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True Crime Society

 True Crime Society

“Welcome to our virtual meeting for the Houston chapter of the True Crime Society. It’s Tuesday night live!” Elizabeth smiled at the screen, and stacks of electronic boxes filled with people, smiled back. So far, twenty-seven people had joined.

“We’ll just wait a few minutes before we get started to make sure any stragglers have a chance to get signed in. How’s everybody been this week?”

A woman in a bright yellow shirt began mouthing words, but there was no sound.

“Susan, you’re muted, hon.”

Susan squinted at her screen for a moment. “Can you hear me now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I just wanted to let everybody know that I’m spending my lunch hour walking in the park. It’s like a mini vacation, you know, to get out of the house and just have a change of scenery. And guess what? I’ve lost five pounds!”

Other members clapped, and there were responses of “Way to go!” “Good for you!”

“Oh, oh, oh!” A young woman with a green China doll haircut and bee sting lips waved her hand. “My uncle got out of the hospital. Nobody thought he was going to make it.”

“Oh, that’s excellent news, Leslie.” Elizabeth smiled and nodded.

A name appeared in the waiting room. Alex Ridgeway. That’s the guy that signed up yesterday afternoon. She clicked the button and admitted him to the call.

A woman with long dark hair appeared in a new box.

Oops! Guess it’s an Alexandra, not an Alexander. “Welcome, Alex. This is our newest member. She joined online yesterday after watching the video on our Insta. Thank you, Patricia, for making that.”

Patricia grinned. “I had a blast doing it.”

Elizabeth shifted her microphone. “Alex, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself, then we’ll get started with our speaker.” Is that barbeque sauce on your cheek? You should always do a mirror check before you turn the camera on.

A faint yowl and a thump came from somewhere. Alex looked over her shoulder, then turned back to face the camera. “The cat’s knocked something over. I was just really curious about the group, so I thought I’d log in and check it out. Killers are fascinating. So, yeah…here I am.”

Alex looked over her shoulder again, then reached up and adjusted her webcam so that it was focused more on her chin and decolletage.

Elizabeth cringed. Can she not see her feed? “Alright, then. Without further ado, I’d like to welcome Agent Samuel Berkowitz of the FBI. He’s with the Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, and he specializes in counter-terrorism. His latest book, Free Radical, is about how people get lured into violent organizations, and how to get them back out again. Alright, Sam, take it away.”

“Good evening. I’d like to thank Elizabeth DeSalvo for that great introduction – she made me sound really good. Hope I don’t disappoint. We’re all here together tonight due to the miracle of the internet. Amazing thing, the World Wide Web. Don’t you all agree?”

The people who had their cameras on nodded.

“Now, despite its many charms, the web has a dark side. You don’t know who’s really lurking on the other side of your screen.”

The bang of a slamming door made everyone jump.

Elizabeth broke in, “I’m just going to put everyone on mute. Sorry. I should have done that earlier.”

She glanced at Alex, who was watching something over her shoulder.

“Now, as I was saying,” Agent Berkowitz started.

A young, sandy-haired man appeared in the hallway over Alex’s shoulder. Elizabeth sighed with relief. At least there was someone there with her. Elizabeth had been getting concerned, as the new member had seemed very distracted by noises going on behind her.

Alex swiveled completely around to face the man. He charged at her, rage distorting his face. She just sat there, arms in front as if she were holding something in her lap.

Elizabeth fumbled for her mouse. It took her three tries to click the “Unmute All” button.

“Alex! Alex, run!”

She stood up just as the man reached her. The webcam got knocked over, and there was only a view of a laptop keyboard.

The crack of a gunshot ripped through Elizabeth’s headphones, followed closely by a guttural scream. Oh. My. God. “Alex! Alex!”

Her rectangle disappeared as her connection dropped.

“Elizabeth!” Berkowitz shouted. “Call 9-1-1. Do it now.”

She almost dropped her phone twice, her hands were shaking so badly.

“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”

The phone connected to the computer by Bluetooth, causing an echo as the conversation played out over the video conference.

“She’s been shot.” Elizabeth’s voice was so high and thin she didn’t recognize herself.

“Who’s been shot?”

“A-a-alex. We were on a virtual meeting. This man just walked in and shot her. We all saw it.”

