Acronyms and Backronyms

by John M. Floyd


Today I don't want to talk about mysteries or novels or movies or short stories or the writing process . . . but I do want to talk about words. Specifically about three kinds of words: initials, acronyms, and something called backronyms--and things that I found interesting about them. Bear with me, here.

Initials

Definition: The first letters of a name or of words forming part of a phrase.

Most are instantly familiar to us as readers and writers: FBI, CIA, IBM, JFK, LBJ, BYOB, POW, MIA, ADHD, DOA, DOB, SUV, UFO, AKA, DVD, TNT, TGIF, DNA, AM/PM, CST, YTD, ETA, MBA, VP, CEO, IQ, IOU, FDIC, IRS, ATM, AARP, BS, NFL, PGA, CBS, NBC, UHF/VHF, and many, many others. And, more recently, OMG, WTF, BFF, LOL, IMO, IMHO, TMI, BTW, FYI, BCC, and so on.


The words associated with some initials, though, are not so well known:

CVS -- Consumer Value Stores

BMW -- Bavarian Motor Works

WD-40 -- Water Displacement--40th Attempt

3M -- Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing

ESPN -- Entertainment and Sports Programming Network

FAO Schwartz -- Frederick August Otto Schwartz

M&Ms -- Mars and Murrie's

CD-ROM -- Compact Disk Read-Only Memory

RSVP -- Respondez S'il Vous Plait

NOTE: These are not acronyms, because they aren't actual words. The term here is initialism.

Something that's also interesting, I think, is that there are now so many shortened words--abbreviations that have become, in some cases, more familiar than the expanded versions: limo, ad, photo, dorm, stats, hippo, rhino, email, ref, grad, exam, decaf, memo, lube, auto, flu, gator, croc, rep, sub, gym, vet, fridge, bike, semi, sitcom, deli, combo, etc. I doubt that some younger folks even know what a limousine is.



Acronyms

Definition: A pronounceable word formed by the initial letters or other parts of several words.

Again, some acronyms and their component words are well known: POTUS, NASA, ASAP, MADD, AIDS, NATO, etc.

In other cases, we might know the acronym better than we know its parts. Examples:

NERF -- Non-Expandable Recreational Foam

TASER -- Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle

LASER -- Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

RADAR -- RAdio Detection And Ranging

SONAR -- SOund Navigation And Ranging

SCUBA -- Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

CANOLA oil -- CANada Oil, Low Acid

CARE package -- Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe (later changed to the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere)

PAM -- Product of Arthur Meyerhoff

GEICO -- Government Employees Insurance Company

NABISCO -- NAtional BIScuit COmpany

NASDAQ -- National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation

SNAFU -- Situation Normal, All F***ed Up

AWOL -- Absent WithOut Leave

HUMVEE -- High Mobility Multi-purpose wheeled Vehicle (actually HMMWV)

SWAT -- Special Weapons and Tactics

KISS -- Keep It Simple, Stupid

BIT -- BInary digiT

PIN -- Personal Identification Number

MODEM -- MOdulator/DEModulator

JPEG -- Joint Photographic Experts Group

SIM card -- Subscriber Identification Module card

SPAM -- Shoulder of Pork And Ham, or SPiced hAM

AFLAC -- American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus

EPCOT -- Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (or Every Person Comes Out Tired)


Backronyms

Definition: A constructed, deliberately formed word whose initial letters are made to fit a previously determined word or phrase. They may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, and are sometimes called reverse acronyms. Examples:

GROSS -- Get Rid Of Slimy girlS (from Calvin and Hobbes)

TEA Party -- Taxed Enough Already

ZIP code -- Zone Improvement Plan

BASE jumping -- Building, Antenna, Span, or Earth (fixtures you can jump from)

SHERLOCK -- Sherlock Holmes Enthusiastic Readers League Of Criminal Knowledge

RALPH -- Royal Association for the Longevity and Preservation of the Honeymooners

BISON -- Biodiversity Serving Our Nation

COLTS -- Consumer On-Line Transaction System (named for the then-Baltimore football team)

JOVIAL -- Jules's Own Version of International Algebraic Language

GEORGE -- Georgetown Environmentalists Organization against Rats, Garbage, and Emissions

NOISE -- Neighbors Opposed to Irritating Sound Emissions

COBRA -- Cabinet Office Briefing Room A

And, from movies/TV:

SPECTRE -- the Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion

UNCLE -- United Netword Command for Law and Enforcement

THRUSH -- Technical Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity

KABOOM -- Key Atomic Benefits Organization Of Mankind (from the Naked Gun movies)

MASH -- Mobile Army Surgical Hospital

FIST -- Federated InterState Truckers

WALL-E -- Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class

RED -- Retired, Extremely Dangerous

CHUD -- Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller


Some backronyms are misleading (words mistakenly believed to be acronyms). Examples:

SOS -- Does not mean "Save Our Ship." It was chosen merely because its letters have a simple Morse code representation (three dots, three dashes, three dots).

YAHOO -- Did not come from "Yet Another Hierarchical Official Oracle." Its founders liked the word's meaning of "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth," from Gulliver's Travels.

COP -- Is not "Constable On Patrol."

NEWS -- Is not "North, East, West, and South."

CABAL -- Did not come from King Charles II's five ministers: Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. Its use predated them.

POSH -- Is not "Port Out, Starboard Home." It's derived from a word for "overdressed dandy."

GOLF -- Is not "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden."

PING -- Is not "Packet InterNet Groper." It's a utility to test (via packets) connectivity between computers.

WIKI -- Is not "What I Know Is." It's derived from the Hawaiian wiki-wiki, meaning fast.

TIP -- Is not "To Insure Promptness."

ADIDAS -- Did not come from "All Day I Dream About Sports." Its founder was Adolf "Adi" Dassler.

AMBER alert -- Did not come from "America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response." It was actually named after a missing child, Amber Hagerman.

Some goofy backronyms:

FORD -- Fix Or Repair Daily

BING -- Because It's Not Google

NAVY -- Never Again Volunteer Yourself

DELTA -- Don't Ever Leave the Airport, or Don't Expect Luggage To Arrive


In closing, two of my favorite acronyms/backronyms from my days in the Air Force;

FIGMO -- A soldier who's happily being discharged or transferred (F*** It, I Got My Orders)

OMGIF (FIGMO spelled backward) -- A soldier whose expected discharge/transfer was canceled (Oh My God, I been F***ed)


And a backcronym I found for Lee Iacocca: I Am Chairman Of Chrysler Corporation America. (Couldn't resist mentioning that one.)


OK, FYI, I'm off to the ATM, and then I'm AWOL for two weeks.  See you then.

When the Muse Takes a Powder

Although there are authors of unrivaled productivity, nearly every writer comes to periods when the Muse is unavailable. She’s pitched her hammock somewhere on the slopes of Mount Olympus, or if your favor a more modern goddess, she’s on a beach somewhere drinking pina coladas and checking her smart phone. But don’t try to contact her – she’s not taking your calls at the moment, whether you’re sacrificing at Delphi or chasing ideas on the web.

Muses by Eustace LeSueur

I’m not talking about writer’s block here, although that is another and probably more famous affliction. Joseph Conrad left two vivid descriptions of this malady. In a famous letter to Edward Garnett, he apologized for his slow correspondence. “I ought to have written to you before, but the fact is I have not written anything at all. … In the course of that working day of 8 hours I write 3 sentences which I erase before leaving the table in despair.”  In another letter he noted, surprisingly, that his imagination was extremely active during these bleak periods: “Everything is there: descriptions, dialogue, reflexion—everything—everything but the belief, the conviction, the only thing needed to make me put pen to paper.”

