OK, so I decided to enter the
Crimewriter's Debut Dagger Competition with my NanOWriMo novel. It was expensive to enter. Here is the entry, which includes the first 1 3/4 chapters and an expanded synopsis (wish me luck!):
Chapter
1: Back Off
Tuesday, September 6, 5:17
PM,
"Rune," Larry Thompson said, "back off. You're
asking too many questions and putting yourself in danger."
Rune
looked up from her computer in her closet-sized office to see Larry looking
over her shoulder. On her screen was an old clipping. The headline read,
"Four Renowned Cornell Mycologists Dead of Mushroom Poisoning!" Under
that, the subtitle read, "Terrible Accident Claims Four Cornell
Profs."
“What is
this, some third rate pulp fiction novel?
Who are you, and what did you do with my friend Larry?” Rune asked, half
joking, half sarcastic.
"Why
are you worrying about this old accident?" Larry asked, pointing at the
clipping. “I know Dr. McHaggerty’s teaching-assistant training sessions this
week have piqued your interest, but that accident was thirteen years ago.”
“McHaggerty’s
been talking about this for years,” Rune said. “He talked about it when I
originally took Projects Mycology like four years ago. He talked about it again
two years ago when I assisted during my senior year. But I was distracted then
by other problems in my life. True, he calls it an accident. But he
explains how to avoid the accident, and I can’t believe that those intelligent,
experienced professors would make the same mistake McHaggerty expects Projects
Mycology 158 students to understand and avoid. I think it was no
accident; I think it was murder.
There is no statute of limitations on murder."
"You
think they were murdered.” It was
not a question. “The police insisted it was an accident. They
wouldn't listen when a number of us, including me, suggested murder. We
went round and round about it."
"If
you thought it was murder then, why are you telling me to back off and butt out
now? And why are you calling it an accident? And Larry, are you actually threatening me?"
Larry
reached over and pushed the door shut. Rune looked up, surprised. Her
office was so small that closing the door made her slightly claustrophobic.
She was not exactly afraid. It was
hard to be afraid of Larry; she liked him too much.
Already,
since Rune arrived for Teaching Assistant (TA) Training just over a week ago,
Rune and Larry had reestablished the friendship they had begun when Rune first
came to the College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry. Larry was the
head audio-visual guru at ESF, the college of Environmental Sciences and
Forestry and Rune had been the only girl AV Geek at her high school. That brought her into contact with
Larry at ESF, but it was not that shared interest that had deepened their
friendship. Larry was a good listener, a perceptive if usually reticent advisor
and a gentle soul. Rune liked him, plain and simple. And for some reason, Larry seemed to like Rune.
Rune
was pleased that her new office was right next door to Larry’s. Besides being a good friend, Larry
liked to bake cookies in his lab.
Larry’s
office, like Rune’s, was on the second, or entomology, floor of Illick Hall on
the ESF campus. The offices were just a short jog from the elevators. It
was a convenient location for a man who spent much of his time pushing around
carts of equipment. The door to Larry’s office, lab and AV storeroom was right
next to hers. If one stood in the
little alcove off the main hallway, there were three doors almost together. The
one on the left was Eilyn Otis’s. The center one, which was at right angles to
hers and facing the hall, was Larry’s, and Rune’s door was at right angles to
Larry’s and across from Eilyn’s.
The doors were fire doors, dark industrial grey metal. No windows in the doors. Neither Rune’s office nor Eilyn’s office
had windows. Rune was sure her
office had been designed as a closet, and Eilyn’s as a small storeroom.
Larry’s
room had been designed as a lab, and had lots of windows, lab tables and
glass-fronted shelves, gas fixtures, a desk and lots of storage space. Although the main room was light and
airy, the small office alcove where his desk was located was usually dark and
cluttered.
Larry
leaned close to Rune, as if to whisper in her ear, and then backed off
suddenly, looking suspiciously around the room. Then he leaned back
toward her again. "This place might be bugged," he whispered,
so quietly Rune could hardly hear him, "Can you spare time for . . .
" he paused, looking at his watch, "how about dinner? King
David’s?"
"You're
not going to haul me off in a dark alley and murder me, are you?" Rune
asked, jokingly. A small shiver ran up her spine. She'd known Larry
Thompson more than four years, and he did not strike her as a murderer. Larry
was unapologetically gay, swishy gay. Not that a gay was incapable of
murder, but Larry was too nice. He had a bit of a lisp, a way of standing when
at ease and limp gay wrists when he wasn’t pushing equipment around, but he
didn't dress to the nines like some of the gays Rune had met in San Francisco.
He wore baggy old-man pants, baggy old-man suspenders, a ratty old dress
shirt with frayed and greying cuffs, and a ratty old suit jacket. He was grizzled
and balding and his thin hair hung in wisps about his slightly baggy face.
