[Pursue,Legal,Nicely,Soft,Reassuring]
“Hey Lucy, how do you feel about running the store on your own?”
“You're giving me the store? That’s very generous of you, but I don’t think. That my father would allow me to accept such an expensive gift, at least until I was of marriageable age.”
“Yes I’m sure you’ll be fine. If anyone is stupid enough to try and rob you just hand them the whole register. You could also point out that they'd probably get more money from your father’s poor box. But also while you grow moss waiting for a customer to appear, you can make use of your time on something important. Remember when I asked you to draw doodles on the map related to the genre.”
“Yeah, and I asked you, if you meant like a magnifying glass for mysteries. You told me to push myself, for a fresher idea.”
“Exactly but I didn’t give you any help. Now I’ll help you, give you an ivy league education, Harvard Project Zero. It shows how to evaluate ideas from multiple angles. That’s the origin of the thinking compass and it’s great for evaluating ideas. But we are looking to stretch the idea not evaluate it, so we use a variation of it, by S?nke Ahrens. North is where did the magnifying glass idea come from, maybe Sherlock Holmes. South what’s next maybe a fingerprint. East what other symbols compete with the magnifying glass, again fingerprint, maybe a gun. West what else feels like this magnifying glass, well all three do right but now we want a fourth, maybe a badge would fit. See the compass takes your original idea then it stretches it in four different directions and helps you to think of other ideas and each of those ideas can be stretched until you find the creative solution that you like best.”
“Were you a teacher?”
“No, an editor. I looked at a writer's novel and tried to find ways to make it better. To some of the writers, I was the devil incarnate, because I criticized their precious baby. To others I was their savior, because somehow they’d gotten their novel tied into a knot. I would try and untangle it. The reason an editor can see solutions like that is because they are looking at the work just as it is. They don’t have the creative vision in their mind like the author does. All they know about the world the author created is what’s on the page. So we are looking at it from a different perspective. That's all, it’s not magic. My brain is making different connections from the authors, another editor would be looking through their own perspective making their own connections. Any questions before I go?”
“What one of your mystery icons do you like the best?”
“Maybe I’m a negative person, but I prefer to work from the other direction. Slowly throw out the ones I like the least. First one out, guns, simple preferences. I don't like them. Second out badge, not every mystery involves the police or they play a very small role. Third, the magnifying glass, it’s almost the perfect icon or maybe it really is the best and I’m just tired of it. So I’d settle on the fingerprint, it’s great because it implies a crime at least in my mind, but the second thing a fingerprint makes me think about is its uniqueness. I like that thought being in the customers mind as they stand in an aisle. Each of these mysteries is unique in their own way, even when they use the same mystery tropes, the locked room, the storm that keeps all the suspects trapped. Hopefully the writer has discovered a way to breathe new life into the story.”
“Alright so I use the compass to stretch my gut reaction, then I pick what I dislike the most to weed out what I don’t like. What happens if I get it down to two and can’t decide which one I like the best?”
“You use the dice.”
“What just pick at random, you mean?”
“Not exactly before you roll you ask yourself, which way do I hope this rolls out, which roll will make me happiest. Then you just pick that one or you roll and then ask yourself am I glad that the fates picked this one for me? If you are not, then pick the other one. The roll is just forcing the choice, you are still actually making it not a random chance.”
“So you are just looking at your choice from another angle, and that might actually make the choice easier?”
“You, got it Lucy. So I’m going over to Kesse Mills. I shouldn’t be more than two hours.”
I drove over to the Leather Crafter in Kesse Mills. When I did a search online it looked like the only handmade leather goods within a hundred miles of Placid. This might be a wasted trip, but I have my detailed photos of the leather sheath. If Jones thinks that I planted the evidence that means he’s not following up on the clue. If he won’t I have to. It was a beautiful drive on the state highway eighty six through Saranac and Paul Smith. To a very much local road, that was only partially paved. But it was freshly oiled so it wasn’t like driving through the great dust bowl.
Forty minutes or so after leaving Placid. I arrived at the one business in Keese Mills, The Leather Crafter, that wasn’t involved in the logging business in one form or another. Ninety percent of these rural businesses in the Adirondacks use stained wood with the writing burnt on it and then also stained black or dark brown. The rustic look is both charming and also it stands up well to the often brutal weather. The leather crafter had opted for something a little different. Instead a piece of leather was stretched on a hoop with the store name, also when you got up close there was also a picture of a craftsman bent over a workbench.