“What’s the address ma’am?”

“I. I don’t know. It’s all virtual. She was new…”

“Do you have a membership database?” Berkowitz asked.

“Yes. Of course! Aileen? Are you still-”

“I’m here! Hold on a sec…” Her fingers tapped furiously on the keyboard. “Got it! Alex Ridgeway, 2001 Green River Road, #1130.”

Elizabeth repeated it to the dispatcher.

“Thank you, ma’am. Emergency services are on the way. Are you able to see the victim?”

“No. She disconnected.”

“I see. Can you describe what happened?”

Elizabeth told her what she’d seen. The little red circle in the upper right of her screen caught her eye. “The whole thing is recorded! It was for a webinar, but…”

“Excellent. I need your contact information. A detective may stop by later this evening.”

Elizabeth looked at the wastebasket near her feet. She thought she might vomit. But she managed to give the 9-1-1 operator her details.

Some of the True Crime Society members had signed off, but most were still on. Including Agent Berkowitz. This was the closest most of them had been to a true crime. Elizabeth just wanted to crawl into bed and hide under her covers.

“Okay, then,” Agent Berkowitz said. “I think we’d better save this talk for another time. Is everyone okay?”

Elizabeth could see his eyes scanning the screen full of pale faces. She wasn’t so sure she could answer ‘yes’ to his question.

“It’s normal to be shaken up,” Berkowitz said, looking at each individual frame. “Your body has a strong reaction to violence, because, well, you could be next. If your hands are shaking, you feel nausea, and your breathing is shallow, that’s the adrenalin that flooded through your body when the flight-or-fight reaction kicked in. It’ll pass as the excess adrenalin leaves your system, but it can’t hurt to talk to someone about it – seeing violence first-hand like that can affect the witness almost as much as the victim.”

“Thank you, Agent Berkowitz. I will, um, contact you later in the week.”

“Certainly. When you give the police everyone’s contact information, make sure they know I’m an FBI agent. I’m more than happy to assist with the case, if they would like.”

“I’ll do that.”

Berkowitz dropped off the call.

“Alright, everybody. Stay safe. Go hug your loved ones. We’ll reconvene next week. Good night.”

Elizabeth shut down the call, then got up to make herself a cup of hot tea. She sat on her couch, covered with an afghan, sipping the hot drink and staring out the sliding glass door to the back yard.

It didn’t help. It took another four hours for her to finally feel like she was winding down. She’d just stood up to get ready for bed when the doorbell rang. Elizabeth padded softly on bare feet to peer through the peephole. Two dark-haired men in suits stood there.

“Who is it?”

“Police, ma’am. Detectives Lucas and Rader.”

“Hold your ID up to the peephole.” She was half expecting them, but she was still spooked at the thought of strangers at her door.

They held them up, but between the dim porch light and the fish-eye distortion, Elizabeth couldn’t tell if they were real or fake. But neither looked like the killer. “What do you want?”

“We just need to ask you some questions about the Alex Ridgeway incident.”

They must be real if they know the details. Elizabeth flung open the door. “Come in, come in.”

She led them to the living room. “Can I offer you anything to drink?”

The one that she thought was Rader said, “No, thank you.”

“So, how can I help you?”

“The dispatcher said you might have a recording of the incident,” Lucas replied.

“Yes.” Elizabeth moved to the desk in the far corner and woke the laptop. Once she found the recording of the virtual meeting, she clicked on it and said, “I don’t want to watch this again. I’ll go in the kitchen and get myself some water.”

Rader nodded, his eyes softening. “Yes ma’am. I think that’s a great idea.”

When Elizabeth heard the gunshot, she drank most of the water and had to refill her glass.

“Ma’am?” Detective Lucas called. “Could you send this to me?”

Elizabeth came back into the living room. “Of course. Do you have a card with your email on it?”

“Yes.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a fancy metal business card case. Mother of pearl gleamed on the inside as he opened it.

Elizabeth sat back down at her computer. “I’ll load it up to the cloud, then send you a link. I think it’s too big to email.”

“If you could get a list of all the attendees and their contact information, that’d be helpful.”

“Already downloaded.” She started to upload the video.

“So you’ve never actually met Alex Ridgeway, is that correct?” Lucas asked.

