by john | May 10, 2017 | Business of publishing, How to Sell Books, Promos/Giveaways, Writing
So you know you need an email list, but you have no idea how to go about building an email list, right? You don’t think you have anything interesting to say, or anything that people will want to hear about. You don’t release a book every month like some crazy bastards you know (BTW, the new Quincy Harker book is out for pre-order, and you should totally do that), you don’t think you lead a terribly interesting life, but this Hartness asshole keeps telling you to build a mailing list. So how are you supposed to do that?
There are a lot of ways to build a mailing list, and we’re going to start with my preferred method. The two styles of mailing list construction are Organic Growth and Incentivized Growth. Organic Growth is slower, much more labor-intensive, and requires writers to do the one thing that many of them hate to do – interact with people.
It’s also the best way to build a mailing list. With organized growth, you are slowly cultivating people who actually want to hear from you. People who have either seen you on a panel, or at a con table, or met you in line at the restroom, or in the bar, or read one of your books, or whatever – they have had some interaction with you or your work and they WANT to know more. Maybe they’re just another writer friend and they want to know when you have something new coming out. Whatever. You don’t care why they want to hear from you, they have interacted with you in some way, and made the decision that they actually want to hear from you.
These are the best mailing list subscribers. They are already predisposed to want to hear from you. They like you, and people buy shit from people the like. They don’t like to be lectured at, they don’t like to be preached at, but they like to laugh, so make people laugh every chance you get. Or cry. People like to cry, too, They don’t, however, like to feel like they are trapped in an elevator with Aunt Marge from the family reunions who always smells a little like pee and wants to pinch you. So don’t be Aunt Marge.
That escalated quickly. Moving back to the point, the people who subscribe organically are more likely to click on a link in your newsletter, and more likely to open the newsletter in the first place.
On the other side of the coin are the Incentivized Subscribers. These are people who want a free ebook, or want to enter to get a free Kindle, or whatever they are getting out of signing up for you list. These folks will have a high number of join and drop folks, and you won’t be able to convert that many of them into real fans and readers. Sorry, it’s just true. You might have 8,000 people on your email list, but if you’re only getting a 10% open rate on your newsletter, then you’re not doing any better than someone with a 2,000-person list and a 50% open rate. So look for quality over quantity, or ideally a mixture of both. Because you do need to be visible, and giveaways and mailing list swaps are good ways to do that, and they are often good ways to increase your mailing list dramatically in a very short time. I’ve added 1,000 people to my mailing list since the beginning of this year, and a lot of that has been off of Incentivized Subscribers. I’ve also had a lot of people drop from my mailing list immediately after downloading their free ebook, so the long-term success of those programs is yet to be determined.
So how do you get the Organic Subscribers? Well, there are a few ways.
If you are self-published, you can put a signup link in the back of all of your ebooks. If you are traditionally published, you can put a link in your author bio and either hope your publisher doesn’t see it, or ask your publisher if it’s okay. If I publish you, it’s fine. I want you to have a million people on your email list, because then we both make more money. This is a passive method that will slowly net some signups.
Please note that all of these organic methods are slow dribbles of signups. They are like putting out dozens of little buckets in a rainstorm. You don’t get very much water in any one bucket, but when you collect everything out of all the buckets, you can fill a bathtub pretty quick. These are your buckets.
Your website is another bucket. You’ll notice there is a link one the right-hand side of the page here with a picture of the High Fashion Hell cover. That’s a signup link for my website. People click on the picture, cover by the lovely Natania Barron, and they are directed to a signup form for my email list. Oh, you don’t have a website? Well, welcome to the late 20th century, you need a website. I suggest it be your name, not any book or series name, because you will have your name longer than you will have any given book series, and you want to remain easy to find online. Same with email addresses – get one that’s just your name, because eventually you will no longer want to be known as Hot2Trot4Cumberbatch420@whateverthefuck.com.
My author page on Facebook has a call to action button, which is another email list signup. That allows people who find me on Facebook to sign up for my emails directly from there. You don’t have an author page yet? Well, better get on that shit. You are a professional, whether you do this for your entire living or not, and you need to be able to use all the tools at your disposal.
I also use Twitter to drive email signups. I’ll get into the scheduled Twitter and Facebook posts in a later article, but suffice to say that at least once per day a message goes out on Facebook and Twitter telling people that I have a mailing list, and that they can get a free ebook if they sign up for it. I don’t get a ton of email signups, I have about 2,500 people on the list, and I add 5-6 per day. So it’s pretty good, and it’s growing nicely, but it’s not yet a huge list by any stretch. And I’m good with that, because it remains the single most effective marketing tool I have (heh heh, I said tool).