Joseph Conrad

Most of us would be happy to have descriptions and dialogue not to mention reflection in the hopper, but when the Muse takes a powder, it’s not will that’s lacking for most of us but ideas. Perhaps we can take some comfort in the fact that inspiration can desert even the great. I recently came across a quote from T. S. Eliot in a review of a new volume of his letters. Declaring “ it is a nuisance to be a poet”, he continues, “When it is a life work, you are sure to find from time to time that your inspiration is exhausted, and that you either repeat yourself, or stop writing. These are painful, but necessary periods.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The last sentence is the one I find most significant, especially his comment that these unpleasant dry periods are necessary. I think I agree. At the same time, I suspect that I am not the only writer that faces these fallow times with a touch of dread, fearing rationally or not, that this time the Muse and all her precious ideas are gone for good. It’s certainly possible and, at my age, increasingly likely.

On the other hand, she’s always come back before which gets us to the next question. If she cannot be summoned directly is there anything that helps? Well yes. Effort does sometimes work. Conrad, you will note, was seated at his desk for eight miserable hours a day struggling. Blocked as a poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote voluminously, turning out much admired essays and criticism, but while Conrad managed more novels, Coleridge’s poetry did not return.

On a much humbler level, I have found over the years that ideas come directly from work, particularly when the work is non-fiction or shorter prose fiction. One trains the subconscious to notice what will make, say, a good feature piece or a good short mystery story. In a slightly different way, work on a novel, which begins in a burst of inspiration, enthusiasm, and pleasure, dwindles about the second week to a slog not too different from Conrad’s misery at the writing desk.

Muse regarding a MS
with some skepticism

This is when persistence and craft have to take over until around week 3 or 4, one makes the happy discovery that more copy is waiting each morning. The Muse has been called back by hard work and conscious thought and now the subconscious can do its job.

But sometimes even dedicated persistence does not work. I started a novella a couple of years ago with the usual enthusiasm, wrote several nicely crafted sections, and came to a shuddering halt. Everything was set up nicely, prose was good, voice interesting, characters all right – but the story went nowhere.

It was only a few months ago, that, trying to clean out my file drawers, I read it over, thought it was pretty good, and after a couple weeks of struggle, got back on track and finished the thing. So, while I always encouraged students to try regular habitual writing, I must say that I also believe in the hydraulic theory of composition. The subconscious takes time to fill up. There is only so much energy, inspiration, enthusiasm and confidence available at any one time. Deplete them, and you have to let the Muse lounge in her hammock for a while.

The Roman Emperor Elagabalus & His Big Stone God

by Brian Thornton

[Today's entry is the latest in my on-going miniseries cataloging infamous bastards throughout history. For previous entries, click here, here, and here.]

I will not describe the barbaric chants which [Elagabalus], together with his mother and grandmother, chanted to [Elagabal], or the secret sacrifices that he offered to him, slaying boys and using charms, in fact actually shutting up alive in the god’s temple a lion, a monkey and a snake, and throwing in among them human genitals, and practicing other unholy rites.

                                                                                                                                — Dio Cassius

If you’re going to catalogue historical bastardry throughout the ages, you’d better plan to touch on that colorful period in the historical record known as “Imperial Rome.”  As with the Papacy, the sheer number of men who wore the emperor’s purple robes over the empire’s five-plus centuries lends itself to the likelihood that the throne would occasionally be occupied by someone so “eccentric” that he stood out in a crowded field of “personalities” like Michael Jordan playing basketball with a bunch of kindergarteners.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Varius Avitus Bassianus, a young, Syrian-born aristocrat who ruled the empire under the very Roman-sounding name of “Marcus Aurelius Antoninus” from 218 to 222 A.D., but was better known by the nick-name “Elagabalus.”

Elagabalus was so much more than an emperor.  He was also the hereditary high priest of a Syrian sun god cult that worshipped a craggy, two-ton phallic-shaped meteorite as the actual physical incarnation of his god (“Elagabal,” or “El-Gabal,” from which he derived his nick-name).  He was also a transsexual cross-dresser who wore more make-up than most strippers, and allegedly worked as a hooker out of his rooms in the imperial palace.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg (or, if you prefer, the meteorite).

Elagabalus was a shirt-tail relation of the great (and ruthless) emperor Septimius Severus.  His grandmother was Severus’ sister-in-law.  When Severus’ direct line died out (and the story of how that all played out is grist for a future post), Elagabalus’ grandmother (Julia Maesa) and mother (Julia Soaemias) schemed along with a eunuch named Gannys to put the boy forward as a plausible claimant to the imperial throne.

The kid was all of fourteen.  But, a couple of battles, an army proclamation declaring him emperor and an execution of the unpopular if effective Gannys later, and Elagabalus (along with his mother and grandmother) was on his way to Rome.

When he got there he made quite a splash, not least because he brought his god with him.

Literally.

This massive “sky stone” was ensconced in a new temple complex built expressly for it, right next to the old Flavian Amphitheatre (what we know today as the “Colosseum”) on Rome’s Palatine Hill, and named the “Elagaballium.”

The big rock even got its own coin!

During Rome’s annual Midsummer Day festival, the ancient writer Herodian reports:

[Elagabalus] placed the sun god in a chariot adorned with gold and jewels and brought him out from the city to the suburbs.  A six-horse chariot carried the divinity, the horses huge and flawlessly white, with expensive gold fittings and rich ornaments.  No one held the reins, and no one rode with the chariot; the vehicle was escorted as if the god himself were the charioteer.  Elagabalus ran backward in front of the chariot, facing the god and holding the horses’ reins.  He made the whole journey in this reverse fashion, looking up into the face of his god.

Aquilia Severa

As if that weren’t shaking things up enough for his new subjects, Elagabalus promptly swept aside the old Roman pantheon of gods, and “married” his god Elagabal to the Roman goddess Minerva.  As a mortal “echo” of this Heavenly union Elagabalus then did the truly unthinkable: he took one of Rome’s Vestal Virgins as his wife.  Dedicated to the Roman mother goddess Vesta, whose service obliged these priestesses to remain virgins during their thirty years of service.  If one of them didn’t, the punishment was for her to be buried alive.  And Elagabalus took one of them, a woman named Aquilia Severa as his wife not once, but twice!

In the four years he was emperor Elagabalus took at least three different women as his wife.  These marriages were likely arranged by his grandmother and mother (“the Julias”) in order to help preserve the fiction that “Imperator Marcus Aurelius Antoninus” was a solid, dependable Roman citizen and emperor, rather than the capricious Syrian drag-queen high-priest of a bloody-thirsty sun-worshipping cult.  It was hoped that keeping up this appearance would help cement support for his reign.  In fact, these two formidable women proved themselves to be particularly shrewd and capable administrators.  Put simply, things ran so smoothly in Rome and throughout the empire that for a while people didn’t seem to mind how much of a “free spirit” their emperor appeared to be.

