Sharon Woods Hopkins’ KILLERFIND

I got into Cape just in time to celebrate our wedding anniversary on June 23. Since then

KILLERFIND launched July 6

 

There’s a reason for listing all my activities. It explains why I’m just getting around to mentioning Sharon Woods Hopkins’ new mystery novel KILLERFIND, which launched July 6.

If I hadn’t been for all those distractions, I’d have knocked it out in a single night. It’s a quick read, better, I think, than her first book, KILLERWATT. (Which I also breezed through.)

KILLERWATT had Rhetta McCarter chasing all over Southeast Missouri saving the country from terrorists. I picked a tiny nit by saying that ” folks like me get bogged down in following the chase by landmarks and say, ‘Wait a minute: Those streets don’t intersect.” Sharon, always quick with an answer, fired back, “some of the geography was tweaked to make the story work.” She mentions in the acknowledgements: “As my dad would have said to anyone taking issue with that, ‘What do you want, an argument, or a story?’”

Either I didn’t read the second book as closely as the first novel or she was a little more faithful to the map in this book. I could pretty much follow the route her characters were taking without those jarring disconnects. (She even mentioned the Gordonville speed trap.)

More twists than a politician in a pretzel factory

If KILLERWATT had an underlying political message: there are bad guys out there who could put a major hurt on our power grid and the dumb feds couldn’t care less, then KILLERFIND is a more straightforward murder mystery where the cops were quick to jump on the wrong suspect and people had a habit of turning up dead. The plot has more twists than a politician in a pretzel factory.

Rhetta must have been an ATT subscriber because she could never get a signal when she needed to make a phone call in a tight situation

Order them here

If you want something that’s fast to read and keeps you flipping the pages, here’s a link. Order it from there or from an ad that’s running (at least right now) in the upper righthand side of the page and I’ll get a couple of pennies without it costing you anything extra. A lot of folks must be discovering Sharon and Rhetta because last week KILLERWATT was #1 and KILLERFIND was #2 in the Female Protagonist category on Amazon.

Sharon is cranking out a third book in the series. Husband Bill Hopkins has a book of his own at the proofreaders. Sharon is more prolific than Bill for several reasons, but one is that it’s faster to type than to write in crayon.

 

’64-65 Guidance Counselors

This is the official photograph of the guidance counselors that ran in the 1965 Girardot. It was hardly comforting that the most prominent poster on display was explaining “Military Service and You.”

The yearbook photo caption said “Especially with the increasing number of students in each of Central’s classes, it is necessary to have a Guidance Department to aid in the counseling, testing, scheduling and orientation. The counselors advise students on which college to attend, which occupations to follow, and which classes should be taken in high school.”

Norman Schwab, left, was the Senior Counselor; Grace Miller, center, guided the sophomores, and Thomas Cushman worked with the juniors. Click on the photos to make them larger.

Counselors encouraged student ambitions

After shooting their formal portrait, I took opportunity to share with them my career plans. I told them I had picked Bill Hopkins to manage my run for Student Body President. With that experience on my resume, I planned to go to law school, then get involved in some local political races until I was positioned to run for President of the United States in 1984, the first year I would be constitutionally qualified to serve.

You can tell that they were confident that I could accomplish all my goals.

Sharon Woods Hopkins’ Killerwatt

Sharon Woods Hopkins, author of Killerwatt, is a Panther.

She divides the world of writers into two camps: the Plodders, who work on a set schedule and approach writing as a slow, methodical slog; and the Panthers, who pounce on writing whenever they have something to say and the time to record it.

[I’d add a third P – the procrastinators, which is me.] Click on any photo to make it larger, by the way.

UPDATE:

After I wrote this post, Sharon gently pointed out that it was time to get my hearing checked. She said she was a “pantser,” not a panther. It’s probably good I didn’t label her a “cougar.”