So that’s a little bit on organic methods to grow an email list. Next time around, we’ll talk about Incentivized Subscribers, good and bad incentives to build a list, and how to streamline all this shit so you don’t have to babysit it all the time. Until then, if you have any questions, leave them in the comments, and if you love what I’m doing, feel free to subscribe to my email list by clicking the book cover to your right or you can subscribe to my Patreon by clicking the link below. Thanks!
by john | May 8, 2017 | Amazing Grace, Fiction, Serialized Fiction
This is the latest chapter of an ongoing serialized novel that I’m working on and posting up here in rough draft form. To read other chapters, CLICK HERE.
13
I left the manse thirty minutes later with about half a dozen new names on my list, and a plan of action in my head. I drove back across town to my church and pulled into a parking space this time, instead of letting the vehicle sit there all cattywumpus like I was some kind of drunk driver.
“What are we doing here?” Jenny asked, passing through the door as I got out and closed mine.
“I’ve got a couple people I need to talk to, and this is the best place to do it,” I said, walking across the grass, being careful to keep my steps to the narrow path between the foot markers and the row of headstones behind. I knew full well the people in the graves didn’t mind me walking on them, I’d been told as much many times, but Mama always told me it was disrespectful to step on a grave, so I tried my best not to.
Uncle Luther was sitting on his headstone, like he was about every night. I didn’t have any idea where he went during the day, and really had no idea why he was lingering. Luther couldn’t speak, and no time in all my trips through the cemetery had he ever tried to flag me down or communicate with me at all. He just sat on that headstone every night, watching the street like he was waiting for somebody. It couldn’t be Aunt Lula, she passed ten years ago and didn’t linger a minute, just went straight on into the light the second her soul stood up from her body. Luther just sat there, night after night, not bothering nothing, so I didn’t see as how it was any of my business.
I made a beeline for Helen Wix’s plot. Helen was part of the town switchboard when she was living, and that didn’t change a bit when she died. The switchboard was what the locals called a network of old women who all went to church together, usually over at the Methodist church, and talked on the phone every morning. Whenever an ambulance or fire truck went down the road, you could be sure that Miss Helen, Miss Faye Comer, or Miss Frances Russell knew the whys and the wherefore of what was going on within five minutes of it happening.
Since she died, Miss Helen had become an even more important source of news and gossip around town. She was a rare ghost, one that wasn’t tied to one place, could talk, and didn’t seem to have any desire to move on. I asked her about it once, but all she would say was that Lockhart was her home, and it was her duty to keep an eye on things. I reckon it might have had more to do with her widower Mr. George and the fact that he had taken to stepping out with Julia McKnight about three months after Miss Helen was in the ground. After that happened, her little round ghostly form could often be seen flitting back and forth between her home and the McKnight place, trailing one of her long flowered dresses through the air like a Laura Ashley printed Casper.
Miss Helen was at home, so to speak, when I walked up. She was at her stone, standing with her arms folded watching the goings on around the cemetery. At any given time, there were a dozen or more regulars hanging around a church cemetery in any small town, and First Presbyterian was no different. Miss Helen was the unofficial mayor of the First Presbyterian dead, and she smiled as she saw me coming.
“Oh good Lord, child, come here and let me get a look at you!” She squealed a little when I approached. She once confided to me that she got a little bored with the conversations she had in the cemetery, and looked forward to my visits since I was alive and could actually talk with her, instead of just talking at her, like her daughter and granddaughter had to do. The dead are typically very much locked in to the world and opinions they held when they died, so I could see how talking to ghosts all the time could get boring. I often wished that the ghosts I talked to could be a little more boring and little less murdered.
“Hey Miss Helen, how you doing today?” I said. Had she been alive, she would have hugged my neck. As it was, we just gave each other awkward little waves on account of her insubstantiality.
“Fine, I’m fine, darling. Hope you are. And who is this little darlin’?” She asked, looking at Jenny.
“I’m Jenny Miller, ma’am. Pleased to meet you.” Jenny stuck out her hand.
“Oh sweetie, I’m sorry, but—“ Helen’s mouth fell open as Jenny was able to touch her and shake her hand. “Oh my goodness, honey, I am so sorry! You know sometimes it is so hard to tell who is who, especially with y’all that ain’t been gone very long.”
Helen turned back to me. “What in the world is going on, Lila Grace? Why did you bring this dead child to my plot? Do you need some help, honey?”
I wasn’t sure whether she was talking to me or Jenny, but maybe it was both, so I just said, “Yes, Miss Helen. I do need some help. Jenny here was murdered last week, and I was hoping maybe you could help us figure out who did it.”
