Olympic Ode

 The Olympic Games are nearly upon us. At my household, we're pulling out the American flags and getting geared up.

            We love to watch the Olympics. There are a tremendous number of sports that we wouldn’t concern ourselves with if they were televised every week. (I've yet to catch the professional cornhole league.) But make it an international competition, pit the USA against the rest of the world, and only show the sport for two weeks every four years; my traveling companion and I get totally sucked into sports from archery to wrestling. (Okay, not rhythmic gymnastics, but almost everything else. I’ve never gotten the thing with the ribbons.)

            One of the things we enjoy best is the opportunity to become instant experts on sports that are not regularly watched in the United States. We'll tune in to the gymnastics events, have Tim Daggett give us a five-minute tutorial on women’s uneven bars, and we will confidently evaluate the verticality of the athlete's handstand and the degree of leg separation during her transition moves.

            We can learn a lot in a short period of time.

            This past May, the New York Times ran an article in preparation for the upcoming Olympics. The brief article was fascinating to read. I learned that the modern games have not always been exclusively about sports. For many years, the Olympics awarded medals for painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and literature, in addition to those for athletic prowess.

            Baron Pierre do Coubertin, the founder of the modern games, envisioned artistic competitions as an essential part of the Olympics. Richard Stanton, the author of The Forgotten Olympic Art Competitions, writes that Coubertin was “raised and educated classically, and he was particularly impressed with the idea of what it meant to be a true Olympian—someone who was not only athletic but skilled in music and literature."

            The Baron could not convince the earliest local Olympic organizers that artistic competitions were necessary. In the 1912 Stockholm Games, however, he managed to make the arts part of the Olympics. As noted, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and literature, The Pentathlon of the Muses, were the artistic events.  Every submitted work had to be inspired by the idea of sport. 33 artists entered, and a gold medal was awarded for each category. Afraid that the Olympics would not get enough entrants, Coubertin submitted a poem, "Ode to Sport," under an assumed name. He took home the gold.

            An American, Walter Winans, won the first-ever gold medal for sculpture. The winning bronze statue, An American Trotter, showed a bronze horse pulling a chariot. His gold medal in the sculpture event went alongside the silver medal he earned in sharpshooting. (He'd also won the gold medal in shooting in 1908.)

            The Olympics were canceled in 1916 during World War I. Following the war, the games did not really get going full speed until 1924 in Paris. Today, no one is quite sure where all the panels of the winning painting, a triptych by Jean Jacoby of Luxembourg, are located. (Two thirds are stored in the archives of the Olympic headquarters.) The silver medal work, The Liffey Swim, an oil painting by Jack Butler Yeats (William's brother), hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland.

            From 1912 to 1952, 151 medals were awarded for the arts. The math doesn't exactly work. In some years, not all the medals were awarded if the jury did not find the submitted pieces worthy. In the 1928 Amsterdam games, the literature category was subdivided into lyric, dramatic, and epic categories. They were later consolidated back into one category and then split apart again. 

Public Domain

            Following World War 2, the Olympics returned. However, the climate for including the arts had changed. There was a renewed emphasis on amateurism. Because artists live by selling their work and since winning an Olympic medal might enhance marketability, purists increasingly viewed the art competitions with skepticism. Avery Brundage, the president of the International Olympic Committee, led the campaign to have the arts removed. Curiously, Brundage had submitted a piece of literature to the 1932 games and earned an honorable mention.

            As the Olympic sporting events blossomed, the artistic contests waned. They were not compatible with television. Judging artistic competitions always involves subjectivity. Unlike the 100-meter dash, there may not be a clear winner. Facing these problems, the International Olympic Committee voted to end competitions within the Pentathlon of the Muses. The 151 medals given out were officially stricken from the Olympic record. Today, when a country's medal count is displayed, the artistic awards are not included.

            But what if the artistic competitions were still around?   

            1924 represented the high water mark for the Olympic art competitions. On the 100^th anniversary, the games return to Paris. It is an apt time to remember the old events and, as a thought exercise, to reimagine them.

As mentioned above, the literature category showed elasticity in the Olympic competitions. Organizers subdivided the category at will. If the competition included the mystery genre, who would slip on the Ralph Lauren-designed uniform and represent the United States? Great Britain? The Nordic countries? Japan? Would your Dream Team consist of established heavyweights, or would you be bold and pin your nation's hopes on a fresh voice? 

Consider it while you dig out your national flag and prepare for the opening ceremonies.

(I'll be traveling on the day this posts. If you comment, I may be delayed in responding.)

Until next time.   

A Misheard Announcement

 Some months back, I reported in this blog that I had retired from my day job as a criminal magistrate. Those golden years lasted for days.

            I’ve returned to meeting jail inmates, albeit on a part-time basis. The staff calls me on an emergency basis to plug the holes that sometimes occur in any small office—illnesses, vacations, etc. I'm happy to help. I enjoy the work, and the occasional magistrate session keeps my bar card from getting dusty.

            They also allow me to read that collection of typos and misunderstoods that crop up occasionally in police reports. Often, these mistakes happen when a patrol officer in the field calls in their report using the department’s voice-to-text system. Others arise when line personnel use a word and, perhaps, aren't entirely clear on the definition. In either case, the results can be entertaining.

            What follows are a few of the recent examples of reporting errors. Besides a bit of fun, I hope they remind writers and citizens that police officers are human. They make mistakes just like the rest of us. Rarely are the errors cataclysmic breaches or deliberate violations of constitutional norms. More commonly, they are the errors we all make. A failure to proofread carefully or the assumption that what we actually said was what we intended to say. Anyone who has ever dictated a text message understands. We want our police officers to be flesh and blood people so that they might empathize with the individuals they encounter. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it when that humanity is displayed.

