On Monday, October 23rd, Ten Million Ways to Die, the 18th book in the Magnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles goes live.
The book is my second contribution to this ongoing multi-author crime fiction series. And I am very proud of it. I think it is a bang up mystery, and my beta readers agree. Which is always a good thing when your beta readers think you’ve produced a dynamite book.
To whet your appetite, I’m giving you a snippet. Last week, I gave a link to the Meet the Author podcast where I read a section from Chapter 2. If you didn’t catch that, you can do so here: https://youtu.be/kIpDKf2VkwE
Today, Chapter 3 comes your way. In this section, we see some behind the scenes machinations on the part of Scarlett Hayden, who is in love with Harry Thurgood, to break up Harry and Ember.
There is a scene with Mary Lou Fight and her ongoing attempt to run both Harry and Ember out of town.
And a scene with Ember questioning Harry’s secret life.
Secrets. Deadly secrets. Secrets to die for. Enjoy the snippet!
***
3
Tuesday, 10 October
10:33 am
In a palatial spread on Sandalwood Drive, the enclave where the monied folk in Magnolia Bluff live to avoid mingling with the Great Unwashed, Mary Lou Fight was looking at photographs in her living room, which was larger than Harry Thurgood’s coffee shop by quite a stretch.
Across from her sat a nondescript man. A little taller than average. A little bit broader built than average. Dishwater blond hair, what was left of it. Facial features no one would probably bother to remember.
His suit came off a department store rack quite sometime ago and hadn’t been altered. Nor had it ever seen the inside of a dry cleaners.
Mary Lou looked up from the photographs. “Hunter, I’m surprised. These are worthless. They don’t tell me anything I don’t already know. Everyone knows he sits in his coffee shop and talks to the little strumpet. And this one…” She held up the color glossy print. “Who cares if he ran a red light? This is not like you at all. What else have you found? And don’t tell me nothing.”
“He’s very good, Mrs. Fight. Honest. I can’t even find anything to prove his name isn’t Harry Thurgood.”
“If you’re trying to get more money…”
“No, it’s not like that, Mrs. Fight. Honest. I don’t know who he knows, but whoever it is they are good. Very good.”
“And who do you think he knows?”
“Well, if my theory is correct and he paid for a new identity, then we are talking, for an ID this good, someone who works with organized crime.”
“You mean like on that nasty TV show?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I see. So he is a criminal.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But he probably has connections.”
“Keep digging. If you need money to loosen tongues, let me know. I want him to pay.”
“I will, Mrs. Fight. I’ll keep digging. Everyone has a dirty diaper. I’ll find his.”
“Good. Because I want him gone. I want him in jail so he can never come back. So he can never have his precious little harlot. I want him locked away with a lot of mean and nasty criminals who will humiliate and emasculate him. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mrs. Fight.”
“Good. Now, go.”
“Hunter left, and Mary Lou, using her walker, slowly made her way to the floor-to-ceiling picture window. The window that looked out onto her world. And it was her world. Everything she saw, and much of what she didn’t see. Her husband, Gunter, owned the bank, and in owning the bank, he controlled the lives of many of the good folk of Magnolia Bluff. And Mary Lou controlled Gunter. Together, they controlled almost everyone in Magnolia Bluff. Everyone except for Harry Thurgood. And that made her angry.
He had thwarted her attempt to get rid of that little minx, Ember Cole, who had the audacity to stand in the pulpit of her church. A church she couldn’t even go to anymore because of Harry Thurgood. He had threatened her and thwarted her. Humiliated her in her own town, and that made her blood boil.
She clenched her fists, and in a voice barely above a whisper, but filled with a venom that would make a rattlesnake hide under a rock, she said, “No one humiliates me, Harry Thurgood. No one.”
***
Across Burnet Reservoir, in a very large Prairie-style home on the northwest shore, nestled among the trees, Scarlett Hayden stood at her picture window and looked out on her world. The resort that made a rich widow even richer.
She’d been standing there a long time. Long enough for her martini to have lost its icy coldness.
Even though the resort was full, something not uncommon for October, a last hurrah for the tourists, the day was starting out quiet. The Smiths, her very efficient caretakers, had handled everything this morning, leaving her with little to do and a lot of time on her hands.
Scarlett hated the quiet days. Hated them because she always found herself thinking of Harry Thurgood. Daydreaming about what life would be like waking up with him beside her in bed. She wanted him more than anything. But he was only interested in that skinny Ember Cole.