“Oh, sweetie, I am so sorry!” Helen reached out and wrapped Jenny in a big-armed, muumuu-wearing hug that probably would have suffocated the child, or at least popped a rib, if she’d still been drawing breath. As it was, she was fine.
“Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate that,” Jenny said.
“Miss Helen, were you anywhere near the Miller place last Friday?” I asked.
“I don’t think so, which one is the Miller house?” She asked.
“It’s over on Pecan Lane, the brick house with the blue shutters,” Jenny said.
“Oh yes, I know that place. What an unfortunate decision about them shutters. I really think they could have done better than that baby blue, it just clashes with the brick in all kinds of ways. I’m sorry, honey, I know that’s your home and all, but it just ain’t attractive.”
“No, ma’am, don’t be sorry. You’re right. Mama told Daddy when he bought that paint they were going to be butt-ugly, and she was right,” Jenny agreed.
“Okay, now I know the place. No, I wasn’t anywhere close. I was over watching the ball game. Is that when you died, sweetie?” Helen asked, turning her head to Jenny.
“How is it she can see and talk to me?” Jenny asked.
“Well, honey. It’s just like you could talk to Sheriff Johnny. Y’all all exist in the same plane. Of course she can see you,” I explained.
“Lila Grace is too sweet to say that there ain’t been nothing happening in Lockhart for forty years that me and my girls ain’t seen,” Helen said with a laugh. Two other ethereal women appeared to stand next to Helen, all three of them with broad smiles on their faces.
“She’s too polite to say that not even the grave can shut your bog old mouth, Helen,” a slight, woman with a boyish haircut and a broad smile said, her grin denying her waspish words.
“Oh, be nice, Faye,” the other woman said, a twinkle in her eye. She was a big woman, not round, like Miss Helen, but tall and imposing. There was a presence to her that hadn’t diminished, even in death.
“Ladies,” I said with a nod and a smile. “How y’all doing this evening?”
“Fine, fine,” Faye Comer said with a nod, her bright blue eyes set deep in a wrinkled face. She wore much the same clothes she had on most days in life, a white striped blouse and a pair of blue jeans.
“We’re all just excited to have some company with something to talk about other than how they died,” Miss Frances said. She wore bright red and white floral blouse with dark slacks and comfortable shoes, the kind of outfit I’d expect to see on a woman attending a church meeting, which Miss Frances did quote a bit of before she passed.
“Speaking of that, I need to talk to y’all about how this poor child died,” I said to peals of laughter from the trio.
“Of course you do, sweetheart,” Miss Helen said. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need the assistance of the greatest investigators in Union County.”
“Or the nosiest bitches in the Carolinas, if you want to be more accurate,” Miss Faye said with a wry twist to her lips.
“Ignore those two, precious,” Miss Frances said to Jenny. “What do you need to know? If we don’t know it, we can probably find it out for you.”
She wasn’t kidding, either. Being dead had done nothing to quell these women’s curiosity, and since a fair portion of their gossip network was also dead, they had a finger on the pulse of the town, as ironic as that sounds.
“We’ve got a bunch of people, and I need to know where they were Friday night,” I said, showing the women our list of people who might hold grudges against the girls. “Anybody we can eliminate from suspicion in Jenny’s murder is almost certainly innocent of Shelly’s as well, and that will be better, since we don’t have a good timeline on when Shelly died yet.”
“Oh, that poor child, drowned in her car like that,” Miss Faye said.
“We don’t know that yet, Faye,” Miss Helen said. “They ain’t done with the autopsy yet. She might have been dead before she ever rolled into the lake.”
“She’s right,” I agreed. “I hadn’t considered that before, but the lake might have just been a place to dump the body and not where Shelly was killed.”
“Well, that would be good,” Miss France said.
“Why’s that?” Jenny asked.
“With as many hollers and old gully and patches of woods as we’ve got around here, if they pushed her car into the lake to hide the body, then the killer is either stupid, or ain’t from around here. Either one is good for us.” The woman said.
“She ain’t wrong,” Miss Helen agreed. “Okay, Lila Grace, hold up that list. We’ll memorize it and put the Dead Old Ladies’ Detective Agency on the case!”
They took another look at the paper, then each of them nodded at me. The women went off in three different directions to talk to he dead in their relative cemeteries. I turned to Jenny and said “Well, if there’s anything known about your murder by any ghost in this part of the county, we’ll know it in a few hours.”
“What’s next for us?” Jenny asked.
