Confused and Mystified

Participating, watching others participate, wondering what and where is the magic in this digital mind-boggling world. You are a writer. You write because of need and because you have identified writing as the talent you most likely possess more than any other, because just maybe that activity keeps you alive and in tune with the world around you. You go through the spasms of depression, frustration, and an occasional adrenaline rush of encouragement and excitement.

Then, you take a look at the marketing aspects of selling your books, the various providers of platforms, tools, and applications. Perhaps, like me, you become aware of the specialized and confusing language used in the digital market places, things like Avatar, widgets, SEOs, RSS feeds, URLs, hash marks, and all of it somehow cannot seem to make sense to you. You become angry with yourself, with the computer and its devious foreign language, and with the madness of minds making life so much more complicated than it really needs be. You wonder what you should be doing that you are not doing but most of all how to do it. Could you have been selling more books and yourself if you had joined this group, used this platform, done this, done that?

Sure, you can hire someone for a tidy sum you think you can trust to take the marketing worries away that allows you to concentrate on your writing. Yet, you either feel not quite comfortable among the so-called professional or you are too money-tight to give it a try. So, you muddle on, writing good books – books that should be selling – and attempting a one-person publishing house. Is there an answer? Is there a Nirvana out there for you?

The odds might not be great, but you figure to keep on writing – because that’s what you love to do. Hopefully, before the grim reaper comes calling, a benevolent event, a magic will come your way and finally make all those moments at the laptop pay off. A Publishing deal with a handsome sign-up bonus? An Amazon selling spree that puts your books virally in the top echelon of the Indie market? Okay, more realistically, beautifully written and sincere heartfelt reviews may lack the money and fame but they do make you soar for a few moments in those heady clouds of success. Maybe that is all we can hope – that and learning the foreign language that is the internet.

Writing mimics life and weather! Just wait a few moments with the emotion you are currently feeling…it will soon pass and be replaced by another. Time is the arbiter of all things – it is here and gone!

Just in the time it took me to write this blog post, I became a famous writer! Talk about an emotional uplift… A good caring and loving spouse can do that for you.

Keep Writing! Good things can happen!

 NOTE:

My NEW BOOK,  A Common Evil is set in Mexico along the Sea of Cortez – murder, mystery, suspense as good fights evil among the drug cartels. The initial reviews are 5-Stars – Hope you can enjoy it at Amazon Worldwide authl.it/B00LMHJUIS. Reviews are welcome.

Feel free to leave a comment. My best wishes.

http://www.about.me/brchitwood

http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com

http://twitter.com/brchitwood (@brchitwood)

http://facebook.com/billyray.chitwood

http://facebook.com/billyrayscorner

http://linkedin.com (billy ray chitwood)

Why Did I Write “A Common Evil…?”Posted on July 10, 2014 by Billy Ray Chitwood


                                                                         LAUNCH BLOG

                                                         Why Did I Write A Common Evil…?

The title could just as easily be ‘Why Do I Write’? This book, however, has a rather significant place in my heart and mind. A Common Evil – A Bailey Crane Mystery is the last book (6) in ‘The Bailey Crane Mystery Series but that is not the reason it occupies that significant place in my heart and mind.

It was a marvelous pleasure for my wife and me to live full-time in Mexico on the Sea of Cortez in a small fishing village some sixty miles south of the Arizona border. We were there for several years, and I served proudly as the president of the Homeowners Association at our resort…that part of the book is accurate for the character of Bailey Crane. Another part of A Common Evil which is indeed couched in fact is the early morning raid at our resort some months back in which a cartel boss was killed, along with some other bad drug people. It must also be stated as fact that this incident occurred shortly after my wife and I left Mexico in our return to the United States. The raid, or ‘sting’, by the Federales and their allies was the true inspiration for writing the book – that, and exploring the unlikely drug solutions south of the border. There are other truths in the book taken from my experiential mind vault, but, for the most part, it is a fictional novel that has all the necessary disclaimers.

It was important for me to write the book for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, it gave me a poetic license to tell a story and relive some aspects of my life and times in Mexico, a country for which I have had a love affair for many years. The allusions to the Sea of Cortez, its incomparable beauty, and to the hospitable, nostalgic, warm people of Mexico, are all from a truly thankful mind and heart. My thoughts in the book about the people in general and the country come from a good place. It is true that Mexico has its poverty, its cartels, its corruption, and it also has a desire to become more than what some in the world perceive it to be…not so different from many countries. In the main, my full-time years spent in Mexico were enjoyable and my love for the people genuine and heartfelt.

Second, I wanted to explore a common evil shared by most if not all the nations of the world. Because Mexico gets so much media attention drawn to its drug cartels, its brutal murders, and the sometime popular opinion that the government is an awed and intimidated partner in the awful business, I wanted to explore some off-the-wall solutions to the drug wars. While living by that beautiful sea and in having a resort position that gave me perhaps more opportunities for contact with local government officials, there came to me an emerging microcosmic vision of the country as a whole…certainly, not empirical, nothing measurable or notable in scientific terms, simply a desultory and superficial mix of observations.

Another reason for writing A Common Evil, the most crucial to me, I wanted to write an exciting novel that readers might enjoy, one with believable characters, one with a few twists and turns, some irony, perhaps even a red herring here and there.

Finally, writing is life for me. It keeps the old heart ticking and gives me clues to identifying myself, providing dimensions otherwise not known…after all, some of us need a lifetime to figure out just who we are.

Hope you will check out A Common Evil – A Bailey Crane Mystery – book 6. Incidentally, each book in ‘The Bailey Crane Mystery Series’ stands alone…while fleshing out the central character in each story. Some of the mysteries are inspired by true crimes.

                                                               BUY SITES FOR "A Common Evil":

                                                              Amazon US: goo.gl/cMutZf (Kindle)

                                                           Amazon US: goo.gl/seIxV4 (Paperback)

                                                                    Amazon UK: goo.gl/W1i9si

                                                 CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/4856989 

If you enjoy A Common Evil perhaps you will write a review of your reading experience on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. You, the readers, are the life-blood of writers. Without you, authors can lead a very lonely life.

Feel free to comment below. My very best wishes.

                                                                   SOME LINKS TO THE AUTHOR:

                                                                  http://www.about.me/brchitwood

                                                                http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com

                                                               Follow me on Twitter – @brchitwood

                                                               http://facebook.com/billyray.chitwood 

                                                                http://facebook.com/billyrayscorner 

(NOTE: I’m very proud to have received nine awards for my blog and I usually display those awards at the end of my posts – as required. On this occasion, I will hold my pride in check – almost!)

A Common Evil – A Bailey Crane Mystery Posted on June 29, 2014 by billyraychitwood1


Kindle Version Just out today! Paperback out in week or so.

The Kindle version of A Common Evil – A Bailey Crane Mystery came earlier than expected. The paperback will be available in a week or so. The link for the Kindle version is goo.gl/5PsAie . One beta reader has given me a 5-Star review which should be published on Amazon US and UK shortly. Other reviews are coming in and will be posted as soon as received. Any other reader reviews are most welcome.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last post query regarding a book cover. The cover shown here is obviously the first choice.

Amazon Kindle - goo.gl/5PsAie - gives the reader a few pages of the book to preview, and, superfluously, it’s my hope you will want to read the entire novel.

JUST ONE LAST NOTE: my next post on JULY 3, 2014 will feature an interview withEden Baylee with some Q and A about her life and her new novel, Stranger at Sunset - I think you will enjoy the post, so see you there.

Thanks so much to all the great followers of my blog for your good support…all my very best wishes.

Billy Ray Chitwood - June 29, 2014

http://www.about.me/brchitwood

http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com

http://twitter.com/brchitwood (@brchitwood)

http://facebook.com/billyray.chitwood

http://facebook.com/billyrayscorner

Book Cover To Be Or Not To Be !Posted on June 26, 2014 by billyraychitwood
 

                                                                A Book Cover To Be Or Not To Be!

A Book Cover To Be Or Not To Be?

I’m told by so many people that a cover can make or break a book, in terms of drawing readers to it. Of course, the content goes a long way in deciding whether or not success comes its way.

Having just finished my 12th book, A Common Evil – A Bailey Crane Mystery, having worked within the constraints of Create Space for all of my book covers, the two shown above are those that come close to my parameters – Title on one line, Sub-Title on one line, Author on one line, and the image of Evil pretty much captured. Any other ‘theme fonts’ used would put the first three items mentioned on two lines. So, I came up with these two choices: one, bold, dark, and hard in visually presenting the book; the other, soft and rather elegant in its visual appeal.

•                                                                HELP – HELP – HELP
  

 I’m still processing cover designs but thought you might be willing to comment on the two covers presented here and give me your thoughts. Label the darker cover ‘A’ and the softer cover ‘B’. Or, just tell me to keep working on a cover. Thanks so very much.

It is ultimately the content between the covers of a book from which the reader will render a final verdict, but a visually attractive glossy front can be a good draw. If you have the time and inclination please leave a comment if you like the covers shown here or whether I should keep exploring.

Speaking of content, here is an early sampling from A Common Evil – A Bailey Crane Mystery:

When I raise myself for a look-see, the site appears under siege. Much of the shooting is coming from an interior villa, and through the moonlight and gun flashes I can see bodies, some moving, some on the ground, probably dead or dying. To my surprise, on one of the balconies in building 3 to my left, there is a machine gun set-up. The firing that reaches my ears is coming from pistols, semi-automatic rifles, and AK-47s. Clearly there is a strong presence of lawmen, Federales, and there are bad guys with guns, most assuredly members of the cartel.

Suddenly there are other sounds. Three Blackhawk helicopters dip and roar in from the sea, the guns aboard shooting down on precise points of the resort. It is all alarming and dramatic, like I’m privy to filming of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie…my mind stupidly thinks of “True Lies.” I’ve had some action and drama in my day but nothing quite as panoramic as this. The early morning sky, the color streaks from the ammo display, the distant town lights of the Pueblo del Mar port, and the shadowy figures flickering by on the ground below me, all are vivid Technicolor at its best.

For long moments I watch the battle play out, more mesmerized than gripped by fear. Somewhere behind me I hear Wendy calling me… I yell back, “I’m coming!” but stay fixed for more moments watching the gun display far down on the eastern edge of the resort’s grounds. Then I notice moving figures getting into a van and dashing toward the front gate area, more figures climbing over an 8-foot stucco wall to the neighboring resort.

As the rapid firing slows to periodic bursts I rise and discover that Wendy is crouched behind me at the arcadia doors. “What are you doing, Wen? Get inside, please!”

She gives me an instant reply: “You can’t figure bullets can bend and reach us up here, Bailey-cakes. But, then, I was always more swift of mind than you.”

“Point made, Genius, but stray bullets can and has hit some of our towers. That scattering shrapnel can harm and maim.” I grab her by the arm, and we move inside, close, lock the doors, and sit on the sofa in our great room. There are now faint, sporadic rounds of fire but it is my guess that the show is about to wind down… Of course, my clever wife has beat me to that conclusion.

Stunned by this early morning anomaly, my thoughts turn to our homeowners and resort staff. I have to find out more clearly about the health of our people and just what the hell is going on. (End of sampling.)

In case you can’t read the back cover of the first sample cover (‘A), I repeat it here:

Former sleuth Bailey Crane and lovely wife Wendy are enjoying their penthouse pleasures until a cartel sting operation at their Mexican resort brings chaos and emotional uncertainty into a blurry reality. Wendy is kidnapped, and Bailey faces the demons running loose in his mind as he struggles with his choices. Also President of the resort’s HOA, Bailey has not only kidnapping and murders with which to contend, but other problems which add to this suspenseful chapter in his life. The surprising end point brings back to Bailey and Wendy those memories better left in the memory vault. 

An exciting, intense thriller in the sand and cacti of Mexico’s Sonoran desert by the beautiful Sea of Cortez.

This is the final Book 6 of ‘The Bailey Crane Mystery Series’.

Evil can be so common as not to be seen.

A Common Evil – A Bailey Crane Mystery will be published in mid-July, 2014.