His eyes, however, were intense, dark grey and full of life and
intelligence.
Rune
thought of Larry as "sweet." She could think of no one she knew
who was nicer than Larry. Suddenly, however, she also thought of him as a
possible suspect in the murder of four professors. Silly of course, but
why else would he be threatening her, if in fact, that was what he was doing?
But the professors were from Cornell and he was at ESF; they were
mycologists and he was an AV man. Cornell was over an hour away, more
than 50 miles. It was too far for
easy friendship between the two schools.
Rune felt slightly confused and disoriented, but rose and followed Larry
out of her office and down the stairs of Illick to walk through the Syracuse
University Campus and down the hill to Marshall Street.
Walking
down from campus, they made it to King David’s new door, without Rune's being
dragged into a dark alley, though they had passed several dark alleys with
young hipsters squatting and smoking cigarettes behind decorative wrought-iron
fences. Rune laughed at her own fears, but she still had a creepy
feeling.
King David's had just moved upstairs after years and years on the ground
floor. Word was that Chipotle’s had offered King David’s a deal too good
to refuse. Upstairs, passing the new tables and chairs, and Larry chose a
table in the back, away from the doors and windows, where the light was low.
He carefully scanned the other patrons. "Pat yourself
down," he said. "I'd do it for you, but I wouldn't want you to
think I'm coming on to you." He said this with great solemnity, and
Rune had to laugh.
"You're
kidding, right? Is this some kind of joke? Halloween is still almost two
months away."
"No,
I'm not kidding. Pat yourself down. I just want to be sure."
"What
am I looking for?"
"A
tiny mic like this," Larry said, holding out a miniature microphone.
"Really?"
Rune sounded worried, even to herself.
"Don't
worry," Larry said, "I've disabled this one."
Rune
found no hidden mics, and they sat down. Larry ordered her a sampler
platter and himself a veggie sampler.
While
they were waiting for the food, Larry leaned close and whispered to Rune,
"You know, don’t you, that Dr. Calyx Karklins, one of the four professors
from Cornell who were murdered . . . I mean who died, was my lover?"
Rune
sat up straight and looked at Larry. Although he was clearly gay in his
speech and mannerisms, she had always thought of hi
m as asexual.
Never had she seen him on or off campus with a partner. It was hard
to imagine him with a lover. Not that she wanted to imagine it in too
much detail.
"Were
you down at Cornell? I thought you were a permanent fixture here. I
thought you'd been here forever."
"I've
been here twelve years. I couldn't stand being at Cornell after what
happened to Calyx. Dr. Otis got me the job here. I came primarily
for Eilyn." He said, pronouncing the name “AY-lin.”
"Eilyn?
Dr. Otis's wife?"
"Yeah,
we were . . . um . . . close . . . friends." Larry turned
brilliant scarlet.
"Larry!"
Rune exclaimed. Larry turned his face away, and when he finally
turned back, he had composed himself.
“Moving
right along . . .” Larry said, “What I wanted to tell you is that someone
around here is not going to be happy that you’re poking your nose into
something they consider not your business. Seriously, Rune, it could be
dangerous.”
“That
someone couldn’t be you, could it?” Rune asked, smiling. “Where we you
the week of August 19th, thirteen years ago?”
“I
was in North Carolina with my mother who had a brain tumor. I was there
most of that summer, and there are hundreds of witnesses who saw me that week,
because they had a big fundraiser to help my Mom pay for her medical bills.
She was a social worker who had helped many families in the area, and people
turned out in droves. I was on stage helping my mother to stand.”
“Oh
dear,” Rune said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. What happened to your Mom?”
“They
raised enough money for the operation, but when the doctors opened her skull,
the tumor was bigger than they thought it was. It had spread throughout
more than half her brain. They took out what they could and closed her up
again. Before the swelling had even gone down, she fell from the hospital
fire escape—or jumped. Outside her window. She died.”
“I’m
so sorry, Larry.”
“It
was the same day Calyx died,” he said. He looked bereft.
Rune
got up, went around the table, and hugged Larry. He buried his face
against her belly. His shoulders trembled. Run stroked his back. A few
tears came to her eyes. She always seemed to feel the pain and grief of
others more strongly than most people appeared to.
The
meals came, and Rune sat back down. They ate a few minutes in silence.
“But
Larry, why did you tell me not to ask questions? I was just curious how four
renowned mycologists who should have known better could actually have poisoned
themselves. I only wanted to turn over a few stones.”
“Some
stones are better left unturned,” Larry said. There was a stubborn set to
his jaw that Rune never seen before.
“You
didn’t kill them?” she asked.
“No,”
he said, “but someone did. I’m absolutely sure of it.” Again, that shiver.
The cold fingers up her spine.
“Why
are you warning me?”