“Well, sweetie, I reckon next for me is going to be a bite of supper. I ain’t had nothing to eat in a considerable time, and my belly’s going to start gnawing on my backbone if I don’t correct that oversight in the immediate future.” I walked to the truck and got in. “Besides, I think Sheriff Dunleavy owes me an apology, and maybe a steak dinner.”
by john | May 2, 2017 | Business of publishing, How to Sell Books, Promos/Giveaways
This is not going to be exciting. None of these posts in this series are going to be exciting. I’m not going to tell you how to jump up the bestseller lists and go from selling five books each month to 5,000 in the span of thirty days. I’m not going to tell you The Secret To Becoming An Amazon Bestseller. I’m not going to tell you how to Make A Million Dollars Selling Ebooks.
I’m not going to do any of that crap. Because those posts are bullshit. The only people getting rich off the words in a bunch of How To Sell Ebooks books are the people that wrote the book. And I’m giving this shit away, so I’m obviously an idiot.
But I’m an idiot who makes a living selling books. So that puts me ahead of most idiots out there.
I pay my bills and feed my family off my writing. Most writers can’t do that. We live modestly, and we try to manage our spending, but we are a single-income family, and that income grows out of my writing. These posts will try to give you some of the tools that I use to sell more books. I’m not looking to make anyone (except me) into the second coming of Stephen King. I just want to help you find more success in your writing.
So let’s start with the basics – a mailing list. You’ve heard you need one, but you don’t know shit about how to build one. You don’t know what a newsletter should look like. You don’t know how to get people to subscribe to it, and you don’t know how to create one that doesn’t look like it was drawn by a three-year-old epileptic chimpanzee. So let’s start there.
Yes, you need a mailing list. Your newsletter is the single most important piece of marketing material that you have, with the exception of writing amazing books. People who sign up for your newsletter, for the most part, are already interested in you and your work. So first you have to create a mailing list, and figure out how to send a newsletter. Then we’ll move on to how to get people to sign up for your mailing list.
Mailing List Services – there are plenty of companies out there that will manage your email list for you. Constant Contact is the one that most big companies use, and you probably get 2-3 emails using that service every day. I use Mailchimp, because it’s cheaper at the level that I’m at. I’m currently at around 2700 people on my email list. That’s not a huge number, but it’s decent. It’s all the better because most of those people are there organically, but we’ll get to that later.
Mailchimp is a subscription service. They charge you for their work. In exchange for your monthly fee, they will collect all the email addresses and give you tools to send out good-looking newsletters and autoresponders to people when they contact you. I currently pay $40/month for this service, because of the number of people I have. I’m not far from looking for another service, because once you get over about 3500 names on your list, Mailchimp isn’t quite as cost-effective. But that’s a discussion for later as well.
Once you sign up with MailChimp, you have to start building a list. First add yourself. That lets you see the emails you send out in their natural and complete form. Then go over to your Facebook Author Page and build a button. Facebook lets you make a Call to Action at the top of your page, and yours should almost certainly say “Join my Email List.” It’s very easy to build the button, Facebook walks you through every step.
Once you’ve built your button on your author page (if you don’t have an author page, that’s a hint – you better get one), then it’s time to post some notices on your personal timeline and on your author page, telling people to sign up for your email list. You have to do this a few times. Facebook doesn’t show everything by everybody, so to get through their signal-to-noise ratio, you have to repeat yourself a few times. Also, you will have better success if you put the link in comments, as FB hides posts with links built in.
Don’t post all the damn time, just once a day or so. Let’s not be complete dicks about this promo thing. Yes, I understand exactly how often I post promotional things myself. But I have a LOT of shit to promote. So I’m not posting the same thing more than once per day.
While you’re waiting for someone to sign up for your mailing list, it’s time to set up some automations. MailChimp lets you create stored newsletters and welcome letters that go out whenever someone signs up for your mailing list. This way, whenever someone signs up to hear from you, they get a nice welcome email from you. A lot of people recommend sending one note within a few hours of signup, then another in a couple of days, then a third a week or two later. I send out two, one an hour or so after signup, then another a few days later. I figure a couple of weeks after they’ve joined the email list, they’ll be getting a newsletter anyway.
That’s always another question – how often should I send out newsletters? I have been doing mine once each month, but I’m about to increase to twice a month. Some folks send stuff out weekly, but I think that’s a little much. You want people to remember you, but not get tired of hearing from you. If you only have a few releases each year, then once a month is probably fine. But it is important to stay on top of it and send stuff out. Even if you don’t have a new book coming out, you can solicit reviews for older work, pitch your upcoming audio releases, publicize events and appearances, or promote stuff by your friends. All of those make for good newsletter fodder.
But you must send out your newsletter regularly. That’s the only way it’s going to get traction and you’re going to be “sticky” in people’s heads.