The door to the shop was open but it was empty. There was a sign on the counter. Please ring the bell for service. Right in front of the sign was a doorbell button. Which I pushed a couple of times. I couldn’t hear it ring, but I assumed that it rang in the house. Which was set further back from the road. A few minutes later a young man entered the shop through the same door I had.
“Hi, can I help you ma’am?”
“Yes, I’m looking for the leathersmith that might have created this.” I pulled out my cell phone and showed him the two pictures I’d taken of the leather sheath that I’d found.
“Boy, that is a work of art. Honestly, I can’t swear to it but I believe that this is my fathers work.”
“Really is there anyway I could speak to him, it’s important. It might help to solve a murder.”
“Oh, god really. I’m sorry, my father is away hunting. He’s usually only gone for a few days. But he has no real schedule when he’s in the woods, he’s in the woods if you know what I mean. If you had an iPhone you could air drop the photos but that won’t work on your android. But if you email the photos I’ll show them to him and ask him to call you. If that’s not his work, and the person is local, I’d be willing to bet Dad could point you to who actually did the work.”
“That would be great. Thank you.” I gave him a Genre’s business card after writing my name and cell phone number on the back. Then I drove back to the store. I would have loved to stop and see Robert Lewis Stevenson’s cottage again. It’s always inspiring to stand in the space that a classic writer lived in. See what he saw, wonder what he felt while he tried to get well. Mountain air had been prescribed. But he didn’t just lay about trying to get well. He also wrote half of ‘The Master of Ballantrae’.”
But I didn’t want to leave Lucy alone for too long and I also wanted to speak to Monique. To see if Lachlan had confided in her about his secret graphic novel or manga. It was hard to tell what it was wrapped in plastic and taped like that. But maybe he’d shown it to her. I could only hope. Thirty minutes later I was pulling my car into the surveillance site, across from the store. I’d use my phone and record another video tonight. If a person was still surveilling the store I was determined to catch them, but to do it as safely as possible.
“Hi Lucy, how did it go?”
“Fine we had some tourists come through and they wanted stuff about how to ski, instead I sold them some adventure fiction they could read by the fire at the lodge. I pointed out that getting off those heavy boots and sitting by a roaring fire with a book and a hot chocolate was the whole point of skiing anyway. The woman bought five books and the guy she was with even bought a couple more. Then I dreamed about what I’d do when I owned the store someday. The changes I’d make, the actual fortune I was going to make. But I couldn’t really think of what I’d spend all that money on. Then it hit me, a marina, but no powerboats, except for one canoe with a small electric trolling motor, so that a person who was too old, or maybe disabled could still go out and explore. They can see the beauty of the town, from another perspective. Plus the exercise would be good for the writers. Just sitting all day is bad for you.”
“So Lucy, you’d spend your profits on the writers, what would you get for yourself?”
“I couldn’t really think of anything, you’ve got your home, your food, your work and access to any book you want. Maybe I’d buy some non-fiction books that we don’t sell. Just because I want to read them, if they are great. I’d keep them, if I didn’t care for them I could devote one small end of aisle bookcase to non-fiction, but we wouldn’t sell them. It’d be a conditional lending library, people could borrow the books as long as they agreed to add at least one marginalia. Just imagine how that would enrich the book over the years. I’d have put what I didn't care for out into the world and then the world might have transformed that book into something that really interested me. At the very least it would be worth a second look.”
“That is a genius idea, and something I want to see. I don’t want to die before I see some of that marginalia. Let’s start with a shelf on the end of the science fiction section. Pick twenty five non-fiction books you want to read. As you read them, include your own marginalia at least one per book. Even if it’s just a rant about how much and why you hate this book. At the end put a challenge, to the next reader, to prove me wrong. Then write yourself a note or if it’s not just text, take a picture and throw it into Obsidian. Then when the book comes back from another reader see if they answered you.”
“Really. You’d let me do that?”
“Of course it sounds really interesting doesn’t it? I might even have to break down and read a non-fiction book myself. We should start off with some used hardcovers, they may come with marginalia included. Do you have a bike?”
“Yes, why?”