And a “free spirit” he definitely was.  Although Romans had tolerated the tendency among some of their previous emperors to take male lovers, homosexuality in ancient Rome was by and large frowned upon.  Elagabalus flouted this attitude by taking as his “husband” a big, burly slave from Caria; a charioteer of some skill named Hierocles.  One of his favorite roles to play was that of the “cheating wife,” allowing himself to be “caught” in bed with another man by Hierocles, who then beat the emperor (who apparently enjoyed “rough trade”), at times so badly that ‘he had black eyes’ for days afterward.

Probably transsexual, Elagabalus seemed obsessed with becoming more like a woman, not with just taking men to bed. The Historia Augusta reports that the emperor “had the whole of his body depilated,” and according to the disapproving contemporary historian and senator Dio Cassius, Elagabalus “had planned, indeed, to cut off his genitals altogether,” but settled for having himself circumcised as “a part of the priestly requirements” of his cult.

By the time Elagabalus turned seventeen his continual nose-thumbing at Rome’s religious, social and sexual norms began to take a toll on his public image.  In 221 two different legions mutinied and just barely missed proclaiming their respective generals “augustus” (“emperor”) in his stead.

The formidable Julia Maesa

This unrest did not escape the attention of Elagabalus’ grandmother, the Augusta Julia Maesa.  Her hold on the levers of power depended on her grandson staying in the good graces of both the people and army, and his increasingly erratic behavior and eroding popularity with his subjects made the dowager empress very nervous.

She opted to advance Bassianus Alexianus, another of her grandsons, as Elagabalus’ co-ruler and “heir” (he was only four years younger than Elagabalus) with the ruling name “Severus Alexander.”  He too had a strong-willed mother named “Julia” (Julia Mamea), who “guided his actions.”

At first Elagabalus and his mother went along with the move.  Within weeks, however, the senior emperor had changed his mind and tried to have his younger cousin killed.  A power struggled ensued.  The modest, retiring Alexander was popular with the people, and especially with the army.

Don't make demands while standing in their camp!

It all finally came to a head in March of 222, when Elagabalus flew into a rage during a meeting with the commanders of his personal bodyguard (the Praetorian Guard, which also acted as the city of Rome’s police force).  Having been reminded again and again of the “virtues” of his younger cousin, Elagabalus once more called for Alexander’s arrest and execution, bitterly denouncing the Praetorians for preferring his cousin to himself.

It was not a smart thing to do this while still standing in the middle of their camp.

The emperor, only just eighteen years old, was chased down by his own bodyguard and killed in one of the camp latrines.  Supposedly his last words were, “Leave my mother alone!”  If those actually were his final wishes, they were ignored.  His mother was killed right alongside him.  Their bodies were beheaded, and dragged through the streets of Rome.  The corpse of Elagabalus wound up in the Tiber River: the sort of burial that contemporary Roman law reserved for criminals.

Later historians (especially Christians) whipped up improbable tales of human sacrifice conducted by this teenaged demagogue, and speculated wildly about the various depravities in which he might have indulged.  This speculation included the unlikely story of how “Heliogabalus” (sic) invited several very important people to a dinner party only to have them smothered to death under the weight of several hundred pounds of flowers.  This painting trades upon that myth.

The truth as we can divine it about Elagabalus is far more interesting.  After all, what gender-confused, hormonally addled teenager wouldn’t go off the rails if handed the literal “keys to the kingdom”?  It sure makes for one fascinating bastard.

A modern artist's (rather tame) vision of Elagabalus' entry into Rome, complete with dancing girls and his big stone god

See you in two weeks!

All the World's a Con, Dublin Style

by Robert Lopresti

Two weeks ago I wrote about my recent trip to Ireland.  We finished up at the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin.  Imagine 5,000 plus dedicated fans spending five days discussing books, movies, writing, science, and related issues.  Bouchercon on steroids.  So here are some highlights, and a few, uh, sidelights.

As it happened the first panel I attended was "A Portable Sort of Magic: Why We Love Books About Books."  Oddly enough, it turned out to NOT be about books.  It was mostly psalms in favor of libraries; not that I complained about that.  Genevieve Cogman writes a series of books called the Invisible Library, which (as I understood it) features people collecting books from around the universe.  A.J. Hackwith has written The Library of the Unwritten, about the place that books go if their authors never get around to writing them.  Tasha Suri, who is also a librarian, made useful distinctions between a library and an archive (briefly: an archive stores the only or original copy of something).

She also pointed out that those beloved "little libraries" that pop up on so many street corners are not libraries either.  They are book swaps.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course.  And I learned that almost every bus in Hamburg, Germany, has a book swap shelf.  What a great idea!

For some reason I wound up seeing a lot of panels featuring editors, and they were full of startling moments.  For example, one important book editor was not familiar with the phrase "Kill your darlings," which astonished me.

At one panel someone mentioned elevator pitches and editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden quoted what seemed to be a standard joke pitch for (I assume) a TV series:  "He's a chimp.  She's the Pope.  They're cops."  I'd watch that!

There was a panel of anthology editors and I asked: when they solicit stories from authors, what do they tell them about payment?  The editors seemed astonished.  "Nothing!" they declared.  Apparently science fiction authors are much less tied to petty materialistic things than mystery writers...

But the highlight for me was when I attended a panel featuring Wataru Ishigame, who edits science fiction for Tokyo Sogen.  Afterwards I went up to introduce myself and explain our connection but I never got the chance.  As soon as he saw my name tag he said "We publish your books!"  So we had a lovely chat.

I attended interesting science panels on "The Future of Food" and on DNA testing.  I won't attempt to summarize that stuff.

But honestly I didn't attend as many panels as I hoped because the Convention Centre Dublin was overwhelmed.  If you wanted to attend a session at noon you had to forgo any 11 AM session and get in line by 11:30.  It was that kind of crowding.  And the security staff was pretty unbearable, especially on the first day.  (The week before had been Comicon and I wonder if they were, in effect, fighting the last war?)

My favorite example of the problem.  My wife had been waiting in line for half an hour when a security guard came up and told her she was facing the wrong way.  Not that she was in the wrong place.  Not that she was in the wrong line.  But that she had to turn around and face the same direction as everyone else.  Daring rebel that she is, my wife said "No," and the guard backed down.  But, sheesh.

One more story.  I volunteered to work at the Registration Desk on Wednesday and Thursday morning.  During my four hour shift on Thursday my daypack vanished.  I didn't think any member of the public would have been able to steal it so I figured one of the other registration mavens had relocated it.  But no one could find it.

The good news is, it turned up on Saturday, literally minutes before I was going to leave to try to purchase a replacement.  I am very grateful to everyone who hunted for it and made an effort to get it back to me.

But, as they say in management school, it is possible to distinguish between process and product.  While the product was great (got my daypack!) the process had a few bumpy patches.  To illustrate, let me imagine a discussion that must have occurred.  I will try to refrain from sarcasm.