I’ll be back next week with talk about ways to grow a newsletter, like newsletter swaps, and incentives. If there are questions about what I’ve written this week, leave them in the comments! Thanks!
by john | May 1, 2017 | Amazing Grace, Fiction, Serialized Fiction, Writing
This is the latest chapter of an ongoing serialized novel that I’m working on and posting up here in rough draft form. To read other chapters, CLICK HERE.
12
An hour later, I had a list of suspects that didn’t like Shelly, a list that didn’t like Jenny, a list that might have a grudge against both of them, and a list of the kids at school that hated everybody and everything. I figured that list was nothing but a dead end, but if I was going to poke around in people’s lives, I might as well be thorough.
I looked at the clock on the cable box, and it read half past five. Too late to find out anything at the school, so I decided to go talk to the one person who wasn’t on either list, but was in both girls’ lies. As much as I hated the idea, I had to go talk to Reverend Turner.
The manse at the First Baptist Church of Lockhart was a modest ranch on a small lot beside the church. I walked up the two steps on the porch and opened the screen door, then knocked twice. I heard Reverend Turner’s wife call out from inside the house, and a few seconds later her blonde head appeared in the little rectangular pane of glass in the front door. She opened the door, a welcoming smile on her face.
“Well, hello, Lila Grace. How are you? What brings you by our place this time of day?”
“Hello, Mrs. Turner,” I replied. “I do apologize for dropping by unannounced, and right here at suppertime, no less. I just need to have a word with Reverend Turner.”
“Aaron? Well, let me just go get him for you. Do you want to come in? I was just putting supper in the stove, so it ain’t gonna be ready to eat for a little while yet, but I could slice up a couple pieces of my lemon meringue pie if you’d like a little something.” Marie Turner was one of those Southern women who thought every problem in the world could be solved with sweet tea and dessert. She was a Peach Queen over in Gaffney before she met the Reverend, who was a serious boy in school and grew up to be a serious man.
Marie was a lively child, and beautiful to boot, but years of small-town life and home visits beside the Reverend had turned her from a slight, active girl into a lively, smiling, round woman who bubbled over with enthusiasm about everything. She was, in short, one of the sweetest, happiest women I’d ever known. I had no idea how she maintained such a positive outlook on life being married to such an awful sourpuss as Aaron Turner.
The sourpuss himself came to the door when he heard my name, that perma-scowl carved into his face like granite. “What are you doing here, Lila Grace?” His tufts of brown hair almost vibrated in his obvious anger at me having violated his sacred private space. Never mind that his sacred private space was paid for by the congregation of his church, and he was paid a salary and some living expenses besides.
Aaron Turner was a rail-thin man, with the grumpy disposition most often found in the painfully thin. I’ve always imagined that going through life being made up of nothing but sharp edges and bony points could make one irritable, but as I’ve been a woman of some substance ever since my breasts came in when I was in middle school, I was spared that pain. He was in his middle forties, about a decade younger than me, but if you were to ask anyone, they would assume him to be older, as his hair was greying almost as rapidly as it was vanishing. His narrow hazel eyes squinted as he looked down on me, and I couldn’t hold back a sigh.
“I need to speak with you, Reverend. Would you like to chat on the porch, or should I come inside?” I asked.
“Outside,” he said. His voice was clipped and curt, but I knew that would be his answer. There was exactly one way that an official Servant of Satan like myself was going to get into his house, and that was in the dead of night creeping through a window. Since those days passed long ago, I stepped over to one of the rockers on his porch and took a seat.
“Should I get a couple glasses of iced tea?” Marie asked, her voice as sweet as a bird.
“No, we’re fine,” her husband snapped. “Go watch the food.” Marie’s face flushed and she fled back inside the house.
“There’s no need to be rude to her just because you don’t like me,” I said, mentally kicking myself for breaking my promise to myself with nearly the first thing I ever said to the man. The whole drive over, I’d been lecturing myself on ignoring his jibes and his little pokes at me and my Christianity and my gift. I’d been telling myself to stay on track, to not get distracted by his stupidity. So of course the first thing I do is get in his business about how he talks to his wife.
He whipped his head around to me, but then he took a deep breath and said, “You’re right. I will make it a point to apologize to Marie when I go inside. But what can I do for you, Lila Grace?”
My mouth fell open. If there had been a fly buzzing by my head just then, It certainly would not have survived the trip. “Excuse me, Reverend?”
“No, excuse me, Lila Grace. I am working to become more inclusive in my thinking and my behavior, and despite the fact that I think you’re either a charlatan or a fraud, and almost certainly bound for Hell once you die regardless of which, there is no cause for me to be as discourteous as I have been in the past.”