“Yes, that’s correct. Is Alex okay?” Elizabeth suspected she already knew the answer.

Detective Rader shook his head. “No, ma’am. I’m sorry. If it’s any comfort, the cat will be okay, though.”

“Cat?”

“Ridgeway’s cat. Yes. It came through the surgery just fine.”

Elizabeth’s hand flew to her mouth. “What happened to it?”

“The intruder stabbed it, but lucky for the cat, missed any vital organs.”

“How awful. As I said before, I didn’t really know Alex, but she seemed nice.”

The detectives looked at each other. Lucas pulled out his cell phone and scrolled around on it for a moment. He showed her a photo of a young man. Sandy blond hair. Blue eyes.

Elizabeth leaned back. “That’s the killer.”

Detective Lucas shook his head. “No, ma’am. That’s Alex Ridgeway.”

Goodbye, ‘Lope

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Penny and Fabi

In May of 2000, my soon-to-be husband and I stood in front of the statue “The Rape of Persephone” in the gardens of Versailles.  I called her PER-sef-a-nee, and he called her per-sa-FONE. We went back and forth about the pronunciation, and the discussion ended with me asking, “And how many people named pen-a-LOPE have you ever heard of?” Fast forward to September, when he had gone out to the barn with me, and I was putting away my horse. A tiny white kitten wandered out of the bushes and began rubbing on the horse’s legs. He scooped her up so she wouldn’t be stepped on, and she curled up in his arms, purring as loudly as I’ve ever heard a cat purr. The obvious name for her was pen-a-LOPE. When she got back to our townhouse and laid eyes on Fabio (my large grey and white tomcat), she was quite the smitten kitten.

She used to love to chase the clear plastic lids from bottled water with the squirt top, and one time my husband threw one for her, but she returned with a large tree roach, which she happily dropped in his hand. When she was happy, she was the Purr-a-Lope; when she got sooty from exploring the fireplace, she was the Grub-a-Lope, and so on. And one time, of all the odd things for a cat to eat, she swallowed a needle and thread. We had to take her to the emergency clinic for a $1,000 needle-ectomy. We still have the x-rays.

Even though she was spayed and never had kittens, she was the Mother Cat. She always had a lick for everybody, and she could usually be found curled up with the love of her life. When we had a minor fire in our house, and Fabio got trapped in the wall, she rescued him. She was a crotchety, no-nonsense cat who didn’t like to be held, but would deign to sit in your lap if she was in the mood. I think her dislike of being cuddled was rooted in the fact that when we found her, she had ear mites, fungal infections, and bacterial infections in her ears, and we had to put several kinds of medicine in them for weeks to get everything cleared up.

And there was no sleeping in if Penny decided it was time to get up. She would stand on my chest and lick my eyebrows. If that didn’t work, she’d start slapping my face and licking my mouth. She was nothing, if not determined.

I wrote a story about Penelope the Rescuer for a children’s magazine, but it wasn’t published. It follows below:

Penelope the Rescuer

No one was home when smoke started to fill the house. No one except the three cats. Angelique waited by the door for the family to come home. Fabio, her brother, found a place to hide, far from the fire. Penelope hid with him.

It wasn’t long before the family came home. Angelique meowed and MEEEOWWWed at the door when they came in. They took her outside to safety. They looked for Fabio and Penelope while they waited on fire trucks to come. The cats could not be found.

The fire trucks arrived with lights flashing and sirens blaring. Fire fighters with helmets and masks and hoses streamed into the house. One by one, they all came out again. They set up a large fan to suck the smoke out of the house. Finally they left.

Hours later, after everything had gotten quiet, Fabio and Penelope came creeping out. Grey and white Fabio only had a smudge of black on his white nose. Poor Penelope was smeared from nose to tail with soot. Instead of a sparkling white cat, she was now a dingy grey.

A few days later, workmen came to fix the damage from the fire. They tore out the burned wall and left. The next day, they came back and replaced it. By now, Penelope was almost clean again.

When the family came in the evening to feed the cats, they saw Angelique and Penelope. They couldn’t find Fabio anywhere. They could hear a distant mewing. Where could he be?

He had crawled through the hole in the wall. He was trapped underneath the house!