            “Behind the driver’s seat, I located a bottle of permanent schnapps.”

J.H. Henkes, Creative Commons.

        The sentence stopped me when I saw it in a police report. I had a vision of a Harry Potter-like, never emptying liquor bottle. If you have a bottle of permanent schnapps, don’t hop on a broom or behind the wheel of a car. Cast a spell for a Lyft.

            “The driver appeared to have delighted eyes.”

            I believe that the officer who called in a report intended to say that the allegedly impaired driver had the enlarged pupils of someone with dilated eyes. The voice-to-text knew better. Maybe Alexa or Siri or whatever system handled the transcription hoped that since the rest of the driver’s body was going to jail, at least his eyes might be happy.

            “I was marinating my right leg across his back.”

            Usually, given enough time, I can discern what the officer intended to say--peppermint schnapps, dilated eyes—before voice-to-text seized control. Here, I still don't have a clue. Perhaps we can make this one a contest. The best answer to the question of what the officer was trying to do during this arrest wins.

            Although, imagining this visual continues to make me smile.

            “The suspect possessed a machine gun conversation device.”

            Although I suspect that the police found the defendant in possession of a conversion device, the sentence as written begs the question. What conversation does one really need to have with their machine gun except possibly, "Don't point that at me, please" or "Put that down now!" Everything else seems useless chatter.

            “He knows he is accomplished.”

            This one may not be immediately as funny as some of the others. Hence, I buried it in the middle. The officer set out facts leading her to conclude that the defendant had sufficient intentional involvement in the crime to be guilty as an accomplice. But, perhaps, the defendant also had a healthy sense of self-esteem. He was an accomplished accomplice. That's good. In court, prosecutors get paid to say bad things about a defendant. Without a healthy ego, the defendant's psyche might be bruised.

            And, speaking of…

            “A bruise farm on her arm.”

            Likely, the officer dictated that a bruise began forming on her arm. In the relationships-as-punching-bags world of domestic violence, however, the phrase as electronically adjusted might be accurate. On some days, the bruising seems to sprout across a field of victims.

            Finally, my favorite for this collection.  

            The following sentence offers a potent lesson on the dangers of misusing homophones. Think about your interpretation and your emotional reaction to the sentence as reported and the sentence as intended.

            “The gun was concealed in his waste.”

            “The gun was concealed in his waist.”

            The second sentence (the intended one) offers a hint of danger, the real-life work-a-day world of the beat cop. The first offers a visual that has stayed with me as I envisioned the grumbling patrol officer tasked with collecting that bit of evidence. Likely, that duty would fall to the rookie officer. In police work, as in other jobs, waste slides downhill.

            I hope your eyes have been delighted to review the list of typos and misheards. If not, toss the blog in the waist basket.

            (I’ll be traveling on the day this posts. If you have an answer to what the officer meant by his marinating leg, I’ll likely be slow in responding to you.)

            Until next time. 

Gunsmoked

     The television western, Gunsmoke, was a staple at my childhood home. Weekly, we watched Marshal Matt Dillon face down an outlaw during the opening scene. To a heavy and threatening drumbeat, the marshal stepped out onto the main street of Dodge City, Kansas. The camera focused on the revolver hanging low on his hip, the sheriff's right hand held steadily above the pistol grip. The music built as the camera panned to show the sheriff striding determinedly and wordlessly forward. His opponent, the outlaw dressed in black, entered the street from the opposite side. The two men squared to face one another. The music built to a crescendo. When they drew pistols, the camera angle shifted. Through the cloud of white smoke, we watched the grim-faced sheriff. We never saw the outlaw fall, but we knew the marshal had outdrawn his opponent. As the camera held the sheriff's world-weary expression, the announcer solemnly intoned, "Gunsmoke, starring James Arness as Matt Dillon." 

Marshal Matt Dillon, Gunsmoke
© CBS Television, public domain

    CBS Chairman William Paley, reportedly was a great fan of Raymond Chandler. Beginning with the radio show, ;Gunsmoke, and later with the television adaptation, he wanted to create a series centered on the "Philip Marlowe of the old West." The opening scene, with the stylized code duelo showdown, set a tone. It cemented the single combat gunfight in the middle of the town's dusty street as a trope of the American West.

    Such gunfights, however, rarely occurred. 

    The West had its share of violence, typical for a frontier. But the formality of the single combat duel was primarily the product of dime novelists and film directors. 

    There were, of course, exceptions. 

    In 1865, Wild Bill Hickok squared off with Davis Tutt in Springfield, Missouri. The two quarreled over gambling. To secure a debt, Tutt took a prized watch belonging to Hickok. Tutt prominently wore the watch, embarrassing Hickok. Later, the two men advanced on one another. Tutt reportedly drew first, fired wildly, and missed. Hickok shot more steadily and hit Tutt in the chest. History does not record whether the watch was injured. Tutt, however, died. 

    In his subsequent trial, a jury acquitted Hickok of manslaughter. In 1867, a story describing the event appeared in Harper's New Monthly Magazine. The exaggerated tale helped form the myth about Wild Bill Hickok and the single combat duel. Today, readers can get the details on the official Springfield, Missouri website.