"Hey! Here is the daypack that charming and devilishly handsome volunteer was looking for.  I will take it across the foyer to the Lost and Found desk."  
"No, don't do that."
"Ah, I understand.  Because it is the end of the day you think I should take it directly three flights up to the Ops Office where lost objects are locked safely away for the night."
"No, don't do that either.  I happen to know that that volunteer's wife was working in the Finance Office, so take it up there."
"Are you sure she will volunteer there again?"
"No, but it stands to reason if she did one shift she will do another, doesn't it?"
"I suppose so.  Very well.  I will carry the daypack up the five flights and leave a note for her so she  knows it's there."
"Don't be silly!  No need to waste trees with paper notes. Just tell whoever is in the Finance Office about it and if/when she returns I'm sure one of the people you mention it to will happen to be there at the same time, will recognize her, remember what you mentioned, and be able to find the pack in the office, which, of course, is not set up to store missing items."
"Yes, that makes perfect sense.  But first I will stroll over to the Lost and Found Desk and tell them so they can stop looking for the pack and delete it from their database of missing objects."
"Again, why this obsession with direct communication?  I'm sure if we simply float happy thoughts in their direction they will grasp that the object has been found and make the corrections to their files."
"Thanks.  Now I understand.  I will  carry the daypack up five flights on the overcrowded escalators the nice security guards asked us not to overuse, rather than simply walking across the foyer to the Lost and Found Desk where any sensible person would expect a missing object to be returned."

Possibly a smidge of sarcasm slipped in there.  I hope you didn't notice.

To be fair, a Worldcon attendee whose opinion I greatly respect told me she would have also decided to bring the bag up to the Finance Office.  I replied: would you have told the Lost and Found folks that it had been recovered?  No, she said, but it would have been a good idea.

I think so too.

Those of you have seen my reports on other events can guess that I am about to include some quotes from panels.  There aren't so many this time because of the issues described above, but here you go...

"We can't put stuff back in Pandora's box but we can slip a warning label on the side." - Aimee Ogden

"A library is essentially a place of possibility." - A.J. Hackwith

"He's the sort of person you have to go into business with or you have to have him killed." - Patrick Nielsen Hayden

"When I originally wrote that novel I had a main character who I fired.  We had a labor dispute." - Benjamin Rosenbaum

"If your voice goes up at the end that doesn't necessarily make it a question." - Ginjer Buchanan

"I love that book.  It should not work.  It annoys me that he's that brilliant." - Laura Anne Gilman

"I am a science fiction writer and that is why I'm not having my DNA tested." -Aimee Ogden

"You have to blame something and it can't be me." - John R. Douglas

Pithy and Thought-Provoking...or Not

by Michael Bracken

I’ve been so busy the past month that I’ve not had time to draft something pithy and thought-provoking. In August, I traveled to Colorado to attend the debut of a play written and directed by my youngest son. Then Temple and I traveled to Indiana to visit my daughter—whom I’ve not seen in eight years—and her family, which includes grandchildren we met for the first time. Before, between, and after the trips, I’ve been reading through submissions to a special issue of Black Cat Mystery Magazine and working on Season 2 of Guns + Tacos (due out in 2020) and Mickey Finn 2 (due out in 2021).

So, I dove into the files and found the following, a presentation I gave to the Mystery Writers of America’s Southwest Chapter at their September 2018 luncheon in Houston.


SHORT STORIES: FROM CONCEPT TO SALE, HOW THIS FORM CAN SATISFY

I write short stories. A lot of them.

In a publishing environment where many writers bemoan the lack of markets for short fiction, I’ve placed more than 1,200 short stories. That’s 4.2 million words, give or take, or the equivalent of 70 short novels.

When I began writing as a teenager in the 1970s, short story publication was considered the first step to becoming a genre novelist. Writers learned their craft by publishing short fiction in the popular magazines of the day before grappling with the complexity and length of novels. They established writing credentials, providing heft to their query and cover letters, and developed a readership before their first novel ever hit the wire racks at the grocery store.

That doesn’t seem to happen much today, and many writers, perhaps encouraged by the ease of publication offered by low-cost self-publishing, leap directly into novel writing without first establishing their writing skills and publishing credentials. Among those who succeed as novelists, some write short stories as an afterthought and some established novelists write short fiction only at the invitation of anthology editors. Whether they succeed or fail as novelists, few writers make a sincere effort to write short stories and fewer still earn a significant portion of their income from short fiction.

That’s a mistake.

Writing short fiction has several advantages over writing novels. A writer who devotes time and attention to short fiction can explore different genres, can experiment with different styles, and can develop a familiarity with several genres faster than most novelists. Additionally, short story writers quickly discover which genres play to their strengths and can avoid, or at least mitigate, the career damage caused by spending too much time dabbling in inappropriate genres.

As high school students, my best friend and I were determined to become the next Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. For several years I kept science fiction short stories circulating among all the professional and semi-professional science fiction magazines, but I achieved only modest success. On the other hand, after encouragement from the editor of a men’s magazine, I sold the first three mystery short stories I wrote. I have since sold short fiction in nearly every genre—with particular success in crime fiction and women’s fiction—and I continue to try new things.

Markets for short fiction no longer assault you at every magazine rack the way they did during the heyday of the pulp magazines or even during the 1970s when I began my career. Back then I could easily locate several dozen magazines devoted to short fiction—mystery, science fiction, and women’s fiction the most prevalent.

While some genre magazines remain—Alfred Hitchcock’s and Ellery Queen’s among them—and new genre magazines come and go, the best markets for short stories may be publications not known for publishing fiction. The weekly publication Woman’s World, for example, publishes 104 short stories each year, one romance and one mystery each issue.

Finding markets for short fiction, therefore, becomes a literary treasure hunt, one that only the truly dedicated attempt. I regularly stand at magazine racks and thumb through magazines I don’t normally read, looking for evidence of short fiction. I also search for on-line publications and print publications that maintain an on-line presence, looking for publications I can’t find at local newsstands. Sometimes what I find is clearly identified as fiction; sometimes it isn’t. For example, the short stories I used to write for True Story were presented as if they are, in fact, true.

Literary and small press publications—both on-line and in print—also publish fiction. Unfortunately, they often pay little or nothing. Prior to submitting to small press publications, I examine them carefully to determine if the stories they publish are well written and presented in a professional manner, if the contributors include writers well-known in their genre, and if any stories they have published have later been nominated for awards or been included in best-of-year anthologies.

General interest magazines are increasingly hard to find as publishers target narrower and narrower demographics. So, one of the most important things to remember in today’s publishing environment is the need to write to market.

While many writers prefer to write first and seek appropriate publications later, I’ve found it beneficial to target my markets before I begin writing. Targeting markets is a two-step process that involves understanding the conventions of the genre or sub-genre in which I write and then understanding the publications for which I wish to write.

Many of today’s publications seek to address a particular audience. A close examination of any magazine will reveal a great deal of information about the publication’s readers or, at least, the readers the publication is attempting to reach. Often the fiction contained within these publications presents characters the readers see as “just like me” or an idealized “just like me,” so the more I know about the readers, the better I am able to develop appropriate characters and plots when I write for these publications.

On a more practical level, I determine how many short stories the magazine publishes each issue, the length of the stories, what genre or genres are represented, and any stylistic requirements the magazine may have. Once I’ve done all that, it’s time to write.

The keys to successfully placing short stories—presuming basic literacy and some minimum level of talent—are high productivity and dogged determination. Beginning August 2003 and ending May 2018 I had one or more—sometimes as many as nine!—stories published each and every month. That’s 178 consecutive months. And beginning in July I’m three months into a new streak. That doesn’t happen without producing a lot of material.

While I don’t write fiction every day and don’t set daily page count or word count goals the way other writers do, I do set goals. I determine how many sales I’d like to achieve in a given year, and then I determine how many short stories I must complete to reach that goal. When I first began pounding the keyboard as a teenager, my goal was to sell one story. To anybody. After I achieved that, my goal was to sell a second story. Back then I completed dozens of short stories for each one that finally reached publication. My odds have improved since then and I now complete approximately eleven stories for every ten that sell.

