Chapter 10

  The store feels a little lonely without Lucy here, she’s only been here for a few weeks, but she has made so much difference. Two weeks ago I was worried that the store, collective, the house, I thought it was all going to disappear. Thank Bianca that it didn’t. I almost made it disappear again today, disappear for myself at least. I’m going to have to be more careful in the future.

  I’ll make a pact with myself, I will not commit anymore felonies. I wonder why August hasn’t come and arrested Sven? Is he planning on following Sven, or placing a tracker on his car like in the movies, hoping to catch the neo-nazi’s? While finding Jades brother at the same time. It’s starting to cool down, the writer’s workshop is on their dinner break. It’s perfect July weather, warm with next to no humidity so Amy couldn’t resist a BBQ therefore the collective is feeding the guest authors again. Will this cut into the collective’s profits?

  My brain is racing as usual, but thinking of Amy, makes me think of Sven. Amy thinks that Sven is a creep and he is but not only for the reason that Amy thinks he’s a creep. Amy thinks he is a creep because he was staring at Jade, like a piece of meat, but maybe Sven’s interest in Jade isn’t sexual. Maybe she looks enough like her brother and having the same last name might start to raise red flags.

  I’m almost positive that I convinced Sven, that I hadn’t stolen his laptop. But if he thinks that Jade is here because of her brother and not for writing. Might he do something about that. What might he do? Well if past behavior of the nazi’s is any indication it will be something violent. So I’m going to have to keep a close eye on Jade, I like her and I don’t want her hurt. I also don’t want the collective hurt, having one author violently attack another during only their second workshop would most definitely hurt future workshop bookings. Bianca is counting on these workshops to not only put cash in the participating writers' pockets but also to drive down the price that all the writers pay to board in the house.

  I decided that the safest course of action is to invite Jade to stay the night. I’ll also let her know that Eve got us off, while warning her, what Amy observed. I don’t think a nazi would dare try to hurt someone in a houseful of people. Not if he had any hopes of escape. Besides we don’t need to make it obvious that Jade will be staying here. It makes a lot more sense to make sure that Sven thinks Jade is in her hotel room. Maybe he will try to break in, maybe August has an actual detective that can do his job and follow Sven, without Sven catching onto the fact that he is being tailed.

  Then I started to think about Jade’s brother. What had changed an apolitical software engineer into a budding neo-nazi? Shouldn’t an educated person be smart enough to not fall for such obvious propaganda? Was it not the political message, was Ethan perhaps socially awkward and trying to find somewhere he fit in. According to Jade, he hated going outside, I get that, before I started walking, I preferred my apartment, library or publishing house office too. It was only after developing a walking habit during covid that I realized I felt better after walking, I was more energetic, not more tired as you’d imagine after exercise. Plus my brain would be firing the whole time, I guess I walk and write as an alternative to meditation. I might not be getting the same benefits but it felt like I was.

  What I don’t know is where Ethan worked. I know he worked on software, did he work for twitter or truth social and the overwhelming amount of propaganda just overwhelmed his brain? Or what about a news site, like the Times or the Daily. Would the constant day after day flood of horrible news would just crush his spirit? If that was so, why turn to violence? Obviously once he saw that camp, all those guns, he’d have to know that this wasn’t some nonviolent movement he had joined. Why use violence? Because violence is the simplest solution to almost any problem. It’s why the government deploys it against its citizens. It’s why rioters riot.

  That’s why Asimov said “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent”, because he realized that the simplest solution to a social problem that leads to violence is invariably a bad solution. The US props up a dictator, the Shah of Iran using violence. The Iran people free themselves from the tyrant and hate the United States for the past fifty years. Southern plantation owners can’t pick the cotton they grow, they violently take people from their homes to force them to do the work. Less than eighty years later, the US fights a civil war, with huge losses on both sides. A violent solution is a temporary solution. Slavery ended and discrimination began. So the competent person doesn’t take the first solution that comes to mind, no they think, past that solution. In a democracy the politicians have to make the voters believe that they have all of the solutions, which is why they are always grasping at these first violent solutions to problems.

  “Hello.”

  “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry you startled me, hey you are that guy, I owe you fifty dollars, would you like cash, or store credit?”

  “Store credit please, but could I ask why you are quoting Asimov at me?”