“Because
I like you. I care about you. I don’t want anything untoward to
happen to you.”
“And
you think it might?”
“Yes.
If you keep poking around, yes.”
“But
it happened at Cornell, not here.”
“No,
it happened in the mountains, up in the Adirondacks. On a backpacking
trip. It was a long backpacking trip. Several people here were
involved in various ways.”
“Who?”
“Rune,”
Larry said sharply, “Leave it! Leave it alone.”
“Okay,
Larry. I’ll be more careful.” Rune decided to move her questioning
undercover. “Maybe.”
“Don’t
be more careful, Rune. Stop. Give it up entirely.” Rune
nodded, but was unconvinced. Larry stared at her.
Rune
shook her head a bit. She couldn’t help her self. Larry shook his.
They stared into each other’s eyes with such intensity that finally, Rune had
to look away.
“It
would be in your best interest to believe me,” Larry whispered softly, still
looking intently at Rune. His eyes seemed to grow huge as she looked back
at him, as if they were trying to tell her something, if she could just
understand what it was.
Chapter
2: Dr. McHaggerty, Lesson 1, and
the Four Dead Professors Again
Chapter
flyleaf: illustration of
Destroying Angel, Amanita phalloides
First day of classes,
Wednesday, September 7
“Four
world-renowned mycology professors at Cornell died of mushroom poisoning after
a joint mushroom-collecting trip on a backpacking expedition,” Dr. Colin
McHaggerty said, in booming voice, looking out over the faces in the Marshall
Auditorium. On two of the three screens behind him, images of a grinning
Grim Reaper holding glowing white mushrooms appeared. In the center screen was
an enlarged copy of a newspaper article with the headline, "Four Renowned
Cornell Mycologists Dead of Mushroom Poisoning!" It was the same article
that Rune had pulled up on her computer when Larry had come in to give his dire
warning about her questions. Fog drifted out onto the stage, curling,
wafting and thickening. It poured in a milky waterfall off the stage into the
first row of students, spreading into the audience. The lights dimmed
slightly and the room seemed to grow suddenly cold. Rune shivered.
McHaggerty paused dramatically.
He wore black pants, a black shirt, a black tie with white mushrooms on
it and a light-weight black cape that fluttered, lifting high behind him in an
unseen breeze. His thick, wavy, grizzled and somewhat wild red hair and
beard created a red-gold halo around his face. The already low lights in
the auditorium dimmed to near darkness and a light came up under McHaggerty’s
face, shadowing his eyes making his face look skeletal. A groan rose from the
students in the audience, almost a shriek.
“Apparently,” McHaggerty said, “many
different kinds of mushrooms were collected that day.” He paused again, turning
his face from left to right. The students could no longer see his eyes,
which were deep in shadow as if there were only empty sockets. “Including
Amanita phalloides, the Destroying
Angel!” He thundered. Photographs of the destroying angel mushroom, glowing
white against a black background, appeared on the screen.
Another long pause followed and then
the lights came up to full brightness and the light under McHaggerty’s face
disappeared. Two warm yellow spotlights appeared on his face from above.
“Some mushrooms, “ Dr. McHaggerty,
said, smiling widely, his voice now cheerful and light “are delicious and
wonderfully edible.” On the screens to the left and right appeared photos
of edible mushrooms, the common garden mushroom, morels, shaggy manes, chicken
of the woods. Each was labeled with the common and Latin names. In
the center pane was a photograph of a plate of cooked mushrooms, garnished with
parsley and set on a red and white checked tablecloth.
“Some mushrooms,” McHaggerty said,
and the lights dimmed to half-brightness, “while not poisonous, are distinctly
unpalatable or inedible.” More labeled photos appeared.
“And some mushrooms,” McHaggerty
continued, as the lights fell to darkness again and the light under his face
came up, “are deadly poisonous.” The screens to the left and right showed
the destroying angel, the death cap, the fly agaric and other deadly mushrooms.
The Grim Reaper came up on the center, holding white mushrooms in his
right hand and the limp body of a deceased victim in his left arm.
McHaggerty paused again. The
lights slowly came back up, and the chin light faded away. McHaggerty,
moving slowly, pulled on a pair of thin beige rubber gloves. From a shelf
in the podium, he took a handful of white mushrooms. The three screens
behind him showed a close-up video of his face and gloved hands, holding the
mushrooms.
“Amanita
phalloides,” he said, thundering again, “is so poisonous that even touching
it can be dangerous. Some of the toxins can be transferred to the skin,
and from the skin to the mouth or to the food you are going to eat.”
Behind him, the three images each show a different photograph of Amanita phalloides, labeled with common
names, and the Latin name. “Amanita
phalloides is a common mushroom and can be found in woods, fields and in
your own backyard.”