    On March 9th, 1877, Jim Levy (sometimes Leavy) and Charlie Harrison argued over a game of cards in Cheyenne, Wyoming's Shingle and Locke's saloon. Levy challenged Harrison to "take it outside." There, as Bat Masterson, the western lawman, gunfighter, and writer, described the event, Harrison drew quickly. He fired five shots. Levy took his time and needed only one. (Although he only required one, reportedly Levy stood over the downed Harrison and shot him a second time in the stomach. This fact tampers with the honorable gunfighter trope but, perhaps, more accurately portrays the times.) Masterson used the Levy/Harrison battle to illustrate the importance of a gunfighter's need to remain calm and take one's time. In 1907, Masterson wrote in Human Life magazine:

    That Harrison was as game a man as Levy could not be doubted; that he could shoot much faster, he had given ample proof, but under extraordinary conditions he had shown that he lacked deliberation and lost his life in consequence.

    My adopted town, Fort Worth, also helped create the myth of the Western gunfight. Although the facts bear little resemblance to the stylized book or movie version.

    Longhair Jim Courtright had been the first marshal of Fort Worth. He was tasked with keeping the peace in Hell's Half Acre. The murder rate plummeted on his watch. He also, however, likely used his badge and gun to extort money from saloon owners as part of a protection racket. Following an election defeat in 1879, he moved to New Mexico. There, a dispute over land and cattle led to an accusation of murder against Courtright. There were, it seems, lingering questions about whether Courtright's involvement in the shooting had been as law enforcement or criminal participant. He returned to Fort Worth, a place far enough removed from New Mexico to avoid extradition. In 1884, he established a private detective office here. Besides investigative services, the office resumed operations as a protection racket. 

    Luke Short, another man experienced with guns, worked as the manager of the White Elephant Saloon in Fort Worth. Short refused Courtright's offers of protection. Allowing business owners to decline, however, would be bad for the detective's business. On February 8th, 1887, a drunk Courtright called out Luke Short. Together, they walked down the street on Fort Worth's north side as they attempted to settle their disagreement. Outside a local brothel, the negotiation apparently reached an impasse. The two men stood three to four feet apart. Courtright drew his gun. Short, however, fired first, and his bullet tore off Courtright's thumb. While Longhair Jim Courtright attempted to switch his weapon to his other hand, Short fired again. His subsequent shots killed Courtright, the former lawman, detective, and extortionist.

    Luke Short was investigated for the shooting. The charges were subsequently dismissed. The Courtright/Short gunfight is one of the legends of Fort Worth. This town's stories are part of why I like living here. When the local chapter of Sisters in Crime began compiling an anthology, Notorious in North Texas, I used this tale as my jumping-off point. This week, we celebrate the release of that anthology. Many of the fine authors who contributed tales set their stories in Dallas. But I wanted to put my story here in Fort Worth, where the West begins.

---

(Thanks to Legends of America for the details about the gunfights.)

    Until next time.

Answering the Call

How do you approach the challenge when writing to a call?

Is a theme a fence or a gate? Does it constrain writing, limiting where the author's imagination might go? Or does it open opportunities, spurring the writer to take prose in a direction they might not have considered going without the prompt? 

My answer probably depends on whether I like the prompt. 

Private Dicks and Disco Balls, an anthology of 1970s private eye stories edited by fellow SleuthSayer, Michael Bracken, was released earlier this month. I'm honored that Michael included a story of mine, "The Kratz Gambit," within the pages. 

I like writing stories set in the past. Typically, however, my historicals occur earlier. The opportunity to put a story in a decade I lived through poked me to try something a little different. 

The 1970s are the first decade I remember. I was around for much of the swinging '60s, but for me, that meant playground swings and tires suspended from ropes tied to tree limbs. I wasn't old enough to have a feel for much of the vibe of that decade. 

But for a '70s anthology, I got totally stoked. I dusted off my good threads, the powder blue leisure suit, tied on my puka shells, slapped in an 8-track tape and fired up my Smith Corona. Seriously, I didn't do any of those things. The suit doesn't fit anymore and might be life-threatening if worn around an open flame. I no longer own the necklace, the typewriter, or the sound machine. I did, however, reminisce about the decade so that I might draw from my experiences. 

The terms of the call were straightforward. Michael sought a story featuring a working private eye and incorporating a significant event from the decade. 

As with any themed anthology, the touchstone must be the call. Which happening from the decade caught my attention? My mind ticked off possibilities. The Vietnam War, Watergate, and Elvis's death presented possibilities.  

I skipped the center-of-the-plate events. Although I needed to incorporate something significant, the decade's episode I chose must make my story unique. I wanted to stand out in the crowd. I think it's a good rule for answering a call. Where might a writer go that, while remaining true to the ask, presents a different take? Avoid the obvious choices and pass on the low-hanging fruit. The editor, finicky guy that he is, would likely only accept one Watergate story. I sought something at the margins. 

I settled on the chess match between Bobby Fischer of the United States and the Soviet grandmaster, Boris Spassky. The 1972 chess match became nightly news. The games captured national attention. Television stations across America had chess nerds demonstrating the moves on oversized boards. (Spoiler alert: the American beat the Ruskie.)

The Fischer/Spassky matches not only presented an event I thought few writers would tackle, but the games were also personally significant. My friends and I followed this micro battle between the world's two superpowers. We learned to play chess. In my case, I learned to play badly, but at least I knew how the pieces moved so that we could follow what the man on television described. 

The chess metaphor--move and countermove with one player trying to outwit another--worked great for a mystery story. But as I prepared to write my story, the events behind the tale conjured up a memory. Although my friends and I aren't reflected in "The Kratz Gambit, " I had a personal connection. Thus, my second suggestion for writing to a themed anthology. Find that personal piece. What's that thing you bring that no one else can or might? 

When plotting, I often engage in random internet searches. Into a search engine, I type words tangentially related to my story. I look to see what connections the internet might make. Random searches might open a possible direction for the tale. An article might shut down something I previously believed to be accurate. Some possibilities open while others close--gates and fences. Marry your experience to the research. 