  “I was thinking about social problems and violence, violence is almost always the simplest and easiest solution, but it is also only a very poor temporary solution. In philosophy Occam's razor is the goto, like saying that you need a creator for the universe to be created. But Occam's razor tells us that is wrong, there is no need to drag in a theory that can’t be disproven by its very nature. The simplest solution is that the big bang created the universe. Men with white beards were not necessary. But in complex social problems, Occam's razor does not apply, yes violence is an expedient solution to a current crisis but in effect it just makes for a bigger problem a little way into the future. So you apply Asimov to a social problem, your first solution the violent one, you discard. You actually have to use your brain to solve the problem. But I’m sorry, I just got into my head a bit. I’ll need your name to make out the credit slip too, that way if I’m not here any of the employees can help you.”

  “It’s Karl O'Keeffe, I’m sorry I had to run out like that the other day, I had a call from work and had to take care of it immediately.”

  “Yeah when I worked in publishing I'd get calls from my boss all the time. Drop what you are doing, this is our new priority. To be fair, he had probably just gotten a call from his boss. I find that if you ignore them and just do what you were doing, you get more done.”

  “Did you often ignore your bosses?”

  “Invariably, especially the corporate suits. If a boss had an actual thought that wasn’t tied into the bottom line, I would listen. But they weren’t paying me enough to ruin a perfectly good book, just because they thought their way would make them more money. I just left it up to the author, I called them up and told them the suits want this changed in your book because they think it will make more money. If the author agreed to the change, just to make more money, I went ahead and made the change, but I wouldn’t edit any more of their books. I didn’t want to help an author who was writing to make money, I wanted to help authors write better books.”

  “Didn’t this make your bosses angry?”

  “Yeah it sure did.”

  “Did they fire you?”

  “No, half the time I was transferred to another supervising editor, and the other half of the time they promoted me.”

  “Why didn’t they just fire you?”

  “Well there were lots of authors who weren’t writing books for the money, they wrote because they had a story to tell and they weren’t going to let some corporate suit tell them what to change in their books. Instead they told my bosses they wanted me to edit their books because they trusted me to do what was good for the book, and if they couldn’t have me, then the publisher couldn’t have the book. Which caused more problems but usually led to the promotions. Bosses hate to be told no by their underlings, but those same bosses kowtow to their bosses and those bosses realize that you can’t really publish bestsellers without good authors. The middle bosses just thought that editors were just like spelling and grammar checkers, they thought we could be replaced by fancy word processors.”

  “So why did you quit publishing and become a bookseller?”

  “My aunt died and left me the store and the writer’s collective, so I came home and I’ve been here ever since.”

  “I’m sorry about your aunt.”

  “Thank you, she was a great lady. I still miss her but she had a wonderful life and that’s about all any of us can ask for. But can I get a book for you, you are a big fan of mysteries if I'm not mistaken.”

  “Yes, I do love a good puzzle, and I will be back for more mysteries, sadly I don’t have time to browse today and besides you are supposed to close soon. But I just wanted to stop and apologize for leaving so abruptly the other day.”

  “I would always let a reader browse so they could find a book to read, opening and closing times are fluid around here, although my intern has been opening early or on time since she started, so I guess it’s just closing time that’s fluid now.”

  “I’ll be back, maybe tomorrow, or Monday.”

  “Wait, here's your credit slip, Karl.”

  “Thank you Laura, see you soon.”

  Once Karl left I decided to close for the evening and go out and see what they were doing in the workshop.

  ***

  I went out to the tent to rejoin the workshop and Annabelle Becker or Anna is our techno-thrillers author and she was doing a talk on how to outline a thriller using a three act structure. The first act that only makes up the first twenty five percent of the novel she argued was the most important act. I tend to agree, as Anna stressed, it doesn’t matter how great your second and third acts are. If you have a weak or even worse bad first act most readers will never get to the second and third acts they will have dropped the book. At the beginning of the first act you have to introduce your main character or hero. They should be unique and compelling. Introduce them when they are accomplishing something amazing or failing at that amazing thing. That’s your hook that will hopefully propel the reader to continue. Then between ten to fifteen percent of the story, introduce the crime and how the hero is going to deal with it. Around twenty five percent is the end of Act One and the stakes for the hero just got amped up. Maybe the Antagonist found out the Protagonist is after them, and starts to fight back somehow.

  Anna is one of the quietest and nicest of all of our writers, she always has an encouraging word for our other writers and I’ve never heard her complain about anything. So I was amazed to hear her speak passionately for thirty minutes straight about plotting thrillers. I also didn’t disagree with a word she had said. After her talk there was a lively discussion about plotting versus pantsing.

  Then Bianca got up and proposed a vote.

