Jeff left my office, the parks service was still searching for him.

Then on May 29, the severed head of U.S. Army Specialist Enrique Roman-Martinez washed up on the shore of Shackleford Banks.  The parks service and the military launched a search for the rest of his remains.

To this date, they haven’t been located.  The military issued a $25,000 reward for information that leads to the conviction of anyone responsible for the homicide of the paratrooper.

An autopsy showed the soldier had been decapitated, however it’s unclear how he died.  There’s evidence of multiple chop injuries to the head and the jaw had been broken in at least two places. A toxicology report found no evidence of drug use. 

The dead soldier’s family are concerned with inconsistencies in the story of what happened when Roman-Martinez went missing.  The 911 caller told a dispatcher that the soldiers had been looking for help to find their missing friend.

“When we woke up, he was not here and we’ve been looking for him all day,” the caller said.  “We were trying to find a park ranger or their offices, or anything, and so we went all the way to the ferry and found that we needed to dial 911.”

However, a Cape Lookout National Seashore spokesperson said that the park rangers had encountered the group the afternoon of May 23 and asked them to move their vehicles, which were parked too close to the sand dunes.

He continued, “The rangers moved on after hearing the group would comply.  The soldiers did not make mention to them at this point that anyone was missing from their group.”

The 911 caller also had told the dispatcher they were worried that Roman-Martinez might hurt himself because he had “suicidal tendencies.” 

Add to that the fact that the bodies of two more Fort Bragg soldiers were found last week in a remote training area of the North Carolina Army base.  

Then on Thursday, the FBI entered the picture, complete with their scuba team.  Their truck is pictured at the top of this blog.

A tragically sad story for sure that makes for an interesting mystery.  

A strange twist came last night in the form of an email.  Now, because I have a relatively public position here in our area, I get the occasional strange private message through our Facebook page or an odd email.

Four of them came as I was watching episodes of Fargo with my wife.  They came from a woman whose name I don’t recognize.  The first was a link to the story about Roman-Martinez.  No explanation, just a link.

The second was a link to a story from Reuters dated April 2019 headlined, “U.N. rights boss condemns Saudi Arabia’s beheading of 37 men.”  

Her message to me was: Ya’ll could always move in with this bunch.  They’re pretty civilized just like ya’ll.  Do believe in UN rights???

Her second to last message was: Anyone “bother” for investigate?  Or did you just blow it off cause He’s Spanish and from LA?

Weird, right? The last message asked if it was against the law for someone to steal crab pots or kill a spouse for insurance money.  

I believe it is.

Needless to say, I haven’t responded.  I’m the president of our county’s chamber of commerce.  Yes, I write mysteries in my spare time, but I’m not the lead on this investigation. 

Is this staying at the top of my radar screen?  You bet.  We have our share of missing kayakers or boating mishaps, but murders are few and far between. 

Will this find its way into a book?  Most likely, but probably not one of mine.  It’s a little too much like my first book Random Road in which six bodies are found hacked to death on an island.  

I’ll rip another story from the headlines. 

Three of Them Waiting

 

 

 

John Corrigan's post about starting his students thinking about beginnings for books and stories reminded me of a terrific workshop I attended. Michael Shaara was on the panel. His book, The Killer Angels, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975.

 

He was a mesmerizing speaker and told of a technique he used in his literature classes when he taught at Florida State University. He gave this opening: "There were three of them waiting."

 

Talk about immediacy! I borrowed this and used it time and again in my own workshops. The results were astonishing. Not only did this beginning spark students' imaginations, I was fascinated by what I learned about the students.

 

It's a terrific beginning and kicks off other necessary fictional elements. Often I would have participants write the first thoughts that popped in their heads on a 3 x 5 cards and pass the cards to me. Who or what were the three? What were they waiting for? Where were they waiting? (Setting) Why were they waiting? (Immediate suspense) What was the problem (Beginning plot)

 

Michael said one of his students won an important award.

 

I selected a card for the whole class to work on. That's all it took. After that it was a free for all. They called out answers to follow up questions. Who, where, when, why?

 

Here are some of the responses:

 

Three nuns. What were they waiting for? A train. Someone piped up "An orphan train." They couldn't call out ideas fast enough. For instance, one nun in particular had a profound sense of dread. Why? She had an illegitimate child years ago. She had reason to believe the child was on the train. Wow!

 

One responses was three soldiers. That's always loaded.

 

One group of raucous boys snickered about three guys in a bar waiting for their GED teacher. The banter got complicated. They planned to kidnap Arnold Schwarzenegger's kid. I said "okay, the kid is one of the Kennedys. You've involved the FBI" You could have heard a pin drop. It was a great space for a mini-history lesson. Serious plotting followed. How does one deal with the FBI?

 

The story Michael said won a big award was another story inspired by the "big three." The three waiting were ambulances. The setting was the Indy 500. Two times during the race an ambulance was dispatched.

 

The third and final ambulance came for the narrator of the story. . .

Guest Blogger Arthur Kerns

Type M for Murder is thrilled to welcome guest author Arthur Kerns this weekend. Art is a retired FBI special agent and past consultant to the intelligence community. He is a former president of the Arizona chapter of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO). His award-winning short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies. His espionage thrillers, published by Diversion Books, Inc., The Riviera Contract, its sequel The African Contract, and his 2016 release The Yemen Contract, feature the adventures of CIA operative Hayden Stone.

A STRANGER READS MY BOOK

I noticed her mother first. Stylish and attractive, she was better dressed than most of the churning mob in the Phoenix airport terminal, waiting for their Memorial Day weekend flights. She sat across from me six seats away crammed in with other passengers, listening for their boarding calls. An unintelligible announcement barked over the loudspeaker and she stood, leaned down to a young woman in her early twenties, who I figured was her daughter, and handed her a carry-on bag. The girl accepted the bag without taking her eyes from the book she held. She continued to read as the older woman made her way through the conflicting aromas from the food concessions to the restroom area.

In the seat next to me, my wife tapped my arm and pointed to a message on her phone. Our son and his family were meeting us at the Austin, Texas airport.

I glanced back at the young woman still absorbed in her book. What concentration she had. Amidst all this terminal turmoil, she appeared focused on the pages before her, repeatedly touching a finger to the lips, then with the same finger turning a page.

When she paused and lifted the book, I saw the cover. It looked very familiar. Looked very much like the cover of my book. My debut novel. Had some other author used a similar design?

Then I realized it was my book this stranger was reading. I whispered to my wife to look and motioned with my head toward the young woman.

“Don’t you dare!” my wife said.

“What?”

“Ask if she wants it signed.”

“Never occurred to me.” I said unconvincingly.

The girl returned to the book, that is my book. I tried to study her expression for some indication of what she thought about the story, but saw only focused attention. She turned the pages at a steady rate so apparently she was into the plot—maybe. It looked like she was about mid-way through the book and I tried to imagine what scene she was in. Was it an action scene? Too early for the love scene.

The young woman was a complete stranger. Never saw her in my life. How did she come by the book? Where did she buy it? At a bookstore or over the Internet? Did a friend recommend it?

The older woman returned and spoke to the girl while looking at her watch. She pointed to the book and asked something. I watched to see if I could figure out what the girl said, but couldn’t detect anything positive or negative. She could have been talking about the weather.

“Stop looking at her.” My wife nudged me. “Get your things, our plane’s boarding.”

I put my laptop back in the case, found my boarding pass, and then looked back in the direction of the two women. They were gone.

And any chance to know what the young woman thought of my book.

Just as well.
___________
Please visit Art at his website  http://www.arthurkerns.com