I took a second to parse out exactly what he was saying, but after a minute, I was pretty sure I had it unwrapped. “So you’re saying that you think I’m terrible, and I’m stealing people’s money, but you’re gonna stop being an asshole?”
“To put it crudely, yes.”
“I’ll take it,” I said, extending a hand. The clearly uncomfortable minister shook it, and we leaned back to keep rocking. “I need your help, Reverend.”
“I assume this concerns the deaths of poor Jenny and Shelly.”
“It does.”
“You are wondering if there was anyone happening at church that may have led to their untimely passing.”
“I am.”
“You want me to tell you every intimate detail of their private lives, including anything that they may have confided to me in confidence.”
“I ain’t told that man nothing in confidence,” Jenny said, standing right on the far side of the Reverend’s chair. “He’s a jerk.”
“I don’t want you to violate your principles in any way, Reverend, but I do want to remind you that these girls are dead. Nothing you tell me can hurt them, but it might be the key to locking up the man that did them harm.”
He sat there for a long minute, steepling his fingers on his belly like he was thinking, but I could tell all he was really doing was trying to make me sweat. Too bad for him I had lived too long to fall for that garbage. I sat there watching him patiently, not saying a word. If I’ve learned anything about men in my years on this planet, and you can decide for yourself if my lifelong spinsterhood says that I have learned nothing about men or that I have learned far too much about them, it is that they can’t wait out a patient woman. Women go through hours of excruciating pain to bring life into this world. Men participate in a few minutes of the pleasurable part of childbirth. We women are wired for more patience.
“I will share the girls’ confidences with you, but you must not divulge your source unless it is absolutely critical to apprehend the murderer. I cannot under any circumstances have my congregation thinking they can’t trust me,” Turner said, the piety dripping from every syllable.
I mentally counted to ten before I spoke, so I wouldn’t say anything untoward and fracture this new and likely very fragile peace that the good Reverend and I had wrought. “I would never let anybody know that any of my information came from you, Reverend. I will hold your words as close as the confessional.” He looked a little askance at the mention of Catholicism, but I gave him my most grandmotherly smile and he let it slide.
“Now, was there anybody that the girls mentioned to you as being particularly troublesome to them in any way?” I asked, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees.
“Jenny was much less…forthcoming than Shelly. Shelly was such a dear child,” the preacher said, wiping a crocodile tear from the corner of his eye.
“What he meant was that Shelly dressed like a slut when she came to talk to him about stuff, and I didn’t let him look down my shirt,” Jenny said, leaning against the wall to the left of the reverend’s chair.
I developed a sudden coughing fit to cover my laughter, and I grabbed my pocketbook from the floor next to me. I dug around in there, looking for a peppermint to help with my “coughing” and to hide my face from the preacher. I swear if I had looked at him right them I probably would have laughed so hard I spit a mint right in his eye.
“Are you okay, Lila Grace? Let me get Marie to fetch you a glass of tea.” He got up and stuck his head in the kitchen door. His voice was muffled by my coughing and the door, but he came back with a glass of tea in a few seconds. Marie probably just grabbed one of the tea glasses set up for their supper, poor woman.
“Thank you,” I said, taking a long drink. She made good tea. It obviously wasn’t instant, that was good, and it had the right amount of sugar in it. Sweet, but not so much that it makes your teeth hurt. I smiled at Reverend Turner and motioned for him to proceed.
“Well, like I said, Shelly was more open that Jenny, but there were a few names that popped up whenever both girls talked about school.”
“Who were they, Reverend?” I asked.
The reverend rattled off half a dozen names, all of them already on my legal pad. I dutifully wrote them down on a clean sheet of paper, just in case the source somehow became important later.
“Was there anybody at church, Reverend Turner?” I asked after he named all the names he could think of from school. I knew I had to go gentle with this, because Turner was way more likely to be protective of his own “flock” than of some child from school he didn’t know.
“There was an incident last summer on a youth group trip, but I don’t believe it was anything serious.” He looked uncomfortable, like he didn’t really want to talk about it, which made me think it certainly fell into the category of “things Lila Grace wants to know.” I was also intrigued because it happened a year ago, was a big enough deal that the preacher remembered it, and Jenny hadn’t mentioned it to me before.
“Why don’t you just tell me about it, Reverend? If it turns out to be nothing, then at least we know.” I said. I took a huge chance and leaned forward, patting him on the knee. He didn’t burst into flame, something I’m sure came as a huge surprise to him. He also didn’t leap to his feet shouting “Sinner!” which surprised me no small amount.