I also keep manuscripts circulating on the firm belief that my work will be published eventually. These days some of my stories are written on assignment and many others are accepted by the first or second editor to read them—in part because I’m a more experienced writer and in part because I have a better understanding of the markets—but a few of my published stories were seen by dozens of editors before acceptance and one story—“I Can’t Touch the Clouds for You” (Sun, July 25, 2005)—spent thirty years visiting slush piles before reaching print.

Writing short fiction has allowed me to entertain many readers, to work with editors across multiple genres, and to generate steady income from writing while developing my craft.

And, if I ever decide to write another novel, I’m going to have one hell of a cover letter.

My story “Love, Or Something Like It” appears in the forthcoming Crime Travel (Wildside Press), an anthology of time travel mysteries, edited by fellow SleuthSayer Barb Goffman. Learn more and preorder here.

The Play's the Thing

by Steve Liskow

Not long ago, I saw an audition call for a production of a play I performed in years ago, a mystery called Wait Until Dark. It's a rarity, a good mystery play that began as a play instead of being adapted from either a book or a film. There are several good mysteries on film, but most of them began as films or novels. My wife Barbara, who still acts in five or six plays a year and impersonates an 1890s British maid at the Mark Twain House, and I spent the rest of the evening trying to think of other good mystery plays that aren't adaptations.

It's a short list, and I don't like several of them for crochety reasons of my own. Obviously, many of Shakespeare's plays involve crime or mysteries: Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Lear, Caesar. I won't include them. Aeschylus gave us The Oresteia 2500 years ago, only a few years before Sophocles graced us with Oedipus The King, maybe the earliest detective story. I won't include those, either.

All those plays involve stage conventions we now consider "unrealistic" or "old-fashioned." The mystery form has conventions itself, and some of them are artificial, too. Red herrings, delaying a discovery, the impossible crime, and multiple suspects are pretty much standard procedure. Maybe that's why a script that leans heavily on staginess is effective for many of the plays I include below.

Investigating a mystery often involves moving from place to place, so a challenge in a mystery play is limiting scene/set changes that slow down the action. There are two ways to do this, one a staple of Shakespeare and the Greeks. That's the lack of a stage set at all. The audience has to imagine a different place for the action, often given the cue through dialogue ("What woods are these?"). The other is to construct a play that happens in one location. That's tough.

Barb and I have been involved in productions of most of these plays, which colors my judgment.

Book of Days by Lanford Wilson. Wilson passed away in 2011 after producing a body of work that equals Miller or Williams. He wrote roles for William Hurt, Christopher Reeve, Richard Thomas, Joan Allen, John Malkovich, and Judd Hirsch, among others. I directed this play about ten years ago, and Barb acted in it. In fact, I lost an actor less than a week before opening and had to step into his role myself. 


 If Raymond Chandler had written Our Town, the result might have been Book of Days. On a bare stage, 12 characters interact with each other and the audience to discuss how Walt, one of the small town's leading citizens, dies in a freak hunting accident. Apparently, a tree fell on him during a tornado and his shotgun went off. But there are inconsistencies, and by the play's end, the audience understands who killed Walt, how and why it was done, and that the killer will get away with it.

Book of Days, my wife at lower right, me 4th from right

The play uses a bare stage but has over 90 scenes in 17 locations. We used light changes and a few basic props to keep the story going, just like the Greeks and Shakespeare.

Agnes of God by John Pielmeier uses the same black box strategy and for the same reasons. The artificiality is effective because we don't KNOW exactly what happened even though we understand the broad outlines. On a set consisting of two chairs and a standing ashtray, a female psychiatrist tells of being called in to evaluate the competence of a young nun. Agnes is accused of killing a newborn baby she claims she bore after an immaculate conception. If she is ruled rational, she faces a trial for murder. Otherwise, she will go to an insane asylum. The only other character is the Mother Superior who accuses the psychiatrist of bias against the Catholic Church. Barbara was learning the lines for Agnes as we went on our honeymoon.

I've seen two other productions, and all three had problems. It's hard to strike a balance between the characters and the story, but some scenes--a hypnotized Agnes reliving the agony of giving birth, for example--will keep you awake at night. She's clearly crazy, but does that automatically mean she's lying?

The less said about the film starring Jane Fonda, the better. Why anyone thought that stripping the play of its theatricality and trying to present literal reality on film is a bigger mystery than the play itself.

Equus by Peter Schaeffer also uses several locations with only the barest of furniture, and for the same reasons. Schaeffer passed away in 2016 at age 90 after writing many other acclaimed works, including Amadeus, which is also sort of a mystery.

The play gives us another psychiatrist treating a young patient, this time a teen-aged boy accused of blinding several horses in the stable where he worked. My wife played the boy's mother and a mutual friend played the psychiatrist (Shrinks are big in mystery drama: at least one of the plays I left off this list also has one). Actors wearing elaborate wire-frame heads play the horses. The nightmare moment of the play comes on a completely dark stage when all the horses' eyes light up, little red pilot lights across the back of the stage...and advance to surround the boy. Unlike Agnes, this play answers all our questions. Lucky us.

Equus cast & crew. Horse's head at bottom

Wait Until Dark by Frederick Knott appeared on Broadway in 1966, and Lee Remick earned a Tony nomination as the blind woman who knows killers will break into her apartment that night. She smashes all the light bulbs in the apartment so she can fight them on equal terms. Robert Duvall played the ringleader in that production, and I wish I had seen the moment when he shows Susie the one light she forgot to smash: the bulb in the refrigerator (In theater parlance, we refer to this as the "Oh &$%# Moment").

The film version, a year or two later, drags badly. It allows us to see outside, too, which removes the claustrophobic feel of being trapped in the apartment. Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna and Jack Weston are excellent as the bad guys, but Audrey Hepburn's weepy and whiny blind girl is annoying. She's all wrong for the role. I played the Crenna role years ago, and now Jeffrey Hatcher has reworked the play and set it in the 1940s. The play has to be done in an older time period because a photographic dark room is vital, but I don't understand why someone felt it needed to be rewritten.

Death Trap by Ira Levin. Levin, who wrote many other works, including the novel that became the film Rosemary's Baby, saw this 1978 drama become the longest-running comedy-drama on Broadway. It was nominated for several Tony Awards, including Best Play. Another very stagy work, it involves two playwrights, a newcomer and a seasoned pro, who work together on a project that won't make it to the stage. The play-within-a-play structure works, and the script abounds with dark humor and theater in-jokes, including using a crossbow as a weapon. Done well, it's wonderful. Don badly, it's...well, deadly. I saw a local production with the same friend who played the psychiatrist in Equus as one lead and a former student as the other. The excellent film starred Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, and Dyan Cannon. Hard to go wrong there.

That's it. If the plays don't work, the fault, dear Brutus is not in our star actors, but in ourselves.

Jan Grape's Found Dead in Texas: Whatever Has To Be Done, part 2

Yesterday, we brought you a treat, an anthologized story set in Texas. That was Part 1; today we give you Part 2.

Crime family Jan Grape and her husband Elmer have enjoyed a long, varied, and storied career in the mystery business. Besides writing, besides winning awards, besides running a bookstore, besides getting away with murder, Jan knows everybody in the business… everybody.

This tale from Jan’s collection, Found Dead in Texas II, originally appeared in Deadly Allies II (Doubleday 1994). Pour a cup of coffee and enjoy this, the second part.