  “Alright, thank you Anna for leading plotting a thriller. Now we come to the democratic portion of the evening. If you prefer to have a discussion about Loglines say yea or if you would prefer heading to the Brew House and their thirty varieties of draft beer say nay.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  It was unanimous, we were heading to the Brew House. The writers were out of here like a shot, but Amy began folding up chairs. But I grabbed her by the arm.

  “Amy, come on, we haven’t been to the Brew House in forever, I’m having a cashless summer so if you buy me and Anais a drink. I owe her one, I’ll explain why later. But anyway if you will buy me a beer, I’ll clean up the tent when we get back and you can just go to sleep. What do you say?”

  “I’d much rather have a beer than clean up and I will always buy you a beer and help you clean up when we get home.”

  “Thanks Amy, I mean that, but if this whole opt out of the corrupt government by opting out of the economy is going to work, I have to barter. So if you don’t want to let me clean up alone, I could cook breakfast tomorrow and you could sleep in.”

  “Laura, no offense but the writers aren’t going to like that. I always make a big breakfast on Sundays, and you always stay up too late and then sleep too late, so if you feel like you must barter. You can clean up the tent when we get home.”

  “Thanks Amy.”

  So we walked up the long driveway, out to the Main St. It was a gorgeous July night even with the town lights you could see the milkyway. Amy and I walked arm and arm about one hundred feet behind the last of the writers.

  “So why do you owe Anais a beer?”

  I saw that it was Sven, who was the last in the line of writers. He hadn’t bonded with any of the others, and had barely spoken to most of them. I suppose that is a good thing, that means not all of the visiting authors are nazis. I nodded my head at Sven

  “It’s a really long story, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”

  She must have understood. As she nodded knowingly, that what I had to say I didn’t want Sven to hear, and as she already didn’t like him. I didn’t have to warn her to stay away from him.

  I was surprised that there weren’t more people out and about on the street. Winter is peak tourist season for Lake Placid but we also got our share of summer tourists as well. Maybe they had already found their place for a nightcap and we were late to finding our own.

  Amy and I were well past the library when I heard a loud bang and a tinkling of glass at almost the exact same instant. It was either gun fire or a backfire and there weren’t any cars on the street. I jerked Amy to a halt.

  “What was that, Laura?”

  “It was either an m80 left over from the fourth of July or a shot, and that glass broke at the same time as the bang so I’d have to guess that it was a shot, and close too, the glass broke close to where Sven is walking.”

  I took a look around to see if I could see anything, but our street lights are more for their charm than their actual lighting ability. There might have been movement in the back of that parking lot. But I couldn’t tell for sure. When we got up to where I’d heard the glass breaking we stopped and took a look around.

  “Look Amy, there is a broken pane of glass, and some broken glass on the sidewalk. You go on to the Brew House and see if any of the writers are missing, I’m going to just have a quick look around.”

  “No Laura, I’m not going to let you run off in the dark towards the sounds of a gunshot. I’ll call August.”

  “No, Amy you can't, it's about that long story I told you about and August, Eve and Anais are already aware of it. I promise I’ll be very careful. I’m just going to have a quick look, but I really need to know if all of the writers are in the Brew House. It's really important. Especially Jade, please Amy, check for me. I’ll be ten minutes tops and I promise and I will text as soon as I’m on the way to the bar. If that was a shot it wasn’t directed at us but at Sven, and that is who the long story is about. Please.”

  “Fine, but if you get hurt, I’m going to be really pissed.”

  “I won't, I promise.”

  So my concern is that Jade went from her finding her brother to wrecking vengeance on the guy who might have led him down the path to becoming a nazi. So I walk back down the sidewalk to the darkest spot I can find before crossing the street. Then I hug the buildings on my right, staying as much in the shadows as possible. I paused at the edge of the last building where I had a clear view of the parking lot. I was looking for any movement. I didn’t want to startle someone with a gun, it would be terrible to be shot, it would be worse to be shot because I had startled someone.

  But nothing was moving so I walked into the parking lot like I owned it, or at least like I owned a car in the lot. I looked around the lot for five minutes and I found no smoking guns, no gunmen, and no bullet casings. The only weird thing I found in the lot was way in the back on the grass someone had set up a tripod. Because the marks were still in the mud. It was weird because I couldn’t see anything interesting enough to photograph, nor was it a good place to set up a telescope. Literally anywhere out of town would be better. I snapped a picture of the marks then I decided it must have been a videocamera, maybe the news was here for some reason like a woman giving birth in the parking lot, or a fist fight over a parking spot. I texted Amy I was on my way to the bar.

  When I arrived Anais and Amy had a table so I went right over and sat down. Amy slid me my beer.

  “That was longer than five minutes, Laura”

  “Sorry Amy, I was probably being over cautious.”