“Because next Saturday you are going on a quest. Go onto and search for neighborhood garage sales in Lake Placid. I saw a sign for it on the post office bulletin board. Your fit of inspiration couldn’t have hit at a better time. You start early, eight am. With fifty dollars in petty cash, and even more importantly store vouchers. If you find a book that you want, offer them a store voucher worth half what they want for their book. Keep negotiating all the way up to the same price, if they still refuse, switch to cash but use the same negotiating tactics. Unless it’s a book you can’t live without reading, walk away at half price. They often will agree to a price if they see a sale walking away. Mostly garage sales are for people to get rid of stuff they no longer want. Plus they dragged the stuff out to the sidewalk, now they are going to have to cart it back inside and find a place for it. Also make sure you tell people what you plan to do with the books. When they see that they are going to be loaned out freely, they might even just donate it to your cause. But your total budget is fifty dollars, hopefully forty in store vouchers and ten in cash.”
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“Laura, why not use Google? I’ve never even heard of ?”
“Because Google tracks you and you get personalized results. Duck doesn’t track and has no personalized results. You want your results to point to the best site, not some personalized result. I’m pretty liberal, right, google knows that, so it steers me liberal sites. When all I really want is the best site for the information I’m searching for. Now if Duck sends me to some fascist site, because it is the most relevant to what I searched for, it’s up to me to check the source. Checking the source will reveal the bias. Like Fox news and NPR will have vastly different takes on the same issues. Let’s say you are searching for some information on evolution. If you come across some creationism site and use their info for your paper without realizing who and what they are you are likely to get a failing grade. Unless the teacher is a christian fundamentalist who somehow got stuck teaching a science class. Then you should go to the principal and ask for a real science teacher immediately.”
“It sounds like you just want to teach me a lesson about negotiating and search engines. Do you really like my idea about books and marginalia or are you just humoring me?”
“Lucy, I absolutely love your idea, and I’m kicking myself that I hadn’t thought of it on my own. I am a bookstore owner after all. I can see why I didn’t, my own personal bias, toward fiction. I wouldn’t try the same experiment with fiction because people could easily write spoilers as marginalia either on purpose or just because they don’t realize that they are. But look I have to go up and talk to Monique for a little while.”
“I’ll be fine here, take your time, I’ll dream up the next great idea for our store.”
I smiled, our store. I liked the sound of that. Eventually I was going to set up a trust for the writers collective and because it’s all one building I always thought it’s just be a part of the collective. But maybe someday it really could be Lucy’s. First she has to make it through college and she still has to want to live in a small town with Olympic levels of snow during the winter and black flies in late spring. Still it was a shining possibility. Now all I have to do is stay out of prison, not go broke, not die of some dread disease over the next eight to ten years. I knocked on Monique’s door.
“Monique, it’s Laura, I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Come on in, Laura.”
I opened the door and stepped inside. Monique was painting? Her drawing. I later learned she was inking her pencil drawing. I’m not a huge fan of American comic books or at least superhero comics. I adored Sandman even if the author turned out to be less than I’d hoped. Scott Pilgrim was another that I enjoyed, but I'm ashamed to say as a bookstore owner, that I watched and loved the movie, before I’d heard of the comic. Edgar Wright has been one of my favorite director’s has been since I saw his TV show with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, long before any of them were making movies. His show is my favorite British comedy since Monty Python. Spaced was just about perfect, so it made sense that Wright would create a really special comic book movie.
“Hi, I’m sorry to bother you, while you are working but just recently I heard about Lachlan, being in your room without your permission. I wish you’d have told me, I would have dealt with him.”
“He pleaded with me not to, Laura. He didn’t really do anything but invade my privacy, it freaked me out at the time. So I started locking my door. Luckily Ezra happened by and witnessed the whole thing. So I was pretty sure that Lachlan would steer clear after that. He was good to his word. He never spoke a peep to me, nor did I ever see him around my room again."
“That’s good, honey, it’s just it never should have happened in the first place. I’m going to add that to the next writer’s agreement. Any writer going into another’s room without a clear verbal or written invitation will be asked to leave the collective on the spot. So you never spoke again.”
“Not a word. Which was fine by me, I thought he was respecting my boundaries.”
“So before all this happened did he ever ask you for advice on writing graphic novels or manga.”
“No, I was under the impression that fantasy, comicbooks, those things were beneath him.”
“Well, he was either lying about that or something changed his mind.”
“How do you know that, did he tell that before he died?”
“No, I've learned a lot about Lachlan since he died. First he had a very specific type, first women easily impressed by a supposed intellectual endeavor. He used to go to the pub and type for hours, just to seduce women. Second, all the girls that he managed to trick into thinking he had a great mind, were blonde, and more than generously endowed. So you aren’t blonde.”