— Velma

Whatever Has To Be Done
Part 2

by Jan Grape

continued…

Just before 5:00 p.m., Elwanda Watson called and changed our meeting to her home. I stacked the paperwork on my desk, told C.J. I’d see her tomorrow, not that she heard me - she was still wrestling with the computer. Just before the door closed, however, she called out “Sunday brunch at my house, okay?”

Saturday afternoon traffic around the LaGrange Building was thicker than bees around molasses, maddening, but normal. The building is located two and a half blocks from the Galleria. Even in the early fifties, this whole area was still part of a dairy farm. Now, a six-block square area of high dollar shopping malls, department and specialty stores, hotels and high rise office buildings, including developer Gerald Hines’ sixty-five story, Transco Tower, filled the land where Crimson Clover used to grow and cows got fat. From the air, the whole area was filled with concrete, steel and bronzed glass and, looked like a city skyline, but it’s six miles from downtown Houston in suburbia-land. The lack of zoning laws here makes for some unusual building developments.

Elwanda Watson lived in a story and a half house made of white brick and wood and cedar shakes, four miles West of my office. An older neighborhood built in the late fifties before contractors and architects took a notion to make suburban houses all look alike. These were in a wide range of individual styles and colors. A huge Magnolia tree stood sentinel in front and a pink bicycle lay on it’s side in the St. Augustine grass. Four baskets of white and burgundy Impatiens hung from the eaves.

The woman who answered the door was short, overweight, with ponderous breasts and hips almost scraping the doorway. She had short, dark hair streaked heavily with gray and a startled expression which seemed to be a permanent look. She wore a dingy, white sweat suit, no make-up and said she was Elwanda Watson. It would be difficult to believe Liz Loudermilk came from this woman’s womb, if it had not been for the eyes. That unique shade of blue, tingeing to violet. Either Elwanda had lost her beauty long ago, or Liz got her looks from her father.

She led me to a large kitchen/den area, both paneled in knotty pine, and there were children’s play noises coming from the back yard. She indicated I should sit in the chair across from the sofa and brought tall glasses of iced tea before settling on the Early American style sofa.

I glanced around, the room had the look of having been hastily picked up. A large entertainment cabinet stood against one wall. Wires and plugs stuck out and dangled from the front and one side, indicating sound and electronics had once been installed and then removed. A small TV set was alone on a shelf. Newspapers, magazines, books, and games; Monopoly, Scrabble, Uncle Wiggly, Yahtzee, Pa-chiz-si, dominoes and cards, were piled on and in the cabinet. The drape hung loose from the rod on one side and drug on the floor. It was an “I don’t care look,” much like the woman herself. Two failed marriages had taken their toll. “Ms. Gordon, what . . .” she said.

Smiling at her, I said, “Call me Jenny, please.”

“And I’m Elwanda. Well, Jenny, what is it you wish to know? This whole horrible thing is too, too weird. Poor old J.W. dead. And Voda Beth accused of killing him. Unbelievable, I tell you. It just boggles my mind.”

“It’s hard to believe Voda Beth killed J.W.?”

“I’d just never figure her to do something so awful. She seems like such a nice person. Gracious and polite to me and she’s been really kind and generous to my Liz.”

“Really? Liz doesn’t share your feelings.”

“Oh that Liz. She can act like as spoiled brat. The things I could tell you would take half the night. But you don’t have time for that. She mouths off about Voda Beth something terrible sometimes, but deep down, I know she likes her step-mom.”

“That wasn’t the impression I got this morning.”

“Oh, I know,” said Elwanda. “Liz told me how tacky she was this morning and asked me to apologize for the things she said.”

“She doesn’t owe me an apology.”

“Well, she did mislead you. Made it seem like Voda Beth was a wicked person when she’s not.” She rubbed both eyes like a person just waking up. “My daughter is beautiful and brilliant, but she can also act like a two year old when she doesn’t get her way. Sooner or later you have to give in. Of course, she’s always sorry afterward and will make up for it a hundred ways.”

Despite Elwanda’s trying to make Liz sound like nothing more than a rebellious and rambunctious child, I had seen the rage Liz had for Voda Beth. It wasn’t just a temper tantrum. I’d hate to see that rage turned on anyone. Elwanda was maternally blind to her child’s faults. She didn’t want to think otherwise, and I thought it best to get off that subject.

“Voda Beth claimed J.W. was beating her when she killed him. Was he ever abusive to you?”

“Oh, my. No. I was married to the man for ten years and he never raised a hand to me.” She looked directly at me and her wide-eyed look of astonishment was more pronounced. “And I don’t see him abusing Voda Beth, either. He worshiped her. He was always a kind and wonderful husband. And father. Always.”

If that was true, I wondered, then why did she divorce this boy scout? I had to ask. “Why did you. . .”

“Divorce him? He left me. For another woman. Not Voda Beth, it was over long before he met her. There were lots of other women. Some men are born womanizers and J.W. was one. That is, until Voda Beth caught him. I don’t think he ever strayed from her.” Tears welled up in those big violet eyes and, this overweight, throw-away wife’s voice held a wistful note.

“What about his low boiling point?”

It took her a moment to speak, “He could get angry, real easy-like when he was young, but he’d mellowed out. Even so, his anger never, ever, led to violence.”

“Did Voda Beth ever go out on him?”

“I don’t think so. He probably would’ve told me if she had.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“It’s sounds funny I guess, but after he married her, he and I got real friendly-like. I mean, like close friends. He apologized for hurting me in the past. He was so good when my marriage with Don Watson broke up. Offered me money because he knew I was having a hard time with four little kids.”

At their mention, the children’s voices outside reached a crescendo and she walked to the patio door to check. Evidently, it was nothing which needed her presence. Mother-like, however, she stuck her head out and told them to stop whatever they were doing and find something else to do. She came back to the sofa and sat. “I think, it was because he was finally happy. He said once, Voda Beth had taught him the right way to treat a woman and he’d learned his lesson.”

Obviously, Elwanda still had deep feelings for J.W. Loudermilk and she wasn’t going to say anything against him. Unfortunately, what she said was detrimental to my client. If J.W. didn’t have a history of abusing women, it looked like Voda Beth had lied. I stood, “I appreciate your talking to me.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t more help.” We headed to the front door and she said, “Oh, I just thought of something. It’s possible they had some fights over Liz. That was one thing he could get angry enough to come to blows over. Although, I still don’t see it.”

“Why not?”

“Liz would have told me about it.”

After the way the girl had talked about her mother, I was not sure she’d confide in Elwanda, but what do I know about daughters? Especially teen-age ones.

“Liz was very angry with her father the past few years - for breaking up our marriage, for marrying Voda Beth. For what she saw as him neglecting her. She would gripe and complain how he didn’t pay any attention to her, how he was always fawning over Voda Beth. Now that I think on it, she must have been jealous of her father.”

That could explain the rage I saw in the girl. “I guess that’s normal in young girls who want their father all to themselves.”

“She could get all worked about it. Throw fits and scream at him. That’s one reason, he made her move out of the house.”

“He made his own daughter leave?”

“About three months ago. She was working and making good money, but she would stay out all hours and do things to aggravate him - like smoking pot in the house. Anyway, he got fed up and although, Voda Beth tried to stop him, he made Liz get a place of her own. She was really bent all out of shape over that for awhile.”