He looked around the room, as if to make sure we were alone. “I heard from one of the chaperones that he caught the girls in one of the boys’ rooms after they were all supposed to be in bed for the night, and there was beer involved. It was even said that…one of the girls may have been topless!” His eyes got big, and I bit down on the inside of my cheek real hard to keep from laughing in his face.
Imagine that, a bunch of teenagers go to the beach and they find some way to get beer. Horror of horrors, one or more of them even ends up naked! I guess if there was sex involved, and somebody got jealous, that could cause a problem. Or if somebody got pregnant… I sighed and turned my attention back to Turner, who sat on the edge of his seat with the prurient anticipation of someone who got to do their favorite thing in the world – tattle.
“Thank you, Reverend. That could be very important. Do you have a list of the children on the trip?”
by john | Apr 24, 2017 | Amazing Grace, Fiction, Serialized Fiction
This is the latest chapter of an ongoing serialized novel that I’m working on and posting up here in rough draft form. To read other chapters, CLICK HERE.
11
The police station was full when I walked in behind the sheriff. Deputy Jeff was standing behind the small wooden counter that served to separate the small area with four desks where he, Ava the Dispatcher, and Victor, the other deputy, sat. Half a dozen people were milling around the counter, every one of them trying to talk to Jeff at one time.
Silence fell over the room when we entered, then it exploded into mayhem as everybody turned to Dunleavy all at once. I staggered back at the ruckus, almost walking right through Jenny. The girl was waiting in the truck for me when I walked out of Sharky’s, and rode to the station without a word. I reckon she was trying to process Shelly’s death, and trying to figure out why she was lingering while her friend moved on without her.
Sheriff Dunleavy held up his hands for quiet, and after a few seconds, the room settled down. “Now I know all y’all want to help, and I know everybody is anxious to share any information they have that might aid the investigation. But we ain’t but a couple of people here, so we are going to have to follow some kind of order here.
“I am going in to my office to consult with Ms. Carter here on some research she is doing for me on these investigations. I need all y’all to line up and give Jeff your information in an orderly fashion. Make sure he has your phone written on the statement, and we will follow up with y’all as we move forward. Thank you all for coming out, I appreciate your assistance and patience in this trying time.”
Sheriff Dunleavy put his hands down and bulled through the packed people. I followed along in his wake like a girl waterskiing behind a boat, and a minute later we were sitting in his office with the door closed. The noise from the front was down to a dull roar, so I reckoned Jeff had it under control.
“Now what was so damned important that you had to pry me away from some very important drinking and haul me back here?” Sheriff Dunleaby asked as he took a seat behind his desk.
“I was over at the Miller house—“
“What?” he interrupted.
“I was asking Jenny’s father some questions, and—“
“You were what?” he interrupted me again, and I turned my best Sunday School Teacher scowl on him.
“I was asking Jenny’s daddy if he had any idea who would want to hurt his daughter. Then her mama…” I stopped, because Sheriff Dunleavy’s face was getting some kind of red, and I was a little scared he was going to blow a gasket. “Are you okay, Sheriff?”
“No, Ms. Carter, I am not okay. You mean to tell me you went to talk to the parents of the victim in what has recently been determined to be a murder investigation without my permission, without any official authority, and without any accompaniment?”
“Well, when you put it like that, I reckon it sounds pretty awful. But yes, that’s what I did. He told me about a boy at school that may have had a grudge against Shelly for doing something nasty with his phone—“
“Ian Vernon,” the sheriff said. “I had Victor interview him this morning.”
“Oh, you knew about him? Good. Well, he also mentioned that we might want to talk to girls that—“
“—Didn’t make the cheerleading squad,” he finished my sentence for me. “We have interviews scheduled with all of them for tomorrow at school. Of course, in light of today’s events, we might have to postpone those.”
“If you know everything I’m going to say, why are having me say it?” I asked. I was a little perturbed at his attitude.
“Because I’m trying to come up with a good reason not to charge you with interfering with a police investigation, obstruction of justice, and impersonating a police officer.”
I stood up and put my hands on his desk. “What in the hell are you talking about, Sheriff? I was just trying to help you! All I did was talk to that poor man.”
“That, and get his wife so riled up she called over here and told me that if anybody from my department set foot on her property again without somebody calling 911, that she’d sue us so hard we’d be writing tickets out of the back of a used Chevette.” There was a little vein pulsing in his forehead, and his face was so red it was almost purple.
I sat back down, feeling like somebody had just let all the air out my sails. “Well…I’m sorry?”
Sheriff Dunleavy sat down and let out a huge breath. “You’re sorry?”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“That’s all you’ve got?”