One final word about A Common Evil – A Bailey Crane Mystery, my wife and I lived in the lovely falsely named resort depicted in this novel. While the book is a work of fiction there are many elements of truth here as well. In fact, one of those truths was the real inspiration for the book. It is my hope that you watch for the publication of A Common Evil mid-July, 2014 (next month). I hope also that you will enjoy this suspenseful tale.

Each book in ‘The Bailey Crane Mysteries’, though showing the natural progression of the central character, stand alone and can be read independently – that is, there is a beginning, a middle, and a conclusion. The books in the series, some inspired by true events, are meant to be not so convoluted. Hopefully entertaining to the readers, the books allow the author through his characters and plot lines to muse, wander in his thoughts on life, while staying focused on the business at hand.

There, I have had my say!  

Billy Ray Chitwood – June, 2014

Please leave a comment below after the links. Thank you.

http://www.about.me/brchitwood (Bio)

http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com (My books – Reviews – Blog)

Follow me on http://twitter.com/brchitwood (@brchitwood)

http://facebook.com/billyray.chitwood & http://facebook.com/billyrayscorner

http://www.goo.gl/fuxUA (My bio and books)

www.linkedin.com/pub/billy-ray-chitwood/2b/756/7b1

http://thefinalcurtain1.wordpress.com (My primary Blog)

         

Meet my new book: “The Reluctant Savage”Posted on September 2, 2013 by billyraychitwood1

The writing process itself satisfies me immensely and, as most authors feel, I am gratified when a book I’ve written is bought by readers. Having just published my tenth book, “The Reluctant Savage,” it is now that difficult time to market the book, to let the world know that it exists and, more importantly, the world should buy it. Of course, it is a ‘hit or miss’ situation. So, here is my new book, fully clothed, ready for your preview.

First, I present to you the cover: (to your left.)

“The Reluctant Savage” embraces several genres, including mystery, romance, suspense, and, yes, it is the content inside the cover that will make or break the book.

For those who like brevity in book descriptions, here’s the short description of the book:

High school sweethearts, Billy Jay Campbell and Marcie Dangino reunite after many years apart. They discover the fire of their young love still glows brightly. With the Air Force behind him, Billy now works as an investigator for a law firm,

Two problems threaten to spoil his homecoming. Marcie is now married to a junior partner at Clarkson and Dangino, a firm that has occasionally employed him for their investigative work. The second problem occurs when Billy’s close friend and boss is murdered.

The Reluctant Savage follows a mystery that connects murder, romance, and a love triangle.

Don’t miss this fast-paced, gritty novel! 

For those who want a deeper grasp of “The Reluctant Savage,” here is the very first chapter:

                                                                    Current Time – Now

“You read this stuff a lot?” His wry smile mocked her while she found the musk from his body diametrically pleasing. He knew there would be no answer to his question as he turned the book over several times in his hand, then tossed it absently on the bedside table. The book skidded over the table and fell to the floor out of sight in the dark corner.

He stood and paced in the small bedroom, smacked himself on the right hip as he walked. “You really don’t like me very much. Know how I can tell? Want to know how I can tell? Just give me a nod. You don’t need to talk, even if you could…Oh, Christ!”

He stopped pacing, pulled a tissue from the box on the bed table, and wiped her nose. He threw the tissue on the floor in disgust. “Stop with the sniffling and the runny nose mess. Got me feeling like a nursemaid. I’ll let you go in a bit. I’ve got some thinking and talking to do. Then, I’ll let you go. Not much longer now, so try to relax.”

He looked down at the young woman on the bed, slowly ran his left hand through her golden hair, saw the redness around her eyes and cheeks. Gently he guided his fingers along her forehead and sat next to her.

An involuntary tautness came to her body but she felt no panic.

The man fingered the edges of the wide white tape that covered her lips and suddenly stripped it away.

The girl gasped, her eyes widened, and she began to open her mouth.

“Now, listen up,” the man said as his right hand closed over her lips, “I took the tape off but you can’t yell and scream. You got me? Blink if you do.”

The girl blinked and let out a deep sigh. “I would never scream and yell… you should know that. Can I have some water?” she asked weakly as the man took his hand away.

“In a minute, I’ll get you water, but now you have to listen. Will you listen to me, Marcie? I don’t want to put this tape back on you.”

“Yes,” her voice barely audible. “Can you please untie me? I hurt so badly.”

‘Maybe…Yes, I will, but you have to listen first. Will you listen?”

“Yes, I told you I would,” her voice weak and just audible.

The man hesitated there on the bed for several seconds, stared steadily into the pleading eyes of the young woman.

“Ah, what the hell, I’ll get your water now.”

The man left the room quickly, and the woman called Marcie closed her eyes and breathed deeply for the few seconds he was gone. As best she could she slowly arched and moved her body and wondered how long all of this would last. She in fact wondered how all of this had really begun.

When he returned, he stood silently in the doorway with a tall glass of water and watched the girl’s torpid stretching of her body, her face wrinkled with the aches of her moves. There was no attempt to escape. She was only after some degree of comfort from the bindings. He came to a decision. Fateful or not, he had to do it.

He hurried to the bed, placed the glass of water on the bedside table. “Okay, I’m going to take away the bindings, but you have got to promise me you won’t try to get away from me…not until you’ve heard me out…not until you have completely heard me out. Do you understand me? Do you promise? You won’t have to try to escape when I’m finished. I’ll let you go. Do you promise, Marcie?”

“Yes, Billy,” came her soft broken reply, “I promise. I don’t want to escape from you. I wish you knew that. Just let me have my body back.”

Billy undid the bindings from the posts of the bed, then from her arms and ankles. When he laid the white rubber-corded bindings in four separate loop piles on the floor next to the bed, he held out the glass of water. He held the glass while Marcie squirmed, turned, and he could hear the sounds of her body responding to their release from bondage.

For a while Marcie lay curled in a fetal position on the bed, silent, moaning in near orgasmic release. Finally, she began to unfold herself, limb by limb, opening and closing her fingers, moving the various joints, until she ended up with her back against the headboard of the bed. Her short gold and lavender dress hiked up to show the gold bikini panties, and she made no attempt in her weakness to hide them. Some of her previous fear had left her. An uncertain calmness spread through her.

“Here, drink some water, Marcie.”

She took the glass, spilled some drops on her bared thighs, and sipped cautiously at first, then gulped the water down. She sat uncertainly holding the empty glass until he took it from her.

“You want more?”

She meekly, negatively shook her head, and painfully raised her arms above her head two times. She then leaned again against the headboard.

Billy moved the chair closer to the bed just a few feet from where Marcie now sat. With his nearness, her legs were drawn tightly together and she pulled at her dress to hide her gold silk panties. It was more a gesture than a concern. He looked in her eyes softly and steadily until the silence between them prompted him to speak: “You’re so damned lovely, Marcie, I…”

“Billy, why…”

He didn’t allow her to finish the question. His mood subtly shifted, as though reminding himself that he could not go back to where his thoughts were taking him. “You are to listen, Marcie, remember?”

She nodded her assent, but added, “I’m queasy, Billy. Can I have some crackers?”

“When I’m finished you get your crackers. The water will hold you. Now, be quiet and listen to me…”

“Just a few crackers, Billy, that’s all, and another glass of water… Please! I’m feeling nauseous. Maybe it’ll settle my stomach.”

He sighed, blinked his eyes, shook his head and almost smiled. He got up, grabbed the empty glass off the night stand, and left the room. Going out the bedroom door, he looked back at Marcie and gave her a thoughtful nod.

He returned shortly with a paper napkin holding several saltines and the glass of water. Putting the water on the bedside table he handed her the napkin and soda crackers. “Now, eat your crackers and don’t talk. I’ve got to get this said…”

He watched her daintily nibble at the crackers, pausing to swallow with some effort. She almost choked with her first swallow, but he handed her the water to help force the food down. She managed to finish the crackers, more water, and appeared to be feeling better.

Then Marcie closed her eyes for a moment, reopened them, and leaned back against the headboard. “Thank you, Billy,” she muttered weakly as she tried to clear her throat of any lingering crackers. “I’ll be quiet now and let you talk.”

He bowed his head briefly as he picked a start point for his monologue. “You know none of this had to happen, and it’s so stupid to even hear me say that! Christ, give me a time machine. Let me go back and get a second chance at all this… But, damn, it did happen! You, I, Jerry, Albert, the frigging finger of fate. You’re beautiful, Marcie, and you know it, and you use it. You drove me crazy with it. You wanted too damned much from Jerry and me, and when you got it you turned it all inside out and made this happen…”

“But, Billy, you know…”

“Shush, Marcie. I’ve got to get it out, so be quiet. That night, after the big dinner banquet, that night began this whole thing. Jerry drunk, you and creepy Albert half-drunk and playful there in our little corner of the Eastside Tennis Club Lounge, and, yeah, I had a little buzz as well. It was Jerry, feeling his booze, who was dredging up the ‘fun game’ he got from the comedian. He was like a silly schoolboy about his idea. I can still see the wrinkled look on your face when he brought it up, the way you looked sort of embarrassed, the way you looked at all of us at the table. You gave him that, ‘Oh, Jerry, don’t be silly’ look. You put on a good show. Albert was the only one who didn’t have a clue. He was still up for more fun and games with you…the bastard! Guess I could have lived with it all, Marcie, but your part of setting me up…”

“But, I didn’t, Billy…”

“Shush, I’m talking here. Yeah, maybe I could have lived with it all until my ass was on the line, until I was the one to take the fall for something that was all ‘Swahili’ to me. Me, I was a really ripe country pumpkin ready for the pie bowl.”

“But it wasn’t that way, Billy. You have to believe me. It was Albert.”

“Bull, Marcie, Albert hardly knew what was happening.”

“That was all an act, Billy. Albert knew much more than he let on. It was his evil doing all along. The little flirtatious business between Albert and me was all just fun and games, something we started at the beginning of my employment there. There was never anything serious between us.”

“Funny how you didn’t sing these songs when I was passed out on the floor, blood all over me. In the end you ran up here to your new cabin.”

“Billy, I thought you were dead. Please believe me! Albert was the only ringmaster for that little ‘solve the murder’ game. He used Jerry just like he used you. I didn’t trust him but I also didn’t know what he was up to.”

“You really expect me to believe that? After all this crap I’ve been through, you’re just going to tell me that this was all Albert. You, sweet little Marcie, had no part in it at all. You’re something else! You want to be tied and taped again until I finish?”

“You don’t have to finish, Billy. I know you didn’t kill the little girl. I know you didn’t kill Jerry. And, you didn’t kill Albert and his wife… I killed Albert after he killed his wife and kid and came after me!”

“Jesus! Will you still use me like this? Have I been in a Grimm fairy tale all along? Do you have not an ounce of decency and feeling in you, Marcie? I’m eager to tell you this story of mine, and you’re telling me I have no story to tell. I was there, remember? The little girl, the woman, Jerry, and Albert, they were all there dead when I regained some senses. Their blood was all over me. They were all dead!”

Billy paused as the image of the little girl came and somehow got stuck in his throat. The memory quakes made him turn briefly away from Marcie. He shuttered and almost cried. Then his brain dipped and swooned for a moment. Maybe some of the brain action was coming from the old air force injury.

“Billy, it was Albert. He easily manipulated Jerry into bringing up the ‘game.’ He manipulated you. He manipulated all of us. That’s the truth, I swear it!”

“Christ, Marcie, don’t do this to me.”

“I swear to you it is true.”

“So why did you run, Marcie? Where were you when I came out of my drugged daze, blood all over me, bodies everywhere?”

“I was afraid, Billy! My God! I thought you were dead! Forgive me for being so weak and terrified. Albert was still making some small movements on the floor. I was afraid – and I’m ashamed that I left you. With all the blood on you, I was sure you were dead. I know better now. I know that Albert made sure you had blood all over you. That had to be his plan, Billy, but I didn’t know his plan. I swear to you, I did not know his plan.”

“Where did you get the gun to kill Albert? Were there guns all over the place?”