“I guess it’s hard to be a parent, these days.” I thanked her again and left.

I headed back to my apartment, grateful the traffic had slacked off, it gave me time to wonder about my client. Whatever had happened that night in the Loudermilk’s home was still muddled, but it looked as if my client had lied through her teeth.

I ate a light dinner, grilled chicken and a big salad and spent the rest of the evening reading a P.I. novel.

I went to bed and just before drifting off to sleep, I decided tomorrow I’d call Lieutenant Larry Hays of Houston’s homicide department. Maybe the police and autopsy reports would give me some fresh insights.

---

I called Larry Hays on his car phone and caught him as he was driving away from headquarters to go have breakfast. “No rest for the wicked, huh?”

“Not on Sunday,” he said. “Meet me at Kay’s in twenty minutes.”

Kay’s was a favorite hang-out of law enforcement personnel. The restaurant’s owner, Bert DeLeon, had a thing about listening to the cop’s war stories. He really got into that stuff. He’d been especially fond of my late husband, and when Tommy introduced me to him, I figured if Bert had not approved, Tommy would not have proposed. Kay’s served family style food and gave better service than the high priced restaurants.

Lieutenant Hays sat at the back booth on the west side and a mug of coffee was waiting for me. “Are you eating?” he asked.

“Just an English muffin and half a grapefruit.”

“Watching your weight again?”

“Always. I weighed 125 this morning.”

“That’s about your normal isn’t it?”

“Yes, but you know how I love chicken-fried steak and Mexican food and the only way I can indulge, is to keep this five feet six inch woman on that 125.”

“Poor baby.”

Larry is six, three and weighs about 185 and never has to watch his weight because he has a great metabolism. It was frustrating and I tried not to think about it. “Just shut up and eat your cholesterol filled eggs and pancakes and bacon.”

“I intend to.”

Larry had been my husband’s partner and friend from the day they were rookies, until politics had caused Tommy to resign and become a private detective. Larry took on a self-appointed task of watching out for me after my husband was killed and sometimes, it was stifling. We’d had several arguments about it, but recently, he had weakened. Mostly because I’d learned from C.J. how to handle myself. He was a damn good cop and I respected his opinions. It was easier when he respected mine.

After we’d eaten, he answered my questions about the Loudermilk case. “The medical examiner has some doubts about your client’s story.”

“What?”

“The angle of the shot for one thing. Mrs. Loudermilk says she was crouched on the bed when she shot him, that doesn’t wash. The M.E. says the shooter was standing. If she were as close to him as she says there would have been powder burns on his body. The M.E. says the shooter had to be standing, at least, twelve to fourteen feet away.”

“Wow. Bulldog’s not going to like that.”

Larry ran a big hand through his sandy hair, “Probably a good thing, I don’t think he can prove she was abused.”

“Why not?”

“I talked to our police psychologist and, although, he didn’t talk to her, he says she doesn’t display the attitude of a battered woman. Immediately after a battering, most woman usually act meek and acquiescent. She came in there full of self-confidence. Almost daring us to believe her.” Larry signaled the waitress to bring him more coffee. “She’s got all the buzz words and phrases down pat. Like how he got boozed up and how he used his open hand on her face and his fists on her breasts and abdomen.”

“Yeah, she gave me those classic statements, too, the ones I’ve read about; like how he’d say he was sorry and how she deserved it.”

His hazel eyes narrowed, “At one point Thursday night, the sex crimes unit took her over to get a medical exam. No evidence of sexual intercourse. They noticed a couple of bruises on her torso, but thought they could have been self-inflicted. She gave us a pretty good story, but she hasn’t given us the truth, yet.”

“Could she be covering for someone. Like maybe the daughter?”

“Possibly, but the captain and the D.A. want to go ahead with the indictment, anyway. The physical evidence and her confession wraps everything up in a nice neat package with a big bow. I just never have liked neat packages.”

“The daughter is seething with rage against the step-mother.”

“Rage isn’t evidence. Lots of daughters hate their step-parents. You don’t have to worry. Bulldog will plead Voda Beth on diminished capacity and get her off or he’ll plea bargain.” He absently stirred the coffee and then realized he hadn’t added the sugar yet. “I do have a funny feeling there’s something else.”

“I guess I’d better talk to Bulldog. He’s not going to be too happy with this.”

“Likely not.” He grabbed the check and stood, “I hate to eat and run,” he said, “but I’ve got to go interrogate witnesses in a drive-by shooting last night.”

“Have fun.”

“Oh, yeah.” He said harshly, his mind already to the task that lay ahead.

I headed for the office and, for once, the traffic wasn’t a problem. Sunday morning is one of the rare good times to drive in this congested Bayou city.

I had talked with C.J. before leaving home and canceled our brunch date, she said she’d go to the office and see what she could turn up on the computer. She wanted to run credit records on all three women, Voda Beth and Liz Loudermilk and Elwanda Watson; and throw in J.W. Loudermilk, too.

She’d made coffee. I poured a cup and sat down next to her desk. She had not found anything unusual on the women’s credit records, and the daughter hadn’t established any credit yet. We discussed my interview with Elwanda and told her what Larry had said. “I’d better call Bulldog. I don’t have one solitary thing to help him. He’ll probably want to fire us.”

“Okay,” she said, “but I’ve got a couple more checks to make while you’re getting us fired.”

I walked back to my desk and called Bulldog Porter’s office. His answering service said he’d call me back within the hour or if he didn’t, for me to call again.

Twenty minutes later, C.J. came in my office and a gleam was in her dark eyes. “I got it.”

“What?” I asked, not remembering what she’d been trying to do. I was still waiting on Bulldog to return my call and was trying to get my reports ready for him and figure out how much I could deduct from the $5,000 he had given me.

“Remember Liz Loudermilk told you about a big insurance policy?” I nodded. “She was right. You’re going to love this.”

“Uh-oh. Don’t tell me you’ve found another motive for Voda Beth.”

“Our client isn’t the only one with a motive. Little Miss Liz could inherit it all. All by herself.”

“Oh, yeah? How?

“If Voda Beth dies first or is disqualified; it all goes to the loving daughter.”

“All…ll rii…ii…ght. And I guess if ole Voda Beth goes to prison for killing her husband, she’ll be disqualified?”

“You got that right, Ms. Gordon, and to help put Liz to the top of the suspect list; you won’t believe this, she put money down yesterday on a brand new, fiery red Miata.

“You have got to be kidding.”

“If I’m lying, I’m dying. But just don’t forget one important thing - step-mommy’s told you and the police a big lie.”

“That’s okay. Old Bulldog will say she made that statement under duress,” I said. “This is just what he needed. It gives him some ammunition for his reasonable doubt.”

“Wonder what the lovely Liz was doing that night?”

I called Lieutenant Hays, knowing he’d need to know what we’d found. Luckily, he was near his car phone and I filled him in on Liz. He wasn’t too happy. The case was closed as far as he was concerned, but after he grumbled, said he’d talk with the daughter tomorrow, to see if she had an alibi for the night in question.

“C.J., I think Liz did it and our client confessed, all under some misguided idea to protect Liz. Bulldog can take this and run with it.”

“When do I get to meet this mouthpiece anyway?”

“Anytime you say. You’ll like him, he’s positively charming.”

“Unh-unh. No way I’m gonna like a shyster who useta work fo’ de mob. Those guys ain’t nobody for this li’l black girl to mess wid’.” As usual, her slipping into southern black, street talk cracked me up. Coming from such a smart and beautiful woman it was funny.