A pantser, Writer’s Digest clarified, “is a term most commonly applied to fiction writers, especially novelists, who write their stories “by the seat of their pants.” The opposite would be a plotter, or someone who uses outlines to help plot out their novels.

“I’m all Panther”

“I’m all Panther,” she said at her Painted Wren Gallery book signing on Nov. 4, 2010. “I sit down when I have time and when I know I can devote my time without interruption. I might write for five or six hours. I don’t plan it. I’m not by the clock.”

Cape area thriller

Sharon has written a mystery thriller with lots of Cape Girardeau area landmarks mentioned: Cape, downtown, Perryville, Scott City, Marble Hill and lots of familiar streets. (She did change a local hospital to St. Mark’s. “I didn’t want a lawsuit.”)

In fact, I told her after I had read the book that I had a minor quibble. I thought she might have been too explicit in her locations and directions. “Folks who don’t live here won’t care about the detail; folks like me get bogged down in following the chase by landmarks and say, ‘Wait a minute: Those streets don’t intersect.”

“You want an argument or a story?”

Sharon admitted that “some of the geography was tweaked to make the story work.” She mentions that in the acknowledgements: “As my dad would have said to anyone taking issue with that, ‘What do you want, an argument, or a story?'”

“It’s a ‘goal’ kind of novel” she explained. “The protagonist has a goal to get to (saving the country) and things happen to knock her back.”

That’s an understatement. People turning up dead, shot, nearly drowned and / or poisoned in the hospital go beyond the “knock her back” category in my book, but, of course, Sharon is a Canadian who ended up in Marble Hill married to my student body president campaign manager Bill Hopkins. She probably uses a different dictionary than most of us.

Rhetta isn’t Sharon per Sharon

Sharon denies that she modeled Rhetta McCarter after herself. I mean, they’re only both insurance/mortgage agents; only both drive hot old Cameros; only both have .38s, and only both got a mistaken voicemail message from a possible terrorist. Oh, yes, both of them got blown off by the authorities when they tried to report it.

“I’m not nearly as foolhardy as she [Rhetta] is. I wouldn’t have done the things she did to save the country.”

[I’m not sure if this is Rhetta or Sharon. I shot it at Sharon’s office party last year.]

“I draw upon real people”

If you are in Sharon’s orbit, you might find yourself in the book. “I draw upon real people. I took different pieces from real people I knew. I knew how the book was going to end and I had a beginning. In the middle, I would think that this might happen or that might happen and suddenly a character would appear. I’d think, ‘Oh, where did HE come from?’ He might become a central or a secondary character. When I’m in the middle of a book like this one or the one I’m writing now, these characters are real to me. I even talk to them. They’re real people.”

[Here are some real people from her office. I shot them at Halloween 2010. I don’t know if they are in the book. I don’t recognize their characters.]

Did I like the book?

So, did I like the book? I knocked it off in a couple of hours. When I was on the road, I’d pick a book that was interesting enough that I would keep reading it, but that wasn’t so interesting that I’d stay up all night to finish it. This would fall into the stay-up-all-night category.

In the interest of full disclosure, Sharon was kind enough to give me a copy of the book and to thank me (and others) for letting her pick our brains.

Bill said Sharon needed journalese translations

I got an email from Bill saying, “My wife is writing a novel where a bad guy gets killed in a car wreck.  I told her that her journalisticese needed to be honed by a professional (and that would be you).” She wanted a short news report about the first victim going into the Diversion Channel.

I complied with a Joe Friday, just-the-facts version that was more or less incorporated in Chapter One.

Then, not knowing when to leave well enough alone, I sent her this version. I’m not a fiction writer on purpose (if you discount some of the expense reports I submitted), so this was a stretch for me.

She made nice noises and refrained from saying that my narrative was longer than her novel. Since it’s never going to get published anywhere else, here it is. You have my permission to skip it. Nothing of value is going to happen after this paragraph.