“Jerry gave it to me to carry, just in case there was any trouble – he worried about me after he got beat up after that merger meeting. Look, Billy, everyone was dead, or, I thought so, when I came into that room. Shock overtook me and I saw Albert standing over the dead girl on the bed. There was a gun next to him on the bed. He saw me, started to pick up the gun, and I shot him two, three times. He fell, twitched a couple times, and I ran… I’m sorry, Billy, but that’s the truth. I just had to be out of that room. I’m a coward but I would never have left had I known you were alive.”

“Why did you run here to the cabin?” Why not run to the police?”

“Jerry had just gotten this place. Nobody knew about it. People do stupid things in a crisis. The cabin was my first thought…just to be away from everything, where no one knew where I was. There was just so much to explain and I wasn’t up to it. I ran to the car and drove up here. All I’ve said, Billy, I swear it’s all the truth.”

“Are you also going to tell me you love me? Even now, when I’ve had you imprisoned here for all these hours?”

“Yes, I’m going to tell you I love you, because I do.”

“That didn’t seem the case a short while ago, with the tears, the runny nose, and the fear in your eyes. You thought I was some kind of monster.”

“Damn it, Billy, my body was hurting. My brain was working overtime. The tears were not so much from fear as from sadness at seeing you this way.”

“God, Marcie, if I thought you meant any of what you’re saying, your words would take some of the pain away. It would maybe bring back some sanity I fear I’ve lost. It would…”

Suddenly, there were loud crashing sounds and harsh voices coming from behind the closed bedroom door.

Instinctively, Billy rose from his chair with wild eyes, mouth agape, and moved quickly toward the only window in the small room.

Amid a chorus of shrieks the door burst open, and Billy felt a jolting sting to the back of his head as he tried to exit the window. He fell limp and unconscious to the floor.

(End of first chapter.)

So, you now have some sense, some feel, for “The Reluctant Savage.” It’s my hope that you will want to read the book, and, if you do, please feel free to let me know your thoughts, good and/or excellent.  (Okay, authors are human, too!) Write a review, tweet me, facebook me, e-mail me. With that written, here are the ‘buy links’ for this novel:


http://www.createspace.com/4392898


Amazon Kindle Version: http://goo.gl/MI7PLI


Amazon US: http:goo.gl/FmEAc0


Amazon UK: http:goo.gl/1UxQco


You can follow me on these sites:


http://www.twitter.com/brchitwood


http://www.facebook.com/billyray.chitwood


My main website/blog: http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com


Independent Author Network – http://www.goo.gl/fuxUA (bio and my books)


http://www.about.me/brchitwood  (Bio)


        

“An Arizona Tragedy – A Bailey Crane Mystery” (Book 1) (Take a peek)Posted on March 25, 2013 by billyraychitwood1
    
Many years ago I was fortunate enough to play in front of the camera in TV commercials, film presentations, some live stage acting, and some modeling. A southern transplant I was pretty much a kid in a candy store – had loved my cowboy movies, John Wayne, and some wild action films at the Saturday movie house. It was just a lot of fun for me to ham it up and be who I was not. My entree into this entertainment business came via a good friend who was also a model/actress but primarily a legal secretary to a couple of my good attorney buddies. This sweet lady got me an agent, and I was off and running, doing some really fun stuff in my spare time. Some of my acting pals of the day were Kit Carson, Director of the Phoenix Little Theater at the time, Nick Nolte, a young impassioned fellow everyone knew was destined for Hollywood, et al. These were great days to be alive, but there came a sadness to make us all stop and think.

That lovely young mother of two and actress/model who befriended me and ushered me into the entertainment world was found brutally murdered in the desert northeast of Phoenix during the hot month of August. She had been missing for some weeks before her body was found, and the newspapers of the day were filled with known facts and thin theories. Her body had been ravaged by the heat and the desert denizens, and the police officials were left with virtually nothing of forensic value. It was known that the killer or killers had savagely thrown heavy rocks upon her head in order to make certain she was dead.

I would end up marrying my murdered friend’s ex-roommate shortly after a sad Memorial service, and life would go on. Many people would be interviewed by police, ex-husband, boy friends, neighbors, et al. Lie detector tests were administered to those who had intimately known my dead friend, eliminated as suspects, and the case would never to this day be solved.

My book, “An Arizona Tragedy – A Bailey Crane Mystery” (Book 1) was inspired by that gruesome murder, and it is my wish that the book can serve as some sort of humble tribute to my friend. The book does not point fingers at anyone connected in the actual case. It is simply my applying what is actually known about the homicide and allowing my imagination to do the rest.

Here is a sample from the book. If you enjoy what you read you can go to the links that follow for more purchase options for the book and for more information on me. So, ‘take a quick peek.’

                                                           After Midnight on Wednesday, July 19

She seemed strangely out of her body, off in a wispy connecting chamber, floating through a kaleidoscope of sight and sound … lights flashing … and motion.

She was in a car, moving fast, then slow, stopping, starting … she could see the night sky filled with a million bouncing stars, but she couldn’t be sure if her eyes were really open … car slowing down, stopping again, motor shut down, door opening … heavy breathing, cursing, mixed with cricket chirps, all coming through a fog horn of slow motion sound and movement … fingers, hands, arms on her body … tugging at her, pulling her from the car … a soft tinge of fear, anesthetized but it was so far away, this fear, and there was an eerie peace within the connecting chamber, an almost rhapsodic bending and twisting of the past, present, and an inescapable but caressing future …

There came a cacophony of cymbal sounds, a further muting within the connecting chamber, and a light that had begun so dimly now becoming greater … pain was palpable but peripherally numbing, and, while the light grew brighter, micro seconds lingered on the desert air, in her connecting chamber, and she recounted her life … kids, family, school, jobs, friends, loves, hates, joys, disappointments, all coalescing into the awesome, wonderful, totality that was her being …

The scraping sounds … her body dropped yet again to the desert floor, once more the cursing, the heavy breathing …

The final cacophony splintered the light into a dazzling crystal brilliance …

She felt the connecting chamber, her body, her last thoughts of betrayal, beauty, and forgiveness all merging into the warm and timeless cosmos of light.

(End of ‘peek.’)

NOTE: “An Arizona Tragedy – A Bailey Crane Mystery” (Book 1) is the first book in ‘The Bailey Crane Mystery Series.’ There are five books in the series, some inspired by actual crimes. Each book can be read independently but there is the natural aging and progression of Bailey Crane’s life in each succeeding book. You can find all the books in the links provided.

LINKS:

http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com

http://www.goo.gl/fuxUA

http://www.about.me/brchitwood

http://www.goo.gl/3VeNk (Amazon US)

http://www.goo.gl/HTQGo (Amazon UK)

        

As promised last week, here in its entirety are Parts 1-4 of "The Candlestick Killer" by Eden Baylee (@edenbaylee on twitter), John Dolan (@JohnDolanAuthor), Billy Ray Chitwood (@brchitwood on twitter), and Diane Strong (@DianeIStrong on twitter), a short story which is a regular part of Cameron Gaggiepy's 'The Story Circle' blog (@camerongarriepy on twitter). Again, it has been a great pleasure for me to participate in this project and my sincere thanks and good wishes go to my author buddies here. Eden started us off in the story, gave us our title, "The Candlestick Killer," and passed Part 2 on to John Dolan. John passed Part 3 on to me. I passed the Part 4 finale on to Diane. It is our hope that you will enjoy our little story and perhaps visit us at twitter and our blogs. Those blog sites and amazon sites are listed at the end of the story.

“The Candlestick Killer”

PART ONE (by Eden Baylee)

I gazed into pale blue eyes framed by ruddy, pockmarked skin. His smile revealed a missing front tooth. I wrinkled my nose as an acrid smell drifted toward me. Alcohol mixed with rotting teeth. Wonderful.

“Howdy, Missy. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

I inhaled through my mouth and sucked in my stomach, afraid bile might force itself up my throat. How many times had he used that line before? “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I can’t say the same for you.” A steely calm draped itself over me, but inside, I was shaking. I pressed my hands against my thighs to steady myself.

His look of shock seemed genuine. For a moment, I thought I had blown it, but then I saw the corners of his eyes wrinkle as he burst into raucous laughter.

“Ooh, you’re a feisty one. I like that!” He snatched a chair from an adjacent table. Twirling it around as if he were a matador fending off a bull, he dropped the chair in front me and sat down with a heavy thud.

I pretended to stave off disdain, but it was actually relief I felt. The plan was working; the next steps would be crucial. He liked women who were hard to get, that much I knew, but it was a fine line between keeping him interested and turning him off. “He’s a charmer,” my boss had said. “We need to figure out what he’s telling these women, how he persuades them to bring him home. We know it’s not his looks.”

No question about that. In person, the bastard looked more disgusting than the few out-of-focus pictures I’d seen of him. The lead we had been waiting for came after his last victim called 9-1-1 just before she died. She only managed to utter two words —“Ugly Motherfucker.” He’d left her in a pool of blood after cracking her skull with a brass candlestick. It took a week to retrace her every step, where she’d been, who she’d come in contact with.
A spree of killings over the past three months had left the women of New York City in a state of panic. Aside from living alone, the victims had little in common with one another. They came from varied economic backgrounds, worked different jobs, and shared no social connections. I received the case after the mayor demanded an arrest be made to allay the growing hysteria. Crimes against women were my specialty, but this reeked of a serial killing—not my specialty. I had little choice in the matter though. We’d caught a break. I sat face to face with the first suspect of the case the press now called “The Candlestick Killer.”

He was an ugly motherfucker, all right. I braced myself to walk the flirtation tightrope with him, wondering how the hell he had convinced eight women to invite him into their homes and ultimately to their deaths.

PART TWO (by John Dolan)

Manfred Bauer took a sip of beer and leaned forward slightly towards the woman sitting opposite him in the bar.He
continued to mouth platitudes while his real attention focused on the emotions she was concealing behind her confident exterior. The tendrils of his consciousness rippled out across the table which divided them and began slowly to insinuate themselves into her mind.

“I haven’t seen you in here before,” he said. “I’m sure I would have remembered. My name is Manfred, by the way." His extended awareness probed into her raw subconscious, gently caressing the texture of her feelings. Ah! There it was … revulsion. The expected revulsion. But there was something else. Something with an edge to it. It felt like … fear.

“I’m Joy.”

“You certainly are,” he smiled and ordered drinks for them both from a harassed waitress.

Manfred Bauer had a gift. It was a talent which in the hands of a good man could have been turned into something useful. But he was not a good man.

Bauer had been born into a family of poor German immigrants in one of the poorer suburbs of Detroit. He was unplanned and unwanted. Moreover he was ugly, and he was made to feel his ugliness.

At school he was tormented by the other children and became a loner, an outcast. He was not particularly bright and incurred both the indifference of his teachers and the contempt of his peers. Even at the local Catholic Church his family attended he felt unwelcome: the consolations of religion were withheld from him.

Later he drifted in and out of menial jobs; security guard, warehouseman, hotel cleaner. Wherever he went, he never stayed long. People were uncomfortable with him, and supervisors rapidly found excuses to let him go. When he heard the regretful platitudes, he looked into the eyes and he saw the truth: he was hated.

His family had heaved a sigh of relief some years back when he moved from Detroit to New York City.

But it was in that metropolis of isolated souls that he had discovered his gift.

Bauer’s only contact with women was through prostitutes. He felt even their contempt, but gradually he began to
realise – social misfit that he was – that he had an ability that others did not have. Perhaps his upbringing and isolation had honed his senses; perhaps he was just a biological freak. But whatever the explanation, he discovered that he could know what others were feeling.

Their actual thoughts remained hidden to him, but he could delineate the shapes of their emotions, he could mark out the maps of their current motivations. 

With practice he became a cartographer of others’ desires. If he concentrated he found he could lay bare the restless emotions that lurked behind the quotidian mask. He could do this with only one person at a time, but it was a singular discovery.

However, the skill did not bring him joy. It brought him an even deeper sense of loneliness. Denied to him were the white lies and petty hypocrisies that make daily life bearable.

When he lay down with a whore, he could no longer even pretend the experience was pleasurable. It was fake, it was simulated. For both of them.