  “What did I tell you this afternoon, and why is Amy paying for my beer, you said that you would buy me a beer for my good advice which you choose to ignore tonight, Laura?”

  “Amy bought your beer, because I opted out of the economy and I bartered with Amy. As to your advice, I took it.” I lowered my voice, “but I think someone shot at Sven and no one even noticed except for Amy and I. So I wasn’t going after the nazi, I was going after the person who shot at the nazi. But I couldn’t find a crime scene. There wasn’t a shred of evidence nor anyone standing around. But Amy were all the writers here, did any come in late?”

  “Everyone but Audrey was here. She still hasn’t arrived.”

  “I never even thought of it, I should have offered her a ride. I can’t imagine being that young and crippled up. She was going to medical school when she was in a bad accident. That’s why she writes medical thrillers. I’ll get her number from Bianca and offer to pick her up.”

  Bianca gave me her cell number so I called but it went straight to voicemail. I left her a message apologizing for not offering sooner, but I offered her a ride if she’d like to come, just call or text me. I had decided before to invite Jade to sleep over in one of the newly renovated rooms on the third floor. She got to the bar before Amy, but could she have taken a shot at Sven, then ran to the bar arriving before Amy.

  Speak of the devil, or think of the devil, in my case Jade was headed to the ladies room, so I followed. Hopefully it will be empty, and I can ask her a couple of pointed questions.

  A woman exited the ladies as we approached. Once inside.

  “Hey, Jade when we were on our way down here, did you hear that loud bang? What do you suppose it was?”

  “It sounded like fireworks. Why do you ask?”

  “I thought it sounded like a gunshot but I wasn’t sure. Who did you walk down here with? Did they think it was just fireworks?”

  “I came with Flynn, he said it sounded like a car backfiring. We had just passed a big parking lot, so it might have been. Nobody mentioned a gunshot, except you. Do you have a lot of shootings up here? Like in the city?”

  “No, not at all. It was probably after looking at all of those pictures today. The thought of guns just got into my head.” I lied, backfires and fireworks don’t cause breaking glass. Flying projectiles cause loud booms and breaking glass or worse. Jade set her bag on the sink and went into one of the empty stalls. I turned the water on like I was washing my hands and quickly took a peek inside her bag. No gun and I was pretty certain that she wasn’t carrying a gun in her light blouse and skirt. Plus if what she said about walking with Flynn was true, then she couldn’t have been the shooter. I had no reason to believe that any of the other writers might have motive, means or opportunity.

  “Jade, Amy told me that Sven was looking at you like you were a piece of meat. It might be because you are very attractive or is it possible, he recognizes you as Ethan’s sister. It might not be safe at your motel. We have some newly renovated bedrooms. You are welcome to stay if you’d like.”

  “To be honest Laura, after the day I had, I kinda wanted some company, so I’ve been hinting at Flynn. Hopefully he gets it soon, he might be adventurous but he’s a bit dense when it comes to women. So with any luck at all I won’t be staying in my motel and I’ll have someone to protect me if I even need protecting.”

  “Well if things fall through, the offer stands.”

  I went back to the table and finished my beer then the three of us walked home. Anais and I filled in Amy, about Jade breaking into Sven’s room and stealing his laptop. We were almost back home when my phone rang.

  “Hello Laura, it’s Audrey. Thank you for the offer, but I was wiped out. I’m not used to so much physical activity. I was really sore and came back to my room for a long soak. But I appreciate you thinking of me.”

  “Can I come and pick you up in the morning and bring you to the workshop?”

  “No, thank you, Laura. My doctors want me to walk more plus the first item on tomorrow's agenda is a walk, so I’m just going to sleep in and arrive a little late. You are very kind. So is your staff, I spoke to a lovely young girl, Lucy said you had plans to put in an elevator for writers with disabilities.”

  “Yes I hope to get one this year, if we can afford it. Were you thinking of applying to the collective? Would an elevator entice you too?”

  “I hadn’t really considered it, I’ve always lived alone. I’m not sure I’m good roommate material.”

  “Well you’ve seen the big house, with the store and everything. But my friend Amy, who did all the cooking this weekend, donated her house to the collective. So that would be a quieter option. One of us would be happy to show it to you either tomorrow or Monday if you care to stay. Monday night is our Mystery Bookclub. You would be welcome there for sure. As I said, you have a lot of fans here, no pressure, you just let me know. See you tomorrow, Audrey.”

  I felt so bad for her. I hate seeing people cripled or sick. Life is hard enough as it is with out the added burden of a crippling injury or disease.