Finding the vic in the Diversion Channel

Sheriff’s diver Frank James pulled himself out of the water by the tow cable attached to the Blue 2006 Toyota Celica. He opened the door and water, along with a two-pound catfish poured out.

“OK, haul away. It’ll be a lot lighter now,” he hollered at the tow truck driver.

He dropped his SCUBA tank on the ground, pulled off his gloves and mask and collapsed on the running board of Pumper 103 called in from Cape Girardeau for mutual aid.

“Not right now,” he said, shaking his head and giving a wave-off gesture. “I have to get my heart rate under control and get my thoughts straight.”

I had to rewind the movie

A few minutes later, he gave a head nod that indicated that it was OK to come over. “Man, I’ve never had that happen before,” he said. “I had to sort of rewind the movie in my head to make sense of it all.”

“Here’s the way it’s going to work,” he continued. “I only want to have to tell this story once. Shoot, I only want to have to THINK about this story once. The deal is that’s it’s off the record. I don’t want to see a tape recorder. I don’t want to see a notebook. If I ever hear that you’ve told anyone what I’m about to tell you, then you’ll never get anything from me again.

“When I’m done with this, I’ll give you a formal statement. I know you don’t like doing that and you’re on deadline, but that’s the way it’s gonna be.”

I’ve done tens of dives

Seeing a shrug that he accepted as agreement, he kept going. “I’ve done tens of these dives; scores if you count training. Normally they go the same way. Either the car is empty and you have to search around because the person was ejected or escaped and left the scene, or the person is still strapped in their seatbelt. That’s one of the good things about seatbelt laws. It makes it easier to find the vics.

“Anyway, I hooked up the tow cable so the car wouldn’t get away, then I deployed two floating air bags to keep the car from sinking any more. There was no rush. This was recovery, not rescue. The water pressure was equalized between the inside and outside, so opening the door was no sweat.

“This wasn’t one of the lucky ones where the poor stiff was belted in. I swept under the dash area, but no joy. When I was outside the car, the only way you could tell which way was up was by a dim glow above you. Inside the car you didn’t even have the glow. The water was so murky that my light wouldn’t penetrate more than about six inches.

“Someone was watching me”

“After searching the front part of the car, I stretched out to swim over the seats to get into the rear. I had the strangest sensation that someone was in there with me, watching me. Your mind plays tricks like that when you’re in the dark. It’s easy to get turned around.

“Suddenly, this hand came down from nowhere and started to grab my regulator. Jesus, it was like something out of a Grade B horror movie. I started thrashing around trying to get out of there and suddenly it had wrapped its arms around me. I was on the verge of panic. I was sucking air out of the tank like crazy. I had to get out before that thing either grabbed my mask or I ran out of air.

“Just then I realized that this thing wasn’t going to hurt me. It was just the vic who had floated to the ceiling of the car. I had pushed off between him and the car seats. My air bubbles must have displaced enough water to move him and cause his hand to drop down into my field of vision.

“Holy crap in a canvas bag!”

“Holy crap in a canvas bag! I had to stay in that car long enough that I didn’t look like some kind of wild-eyed freak show when I surfaced. The guys would never have let me live that down.

“After I settled down, I did a quick feel of the victim. I couldn’t detect any obvious signs of trauma that would account for his death. I can only speculate that the car went under quickly and he couldn’t figure out how to get out. He managed to get his nose into a tiny air pocket that must have kept him alive for quite a while. God, that must be a rough way to go. That poor bastard.

“OK,” he said.” I needed to tell that to someone. I didn’t want the guys I work with it to hear it because they’d always wonder if I’d freak out some day and get someone hurt. I don’t talk about stuff like that with my wife. Get your notepad out we’ll do this version for the world.”

He put on his official face and dictated,  “Deputy Frank James arrived on the scene of a one-car auto accident on the west side of the Diversion Channel bridge on I-55 north of the Scott City Exit…”

I should have been a reporter

After I threw this together, I realized why I never saw reporters with muddy shoes. They make all this stuff up. It’s us poor photographers who have to actually be there.