Bauer’s bitterness and sense of injustice intensified, until one day he discovered his talent had reached a new level. He could not only detect the emotions of others: he could influence them.

The ability was fragmentary and only worked for a short time, but it was powerful. Exactly how it worked he had no idea, but he began to use it in small ways for sexual conquest. At first, it gave him pleasure, but later it merely deepened his contempt for women. His deep-seated misogyny for the sex that had most tormented him in his youth burst forth into full bloom.

And a new thought formed: Why fuck them when I can kill them?

Bauer sat back in his chair and studied Joy’s face. The usual signs of puzzlement were present in her eyes as her feelings were silently manipulated. Her body language was beginning to soften towards him. She started playing with her hair, and her lips parted in a smile as the mental metamorphosis continued.

“Another drink, Joy?”

“I’d love one, Manfred.”

Bauer looked at the hint of cleavage showing through her blouse and imagined the incipient wetness between her thighs. He wondered how long ago it was since he’d last had sex.

Perhaps for old times’ sake he’d have this one before he killed her. He deserved a little treat.

PART THREE (by Billy Ray Chitwood)

None were visibly present in this lower Manhattan bar of zombie-like misbegottens but a swarm of flies or cockroaches would have been right at home. The scarred table in the corner of the large square room had a wall light that flickered and gave an eerie cast to the already dimly-lit room. The sordid place reminded me of dark and shadowy scenes from a Robert Rodriguez film. At this late hour there were still a few resident zombies on bar stools and at other worn tables. At the bar Manfred waited, smiling, watching me, while the bald slob of a bartender mixed my vodka tonic and poured a generous serving of well Scotch into a highball glass for my newly acquired boyfriend… The harassed waitress who had taken our drink order was no where in sight. These few moments gave me time to consider a new line of work and a long soap-sudsy bath.


When Manfred Bauer (God! this genteel name, this man!) placed the drinks on the table and sat, his eye and confident smile never left me. “I’m sorry, Joy, to make you wait. It appears our waitress has suddenly left the premises. Baldy the bar man says it happens frequently.” His smile still in place, he paused, drank, gave me a curious look with those blue eyes that were somehow conflicting pools, an odd magnetic mix of charm, evil, and sadness. “Tell me, Joy, you dress like a girl of the streets, sexy and slut-like, but I have the distinct feeling you don’t belong here… where do you belong?”

“Stop undressing me with your eyes, Manfred. Everyone has to be somewhere. Tonight, I’m here, and I belong wherever the hell I wish to present myself.” I took a sip of my vodka tonic, measured its taste, decided there was no alien blend, and took a larger swig. He couldn’t possible read my inside trembling, but his eyes touched a nerve within me and made my focus more difficult.

“Aah, a lady confident within herself! I’m not easily fooled, Joy. Why, indeed, are you sitting here with me at this hour in time?”

“There’s something about your brutish style and ugly looks that intrigue me, Manfred. What is it that you do for a living here in the lower east side?” I tried to hold it but involuntarily did a dry swallow before the drink glass reached my lips. I hoped my inceptive fear was not showing. Those eyes! Those damned eyes!

What a snake-charming creep, this perp! His orbs took me to an unwholesome place that frightened me more than I thought it possible. There was something else in those remarkably pale blue eyes that I could not define, an aura of malevolence that sought to bring me to it. My mind was being tested big time. Could I handle this? Could all my
training get me through these last moments? I could only hope that the ‘wire button’ was doing its job, that my comrades at NYPD were ready to join the party when the time came, when we were sure this person was the
candlestick killer. In my mind there was no doubt. In some exclusive way, as I sat across from this obnoxious and odorous man, there came a certainty that he was the killer. Further, another certainty came loud and clear: he
wanted not only to have me sexually in the most awful ways but he wanted to kill me. All this I felt in those light-flickering moments.

“I do whatever I want, pure Joy! There is enough money, enough sex, and enough activity within the underbelly of the lower east side that keeps me active and alive … for a while longer.” His last three words fell softly like an afterthought not to be clearly heard. As he spoke he arranged his chair and guided his left hand under the table to gently rest upon my thigh. His devilish eyes betrayed him for a moment, and, without my protest, he removed his hand. I caught something in his pitted face, just not sure what the hell it was.

“‘For a while longer,’ you said? Is there a special meaning to that statement, Manfred?”

“Why not? Why not tell you? It doesn’t matter to me and it won’t matter to you. I’m to die shortly, pure Joy. A rare and fatal disease, I’m told. What you need to know is that I accept and embrace that knowledge. It is not knowledge that will upset our little world and I’m simply living out some final dreams and illusions. What say we get out of here, my lovely and sexy pure Joy.”

“Stop calling me, ‘pure Joy,’ and leave off with the ‘my,’ Manfred. You’re dying?” His smile was locked into place and his eyes were doing a Hallmark number on me.

“Everyone dies at some point, Joy… You notice I’ve honored your request. Now, can we get out of here? Where do you live?” He pushed back his chair, stood, and put on his bulky winter coat.

“Whoa, el tigre, not so fast! Let me finish my vodka tonic.” I gulped down my drink. “What? We’ve known each other, twenty-thirty minutes?”

“Time is a relative thing, Joy. For me, it’s now or never.” His eyes did their last combo of devilry and wistfulness. “Where do you live?”

“Uptown!” I said.

I rose. I knew what it was that had brought me to this bar and part one of the mission was successful. There were the final dreaded and hoped-for moments ahead, but I had gotten the first part of the job done. Now, there was within me an odd deja vu feeling, a medley of sensations that played to my cop-side and to my woman-side. Not only was some of that mix beguiling, it was also a betrayal of self.

As he awaited my coat donning, he said: “So, you were just slumming, pure Joy?”

“Yes, occasionally I get the hankering to see multiple sides of the Big Apple. We’re all animals, you know?” I walked alongside Manfred out the bar door.

“Oh, indeed, I do. Are you driving or cabbing?”

“I’m parked a few cars up the curb.”

He was quiet as I started the car’s engine and pulled away from the curb.

He played ‘rub the thigh’ during the ride and kept his smile esoterically baffling. I tried slapping his paw away, but he kept up his game. Actually, the gentleness of his touch and the sensate stir it caused surprised, titillated, and annoyed me. I managed to check the rear view mirror occasionally but could not be sure that the few trailing cars far behind me included my unmarked back-up. There was not a lot of traffic, and we chatted, strangely like a romantic couple on their way for a sexual encounter. What bothered me was that I could feel the anticipatory urges. What the hell was up with that?

“What motivates you, Joy?” he asked, feigning perhaps an honest and sincere question. Damn, the question had a mysterious sadness to it. He removed his hand from my thigh and stroked my black smooth tresses.

“I motivate me, Manfred. I participate in life, in living, and, for the most part, I enjoy people and sharing…”

He abruptly removed his hand from my hair as though surprised by his own fondling action.

“Is this all just an animal instinct for you, Joy?” He asked in a surprisingly weak voice.

He caught me off guard with this near normal conversation. I needed to keep it real! I had to keep my focus. “What the hell else could it be, Manfred? You have your moments but you’re not the most appealing of the ape class! You do have an odd animal attraction. That, I can’t deny… What? You for sure can’t be expecting more than that after this rapid romance? I mean, hey, I’m sad, sorry you’re dying, and I feel like helping you realize some of those sexual illusions, but that’s it, pal.”

I glanced over at him. His face still held that unnerving smile on the lips. The lights of neon night produced a shiny side-view watery glaze to his eyes. For brief seconds, I damned near felt sorry for Manfred Bauer. He didn’t drug me, but what the hell was this wacko using on me? Was he using some weird mojo, voodoo black magic stuff on me? There was a lot going on in this new tech savvy world of ours, and I was not privy to all of it. Damn, maybe he did put some tasteless something in my vodka tonic…

“It was just a trick question, pure Joy. That’s ‘for sure’ all that it was.” His voice had regained its edge of hardness. He stared straight ahead with the pasted smile. It was as though he had reached a final determination on the outcome of this night. There was a sense that he knew all the steps that were to follow our drive to uptown Manhattan.

Despite all my investigative training, all the years of experience and heightened awareness in tough undercover situations, there was something palpable and very scary happening inside of me. A degree of fear always
accompanied these operations, but the frenzied feeling that came to me now was beyond any I had ever known. Manfred Bauer had done a job on my emotional wiring, and I felt myself losing control.

We arrived at the recently rented NYPD apartment twenty minutes later.

Part 4 - Finale by Diane Strong

Manfred Bauer leaned his tanned body back in the reclining chair with a sigh and pushed his manicured feet deep into the warm sand. It felt comforting. The sun sat just above the horizon casting an orange light over the vast beach and colorful bungalows. He breathed in the warm salty air, basking in the solitude. His thoughts drifted back to nine months ago, to memories he tried to keep out of his head but usually failed.

It had been so close.

Had he not changed his mind at the last minute and forced Joy to drive away from her apartment his pathetic but rhythmic life would have been doomed. The investigators would have captured him in her apartment, guilty. Evidence of his plans to kill her would have been obvious, had they reached him before the act which they most likely would have since he planned to have his way with her first…stretching out the night.

He would be on death row right now.

They wouldn’t have needed to drag a confession out of him, it would have spilled out. But then he wouldn’t have cared if they’d sentenced him to death. He had prepared for death anyway, and he certainly wouldn’t have made a difference if it come at the hands of the state or his own hands. He had wanted to die either way. He’d had no desire to remain in a world so appalled, so disgusted by him.

His gift hadn’t been enough. Sure he could influence the feelings of women, make them think they wanted him briefly, just long enough for him to have his way with them. But the manipulation always proved temporary and counterfeit. It had been like stretching a rubber band, you could pull it taut but as soon as you let go, it snapped back to its original shape, unchanged.

The sudden change of plans had saved him. There hadn’t been a chase, Joy’s back-up investigators weren’t close enough to understand what had happened until it was too late. He had ripped the wires from her body and tossed her cell phone into the back of a truck heading in the opposite direction. By the time the investigators realized they were following the wrong vehicle and got an APB out on the car, he had ditched it over an embankment.

Before making good his escape in his own car, Manfred had made a quick stop at his home which fortunately for him was not yet under surveillance.

As he scooped out the contents of his safe, he had recalled the phone call a year ago notifying him of his mother’s death. In spite the coldness between them his heart had sunk. His father’s death the year prior had hardly phased him, only creating a glimmer of sympathy toward his mother, now alone in his childhood home. His spirits had lifted, however, when in the same conversation he was informed that his mother, in good Catholic form, had left the entire estate to her one and only child, despite her never wanting him. Or perhaps because of it.

He wasn’t rich by American standards, but as he emptied the safe knew he could live quite comfortably in Mexico for the rest of his life. Moreover, he was struck by the realization that for the first time in his life, he actually wanted to live.

Manfred reached for his frosty pina colada and took a long pull from the large glass. He ran his tongue slowly over his upper lip collecting the salt from the exfoliated skin. His pale blue eyes stared into his drink, an unfamiliar image reflected back at him. The person staring back still felt so foreign with his clean shaven chin, plucked and trimmed eyebrows. Who could have known that a fresh hair style, a little dental work, daily hygiene and clean fashionable clothes could make a semi-handsome man out of him?

Of course, his new found love of running on the beach had helped tremendously. For the first time ever he had abdominal muscles and a tight ass that even he wanted to grab. The endurance he had acquired had worked for him two fold, he could run farther than most but even more importantly, he had become something of an athlete in the bedroom too.

This new life… how different it was from the one he had left behind. That creature he had been back in New York wouldn’t recognize the confident, loved man relaxing on this beach as the sun set across the ocean horizon. The Chinos, the Birkenstock’s and the soft organic cotton shirt draped over his muscular chest would all have been alien to him. Only maybe one thing would not…

“Joy, dear?” Manfred twisted his body and called out to the small bungalow behind him. A slender woman appeared carrying a tray of fresh fruit in her long tanned arms. A candle stick poked from the pocket of her long white cotton smock. Sleek, black tendrils of hair cascaded down her back, swaying as she walked carefully over the warm beach sand.