My third thought about writing for a themed anthology should be obvious. Give the editor what they are seeking. I hit the required word count and followed all the submission rules. Although I read the titular "Disco Balls" as a cultural reference rather than a specific request for a music-themed story, I sprinkled in song titles from the period. I wanted to recognize my editor's interest in music. The songs also helped tie the story to 1972.

The advice may sound basic: pay attention to the theme and give the editor a story that fits the call and word count. But look at the theme's margins and incorporate personal experience supported by a bit of research. A writer can craft a story that will hopefully surprise the editor and secure a place in the anthology. The plan worked with "The Kratz Gambit." I'm glad Michael liked it. I hope the readers do, too. 

Until next time. 

Character Revealed

     When this blog posts, I'll be on the road. My traveling companion and I will be returning to
the Lone Star State from Malice Domestic 2024. While there, I'll participate in a panel discussion with fellow Sleuth, Barb Goffman. Joining us are Kate Hohl, Mary Dutta, and Kerry Hammond. The panel will be talking about, "Short Stories: Quickly Connecting Reader to Character."

    (It's an odd space-time continuum bending moment. I'm writing prospectively about an event that will have occurred by publication.) I look forward to/enjoyed discussing the craft of short story creation with these accomplished writers. 

    I'm excited to learn many things from them about building character. Do they, for instance, build characters first and then allow the plot to emerge from the interaction among these individuals, or do they conceive of a plot and build characters to inhabit that narrative? Do we all do the same thing, or do our methods vary? 

    As with many seminar topics, I'd be shocked if we surprise anyone with our discussion. There are only so many ways to reveal character. Our panel will, I hope, provide an entertaining review and, perhaps, systematize the process. If we succeed, the readers and writers in the audience will be better able to think about the characters in the next story they open. 

    We might quickly run aground over the use of the word "character." We always create characters within our stories. Each character has a particular character that makes them heroic or villainous or NPCs in the vocabulary of my gamer children. To keep the conversation afloat, I'll use "character" as the word to describe the person or animal involved in the story and "nature" when discussing the qualities that make them who or what they are. 

    As writers, we have a handful of tools for developing nature. Time permitting, I hope our panel's discussion will include a conversation about them all. Some authors might rely heavily upon dialogue to show us the nature of their tale's characters. Accents, word choice, and truncated versus elaborate sentences tell us something about the people inhabiting the stories. We learn from their questions, their answers, and their non-answers. In other stories, appearance might be the tool. Physically appearance and mannerisms usually elicit our first reaction to people. The vise-like grip, the sweating brow, and the beady eyes all help draw a picture for the readers and shape their expectations. 

    Action and a character's response, or lack thereof, may tell us about the story's inhabitants. Something happens and characters change. A door opens. There is a moment of stress. The characters fight, flee, or freeze. What the characters do and how change affects them shows their nature. 

    Finally, a writer might reveal the nature of the characters through their thoughts. The monologue playing inside the characters' heads as they evaluate situations, resolve conflicts, and make decisions exposes the nature of the individuals we are reading about in stories. 

    These are the readily available tools for showing readers the characters. They are the devices for making them interesting and believable. As authors, we deploy them to make the characters worth getting to know. 

    Sometimes, however, we choose to tell readers about a character's nature. As writers, we might present nature ourselves. The advantage is economy. The writer may say that a character is stupid. In that case, the reader learns the information far more efficiently than descriptions and dialogue may permit. The downside is that, having invested nothing, the reader might not care. 

    A final alternative is to have a character reveal the nature of a fellow character. One person may comment on or think about the nature of another. This method reveals something about both individuals. The reader is called upon to decide whether her opinion agrees with the speaker or thinker's evaluation. 

    As evidenced by the previous sentence, it's worth noting that almost no story relies entirely upon one technique. A reader will need some clues from appearance, speech, or action to pass judgment on another character's evaluation of nature. 

    Thinking about revealed nature for the Malice panel caused me to look back upon "Streetwise," my story in the current issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. The story concerns the interaction between a man and his friend. The friend is currently homeless. 

    I wrote "Streetwise," with alternating points of view between the two men. At the time, I wanted to shift POV as an exercise I'd not tried before, at least not intentionally. It seemed a good technique for feeding details slowly, extracting them from the different observations and experiences of each man. 

    As the story ping-ponged between the two, each character's nature is revealed by the thoughts of the other. It's that sixth technique discussed above. The reader can measure each character's evaluation of his friend based on the revealed facts. The story is a "tell" with a bit of "show." 

    Multiple POVs and telling about the other characters are suitable only for some stories. I wanted to try it for this one. I'm honored that the kind folks at Alfred Hitchcock liked the story. I hope that the readers do also. 

    Until next time. 

Miami Ad-Vice

        On the day this blog posts, life takes my traveling companion and me to southern Florida. The overlapping events provided an ideal time to resume my irregular series of posts on Constitutional Tourism, a geographic review of major Supreme Court decisions on criminal law matters. For those interested in where their law comes from, today we're venturing to The Sunshine State. 

    No surprise to Crockett or Tubbs, but drugs flow through South Florida. Much of this region's Supreme Court case law deals with drug interdiction. Hopefully, the following review will provide a brief law primer as well as a guide to visiting America's thumb. What follows are a few places where your rights were more sharply defined. 