As I laughed, she said, “By the way, while running those credit card histories I did find a few interesting tidbits on old J.W. himself.”

“How can someone who sounds like you be so smart? You can check credit card records?”

“If you know the right buttons to push and Intertect does.” She handed me the print out of J.W. Loudermilk’s Visa and American Express statements for the past year.

I flipped through them. “Holy shit, this is scary. You don’t expect any old Jane Blow to be able to run a credit card account check.”

“Oh hell,” her voice full of pride, “not just any old Jane Blow can do it. It takes a few brains and persistence. I took what I learned from my investigator pals and played around for awhile and was able to come up with a pass word for a security code.”

“My partner - the smartass computer hack.” I was scanning the account statements and something caught my attention. Loudermilk had visited three different doctors in the past month and had charged his visits to his AmEX. “Wonder what this medical stuff is all about?”

“Give that girl a gold star. That’s what I thought was so interesting.”

“I happen to know this Doctor Gaudet is a neurosurgeon. I’m not sure about the other two.”

“Think I should check them out?” she grinned.

“Holy shit. Why didn’t I think of that.”

“Because you hired me to think for you.”

“Someone has to do the important stuff,” I said. “I don’t want to talk to Voda Beth again. It makes me mad when a client lies to me, but I could go talk to Elwanda Watson again. Maybe J.W. confided some medical problem to her. It’s probably not important though.”

“Fine. But do it tomorrow. I make a motion we get out of here. Sunday’s almost over and we need a little R & R.”

“Honey,” I said, using one of her favorite expressions, “you ain’t never lied.”

---

Monday morning dawned with Houston shrouded in fog. Not unusual this time of year, with cooler air sweeping down across Texas and meeting the warm Gulf air, it was inevitable. It looked like the sun would burn it off around ten, and sure enough, I was right. When I left for Elwanda’s around 10:30, there were only a few pockets of misty stuff, although, the sky was still hazy.

I had not called first for an appointment, sometimes it’s better to catch people when they’re not on guard. Turns out Elwanda was not the only one to be surprised. I found my client, Voda Beth Loudermilk visiting Elwanda. Neither seemed pleased to see me, but I didn’t let that stop me. They were both dressed in gowns and robes, but it looked as if neither had slept. What was going on between these two? I wondered.

They sat on the sofa next to each other and I sat in a platform rocker which angled off to their right. After exchanging a few politenesses, I mentioned homicide was interviewing Liz this morning, setting off quite a reaction.

Voda Beth practically yelled at me. “Liz didn’t have anything to do with anything. I’m the one who shot J.W. The police already have my statement.” She burst out crying and Elwanda moved closer to put her arms around Voda Beth, making soothing sounds as if comforting a baby.

“I resent someone accusing my daughter,” Elwanda said. “Was that your idea, Ms. Gordon?”

“Not exactly. But some new information about Liz did come to my attention. Naturally, I had to tell the lieutenant in charge.”

“What information?” she asked.

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Voda Beth was crying so hard, she began coughing and Elwanda got up to get a glass of water. As she moved to the kitchen, the telephone rang. The receiver was a few feet from her, but when she shot a quick look at Voda Beth, she turned and said, “Jenny, would you mind getting that?”

I walked into the kitchen as Elwanda hurried back to the sofa. “Watson’s residence,” I said.

“Jenny, is that you? Good. I thought you should know what I found out from Doctor James Gaudet. Seems that Loudermilk had a deep-seated, inoperable brain tumor.”

I turned by back to the two women and kept my voice low. “Neuroblastoma?”

“Some big long name,” she said, “I’m not sure if that was it, but the doctor said it was bad. Real bad. That he’d never seen a malignancy grow so fast. The man was only weeks away from blindness, paralysis and death.”

“Sound like Loudermilk’s luck… wait a minute.”

“Now. Now, you’re thinking. This may have been planned.”

“A mercy killing… maybe.”

“Bingo. Something else you should know. Larry called. Liz has a strong alibi. She and a girlfriend was baby-sitting for her younger brothers and sisters at her mom’s house.”

“Where did Elwanda go?”

“Liz says she doesn’t know, but maybe. . .”

“The Loudermilk’s,” C.J. and I said in unison. I thought for a moment, then said, “Why don’t you call Bulldog Porter. Ask him to come over here immediately. This may get interesting.” I hung up the receiver, walked to the coffee pot, and poured a cup, but it was bitter.

I could see Elwanda and Voda Beth still huddled. It looked as if both had been crying, but there were signs of recovery. I rinsed out the coffee pot. The coffee canister was empty and it took me a few minutes to locate a new can, open it and get the pot dripping. I’d just poured three cups when the front doorbell rang.

Elwanda answered it and led Bulldog back into the den. Both women were definitely not expecting him, and wanted to know what was going on, would someone please tell them?

I handed the coffee around and then stood near the glass patio door and began. “I’m presenting a hypothetical case here, Bulldog. If you ladies will, please listen.” They turned tear-streaked faces to me. Elwanda’s permanent look of astonishment was more pronounced. Voda Beth looked tired. Bone tired.

“I think there was this nice man, who had a nice wife and a nice ex-wife and a not so very nice brain tumor. He knows he doesn’t have much time before he will be totally incapacitated and a short time after that, he will die. He doesn’t want to die like that. The man also had some business losses. There’s the wife and an eighteen year old daughter to think about.” You could have heard an eye blink, they were so quiet.

“I think this very nice man decided to complete suicide. Everything is planned, but that night for some reason, maybe fear, he was unable to do this alone. He asked his wife for help. She refused. He was on somewhat friendly terms with his ex-wife and he calls her. The ex comes over. He convinces the women time is running out. That the job must be done. The discussion continues, he is adamant, he begs and cajoles and one of them is convinced to help. Maybe it was the ex. But the wife says to the ex-wife “no,” if anything goes wrong what will happen to your children? You can’t go to prison. I won’t allow it. But I can’t kill the man I love, either. Finally, one woman does it and the wife calls the police.”

I looked at each woman, was unable to read the truth. “How does that sound to you ladies? Bulldog?”

No one said anything and I saw big tears running, first down Voda Beth’s face and then, Elwanda’s. Silent tears which quietly dripped into their laps, leaving traces on the robes. Their hands were clasped tightly together.

Elwanda said, “That’s pretty much what happened. I’m the one who shot him first. Voda Beth took the gun then, and emptied it into him so if the police tested her hands there would be gun powder traces and her fingerprints would be on the gun.”

“No.” The anguish was clear and strong in Voda Beth voice. “I’m the one who fired the gun. She had nothing to do with it. I killed him and I’ll take the punishment.”

“Bulldog,” I said. “Looks like you’ve got your hands full.”

“Oh no,” he said, “this one is already won. I doubt there will even be a trial. And if there is, plea bargaining is still an option. Thank you for your help, Jenny. You can expect business from me, now and then, when I have the need of an investigator. Send me an invoice for your expenses.”

I walked out of Elwanda Watson’s house and drove to the LaGrange, parked and walked inside. When I reached our office, C.J. asked, “Which one did it? Who fired the gun?”

“I don’t think it really matters. They just did what they thought had to be done.”

---

Many thanks to Jan and those who made this possible. Let Jan know you enjoyed it. Perhaps she'll bring us another double feature.