“Manfred, oh what an evening. It’s just to die for…”

“Yes, Joy. Pure Joy.”


EDEN BAYLEE: http://edenbaylee.com  -  http://about.me/eden.baylee  - http://bit.ly/ebAmazon

JOHN DOLAN: http://johndolanwriter.blogspot.com  -  http://on.fb.me/TEKHds  -  #ASMSG (twitter)

BILLY RAY CHITWOOD: http://goo.gl/TeQpP  -  http://about.me/brchitwood  -  http://goo.gl/KtPJy (amazon) goo.gl/klczd (UK)

DIANE STRONG: http://dianestrong.wordpress.com  -  http://facebook.com/RunningAuthor  -  http://amzn.to/Ouedkh  

“A Soul Defiled – A Bailey Crane Mystery” is the fifth and final book in the ‘Bailey Crane Mystery Series’ – a relatively short book written on the Sea of Cortez. As I lazily and leisurely lolled on my condo deck watching the sailboats, jet skis, yachts, and all the diversions upon the sea, I saw a Mexican beach hawker of lovely serapes walking toward the old port of Rocky Point. It was late in the afternoon, and the hawker seemed weary from his day’s labors along Sandy Beach. Walking all day up and down the long stretch of beach with a heavy load of serapes draped over his shoulder had taken its toll. My guess was that he was making his final trek toward home as the sun was closing on the western horizon. He would occasionally stop by a couple or a group sunbathing on the sand to present his wares, and, disappointed with no sale, wander wearily onward toward the port and home.

My mind would not let go the thoughts on this common daily scene along the lovely coastline, and the thoughts extended themselves into Book 5 of the Bailey Crane Series. Here then is an excerpt from “A Soul Defiled – A Bailey Crane Mystery.”

EXCERPT

                                                          Prologue
 
Along the coast of Pueblo del Mar the tide was out. Volcanic rock splotches of tide
pools were visible between the beach, sand bars, and cobalt sea. Creeping wider
up the distant horizon to meet the blue sky was a streak of soft mauve elegance,
reaching west to east as far as the eye could see. The sun was setting out around
the bend near Bahia del Pelicano. There were sea gulls at water’s edge, some
standing in stoic poses, others airborne, diving for food just off the sand bars. Minus
a rare storm day, it was a scene recorded each day on this majestic stretch of beach
on The Sea of Cortez.

Along the shell strewn sandy beach a lone hawker was making his final stroll east
toward the old port. There was weariness in his strides, his bronze lined face a sheen
of sweat. The unsold colorful serapes were draped over his left shoulder and his
downcast eyes only surveyed the short space in front of him. A dog barked and some
children squealed in a predominantly American inhabited resort just seventy-five yards
north of the hawker’s path, giving him a momentary pause in his steady gait. He thought
of his grandchildren, about their play area in the cluttered space of dust, gravel, and junk
behind his sheet metal shanty. They, like their fathers and mothers before them, would
never know the resort life. In his brief thoughts it did not matter. His family led a simple
and meager existence but they were happy. There was love and there was God. The
daily routines had basic rituals and they found humble joy and pleasure in their sharing.

Only a few people now hovered over the tide pools to check out a hermit crab, a baby
squid, or a dead sting ray, to collect sea glass and an occasional shell. These were
people the hawker had already approached more than once, and he no longer cared so
much about a possible sale. Dinero controlled much of his life lately, but the day had been
long. He only wanted to be home, to share his meager earnings of the day with family and
to sip a cerveza.

When he fell to the sand on his knees Fernando Cervantes thought for a brief moment he
had gone down from a sharp chest cramp. His unsold serapes were involuntarily flung
outward onto the beach. He felt liquid flowing through his fingers, saw the liquid when he
pulled his hand from his left rib cage. He saw that it was his blood. As he collapsed on his
side in the sand, his life presented itself to him in a few gasping breaths. As he slowly rolled
onto his back, his half-closed eyes looked upward toward a diminishing blue sky. There was
so much he wanted to tell Father Umberto, so much he yet wished to share with his family,
but all he could weakly mutter in his last moment was, “Mi Dios, por favor me perdona para he
pecado!"

Clusters of sea gulls gathered near the lifeless body of Fernando Cervantes, indifferent,
unimpeded in their ageless habits.

The colors of sunset cast an eerie surreal hue on the beach tableau.



                                                                  Chapter One

“It’s so good to be back. Does it get any better than this?” in the fog of memory, I wondered
how many times this question had been muttered by me.

“Well, Bailey-dear, guess we could be sitting and sipping on a veranda in Malibu. But it
wouldn’t be the same, somehow … too phony, maybe, and too far outside our reality. No,
my short answer, it does not get any better than this.” Wendy could always add a special
dimension to one of my comments.

We smiled and watched some shrimp boats returning to the old port after a night of dip netting.
It was another cloudless soft blue day, the sun deliciously warm. For ‘sun people’ Pueblo del Mar
was near perfect. There was seldom a gray day, rarely any rain. Most of the time there was a
prevailing breeze, and, at times, some strong winds. The magnificent quality of this particular
morning was the norm for Pueblo del Mar, the quality that made the decision easy for us to buy
our lovely condo here on the Sea of Cortez. Not an expert by any stretch, but the gorgeous
weather must have something to do with the latitude and longitude of this area of Mexico.

My name is Bailey Crane, once a business owner and part-time ‘crime fighter’ with the Phoenix,
Arizona Police Department. The ‘crime fighter’ label is used in an attempt to bolster my aging
ego. Still active, still feeling young and vital, the body has lost a few vital cells, but I’m still
sweating out the toxins with daily workouts, still carry a six foot frame and weigh just south
of two hundred pounds. There are some hitches in my ‘getiup,’ some sags here and there, but
I’ve got my hair, my teeth, and my totally unbiased wife tells me I still have the good looks of that
‘Sound of Music’ guy, Christopher Plummer. Do I have a great support system, or what!

My activities have slowed considerably in semi-retirement. Wendy, my bride, a former police lady
herself, decided — well, we decided — that it was time to ease back the throttle and smell some
of those proverbial roses. A good choice! We’ve traveled, done cruises, and have thoroughly
enjoyed life in the slow lane. Is my previous life missed? Truth is, it is missed, which might be
quite natural, like, any vocational interest that gets in the blood. It is not missed enough to ever
consider going back. Wendy and I have created a life style that is very comfortable. Having sold
my business, with some IRA’s, and modest investments, we are able to live reasonably well.

Wendy still carries in body and soul all the beauty that drew me to her twenty odd years ago.
There is still no gray in her tresses, and her face has no wrinkles … except for the slight lines
at the corner of her eyes, which only adds to her Andie McDowell loveliness. And, guess what?
I still sneak my peaks at her curves when she disrobes in the evening and dons her night
gown or pajamas. Wendy came along when my personal life was in crisis, a gift from God.
The one sure and unalterable truth is that our bond, our love, will last our lifetimes and, with
faithful assurance, into eternity. 

“Anything particular you want to do today, dear lady?” The question was asked dutifully and
with her negative response hopefully anticipated. My desire was to stay clad in my red swim
trunks, my exotic shirt, and thongs.

“Absolutely nothing,” Wendy dipped her head and gave me a smile. “You would pout all day
if I had an agenda for you.” She paused, got up to clear the patio table. “You want more tea?
More cereal, toast, anything?”

“I’m good. Let’s just sit and soak up this sea and sun for awhile. Maybe we’ll go poolside later
or wander the beach … you can collect some sea glass and shells. Maybe we’ll find an old
Spanish doubloon … as if!” Repositioning my swivel chair, placing my feet on the deck railing,
I raised my empty cup. “On second thought, I’ll have another chamomile while you’re up.”

A few hours later, after a swim and beach walk, we were back on our deck. Wendy was reading
while I dozed on the chaise lounge.

The kitchen telephone ringing through the screen door broke into my repose. Wendy marked her
book and went inside to answer the call. “It’s Tom Horner, for you,” she yelled.

Tom Horner was a longtime friend and he was on the Board of our Mar y Sol Home Owners
Association.

Dulled by the slumber time and the day’s laziness, I rose slowly and went inside.

“What’s up, Tom?” seating myself at the kitchen table.

“Hi, Bailey. When did you get in?” Tom’s voice had a deep resonant quality.

“Late yesterday afternoon.”

“Good trip down?”

“Traffic was light, smooth sailing.”

“Going to be here for awhile this visit?” Tom seemed to be dancing around the reason for his call.

“Wendy and I are here for a long stay. There is nothing on our calendar. Is there a problem, Tom?”

“Are you busy right now, Bailey?’”

“Just a little sweaty from the sun and beach. You want to visit?”

“Yes, if it’s good for you. Can you meet me at Tinker’s in fifteen minutes? I’ll buy you a beer, and
you can come as you are.”

“Can’t we visit here?” Tinkers was a short walk of five minutes, but, still…

“We can, but it would be better if we talked off premises.”

Tom now had my interest. Something very newsworthy was in the air. “See you in fifteen!”

Changing from thongs to tennies I told Wendy of the short, cryptic phone conversation and left.
Since Wendy had not been mentioned in the invitation, she was just as glad to have some time for
chores in our neglected condo unit.

Tom Horner was an old friend and likely the biggest reason we had chosen Mar y Sol as our
seaside retirement site. Tom and wife Gladys had moved to Pueblo del Mar five years ago and
had been among the first residents in Mar y Sol. They had invited us down on several occasions,
and we very quickly determined that this was where we wanted to be at some point in time.
That point in time had come one year ago. Wendy and I were now considering full time
residency. When the American developers had completed the condo project and all units
were sold, an HOA board was established to represent the owners’ interests. Tom had been a
unanimous choice for president.

The big burly guy was sitting at a small corner table when I arrived at Tinkers. Dressed a bit
more formally, Tom wore pale blue Bermudas and a gold colored button-down shirt. His deeply
tanned face and body was in sharp contrast with his recently groomed white hair. Although
aging had brought a more rotund torso, he was still a handsome guy. He had always reminded
me of Tom Selleck, one of my favorite actors.

Tom stood. We gave ‘buddy hugs,’ and sat. A frosty Corona was immediately placed in front of me.

Tinkers was a local ex-pat bar and eatery, owned and operated by Tinker Davidson, a former US
auto racer of some notoriety. The restaurant and lounge sat between two high-rise condo
developments about one hundred yards from the sea. The outside of the rectangular building was
constructed of stone and stucco, with a thatched roof. No one could miss the place with its big
vertical lettered sign just off the entrance. Inside, there was an understated ambiance, with a cozy
corner mahogany bar with subdued lighting and comfortable seating, designed for the nostalgic,
romantic souls. The back bar had a beautiful wall-length smoked mirror with gold edging, and the
enticing area was pleasantly set apart from the spacious dining room with three large pots of exotic
plants. Tinker had put a lot of thought in the design, and his place was one of the most popular in
Pueblo del Mar for both the ex-pats and the locals.

“You’re looking fit, Tommy. How’s Gladys?” We were sitting next to one of those big potted plants.

“She’s good, Bailey. We’re both good. Back at you: you’re looking fit as well. Wendy sounded chipper
on the phone. She okay?” My good friend had that aura about him. Something was eating at him big
time.

“Yeah, she’s fine …” I downed some Corona. “Okay, Tom, enough of our soft shoe. What’s going on,
big guy?”

“You heard anything about anything?” he asked.

“Just got here, buddy. I know nada. Give!”

There was some soft and soothing Spanish guitar music coming from a CD in the bar area. Tom
glanced around the room. There were a few scattered patrons seated some distance away from us.
They would not be able to hear our conversation. Tom could talk without worry. My interest was now
at a high level.

“It’s a hell of a way to greet you back, pal, but I’ve got to talk to somebody outside the Mar y Sol inner
circle. So, sorry about that.” Tom took a long draw from his own Corona bottle and continued. “Mar y
Sol has some problems, Bailey. You know Mitchell Probst, our HOA treasurer?”