    Florida v. Bostick, 501 US 419 (1991)

    Mr. Bostick climbed aboard a bus at the Miami depot. His ride was headed for Atlanta. In Fort Lauderdale, the next city north of Miami, sheriff's officers entered the bus. They approached Bostick without any facts to articulate why he might be viewed as a suspicious character. The officers, dressed in law enforcement jackets and showing badges, asked permission to search his bag. There is some dispute about whether Bostick provided consent, but the trial court found that he had. When the deputies looked, they found cocaine in Bostick's luggage. His bus ride ended abruptly. 

selbst vektorisiert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    The state supreme court for Florida found that a reasonable person, under Bostick's circumstances, would not feel free to leave the bus. That court held that the search was an unconstitutional violation of Bostick's rights against unlawful search and seizure. Bus searches essentially were, per se, unreasonable. 

    As a rule, the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects against unlawful searches. Although there is a preference for search warrants, a judicial order is not always required before the police may search. History has crafted a handful of exceptions. One of those is permission. If I consented to Crockett and Tubbs searching me or my possessions, I cannot later complain if they found something. 

    But I can't be coerced into giving my okay. My rights need to be freely and voluntarily surrendered. This is a subjective question, turning on things like the words used, the display of weapons, and other facts. 

    The Supreme Court acknowledged that the police could engage in this behavior on the streets. The bus, however, presented a more challenging environment for a defendant to refuse. The path to avoid the police likely is the narrow center aisle of the bus, a route running between the two officers. If Bostick left, the bus would leave without him. He may not have a free and voluntary choice to make. 

    However, cramped spaces and tight schedules were not the result of anything the police did; instead, they were part of bus travel. The Supreme Court ruled that Florida's holding finding bus searches were automatically unconstitutional was wrong. The question wasn't whether Bostick was free to leave, the Court held, but whether he was free to decline a search. They sent the case back for the Florida Supreme Court to consider the voluntary nature of Bostick's choice. The Florida judiciary upheld the search this time. 

    Florida v. J.L., 529 US  266 (2000) 

    An anonymous caller told Miami police that a group of three young black males were at a bus stop at 183rd St. and N.W. 24th Ave. The male, wearing a plaid shirt, carried a gun. The responding officer arrived within six minutes of the tip. At the bus stop, she saw three males, including one wearing a plaid shirt. She observed no suspicious behavior. Nonetheless, she frisked the plaid-shirted J.L. and found a handgun in his pocket. 

Ed Webster, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

 Another search warrant exception is a police officer's safety frisk. (We discussed this one in an earlier blog touring Cleveland.) If an officer has articulable facts and circumstances that, based on her training and experience, lead her to believe that a crime is occurring and may pose a danger, she is entitled to frisk for weapons. Here, the suspicion arose not from the officer's observations but from an anonymous tipster calling from an unknown place. The tip provided no means for the police to test the informant's knowledge or credibility. The anonymous tip alone could not justify the stop and frisk. 

    J.L. was sixteen when this offense occurred. His youth may have been a factor in the Supreme Court's reluctance to brand him a criminal. They ruled in his favor and did not allow Florida to prosecute the case. It is also why he isn't named in the opinion. History carries his initials only, unlike Mr. Bostick. 

    As an aside, the Supreme Court left some wiggle room. They specifically noted that they might feel differently if the police were responding to an anonymous tip about a bomb or some other mass-casualty risk. 

    Miami buses came out 1-1 in the U.S. Supreme Court. 

    U.S. v. Place, 462 US 696 (1983)

    Airplane passengers always check a few constitutional rights along with their baggage. In Place, a passenger boarded a plane bound for LaGuardia in New York from the Miami airport. Detectives in Florida became suspicious about Raymond Place but decided they didn't have time to search before his flight departed. Instead, they notified DEA agents in New York. The feds detained Place for ninety minutes and drove him to Kennedy Airport. At Kennedy, a drug-sniffing dog alerted to the luggage. This happened on Friday afternoon. The DEA held the luggage until they could get a search warrant signed on Monday. Upon opening Place's luggage, the authorities found slightly more than a kilo of cocaine. 

    Here, the DEA had a tip from a known and reliable source. It was not anonymous. The Miami detectives, furthermore, investigated and found holes in Place's story. Based on this reliable information, the DEA could detain the luggage briefly to investigate. However, the Supreme Court found that the federal agent's detention exceeded the permissible limits. The authorities kept Place and his bags too long for an investigative stop. They knew he was coming: they could have staged the dog at La Guardia rather than dragging a presumed innocent passenger across New York City. As a consolation, the Supreme Court did rule that allowing a drug-sniffing dog to walk by the luggage did not constitute a search. 

    The government lost this kilo but got the Supreme Court's thumbs-up on dog sniffing. Canine searches have proved to be a powerful tool for law enforcement. 

    Constitutional law books locate this case in New York. The constitutional nugget, however, had its origin in Miami. Current Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also did. She grew up in Miami and was senior class president at Miami Palmetto High School. Justice Jackson is, perhaps, Miami's most enduring Supreme Court connection. 

    Does she feel constitutionally safer in an airplane or a bus when she visits Miami? 

    Until next time. 

Stolen Opportunities

     Pre-pandemic, my traveling companion and I visited Italy. We journeyed with another couple. I'll call them P and D. On a jaunt to the Amalfi Coast, we took the Circumvesuviana. It sounded cool. The train departs from Naples and hugs Vesuvius, the volcano that destroyed Pompeii. The Circumvesuviana passes by that ancient Roman city. It treks along the Amalfi Coast before arriving at Sorrento, with its sheer cliffs and colorful villas. I carried a notepad. A few of my notes follow.

    The train trip reads better in the guidebooks. The Circumvesuviana functions as a commuter railway. Our train was graffiti-splashed, chugged slowly, stopped frequently, and was crowded. If you want to try something that isn't touristy, ride the Circumvesuviana.

Jensen, Public Domain, Wikimedia

    While we stood in the Naples station waiting for the opportunity to board, P, the husband, told us that he'd just foiled a pickpocket. I followed his outstretched arm, pointing toward a man scurrying to the far end of the station, casting wayward glances in our direction. 