“What more would you like me to say? That it was a mistake? Well, obviously it was. That I’m sorry I upset the Millers? Well, I certainly am. That I won’t do it again? I don’t know that I’m going to say that, Sheriff.”
“Oh, I reckon you are going to say that, Ms. Carter. You are going to say that, and you are going to mean that, and you are going to stay the hell away from this investigation. You are going to leave the police work to the police, and you are going to go home and prune your tomatoes, or whatever you do in the afternoons.”
“You don’t prune tomatoes, Sheriff,” I said with a smile.
He didn’t smile back. “I don’t care. Obviously what I’m saying is not getting through. You cannot be part of this investigation, Lila Grace. You are not a police officer, and I let myself get caught up in your…unconventional sources of information, and gave you an incorrect impression.”
“What impression is that, Sheriff?”
“That you are part of this investigation. Which you are not. You are not working with the police. You are a private citizen, and you are going to do what private citizens do, which is to stay out of the way and let the police do our job. Do you understand me?”
I felt my lips purse, and I took a deep breath before I spoke. When I did, there was not a hint of a tremor in my voice. “I understand perfectly, Sherif. I will stay out of your way from here on out. You have my word.” I stood up, looked down at him and asked, “Will there be anything else?”
“No, Ms. Carter,” he said. “You can go. I do appreciate the help you have given us to this point. It has been very valuable.”
“Thank you, Sheriff,” I said, and turned to the door. I walked out through the office, and pushed my way through the throng in the front of the office. I stepped out into the bright sunshine and got into my truck, pulling out into the street and driving home without taking any notice of anything around me. In almost a daze, I walked into my house, fixed myself a glass of sweet tea, and walked out onto my back porch. I sat down on the steps and looked out over the small vegetable garden I had coming up. Just half a dozen twenty-foot rows of tomatoes, beans, squash, and potatoes, with two pumpkin and three watermelon vines going wild at the end of the rows.
I sat there, sipping my tea and looking at my garden as I went over and over what the sheriff had said to me. I didn’t like his tone, but I couldn’t disagree with the facts as he presented them. I had overstepped. I never should have gone to the Miller house, and I certainly shouldn’t have talked to Mr. Miller alone.
Who was I kidding? I was no detective, no redneck Miss Marple solving mysteries and bringing killers to justice. I was just a half-cracked old lady with a little bit of a talent for hearing dead people.
I stood up and made to go inside when I caught sight of Sheriff Johnny standing on the other side of my screen door. Jenny was beside him, and both of them looked grim.
“What’s the matter, y’all?” I asked, pulling the door open and stepping inside. I set the empty glass down by the sink and turned to look at my visitors from Beyond.
“Please don’t quit, Ms. Lila Grace,” Jenny said. “I know the new sheriff was mean to you, and I heard what Mama said, but please.” The child’s voice took on a pleading tone. “There ain’t nobody else that can see me, or hear me, and I know that if you quit looking, ain’t nobody going to figure out who…who killed me, and now killed Shelly, too. I just know it!” The dishes rattled a little in the drying rack by the sink, testimony to the strength of the poor child’s upset. She was actually able to interact with the material world, which took either a ghost of tremendous power or one that was very upset. Jenny certainly seemed to fall into the latter category.
“I don’t know, darling,” I said. “Could be Sheriff Dunleavy’s right. I might be doing more harm than good, particularly where your parents are concerned. I had no right to go out there acting like some kind of TV detective and getting your daddy all upset.”
Sheriff Johnny stepped forward and held up a hand, like he was telling me to stop. His lips started to move, and I shook my head. “Johnny, we both know you can’t—“
He held up that hand again, and I closed my trap. He screwed up his face, like he was working really hard to think of something, then I heard it. His voice sounded like the wind whispering through a cemetery late at night, all kinds of rasp and hiss to it, but it was unmistakably his.
“You do good, Lila Grace,” he whispered, and I could see his image dim with the exertion. “You can’t stop. No one else will speak for usssss.” The last word trailed off into a long hiss, and he turned and walked through my back storm door. I watched him walk off, fading into invisibility as he did.
“I thought you said he couldn’t talk,” Jenny said.
“I didn’t think he could,” I said. I heard my own voice sound hollow, like it was coming from a long way away, or through a tunnel or something.
I stood there, leaning with my back against the sink for several minutes before I finally gave myself a little mental shake and walked into the living room. I picked up a little yellow notepad from the table beside my recliner and waved for Jenny to sit on the couch over to my left. I angled the chair a little bit so I was facing her more than the TV, even though it was off. That way I could look at her and not have to turn my head the whole time.
“Sit down, sweetie, and let’s get to work.” I said. “We got a murderer to catch.”