“Yeah, I know him. Not well, but I’ve seen him around. He’s got one of the beach villas.”

“Well, he’s a big part of our problem. He was found murdered in his beach villa this morning. The body
of a serape hawker was found on the beach late yesterday afternoon, just a few yards from Mitchell’s villa …”

“Jesus! Wendy and I show up and strange karma tags along. You said, ‘a big part of our problem.’ There’s
more? Don’t know if I’m ready for this my first day back to ‘Pueblo.’”

“I know, it’s a bummer … sorry, pal. We’ve got some issues on the HOA board. There are things
not adding up. The accounting system is fouled up and there’s money we can’t locate, apparently some
missing ledgers. Mitchell was not the most popular board member and he had been acting strange the
last few days before his murder. Look, I know the economy is bad; our tourist business has fallen off;
the media has been unfair to us. But, even with all that, there is something going on that is not right. And,
Bailey, I’m telling you even if you wouldn’t ask: I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. Are we being
embezzled? Is there corruption on the board? Was Mitchell stealing from us? Or, did he discover
something that got him killed? Are the murders of Mitchell and the hawker connected? Did a stray bullet
kill the hawker? Your police chief friend, Ernie, has been here with his investigators and is working
the case. He has this information I’m giving you. Does he know you’re in town?”

“No, don’t believe so … I haven’t contacted him yet. He knew we were coming this week.”

Ernesto Villar was the police chief of Pueblo del Mar. We had become good friends years ago while
working together on an Arizona/Mexico connected case. We had maintained an ongoing relationship,
visiting while on our trips to ‘Pueblo,’ via quick phone calls just to say hello and chat, and via
correspondence on police-related matters.

“It’s a question I’m reluctant to ask, Bailey, but can you help me out? Maybe, do a little low-key prowling
and prying? I want no strain on our friendship, but I’m at a loss on who to trust and with whom to talk.
If I’m asking too much just tell me and that’ll be the end of it. There is nothing that will ever impair our
friendship.” His mellow voice carried with it sincerity and desperation.

How could I turn down such a lovable Selleck-type?

“Hey, you’re my buddy! Gotta help if I can. I’ll squeeze it in between the fun and sun, I’m a bit rusty,
Tommy, but I’ll do what I can. You can fill me in on how the HOA works. It’s all ‘Greek’ to me. Maybe
Ernie has some answers. I’ll talk to him right away. You’ll need to supply me with names, files, maybe,
and other information as needed. Is there anything else more specific you can tell me? The other board
members? Are they all here at the moment?”

Tom thought for a moment. “No, but they will all be here in two days. There’s a board meeting on
Saturday. Jarrett Egan, Peter and Jan Simpson, and I are the only full-time board member residents.
Mitchell was full-time. The other members get down usually on a monthly basis, or, even, less
frequently. You know them all, but I’ll give you their vitae. Specifics? Just don’t have any specifics,
Bailey. Guess I’ve been too lax, but, generally, other than tenants bitching and moaning about one
thing or another, answering some general management questions, there’s just not a lot of my
involvement. Mitchell carried most of the load, being the man who handled the money. We all
monitored management and maintenance as much as possible, and we had confidence in our
management. All seemed to be going smoothly. Our general manager, Jimmy Millard … you know
him — is a really pleasant guy but he can be a bit rigid and pushy at times. The board has had no
big problems with him. I’m basically clueless, Bailey, feeling somewhat idiotic about this whole thing.”
Tom shrugged and downed more cerveza.

“Okay, I’ll get a running start at this tomorrow. For now, try to relax. We will have one more of these
frosty goodies, go home to our ladies, and, we can come back here for dinner … if you and Gladys
are free.”

Tom’s demeanor changed instantly. He sighed, smiled, and became the guy with whom I was
accustomed. Had we been standing he would have grabbed me in a bear hug.

END OF EXCERPT.

For further information on this title, additional books in the ‘Bailey Crane Mystery Series’ and other novels by this author, please go to his website/blog: http://www.billyraychitwood.weebly.com and scan the ‘Home’ page. For more author comments, please go to: http://about.me/brchitwood

“Murder In Pueblo Del Mar – A Bailey Crane Mystery” (Book 4) – Excerpt
Posted on December 25, 2012 by  billyraychitwood1      
    
“Murder In Pueblo Del Mar – A Bailey Crane Mystery” (Book 4) is fiction inspired by a brutal murder some years ago of an Arizona mother and wife while on a family holiday in Rocky Point, Mexico. This story is important to me on two levels: the dynamic of the homicide itself with its salacious ingredients and all the publicity of the case; the other level of interest for me was my personal involvement with two protagonists in the story who owned a villa in Rocky Point. My wife and I visited them quite often, had our bridge weekends, our ATV junkets out on the desert dunes, our walks along the dusty roads, and thoroughly enjoyed our time together. Unfortunately, we watched alcohol destroy one of our friends and it gave me the sad opportunity to explore that dynamic along with the homicide — it was difficult to watch the self-destruction and the effects it had on a man and woman we loved.

Here is the ‘Prologue’ from “Murder In Pueblo Del Mar – A Bailey Crane Mystery” (Book 4 of the five-book series)…
 
                                                                                       PROLOGUE

February 20, 1991

The beach along the southern edge of Las Conchas is not an ideal area for sun worshipers. It is more a coast line for the
shell seekers and those who fancy tide pool ecology. The long east-west sandy stretch is littered mostly with all manner of shells, large and small, but there are also half buried broken bottles, ugly clumps of sea anemone, and dead smelly
fish. Despite the litter it is a lovely span of sand and shell.

It is a Mexican beach whose long southern rim helps to frame the Sea of Cortez, known also as The Gulf of California. The
sea is a large body of water separating the Baja California Peninsula from the Mexican mainland. It is bordered by the states of Baja  California, Baja California Sur, Sonora, and Sinaloa. The sea funnels eventually into the Pacific Ocean to its south.

Las Conchas is a community of upscale real estate owned mostly by citizens of the United States and is part of the little
fishing village of Pueblo Del Mar. More accurately, the real estate is uniquely owned by citizens of other countries in long-term renewable trusts, with generally the same rights and privileges as home owners in the United States.

Pueblo Del Mar is a poor man’s Acapulco. Yet, few poor people own the beautiful white stucco and red clay roofed houses
that comprise Las Conchas. The large, small, Mediterranean style Spanish villas, some posh and elegant, some modest and without frills, are set at water’s edge or atop the grainy desert bluffs. The speckled array of red clay roofs and white stucco present a dazzling pattern of lovely sameness and charm.

The dusty caliche roads twist and turn past the somnolent houses and offer glorious views of the deep turquoise waters of the sea. The white cap chop gives up brilliant splinters of silver light in the afternoon sun.

The remoteness of Las Conchas is part of its lure to the gringos who own the villas. Here, telephones do not ring and
newspapers are not delivered to the front doors. Time and events are put on hold. The lazy day routine is broken with sounds of surf and the growling drones of off-road all terrain vehicles, spewing dust clouds behind them. There are the shouts of old Mexican men and women hawking their wares of fresh blue shrimp and serapes among the grand seaside villas. There are strains of plaintive Mexican ballads from a distant sound system. There are the sometime horn wails of shrimp boat clusters off shore some three or five miles. There are, too, the sounds of children at play.

Mostly, it is the stillness that brings magic to the moments in Las Conchas. It is the shared knowledge of its citizens that nothing, not commerce, not agendas or itineraries, can break the special spell that is Las Conchas. It is not so much a geographical place as it is a soulful sublimity. The sky and the sun join the land and the sea in a way that bring the senses to their keenest edge. The smell of the sea air, barbecues, re-fried beans and cooking fat, all join to make the uniqueness of Las
Conchas.

*****

One man discovered the magic of Las Conchas when he was still young enough to declare it his own. Robert Geraint had
spent much of his adult life in the sleepy fishing village of Pueblo Del Mar. He had first come as a young father and husband some fifty years ago. In some magical way the land, sea, and its people formed the special bonding that would last his lifetime. Though Phoenix, Arizona would be his domicile of citizenship, he adopted Pueblo Del Mar as his domicile of soul.

His love for Pueblo Del Mar became more than a weekend aberration from his accounting business. With the tragic, soul
scarring, and untimely death of his daughter, Niki, the village became a refuge of sorts, a place that could not bring forgetfulness but could diminish the sharp edge of grief.

When the entrepreneurial efforts of a few people brought Las Conchas to reality, Bob Geraint built one of the first villas along the strand of sea that would be called the ‘first estuary.’ His villa was designed and built by a local Mexican architect of some celebrity and would be subtly copied by many who came later. The house would be copied to some extent but never duplicated.

The house Robert and his beloved Deena erected was to become a landmark in the community. Because of her love for
butterflies and the lonesome peal of ship bells, Deena called the villa “La Casa de las Campanas y Mariposas,’ the house of Bells and Butterflies.

The lovely and distinctive villa was built with three connecting sections with tower-like centers. The main section in the
middle of the dwelling was the great room. It was built around the focal point, the high round turret, heavy beamed, opening in the ceiling. The floors were of white octagonal shaped Mexican tile with blue bell patterns. The kitchen counters, back-splash, bath counters, and shower wall tiles were specially made of white high gloss tile pieces with randomly placed blue bells and butterflies. On the western end of the house was the master bedroom, on the same level as the great room, with another center tower in the roof. On the elevated eastern end were two guest bedrooms, again, with the tower projections in the roof. All rooms had beehives fireplaces surrounded by the white tile, blue bell, butterfly patterns.

A wide sweeping tiled veranda ran the entire back length of the house, with stairs leading down at the center to a built-in barbeque and on, ultimately, down to the sea. Off the eastern side of the veranda, there were stairs leading up to a separate private terrace area for the guest bedrooms. All around the house in the sandy soil Deena had planted and nurtured her ice plants and sundry hedge and flowers, creating a profusion of rich green and vivid colors.

It was a showcase home and it immediately became a point of delineation in giving directions to visitors of the area: A
common directive was, ‘It’s near the house of Bells and Butterflies.’ 

Robert Geraint had seen through the years the first estuary section developed to its predicted and permitted numbers until
the second and third estuary sections had opened to satisfy the continuing hot demands for housing. Still, with all the growth, Las Conchas maintained its distinctive aura, its special ‘sublimity.’

Robert and Deena Geraint had recently retired full time to ‘La Casa de las Campanas y Mariposas’ and had become active
members in the Las Conchas Homeowners Association. A manned security gate into the community was approved and started up the same year Robert and Deena arrived as full time residents. Assessments rose steadily to keep up with the varied needs and growing necessities. Property values continued upward and Las Conchas thrived and prospered.

Robert Geraint became the man to whom the citizens of the community turned when there were problems and when advice was sought on any conceivable matter. His was the quiet and thoughtful mind that people trusted in counsel. His was the strength of body and hard muscle when someone needed a hand in moving something big, like, a car stuck in the desert
sand. His was the humble personality and genuine demeanor that drew people to him, that brought him the unsought praise and reputation that embarrassed him. Robert knew his community, its good and its bad elements. Like all communities
there were plenty of both.

In the early evening on Friday a terrible series of screams filled the peaceful landscape of Las Conchas. Bob Geraint was
at the barbeque turning his steaks when the first scream broke his placid mood, broke the musical spell of a Placido Domingo aria coming from the tape system in the great room. Scurry, Bob’s faithful golden retriever, rose from his spot near the barbecue and looked anxiously at his master. The dog’s tail was tucked between his legs, and a soft whine turned into a low growl.

There was something about the scream that tore into Bob’s consciousness. It was like a door slamming shut from a harsh
gust of wind. The scream was a reverberant and dissonant acknowledgment of some awful event, not so much a startled response as it was a total black acquiescence to something evil and ordained. It was a scream unlike many others Bob Geraint had heard in all his years, a scream that would remain forever in his memory.

Then, there came a second and third scream, startling successions of the first, horribly quaking things, tinged with a demonic terror, a madness, that conveyed hideous truths.

Deena appeared at the screen of the great room door. “What was that?” she asked incredulously.

“Don’t know,” Bob answered with a worried brow.