    We boarded the train. P had served in the US Navy and had sailed out of Naples on occasion. He remembered a restaurant he'd eaten at in Sorrento. We found it. The place stood dimly lit and mysterious. We were traveling out of season, I'll add. Few tourists were visiting in January. Lots of places proved uncrowded, dark, and mysterious. 

    We ended this side trip at Pompeii. I entered the ancient site with a certain trepidation. I'd heard about and seen pictures of these ruins for my entire life. Would the place live up to my expectations? Pompeii did. 

    An exotic-sounding train trip, an ancient Roman city, and a town on the gorgeous Amalfi coast cloaked in just a hint of mystery. What could a writer possibly do with that?

    As we zipped along on the ItaliaRail, the sleek, clean, fast national railway back to Rome, I flipped through the notes and began thinking about someday mining this little side trip. Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine graciously published the resulting story, "Sfortuna," in the March/April issue. 

    I love to set stories in the places I've visited. Writing a short story allows me to think back on the pleasant memories of a vacation. Exploring a new place with the mindset that I'll likely dip into this experience for a later story also heightens my observations. I take a five-sense inventory of a place. What stands out that I might tap into when I'm seated at my keyboard? The practice frequently enhances my experience of visiting. Hosts also seem to like seeing their vacation home used as the setting for a short story. Selfishly, if a published story gets me invited back, that's a double win for me. 

    I've frequently mined these experiences. I think of this as a subset of the writer's maxim, "Write what you know." In this case, the admonition is recast as, "Write what you think you know because you've visited for a very short time." 

    And I have to expand the maxim. I can't just write what I know. My stories would be too bland. I've been fortunate to have missed out on much of the soul-searing pain others might dredge for their stories. I've never been a POW in a fire-bombed city like Dresden. I'm not complaining or volunteering; I'm just reporting. 

    So where do you go when the pains in your life are the abundance of weeds in your front lawn and terrible luck when picking a grocery store checkout lane? How do you mine the commonplace to find exciting story material? 

    First, I need to recognize that my personal experience provides the only lens I've got to view what I'm trying to portray through words. 

    Second, I remember the micro-moments. We've all experienced times of heartache, loss, despair, grief, and sadness. Perhaps not on some grand scale, but we've all been there. I've seen the people around me have these emotions as well. My traveling companion expresses her feelings differently than I do. I can amplify that range of emotions to convey my character's thoughts and feelings. I can mine not only my vacations but also my personal history. I can squeeze what I need from the mundane. 

    Third, I hope I'm noticing the people around me. Having a ringside seat in the criminal justice system has allowed me to observe other people having bad days. I've seen their anger and disillusionment. I've also witnessed their sense of vindication. Finally, I've also seen their stupidity. It all helps when I'm trying to write. 

    But one doesn't need to have worked in jail to find emotions on display. Grocery store trips can demonstrate bits of bad behavior. We're all watching for those moments. To write is to be part voyeur. You're standing in the checkout line or sitting at a restaurant and not intentionally eavesdropping, but suddenly find yourself gifted with a phrase. For a moment, the meal is put on hold so that you can text yourself a message before you forget the gift you've just been given. 

    Lastly, I can look things up. Research is, in its own way, an enhancement of my personal experience. I'm going to the places I choose and looking for what I might find. On virtually any subject, the internet makes it possible to eavesdrop on someone somewhere reflecting on something. I can read or watch and filter what they report through my lens. 

    I've experienced nothing of what happened in "Sfortuna." Viewed differently, we've experienced it all. I sat down at my computer and imagined how it all came out. I'm thrilled that the kind folks at Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine liked the story. I hope that the readers do also. 

    How do you mine your experiences? What tips do you have for wringing the maximum literary value from the fortunes and misfortunes in your life?

Until next time. 

Lyrics and Music

     Like the other authors in the Murder: Neat lineup, I'm using this blog as an opportunity to talk about my story in the new SleuthSayers anthology. I jumped at the chance to contribute a story as well as the opportunity to write about it here. My tale, "Lyrics and Music," kicks off the anthology. 

    I love listening to ballads on the radio. By definition, they tell stories. Not surprisingly, that's something I admire. But a ballad does the storytelling in short stanzas, set to music, and makes the words rhyme. A good one makes my attempts at story craft feel entry-level. 

    As my traveling companion can attest, with me, usually the sappier the ballad, the better. If you tell Billy not to be a hero, like Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods did, I'm right there with you. 

    Sappy is a loaded word. These days, it's never a positive. Tag anything with
"sappy" and it is weighed down with the baggage of cheesy or saccharine. But "sappy" used to be a good thing. In its origin, it meant full of vitality, like a young sapling. Somewhere around the early 17th Century, the meaning changed to excessively sentimental. The change may have been due to the stickiness of sap, the syrupy goo oozing from the young green stalks. 

    When the opportunity to contribute a story presented itself, and the only requirements were a crime story and a bar, I immediately thought about a saloon singer with a tale. Love, alcohol, a villain, and a problem to be solved: a ballad could be written about each. Instead, let's put the four together, I thought. That'll drip sap. 

    I turned up the volume on a Marty Robbins gunfighter ballad and settled in at my computer. 

    But what bar? In Fort Worth, the bar is Billy Bob's Texas, the world's largest honky tonk. It has a main stage, ample dance floor, various watering stations, and plenty of dark corners where all sorts of mischief might occur. 