The couple of times he’d visited had convinced her he’d enjoyed her company. And he would’ve stayed the night. But it was always Ember on his mind.
Her martini was thoroughly warm now. She walked to the kitchen sink and poured the gin and vermouth down the drain. She watched the liquid and her dream flow away.
“Maybe I need to get reacquainted with the football team,” she said out loud. “Maybe the high school team as well as the college team.”
She barked a harsh laugh and shook her head. “No. If I want the star quarterback, then I’m going to get the star quarterback. I deserve the best and I’m going to get the best. I’ve had my fill of the milk. I want, no, I deserve the cream.”
That decision made, she fixed herself a fresh martini. Drink in hand, she walked to the sofa and stretched out on it.
Scarlett took a sip of the ice cold liquid. “I just have to figure out how to get him away from Ember.” The glass returned to her lips and she took another sip of gin, scented with a trace of vermouth. “But how?”
She stared at her genuine Tiffany lamp. The monochromatic yellow-green hues of the glass and the arachnid-like raised veins coming down from the clawed top she found to be soothing.
After some time, she took a swallow of her drink, and said, “There’s always Mary Lou and her goddamn groupies. She knows everything. Maybe I need to get back into her good graces. After all, Mary Lou wants Ember gone as badly as I do.”
Scarlett took another swallow of the martini. “And then there’s Daphne. Women always tell their hairdresser everything. Getting close with her would definitely give me an additional information highway to drive down.”
The rest of the martini disappeared in one long gulp.“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. If I were good friends with Ember…” She shrugged. “Why not? If I can poison her opinion of the coffee man and get her to dump him…”
She pursed her lips at the thought, and a big smile spread across her face.
***
Ember Cole stood up and stretched.
Scattered across her desk top were sheets of paper, her Bible, the New Testament in Greek, and several commentaries.
Her eyes came to rest on the statue in the far corner of her office that Harry had given to her at Christmas.
“Why give me a statue of Mary and Jesus?” she’d asked him. “You do remember I’m not Catholic?”
He’d chuckled. “I remember,” he’d answered, and added, “It’s religious art and you’re religious, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“So there you have it. And don’t throw it out, or give it away.”
“What makes…”
He’d held his hand up. “It’s valuable. Like very valuable. And incredibly old.”
“Really? How old?”
“Let’s say that it might have been used by the Druids.”
“The Druids? They weren’t Christian.”
“No, they weren’t.”
“And?”
“As I said, it is incredibly old.”
“I see. You aren’t going to tell me. Okay. So why give it to me? And how did you get it in the first place?”
She remembered he’d smiled at her and said, “I want you to have it because I love you. As for how I got it, let’s just say it’s a family heirloom.”
She didn’t believe him, but knew she wasn’t going to get anymore out of him. So she’d put the thing on a table in the corner of her office, even though she thought it was one of the ugliest works of art she’d ever seen.
“Dull, crusty black metal. Skinny, ugly figures that don’t even look like real people.”
Harry had laughed at her description.
The statue was wood, and the wood was overlayed with a black metal. It stood a little over two feet in height from the base to the top of Mary’s crown.
The Mary figure was tall and skinny and seated on a backless chair. The baby Jesus was seated on her lap, and he was wearing a crown as well, just like his mother.
The statue reminded her of pictures she’d seen of Medieval depictions of Jesus and Mary. Highly stylized. Not at all realistic.
The statue wasn’t the only gift Harry’d given her, which made it easier for her to accept the ugly thing.
She walked over to it, squatted before it, and said, not for the first time, “I wonder what makes you so special other than you being old?” She stood. “Sure wish Harry would tell me what’s up with you. Maybe Father Lee would know something.”
Ember walked back to her desk and sat. Not Father Lee, she thought. Harry. He needs to tell me about his past.
Then she shook her head. “No. If he tells me his dark secret, then I’ll have to tell him mine. And I’m not ready to do that. Not yet. Maybe never.”
Her eyes darted to the statue. Mystery man. Mystery art. So many secrets. So very many secrets.
***
I hope that has you salivating for more. Stay tuned and you may get your wish.
Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!
CW Hawes is a playwright; award-winning poet; and a fictioneer, with a bestselling novel. He’s also an armchair philosopher, political theorist, social commentator, and traveler. He loves a good cup of tea and agrees that everything’s better with pizza.
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