Without saying more they stood and listened.

Moments later the quietness returned to Las Conchas. A dog barked somewhere down the dusty road. Scurry returned the bark with one of his own. A soft zephyr caressed the wild brush out on the expansive sand beyond the barbeque. The bright orange sun lay low on the Sea of Cortez over towards Baja California Norte. Placido Domingo still sang a plaintive song in the great room of ‘Bells and Butterflies,’ muted by distance but still evocative and vaguely compelling.

Bob Geraint stood unsettled and wary by the barbeque, steak tongs hanging loosely from his right hand. He looked eastward toward the area from whence the screams had come. His faithful Scurry brushed nervously against his master’s leg, waiting. A few moments had passed since the last scream. There came a sound of a car engine, revving, moving. Bob placed the tongs on the tile sidebar of the barbeque and moved tentatively toward the road in front of his villa.

“Where are you going?” Deena asked, the question necessitated by a vague fear.

“Gotta take a look. Sounded like someone in trouble. Scurry, you stay here with mom.”

The dog whined but obeyed.

“Bob! Be careful!” Deena yelled after him.

Bob walked north along the eastern side of the villa, Deena’s beautiful bougainvillea and ice plant lining the entire stretch of white stucco. At the ATV shed off the front of the house Bob turned and walked east down the road. He walked slowly, scanning carefully both sides of the road. He passed other villas along the road but he detected no movements or lights. He thought idly that his neighbors were perhaps not coming down from Phoenix this weekend. The road was now in the final pale phase of sunlight and further east, some five hundred feet, Bob could see the small sand dune park area where kids raced their ATVs around a use-worn track. The area now looked remotely eerie in its mauve and dark contrast from the dissipating sun. The brush was wind-blown bare, and the sand dunes looked like soft smooth scoops of chocolate ice cream.

At a bend the road turned easily north and east again. Here, on the northern edge of the road, there were large and small
villas that were mostly furnished rentals, villas trust-owned by absentee landlords in Phoenix and Tucson. Bob now walked anxiously and warily along this row of villas. He suspected that this had been the area of the screams. No lights shone in any of the houses and no cars were parked out front.

Bob remembered the car noise minutes before and now looked off to the north, east, and south, to see if there were any vehicles traveling the dirt lanes leading into and out of Las Conchas. He saw no movement on the roads but he did see a dust flow along the road back to the west, toward the marine museum and the old whale bone skeleton near its entrance.

Then Bob noticed that a front door was ajar at one of the smaller villas along the north side of the road. It was the villa being rented as a vacation house by the Blalocks. He stopped, cocked his ears in a concentrated effort to hear sounds, debated within himself his next course of action, and cautiously moved left from the road down a stone edged walkway toward the open door.

Bob was a big man with a ruggedly handsome, angular, face. He was deeply tanned by the Sonoran sun and his grayish
white hair lay in tight distinguished neatness. He was six foot two, two hundred thirty pounds, with huge arms and hands. One of those hard and calloused hands now reached uncertainly toward the open door of the quiet villa.

Before touching the door knob, he called out, “Is anyone here? Hello! Anybody home?”

Then, louder, “Hello! Hello! Anybody home?”

He held the knob of the front door with his left hand and banged its center with his right fist.

After several raps and more calling out, he pushed the front door inward and warily entered, his body coiled and ready for any sudden surprises.

The flooring of the inside entry area was a high polished rust-red Mexican tile. The tile extended left into a living room area that was small and at the moment cluttered with overturned furniture.

The overturned furniture caused him pause. Again, he called out, “Anybody here? Hello! Hello!”

There was no response.

He tentatively passed through a small kitchen where cabinet doors were opened and broken dishes littered the floor. He moved slowly, on down a dark hallway, hesitated at a doorway, flicked a switch,and peered into a bathroom. He sensed the aroma of soap on the air and noticed a damp limpid towel on a wall hook. Water beads lay on the tiled floor of the shower and in the beige basin bowl below a mirrored medicine cabinet.

Growing more wary he turned off the bathroom light and moved further down the hallway. He called out again but there was no response.

Two doors on the right of the hallway opened onto small guest bedrooms. In both bedrooms Bob found the beds in disarray and some children clothing hung on round wooden poles in open closet niches. More clothes were strewn along the floor, and opened luggage sat before each of the open closets. Drawers had been pulled from the small bed tables and lay upended in the corner of the room.

The door on the left side of the hallway led to the master bedroom. Like the front entry, this door also stood ajar.

Again, he called out. There was no response.

Bob listened for a moment at the partially opened door. Then he thought he heard the low meowing sound of a cat coming from the room, muffled but distinguishable.

Then, an odor he had only peripherally noticed upon entering now settled pungently upon the air. It was a familiar smell and he knew that it was coming from the room before him.

His mind began to play out possible scenarios. He thought he recognized the odor. He had smelled before its somber septic essence. A truth suddenly hit him, a truth as inexorable as any truth he had ever known.

Mentally alert, not touching the door handle with his fingers, Bob reached for the upper center of the wood and pushed
inwardly with his knuckles. As the door opened the odor became nauseatingly strong. He covered his mouth and nose with his large left hand and walked all the way into the room.

Although he had an ominous expectation of what he would find, he could not have prepared himself for the scene in front of
him, six feet from the door.

Bob Geraint tightly closed his eyes but he could still see the woman sprawled sideways across the king size bed, deep
bloody indentations along her hairline, her right hand palm upward as though pitifully pleading for a mercy denied her. The left arm and hand, at an odd limp angle, rested on a naked breast. The chest was punctured savagely, oozing the dark red viscid juices that had been her life.

Bob opened his eyes and forced himself to view more specifics of the scene.

The woman’s right temple had a deep puncture slit, blood still flowing slowly from its opening. The throat was slashed and laid open by numerous thrusts from something keenly edged and maniacally wielded. Her mouth was a sad gaping rictus, and the white of her eyes were visible through partially closed lids. The terrycloth bathrobe she had been wearing was open at the front, soaked in blood, splayed out in wild angles all around her mutilated body. Blood splatters were on the ivory semi-gloss wall at the head of the bed, over the tiled floor, and as far away as the glass sliding doors leading to a small outside patio.

Bob Geraint gagged, fought back a wave of nausea, and tightened the grip of his hand over his nose and mouth. For a long
moment he could not blink or close his eyes. They remained wide and fixed on the dead woman in front of him.

Finally he lowered his head and saw that he was standing near several globules of bright red blood.

He noticed a sudden movement to his left. In a low, slow moving crouch, a lovely slate blue cat moved from beneath the big
bed. At the door, the cat swiftly disappeared down the dark hallway.

Bob Geraint hurried, too, from the death scene and from the dark house. Outside he retched and hungrily sought the cool air from the now dark Sea of Cortez. He saw through the thin beginning veil of night Deena and Scurry approaching. When Deena saw him bent over by the roadside she rushed to his side.

After a time they walked home, got in their car and drove quickly to the security gate some three miles away. Bob informed Antonio Aguilar of the grisly discovery. Antonio called the police. Bob took Deena and Scurry home and returned to meet Antonio at the Blalock house.

As Antonio and Bob stood talking out front, awaiting the police, Al Blalock and his three children pulled up in the family car. The man and his kids wore worried expressions, and Antonio tried to prevent them from entering the house. Al Blalock pulled from Antonio’s grasp and dashed into the house, the kids running after him.

Then, there came more screams, sad and pitiful from the children, mixed with astonished anguish and involuntary gasps for breath. Blalock and the kids soon emerged from the death house and huddled alongside Bob and Antonio.

The siren sounds came loudly, announcing the arrival of the police. There were questions of Bob and Antonio, of Al Blalock, and the police finally entered the house to examine the murder scene. 

The police were still in the house gathering what evidence might be available to them long after Bob walked back to ‘Bells and Butterflies.’ Outside his front arched entrance, Bob decided he needed more walking.

He slowly strolled along the dry dusty lanes for a time, trying to rid his mind of the thoughts churning there. At some point he thought of Deena. She would be worried, and, as he considered this thought, he found himself again at his arched entry way. He was momentarily stunned with the simple fact that he had returned to ‘Bells and Butterflies’ and did not recall the routes he had taken or the duration of his walk. 

Inside the house, he and Deena nibbled at some food, made small talk, but could not talk about the screams and the brutal
murder just a few doors away. They tried to watch a movie tape but could not stay interested. Finally, with a tacit acknowledgment, they went to bed. 

In bed, thoughts came that he most feared. There had been another death many years ago, the death of his daughter, Niki. A
mindless drunk driver had smashed into the family car and into every succeeding day and night of his life. Bob had been the one driving the family car, on an errand that could have waited. Niki had gone along for the ride, to be with her daddy.

His was an accountant’s mind, but he could not post on his ledgers the brutal reality of what he had just seen, the screams he had heard earlier. He could not turn off the many emotions he was feeling, of the Blalock woman — of Niki and her brief terrified scream just before the drunk driver would end her life and change her father’s life forever. 

Deep into the night, Bob Geraint lay sleepless next to Deena on his king size waterbed, afraid of sleep, more afraid of thought. Neither could he void the horrible screams of the Blalock woman, nor could he divorce those from his own child’s last soulful wail before death took her from him.

The brutal death of Kathleen Blalock, all the blood, had brought back the memories, memories he wanted not to face.

Bob Geraint lay there in a sleepless, suffocating void, familiar tears falling down his timeworn and craggy face. Familiar inner demons were at their work.

Scurry lay on the floor next to the bed, a soft whine emanating from deep within his throat, feeling the agony that griped his master’s soul.

END OF EXCERPT. For more information on this book, go to the author’s website/blog: http://www.billyraychitwood.weebly.com – Scan the ‘Home’ page for synopses of other books by Billy Ray Chitwood and ordering sites for kindle, print, and other e-book formats.

 Here's an excerpt from the third book in the Bailey Crane Mystery Series. Hope you enjoy it.


                                                  





                                                                                        CHAPTER ONE


Just when you think you've got all systems going in harmonious sync, that's the time old Chicken Little's doomsday utterance settles a might too snugly into the conscience: The sky is falling!

Well, my sky was falling, literally, inexorably, and with undue haste! Not to mix metaphors, but the falling sky was becoming a raging hell!

The very large warehouse roof was collapsing bit by fiery bit, and the bad guys were winning.

The bad guys were also getting away.

“What a way to go,“ said to myself and to anyone around to listen. “Dumb! Stupid! XO#*!!!”

And I had not even done my Christmas shopping.

It was Thursday, December 24, mid-afternoon. The temperature outside the Old Guthrie Warehouse was seventy degrees. It was a cloudless, real charming Chamber of Commerce day in Phoenix, Arizona. Inside the warehouse, in my little corner, the temperature was rising and the smoke was a dark, dense, viscid blanket which seriously threatened my breathing.

Having some vague recall from my firefighting boot camp training, courtesy of the United States Navy, my body was flat on the floor where the air was less heavy and thick. My vision was impaired by the smoke but could see orange diffusion all around me, could hear frantic cracking sounds of bursting embers and swirling fire fury, and could feel the heat, stinging, becoming a palpable furnace against my face and hands.

The large pneumatic door by which I had entered this ill-fated building was not far away. Could reach it except for one minor, make it, major, problem. A huge piece of timber frame had me wedged face down between some old metal file cabinets and a huge, heavy wooden desk. It was a corner office in the aged warehouse, and, at my arrival some twenty minutes ago, it had seemed so incongruous in its setting. It didn't matter a whole lot now. The fire would equalize all parts of the structure soon enough into a smoldering pile of ashes.

My boss, my buddy, Ross Milburn, had said it would be a simple matter, this visit to the Old Guthrie Warehouse. Just wanted to ask some questions, get some answers, about some nefarious shipments in the dark of night, and about some sort of big crime event about to happen. No big deal, he had said. One day, I would need to talk to Ross about his rather trivial disregard for my bones and his utter failure as a soothsayer.