    Billy Bob's Texas, however, felt too big for my setting. I needed something smaller. I remembered a great evening my traveling companion, and I spent at the Stagecoach Bar in Jackson, Wyoming, many years ago. In my mind, the place was like Billy Bob's Texas, only dried on hot. It had the same features and drew a diverse crowd but occupied less real estate. It felt more intimate. The place lacked a mechanical bull or a gift shop. The Broken Spoke in Austin also offered a similar vibe, at least before the new construction crowded in on all sides. 

    With a mental picture of the place and a vision of a woebegone protagonist, I began to type. The resulting story introduces the reader to Jimmy West, a country singer trapped by a bad contract and forced to perform at a bar run by an unscrupulous proprietor. Jimmy can't get out from under his ironclad contractual obligations. There is no escape for him...or is there? 

Vitality and sentimentality, "Lyrics and Music," I hope, embraces "sappy" in all its definitions. 

    Running a finger down the list of contributors to Murder: Neat makes a guy feel pressure to put the right words in the right spots. My name stands alongside some heady company. I'm grateful to Barb and Michael. Their skilled editing helped shift the errant words to the places they were supposed to be. They've wrung out the excess syrup. I hope you'll enjoy the results. 

    Until next time. 

A Farewell Song

     As I mentioned in my last blog, the end of January marked the last day of my service as a magistrate judge. When I cleared out my desk, I found a smattering of paper scraps. On these, I had jotted down the typos and misheards from police reports that I'd been asked to review. Sadly, this is likely the last of these blogs. I've been cut off from the taproot. 

    As always, I hope these tiny written missteps brighten your day. Also, as you think about crafting characters, I hope they remind you that police officers, like everyone else, sometimes make inconsequential mistakes. Police errors are not always substantial, case-turning blunders of constitutional proportions. They're not necessarily mean-spirited or corrupt. Sometimes, they're just typos. 

    I found the defendant engaging in a fistic encounter. 

Creative Commons

    To be fair to the officer, "fistic" is a word. He wasn't wrong in his usage. The arrestee was hitting another person. The OED states that "fistic" is an adjective "related to boxing." The OED also reports, however, that its high water mark for usage was approximately 1900. Clearly, the officer channeled his inner Damon Runyon or Grantland Rice. Or, he may have reached for grandiose prose when a more common phrase would have worked better. 

    And now, another typic encounter. 

   

    At home, my husband's girlfriend pointed a gun at me.

    Again, not a typo. Remember this sentence the next time you're challenged to tell a story in ten words or less. Plot, setting, conflict, and theme all set out in a single line. I'll let the rest of the story unfold in your mind. 

    I arrived at the scene and exited my vehicle. The defendant then attempted to flea from the police. 

    Although it is always possible that the officer encountered a character ripped from the script of an upcoming Marvel movie or, for those with a literary bent, a John Dunne poem, this one is likely a typo. I do, however, really like the imagery that jumps to mind. 

    On January 15th, while I was performing my duties as a Texas Peach Officer...

    Fresh, quality produce is important to us in this state. Our Agricultural Department works hard to keep it safe from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I hope you'll raise your glass to those hard-working men and women the next time you're having a bellini. 

    This officer, however, was not employed by the Ag. Department. She was one of our rank-and-file peace officers who called in a report before getting back out on the streets. Voice-to-text heard something different than intended. 

    I prepared a search warrant affidavit and presented it to the Honorable Judge [X]. After reviewing the warrant, he singed it. 

    I know that on your bucket list of Broadway shows, slightly behind Hamilton, Wicked, and Hadestown, you've got Search Warrant: The Musical. Once you see it, you'll come away humming the tune to "Probable Cause" and that slightly bawdy earworm, "Cavity Search." 

    Incidentally related, perhaps: 

    While frisking the lung area, I found a firearm. 

    The "lunge area" is the space in a motor vehicle immediately surrounding the driver or passenger. It is the zone from which a suspect might quickly grab a firearm or weapon. Clearing the lunge area is an integral part of officer safety. 

    Searching the lung area for a firearm, however, probably required a great deal of singing before the judge granted the legal authority to go that deeply into the body. 

    And with that, my scrap pile has been emptied. 

Creative Commons

    In conclusion, I will note that it is not just officers who occasionally risk misinterpretation. A word of caution: When you're writing thank-you notes to well-wishers on the occasion of your retirement, be careful with your cursive. If you are a tad sloppy with your handwriting, the sentence: 

    "It has been an honor to work with you."

Might easily look like the sentence, 

    It has been an horror to work with you." 

And that changes the meaning of the sentiment entirely. Trust me on this one. 

Until next time. 

Toast

     As frequently happens on the way to one thing, I encountered something else. 

    While doing some research, I bumped into the etymology of the expression "to toast." The phrase we use for words spoken about the bride at a wedding or a guest of honor at a banquet, I learned, is directly related to that piece of bread with jam you might be consuming while perusing your morning email or skimming this SleuthSayers offering. 

    The word "toast" is derived from an Old French word, toster, meaning to grill, roast, or burn. That word is drawn from an earlier Latin word, tostare, meaning to parch or dry out. It's no great stretch to see how this word became associated with the browning of bread served with a slathering of preserves or perhaps a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar.

     Focusing on that last flavor combination gives the jump off to the use of "to toast" as celebratory words offered with a cocktail. 

    16th and 17th-century wines might be bitter and sediment-filled. Adding a piece of spiced toast to the drink added flavor, lessened any foul smell, and perhaps acted as a sponge to trap sediment particles. The toast made the wine more drinkable. William Shakespeare mentions the practice in The Merry Wives of Windsor.  Falstaff instructs his fellow to  "Go, fetch me a quart of sack;  put a toast in 't,". 

    According to accounts, the toast was not eaten but plucked from the cup and flicked to the nearest dog. 