Again, Dr. McHaggerty paused
dramatically. Then he walked out from behind the lectern, strode to the
edge of the stage, and leaned out so far over the edge toward the audience that
it seemed he might tumble off the stage into the laps of the students in the
front row. He was still holding the Amanita phalloides in his right hand,
gesticulating with it, and the closest students leaned visibly away from him.
Their faces looked stricken. Rune, sitting onstage with half the
other teaching assistants, elbowed Bart on one side and Cassie on the other and
they all snickered and giggled, covering their mouths with their hands.
No one was looking toward them. All eyes were riveted on Dr.
McHaggerty. It was the first day of classes at the beginning of the
semester in September. The students, looking amazingly young, had never
seen McHaggerty in action. They’d heard through the grapevine, as students
always did, and in increasing numbers, that the class was good, but they hadn’t
known just how riveting it would be.
Rune
thought Dr. McHaggerty was a little overly dramatic, but that was better than
Dr. Johnson, who taught plant and mushroom anatomy. He stood at the front of the room with his lecture notes in
his hand and read them in a monotone.
By the end of the class, 83 percent of the students were asleep. He didn’t publish his class notes
online, either, like McHaggerty did.
But some kid front and center always managed to get the notes and put
them online for the kids who fell asleep. Besides, Rune liked a little drama
and tended to overdramatize things herself.
“Can anyone tell me,” McHaggerty
asked, “how those four doomed professors could have avoided dying of mushroom
poisoning?”
Death Angel Synopsis
When Rune Carmichael first returns to the
College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry to study for a PhD and work as
Dr. McHaggerty’s teaching assistant, McHaggerty reminds her of the deaths of
four world-renowned Cornell University Mycology professors thirteen years
earlier. The deaths seem suspicious to Rune, but as she begins to questions
them, her AV guru friend, Larry Thompson warns her to let sleeping dogs lie.
Meanwhile, Rune’s life suddenly revolves around
Mycology Professor Colin McHaggerty. Everyone seems to love McHaggerty,
undergrads, parents, grad students, TAs, faculty and administration. Rune loves him herself. But the other professors, teaching
assistants and even her own research project take a back seat to the
all-encompassing McHaggerty. The married McHaggerty seems almost to be
courting Rune, taking her to lunch, to dinner and to the movies. She is already pushing him away, when
she learns that her best friend Jody is having an affair with McHaggerty and is
having trouble breaking it off.
When, after an upsetting incident in one of the
female-TA apartments, McHaggerty and Eliza, one of the TAs, turn up in the
hospital with mushroom poisoning, Rune refuses to believe the poisoning was “a
terrible accident.” She recognizes that McHaggerty knows better than to poison
Eliza and himself.
Although busy with her teaching duties,
research and classes, Rune begins to investigate the circumstances surrounding
McHaggerty’s poisoning. As she
starts poking around, she receives a series of warnings. First, she and her TA-partner, Bart eat
pizza sprinkled with mind altering “Magic Mushrooms” from the Acropolis. She
becomes frighteningly disoriented.
Someone wants to let them know, she realizes, how easily they could be
poisoned. Then someone smashes a
truck into Rune on her motorcycle—hit and run. Other warnings include notes,
letters and threats to “mind her own business.” Rune survives the
mushrooms and the crash and continues looking, forming an investigative team
with Bart and some of the other TAs.
The team discovers that McHaggerty, whom they
all believed to be well loved, has many enemies and that the college is rife
with unsuspected excitement and sordid intrigue. McHaggerty turns out to
be a rabid Don Juan who has affairs with students, faculty, faculty wives and
parents. Rune’s trust, damaged by a recent divorce, is further damaged by what
she learns about McHaggerty and others at the college, but receives a boost
from Silas, a lucky witness to the hit and run and from her TA-partner
Bart.
Rune and her team of students investigate many
leads. First there is Angel, the enraged TA who tries to shoot McHaggerty when
she finds out about his philandering. Then there are the husbands and lovers of
all of McHaggerty’s liaisons.
There are jealous professors and angry administrators. There are lovers who feel jilted and
colleagues who feel cheated. The team tries to learn the possible alibis of all
the suspects. Then they scrutinize
the ones without alibis.
Meanwhile, Rune learns more about the original
thirteen-year old poisonings from Eilyn, who is a close friend of Larry’s and
whose office is across the hall from Rune’s. Eilyn was present at the original poisonings. But Eilyn is
beat up and escapes to a women’s shelter.
Though the police offer little help,
considering McHaggerty’s poisoning to be an accident, Rune continues searching.
As far-fetched as it seems, she wonders if the current poisoning might be
somehow linked to the 13-year-old quadruple murder. And what, she wonders, is her friend Larry’s connection to
all of this?
Can Rune survive when an enraged murder suspect
catches her digging through his private office files in his locked office at
three AM?