The daddy made a hole in the floor where the air conditioner pulls in the air. The mommy called, “Fabio! Here, kittty kitty!”

But Fabio was too scared to come out. They got some food, but he wouldn’t come. There was no way to go in and get him. How would they get him out?

Just then, Penelope jumped down into the hole.

“Oh, no. Now we have two cats stuck under the house!” said the daddy.

Fabio stopped mewing. Soon, Penelope and Fabio came to the hole in the floor. The mommy picked up Fabio and pulled him up. Penelope jumped up herself. She was all dirty again. Cobwebs hung off her ear. The mommy and the little girl hugged her ‑ she was Penelope the Rescuer! What a brave cat to go down into the dark to find her friend. That night, she got a special treat. She enjoyed the can of tuna, but she was really happy to have her best friend back safe and sound.

Vampires and Zombies and Angels – Oh My!

It seems like everywhere you turn, this blog or that hashtag is asking, “When will vampires cool off? What is the new ‘vampire’?” Vampires have been popular ever since Bram Stoker came out with Dracula. In 1897.  But here is why I think vampires will never die: freedom.
Being a teenager is hard. Very hard. Teens walk a fine line between being an individual and fitting in. Too different, then you are a freak, an outcast. Too conformist and you are a sheep, disrespected. But vampires, well, they are far outside of convention. They are powerful, strong and they never get old, like mom and dad. Vampires are far superior to the mere mortals who run in cliques and make life miserable for non-cliquees. If one of these super beings, perhaps Edward Cullen, falls hopelessly in love with you, you are elevated by association. And the queen bees (and all their lieutenants) lose their stings. Becoming a vampire means being free from things like death and responsibility.  No growing up, no growing old. No careers and taxes and childcare arrangements. Take that, guidance counselor.
But what about zombies? Okay, maybe not all of them want to eat your brains. But many of them do, and a rotting corpse chasing you, hoping to feast on your warm, pulsating brain is terrifying. Not unlike The Establishment, sucking you in and crushing all of the creativity and fresh ideas out of you until you become little more than an animated corpse, starved for something new and different.
And then, there are angels. People have believed in angels for at least 10,000 years. Angels are all about love and light and oh, yeah, power. Who does not want to be so special that even such a lofty being as an angel cannot help but fall in love? Angels are like the negative image of vampires – all the power and freedom, but light instead of dark; lawful good instead of chaotic evil. With angels, you get all the perks of vampires without the awkward blood sucking part. Angels are what we think we could be if we can only avoid the zombies of the world and be free to follow our bliss.

Weird, Crusty Lesion

I have developed a strange lesion on my right cheek. My daughter insists I wear a band-aid over it. Due to my extensive medical training (courtesy of DermNetNZ, et al), I’m fairly certain that it is a keratoacanthoma.  http://www.dermnetnz.org/lesions/keratoacanthoma.html As I was reading all kinds of dermatology sites (many where I am not the primary intended audience) I thought, “I should write an article about this.” My next thought was “I’m turning into Vivian Bearing!” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wit_(play) I’m working on a list of questions to ask the doctor next week. Since I’ve started writing magazine articles (in addition to both short stories and novels), I’ve become a magazine whore. If there are free ones (like Skirt or Houston Press), I pick them up. I browse the racks at the grocery store. I’ve been know to sneak out once the kids are asleep and go to Barnes & Noble. Now, which of those will buy a first person article on keratoacanthoma?

Bless This Mess

We had an AC appointment this afternoon. There was a major tidy-up that needed to happen first. I am under no illusions that our house is in realtor-open-house condition, but the toilets are scrubbed, the tile is mopped, the carpets are vacuumed and the toys in the living room are picked up enough so that the whole floor isn’t a trip hazard. Young children are highly efficient mess-makers, but they aren’t so good at mess-unmaking. It doesn’t help when their parents are tidiness challenged. This is not a revelation to those who know me. While a packrat/collector mentality is not so good for keeping a neat and tidy house, it is great for writing. There is always some recollection or snippet of memory that I can use to add detail or humor. Something I’ve read, something I’ve seen, something I’ve done. That’s when squirreling away all kinds of bits and pieces comes in handy. There’s a reason Donna Reed wasn’t a writer…