    The offering of kind or thoughtful words to an honored guest added to the occasion's flavor, leading those praises to be called "the toast." 

    The practice of offering kind words pre-dates their designation as a toast. People have always felt the need to give speeches while drinking. 

    That's the G version. Both Merriam-Webster and the Online Etymology Dictionary, my sources for this, also offer a bawdier explanation. That story centers around a woman taking the therapeutic cool waters of a pool near Bath, England. While she floated, a traveler happened along. He plunged his cup into the water and offered a wish for her good health. His traveling companion, possibly drunk, suggested that while he might not care for the drink, he would undoubtedly enjoy the toast. "Toast" became both the words of praise and the subject--the toast of the town. 

    A bit off-topic, but the same sources note that to use "toast" to mean that someone is a goner or has been destroyed owes its genesis to an ad-libbed line by Bill Murray in Ghostbusters. Some argue that it had earlier origins, but all agree that the movie brought this usage of "toast" to the public. Now you know who you gonna call when you want a word placed in general circulation. 

    Back to today's subject. I will raise my mug of morning coffee and offer a toast to 2024. It may be a bit late in the month for such things, but in the due course of the SleuthSayers blog rotation, this is my first opportunity of the year. 

    May all your writing be prize-winning and effortless. May all your reading inspire and entertain. May your every encounter suggest another story. May your life be free of your main character's pain. 

    As for me, the new year will prove life-changing. I'm retiring as a criminal magistrate at the end of January. I'm doing so partly because I want to devote more time to writing. The full-time job gets in the way. Or, at least in my mind, it does. I will be curious to learn whether I'll produce more in the months ahead. Perhaps the time it takes to accomplish something will merely expand to fill the time available. 

    I may lose my new-found time running down rabbit holes in pursuit of etymologies. 

    One regret about leaving the magistrate gig is that I'll be deprived of the steady stream of typos I've found in the case documents. Reporting on that collection has been a semi-regular blog topic for the last couple of years. Like faithful companions, these unintended misspeaks stood by me, ready to jump in whenever I needed to meet an imminent deadline. 

If mystery fiction teaches us anything, it's that actions have consequences. The decision to retire cuts me off from that rootstock. We'll see what happens from here. 

    But that problem doesn't need to be solved for another three weeks. For now, I think I'll pour another cup of coffee and drop something in the toaster. 

Until next time. 

Boxing: Round One

    December 26th, as all British mystery fans know, is recognized as Boxing Day. The holiday never became established in the United States. Boxing Day rose to prominence in the Victorian Era. By then the United States had separated from the United Kingdom and were busily creating our own holidays. 

    Within the early Christian calendar, the day was, and for some remains, St. Stephen's Day. December 26th commemorates the early Christian deacon and First Century CE martyr. St. Stephen, by tradition, dedicated his life in service to the poor. 

    Celtic people began celebrating Wren Day on December 26th. A dead wren was mounted on a pole and paraded through the village streets. The wren boys knocked on doors asking for money. In exchange, they gave the household a tail feather. The plume is supposed to bring good luck (Unless of course, you're the wren). At least one legend binds these two tales together. St. Stephen, although he was just Mr. Stephen at the time, was hiding from his enemies behind a bush. A chattering wren revealed his location to his captors. Different versions are reported, but in each story, the wren is labeled as treacherous. 

    In the spirit of St. Stephen, the money collected was to be donated to worthy charities. 

    At least two different origin stories exist for Boxing Day. The predominant one holds that during Victorian England, wealthy landowners presented gifts to servants and the poor on the day after Christmas. The servants had to work Christmas Day preparing their employer's feast. The day after, they were allowed to celebrate the holiday with their families. The landowners ate informal meals consisting of leftovers. The servants were provided with boxes containing money, hand-me-down clothing, and other goods, as well as leftovers from the family meal. These Christmas boxes lend their name to the day. 

    The other common theory holds that on the day after Christmas, the church opened the alms boxes, and the parish distributed the proceeds to the needy. 

    Victorians also often spent December 26th outside. After Christmas Day, inside a house jammed with relatives, the urge to get into the open air, burn pent-up energy, and get space from the family proved overwhelming. The hunt became a popular Boxing Day activity. Presumably, if wrens were killed, they would be distributed to Irish friends and subsequently hung from poles. 

    A host of traditions have come together to make this day after Christmas a holiday for more than just post-yuletide retail therapy. 

    One December holiday tradition important to the SleuthSayers community is the announcement of the Black Orchid Novella Award winner. Since 2006, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and The Wolfe Pack, the Nero Wolfe Literary Society, have been recognizing novellas. Robert Lopresti and Steve Liskow are past recipients of the award. Back in 2016, I submitted "A Meter of Murder" to the contest.  In "Meter," John Milton, the blind 17th-century author of Paradise Lost, served as the sleuth. The committee chose my story and inducted me into the community of published short story authors. I remain indebted to them.

    My congratulations, therefore, to Libby Cudmore for her winning story, "Alibi in Ice." We'll get to read her tale in the summer issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. 

  I'm circling back to a Milton story, sort of, in the January/February issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. In "The Devil in the Details," an English professor finds inspiration for his misdeeds in the words of Paradise Lost. As always, I'm honored to be included in the pages of the magazine, this time alongside fellow 'sleuthers, Robert Lopresti and Michael Bracken. Now here is a tradition I'd love to continue throughout 2024.

    Whatever your holiday traditions include, I hope that you enjoy them with family and friends either inside or outside. May all your books and stories sell. And if your holiday tradition involves wren slaughtering, may the SPCA never find your home address. 

    Nollaig Shona Dhuit. (Google tells me that's a holiday greeting in Irish.) 

    Until next year.