If you're ever wondered how a book gets written, here is your chance to watch it happen. I'm a published fiction and non-fiction writer, but this is my first novel. I'm writing it right here, on the the web. This is the first draft, I expect there will be three drafts before it's ready for submission. It is a humorous, absurdist cozy mystery narrated by a cat. It's the Mr. Kitten Murder Mystery.
8 Waiting for Police
The humans exhibited milling behavior. [expound on this from survival Ripley's book "The Unthinkable"] The Captain was the first to snap out of it. "Alright, this is a matter for the police." Everyone stared at him. "I want everyone to calmly walk up the stairs and go to the library."
The Captain (who was farthest into the basement) made a move to go upstairs and was blocked by the rest of the people, who were still standing around shell shocked. Madeline sidestepped and Helen just stood there. Steve took a small step back.
"Steve," the Captain barked. "Take Helen and help her up the stairs to the library. Move!"
Steven and Helen started up the stairs and Blandings followed them, perhaps copying their behavior. The others followed suit.
Everyone walked into the library, quite a bit slower than I might have expected. Shell shock. Peacock was impatient to get upstairs, I could tell. He called after them, "Blandings, call 911!"
"Certainly, Sir," Blandings replied automatically.
When the Captain and I got to the library Blandings was standing there with the phone to his ear, open mouthed, silent. I could hear the 911 operator. "Hello? What is your emergency? Hello? Hello?"
After a long moment, Blandings started gibbering, "The clown fell down. The clown fell down...No, this is not a joke."
Peacock took the phone from him and quickly explained the situation. After a few moments, he hung up the phone.
Helen was sitting down, stunned. Steve had his arm around her. Madeline was sitting in a corner with her face in her hands. "No, this is terrible, this is terrible." Did the lady protest too much? The old lawyer, now a dead clown, had been in charge of the discretionary trust and everyone knew Madeline considered him tight fisted because he hadn't given her enough money to pursue a celebutante lifestyle as she wished. This reality show was a chance for her to enter that lifestyle, but had she hedged her bets by killing this trust administrator in the hopes of getting a new one who saw things more her way? Her mother was comforting her. Elliot was filming.
Brooks snapped at the makeup artist and pointed at Tiffany. "Comfort Margaret, Tiffany, I want to get you in the scene."
Tiffany moved slowly to comply with directions. Like everyone except Peacock and me, she was shell shocked. Only Elliot and Brooks seemed happy and efficient. Perhaps because they felt they had a job to do. No doubt they were heartened by the prospect of what this would do to the ratings.
Peacock said, "No. You," he pointed at Elliot. "Put that camera down and go out to the road and wait for police. This isn't an easy address to find, so I want you to standing there to help them."
He looked at Brooks. "You go with him." Brooks looked at him resentfully as he left the room. Elliot left purposefully and did not leave his camera behind. Peacock did not notice. He gave the makeup artist a look and she left the room too.
Peacock put his hand on Madeline's shoulder and then walked over and put his arm around Helen for a moment. "Tiffany," he said politely. "There are going to be people coming and going. Would you please secure Mr. Kitten in the laundry room so that he doesn't get outside?" She nodded and slowly came after me.
Blandings was still standing around open mouthed. "Please go to the front door and wait for police," Peacock said.
Blandings looked very happy to have an assignment. "Yes, Sir."
As time went by (it was taking the police a while to arrive), each became less shell shocked and started to complain. "How could things possibly get any worse?" several of them asked.
Mad was worried because this murder would take attention away from her singing career.
Helen is worried that this will mean even less attention to the collars.
Steve is worried this will negatively affect his IPO.
Blandings is more worried and panicked than anyone--but why? It's suspicious.
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