Not so simple, it had turned out. A big deal, it had turned out. Someone, some evil SOB, someone or some ones, had set us up big time. Certainly, being the most seriously and immediately aggrieved, about to be consumed by uncaring flames, it appeared that some amount of complaining and whimpering was in order.

'Oh, just stop with the whining and figure a way to get us out of this mess.'

My alter ego tried persistently to keep my thinking straight. And, of course, he was always spot on. Didn't really matter at this point that we had been set up. Just, figure a way out. The only thing was, my strength was not sufficient to move the timber frame or my wedged body. My efforts were hopeless.

Earlier, when we arrived in our unmarked vehicle, the warehouse had a dark and abandoned look. Ross had gone to one end of the huge building to check a hazy light and what he thought were voices. I had gone straight to the warehouse office where, upon entering, had gotten blindsided by a two by four. At least, it felt like a two by four. On my hands and knees, head hanging loosely and all systems swaying surrealistically, heard loud, cursing, anxious voices retreating from the room.

Shortly after the bad people left the office, my befogged mind registered some gunshots and it appeared that Ross was calling to me from far away. Then, there came a thunderous, reverberating roar, slamming me roughly into the corner where that piece of timber frame nailed me helplessly to the floor. Soon, there was the sound of crackling fire, smoke, heat --- and old Chicken Little.

The permutations of my Cherokee mind astounded me. Here in this conflagrant environment, I started thinking about Christmas presents and Jingle Bells. 'Hey, beam up, Bailey Boy! You're about to fry. Like, get some kind of desperate.'

Don't get me wrong, knew that I was in trouble, but my brain was no doubt altered by the two by four whammy. All it wanted to do in those split seconds was vacillate wildly, acknowledging my impending death and wandering off into the past to revisit old memories, old loves, old dreams. The gray matter meandered those old trails until the intense heat got it back to the present and to thoughts of Janice and Bobby.

That's when I felt the first really urgent pinpricks of fear and desperation. My first subliminal thought had been that this fire business was likely a temporary inconvenience, that Ross and his Arizona Rangers would be bursting in to get me out any minute. The harsh reality of that not happening was now becoming much more evident. The mind could spin crazily fast and illogically in moments of impending peril.

Strained all muscles in my body to the max and could not budge for any appreciable leverage. The panic that should have been there much sooner now came fully empowered with Satan's rage.

This was it! The moment most people only obliquely confronted when the twilight years were upon them. The moment that fascinated the philosophers and the poets. The moment of no more options or delusive dithering. The moment of utter, stark, finality.

Death! Its black unctuous veil, heavy, gagging, suffocating, consuming and final, its heat a furious rhapsodic resonance. Death! My own death was now here, coming on the neuronal tap dancing tremors that was now my body.

So much for soliloquies. Here was heap big trouble for this southern white man with the Cherokee blood, heap big trouble right here, right now.

Struggled mightily, gagged, coughed, frantically reached maniacally within myself for air. Thoughts were trying to convey themselves to me, thoughts of sorrow, deeds undone, loves unfulfilled, all the roads untraveled; the body, the mind, a frenzied duo fighting out of sync in blind attempts to right themselves, both so near some great effulgence of truth, the ultimate enigma, the greatest mystery of a lifetime. … death. Would I know? After it was over, would I know? On some level, would I know? Would I know what death was about? Would I know and be alone in the knowledge? Would it matter? Would I go to a Hell? To a Heaven? Life's lore had followed me to the great gate of the hereafter.

“I long for death, death longs for me. But it is dark to die, and, oh! I fear that I still wish to be!"

The lines came to me unbidden from a book by an old friend: Hell's Music. The book was about two soldiers in a foxhole during the Korean War, seeking some ultimate clarity of their lives..

No more soliloquies for the moment.

Among gritty, dirty perspiration and the awesome heat, I could distinguish my own tears flowing down my cheeks. Then a smile, mildly sardonic and wistful, came to my face. “It's okay to cry, Bailey Boy,” whispered to myself. The urgency to live, to struggle with the Grim Reaper, was leaving me. The incredible flush and quake to my body was like a wild, pulsing, out of control roller coaster about to plummet from its highest arc. My breathing was short, hot, gasps of sucking, bringing enormous thermal pressure to my lungs. My heart seemed to inflate within me, and I felt like a bloated Salvadore Dali figure on some primordial pastel plain.

Death had come for me. Could it truly be?

On some unclear periphery of consciousness came soft sounds of a great ripping and tearing, of things falling; feet, hands, moving to a kind of melodic, slow motion, far away squeal. My name was being spoken over and over in low guttural, foghorn slowness, like the languid flow of dream sequences portrayed in old forgotten movies. Hands reached for the timber frame beam amid grunts and groans; feet scraped on a raspy floor. All motion was torpid; faces in punctuated and sustained grimaces and worry. Sweeping, lazy sprays of water fell all about me. The black smoke began to dissipate. Patches of blue sky came sporadically through the thinning mist. Air became breathable.

There on the edge I saw Ross Milburn's black shiny face, contorted with an etched fear, almost purplish in its sheen from the light play and the scattering smoke. Such a beautiful face! The face of my friend. Ross was sitting on some green and yellow contraption with two thick metal prongs sticking out of it. There were chunks of charred wood and wallboard hanging from the prongs. In my fevered brain it came to me that Ross had driven that alien metal monster into the outer wall of the warehouse office. He looked comical and out of place, his white shirt smudged with black soot and his tie loosened and thrown over his shoulder. He was beautiful. I thought about laughing but gagging and coughing stopped me.

The people lifting the wooden beam from my body were now recognizable. The men of the blue cloth, my comrades at the Phoenix Police Department, 'The Arizona Rangers,' had come to the rescue after all. A siren announced the arrival of fire engine and crew.

As the weight of the beam was hoisted above and away from my body, my breathing became more relaxed. It was indeed a most marvelous thing, this breathing. The now languid body no longer trembled with hysteria, but there was incipient soreness that beckoned for attention. My upper thighs and my kidneys were aching, but it was a subdued aching. Tentatively, I wriggled my toes within my shoes, then my feet and legs. My miraculous body seemed battered, bruised, otherwise nastily mistreated, but unbroken.

Managed a silly smile and a thumb's up for the beautiful and glistening face of Ross Milburn. He smiled inanely back until he seemed to become aware of some fundamental Keystone Kop element in the quaint montage. Then he lifted himself from the seat of the strange machine and jumped to the ground. Ross stood with one foot inside the warehouse office and one foot on the asphalt outside the crumbled wall.

While trying to stand, a pain akin to electric shock shot through my pelvic area. Awkwardly, I fell back to the floor among all the broken wood, glass and plaster.

“Stay where you are, Bailey!” yelled Ross, noticing my efforts to rise and my subsequent discomfort. “You might have something broken or torn inside.” He came toward me, dodging the debris.

“Think I'm okay, Ross-man, just tried to get up a little too fast. Probably a misplaced hillbilly gene or hormone getting realigned.”

Hey, it was a small and weak attempt at humor. I was alive. A few minutes ago, I was … Okay, enough already on that death business. Later, maybe, all of this could be revisited.

“Here,” I said to Ross when he was standing over me, “give me your hands and pull me up gently.”

“Bailey, we should wait until ...”

“C'mon, pull. Gently, as you go.”

Ross shook his head in feigned disgust and gave me his big handsome hams. With utmost care, his eyes watching mine, he lifted me to my feet. Shifting weight from foot to foot, tentatively, I put my hands on my love handles and turned my upper body slowly to one side, then to the other. My first step brought no elaborate pain so I took another. Then, another. Ross stayed by my side, his hands and arms out like he was ready to start shaping some clay statue.

“Hey, everything works, Ross-man. I'm okay. You okay? I heard gun shots. Right?”

“Yeah, you heard right. We winged two of them. We got 'em in a cruiser, bleeding all over the seats, waiting for the EMT to take 'em to St. Joe's, then on to lock-up. The other two got away in an old blue Lincoln Town Car. Trent put out an APB on 'em. They won't get too far.” Trent Casals was another buddy, one of my partners at the PPD. “You sure you're okay?”

“Yeah, I'm sure. A little sore but nothing's broken. That was something else, Ross. It's never been quite that way before. Thought maybe this could be the time for my big trip beyond. The mind behaves strangely when … Hey, you've been there. You don't need to hear it from me. Let's get out of this rubble.”

We walked some distance from the smoldering heap, away from the people and the noise. I sat in the PPD unmarked Chevy as Ross talked to Trent outside the cruiser holding the two bad guys. Trent broke away just long enough to come over and check me out.

Trent, a tall, lanky, double-jointed ex-basketball player, ugly and beautiful all in one, looked like a 'Jack Palance' or like an imagined 'Ichabod Crane.' He cared but he did not make a show of caring. He stayed for a few minutes, muttered some inanities, patted, gripped my shoulder, and walked back to the cruiser.

Sitting there, windows up in the car, watching the near noiseless activity around the warehouse rubble, a strange soporific calm engulfed me. Quiet, sensory messages of great meaning were being transmitted from somewhere deep in my soul, just out of my cranial grasp, the import of which was not as important as the knowledge of knowing they were being sent. The nonsensical aberration brought a smile to my face and I dropped my chin, closed my eyes, and shook my head gently in silent acknowledgment to the miracle of life and God's inscrutable stage-fare.

The car door opened and slammed closed. Ross got behind the steering wheel and stared at my stupid face, the inane smile still in place.

“What, BC? What? The look? What transpires inside that looney bin scalp?”

“Just being me, Ross-man. You don't want to know. Believe me, it's better kept very far from you, very far from anyone. It's a mind trip.” I stared back at Ross and saw the helpless expression come to his face, saw his eyes get all squint-like. “Hey, I'm okay,” I said quickly. “What's with our two criminolos? They talking or what?”

Ross finally broke his stare. He put the key in the ignition and started the engine. “Yeah, they're talking, but they're talking pig Latin or some other derivative language I don't know. You know them, I think. Art DeFilo and Eddie Briscoe?”

Nodded in the affirmative. Yes, the worthless goons were known to me.

Ross put the gear in reverse, carefully backed circuitously around three police cruisers with red lights and blue lights still flashing. “Art DeFilo, the short, squat one?” He glanced over at me for an up and down head shake. “He said one thing that baffles me. I mean, I got his words. I just don't know what they necessarily mean ...”

Ross drove forward, dodging people and debris, crossed the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks and headed toward Van Buren Avenue.

“Well, what did DeFilo say, big guy? Don't keep me in the dark.”

The western sun felt hot against my nape, but not hot like the just recently known hot. This was enjoyable hot.

“He was a little sappy. Guess the bullet that passed through his shoulder had him swooning. He was mumbling a lot. But he said something peculiar, then got all red and sweaty after he said it, like he couldn't believe he had said it ...” Ross turned east onto Van Buren.

“Said WHAT? Crimminy, Rosser, you're infuriating. What did the short, squat, Artie DeFilo say?”

He glanced quickly in my direction, then back at the road. With a serious and stern expression, and a lot of pseudo drama, Ross spoke: “He said an odd thing, especially weird for a small time hood. You know we've been expecting something big from Fistucci and his group. Well, what this creep said might just be tied in with that big event, whatever the hay it is.” He paused, glanced my way with a wrinkled brow expression.

“What, dip-hole? Tell me what he said or I'll choke you right here on Van Buren.”

He chuckled for a moment, then put his serious face back on. “Okay, okay. What he said was, he said, and this is really way out, man, I kid you not ...” He saw me about to erupt. “He said, 'Beware the Brutus Gate.'”

Didn't know whether to hit him or jump out of the car.

'Beware the Brutus Gate.'

Cute. Very cute.


END OF EXCERPT - Please visit these links for information on ordering and/or synopses of other books in the Bailey Crane Mystery Series. Also check out the author's other books: "Mama's Madness" - "Butterflies And Jellybeans - A Love Story" - "The Cracked Mirror - Reflections Of An Appalachian Son" - "What Happens Next? - A Life's True Tale"

Here are the links:

http://www.billyraychitwood.weebly.com and http://www.goo.gl/fuxUA and http://www.about.me/brchitwood  and
amazon.com (US - UK - Europe)