“And you are too nice and diplomatic to point out that I’m also flat as a board.”
“I was going to say that you have an athletic figure.”
“Just like an eleven year old gymnast.”
“Stop it, someday you’ll be happy that they aren’t sagging down to your belt. But what I was actually going to point out is, if he wasn’t attracted, why was he in your room in the first place.”
“He claimed that he came in here by mistake.”
“And he didn’t notice the posters on the walls, he hung nothing on his walls, I was in his room yesterday. So that’s a very very weak excuse. I have you checked to make sure nothing was taken.”
“I haven’t noticed anything missing, I just thought he was being a creep, you know.”
“Yes I know exactly what you mean. So if he wasn’t here to steal your underwear, maybe he stole something else. Yesterday, I found a black and white either graphic novel or manga wrapped in plastic and taped to the underside of one of his desk drawers, like in a spy thriller. The police took it into evidence, but if it’s yours they should return it when their investigation is over.”
“I’ll check Laura, but almost all of my stuff is colored. Americans are weird about buying black and white comics, except for the hardcore manga fans. Once they learn how fine the detail that can be achieved with black and white, color just can’t compete. Like if you look at the Conan color comics versus the black and white magazine format why would you ever go back.”
She put down her brush and went over to her bookcase and begin rummaging through her books.
“Sorry, I never saw the comics, I do like the original short stories though.”
“Oh, they even made some of the Conan original stories into a black and white magazine format. Tower of the Elephant was my favorite. Conan is a thief in that one. Hey, that’s weird, one of my comics is missing Laura.”
All of a sudden I heard noise, boots stamping up the stairs and Lucy yelling for me.
“Sorry, Monique, I have to see what's going on, I..”
There was a loud banging on Monique’s door, so I opened it. There stood Jones and five of his men.
“Ms Eriksson, please exit the room quietly. Monique Miller, I’m arresting you on the suspicion of murder of Lachlan Grauers.” He started reading her her rights
“Detective you can’t, she didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“I beg to differ Ms Eriksson, I should be thanking you and that nosy attorney of yours. You supplied the clue we needed to crack the case.”
“But she didn’t even know it was missing until five minutes ago.”
“My but aren’t you talkative Ms Eriksson.”
“Detective you are making a big mistake, the killer is a man, last seen wearing brown. Please don’t do this. Monique don’t say a word until you have an attorney, do you hear me not a word. This man is not your friend. They’ll twist whatever you say.”
Jones barked at one of his men to get me out of the room. The other writers were out in the hallway now. I was yelling to Monique not to talk. Ezra quickly started videoing the whole scene. Pretty soon Monique was led from the room in tears, hands cuffed behind her back. “Some that die deserve life.” After all the trouble that Lachlan has caused both alive and dead, I'm glad that I don’t have any say in whether he deserves to live or not, I wonder what Tolkien would say. I’m sure that he would side with life. But I’m not as good a person as the professor, because I really in that moment couldn’t say that he did deserve life.
I didn’t know what to do. Anais warned me that we’d end in tears, Monique was already crying, I was on the verge. I hurried down to the store, Lucy must be scared. But I found her waiting on a customer. She really was born to be a bookseller. I called Anais.
“What’s wrong you never call me, is everything all right?”
“No, the police just arrested Monique for Lachlan’s murder and it’s all my fault.”
“Laura none of this is your fault.”
“Yes it is, they arrested her, because I found the graphic novel that he had stolen from her. But she didn’t do it. She didn’t kill him, it was a man, I’ve been saying it all along. The killer is a man in brown, Claire has seen him and can identify him, even worse he’s seen her.”
“Well you have a suspect coming over at eight right, I’ll be there by seven thirty.”
“It’s not a writer, the writer whose work he stole is in jail and she didn’t do it. She could just sue him for theft, she even had a witness that Lachlan was in her room. It would have been easy to prove he stole it, so the court could force its return and if Lachlan had used any part of it in his own work, she could sue him again for copyright. So it’s not the guy coming tonight. Unless I can get Claire to identify him.”
“That’s what we’ll do then, when he’s in the store ask for his autograph and I’ll take a photo of the two of you.” Then after he leaves, we can go to Claires and show her the photo. So we’ll definitely know if it’s him or not. No more guesswork.”