Shameless Plug: Buy MY Book

Carla Jordan, director of the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum has agreed to sell my Tower Rock: A Demon that Devours Travelers photo book by mail if anyone doesn’t want to make the trek to Altenburg. Here’s the contact info. The price is $14 plus postage.

Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum
P.O. Box 53
75 Church Street
Altenburg, Missouri 63732

Telephone
573-824-6070

Email:
info@altenburgmuseum.org

 

 

 

Jackson’s Hanging Tree in Danger

Bill Hopkins was kind enough to post a Facebook link to Brian Blackwell’s Southeast Missourian story that the Cape County commissioners are opposed to a new roundabout design in Jackson. Sounds like one of those Dull But Necessary stories real newspapers still have to cover.

Hang on for the interesting part

A point of contention is that the roundabout could endanger a tree that was used to hang people who were convicted of murder. The tree is more than 100 years old and is the last “hanging tree” in the county, Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said.

The proposed roundabout would come within a few feet of the tree trunk, causing possible damage.

“If these three commissioners agree to give up that much of our beautiful courthouse lawn, there would be a three-person hanging on that hanging tree,” Jones said. “And I believe that would be us.”

I had to see the Hanging Tree

I mean, after all, I WORKED for The Jackson Pioneer, right across the street from the County Courthouse. I had never HEARD of the Hanging Tree. This was embarrassing. Besides, it was lunchtime and a trip to Jackson would give me another excuse to swing by Wib’s BBQ.

After having a brown hot (with Cole slaw on it), fries and a Mr. Pibb, I was off to the courthouse. The only problem was I had no idea which of at least three trees could be the Hanging Tree. I needed expert guidance.

Let’s start at Mapping & Appraisal

The very nice woman behind the counter in the Mapping and Appraisal office didn’t even smirk when I asked if she knew anything about the Hanging Tree. She simply said, “Come over here,” leading me to a window. “It’s that one.” She pointed to a tree that I had dismissed as being too low to the ground.

“I thought that one looked like a broken-down Redbud tree. It doesn’t look like it’d be tall enough to hang anybody,” I said.

“My husband said that all of the old-time bad guys must have been four feet tall, but that’s the tree.”

A cool-looking Cape County Plat Book caught my eye, so I started to hand over my pocket plastic. “We don’t take those,” she said kindly.

“Will you take a check?”

“Sure.”

I handed her a West Palm Beach check signed with an illegible scrawl and she started to walk away. “Don’t you want to see any identification?” I asked her.

“Nah, I have your business card. I can find you.”

THAT’S how you know you’re back home. Of course, having a Hanging Tree outside your window may make you a little more sure that nobody is going to write you a bum check.

“Trust, but verify”

The Jackson Pioneer was a solidly Republican newspaper. The first major political speech I covered was Ronald Reagan stumping for Barry Goldwater in 1964. (We’ll cover that experience some other time.) That got me thinking about Reagan’s favorite saying, “Trust, but verify.”

I went up to the second floor of the courthouse to an office overlooking the purported Hanging Tree. Not only did another nice lady verify Mapping and Appraisal Lady’s tree choice, but she pointed to a big painting on the wall with the story of poor John Headrick, the last person to take a ride on the tree on June 15, 1899.

Who was John Headrick?

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail. I’m going to save myself a bunch of typing by sending you to The Southeast Missourian’s July 22, 2001, version of The Hanging of John Headrick that’s next to the picture on the wall.

Here’s a genealogy site with another  account that has slightly more and / or different details of the Headrick case.

Bottom line is that John Headrick was a 19-year-old hired hand who worked for James M. Lail. Headrick may or may not have been romancing Lail’s daughter, Jessie, but he was fired after he was arrested for stealing a buggy.

He returned to the farm, had a confrontation which resulted in Lail being shot dead. Lail’s wife, Vernie, trying to cover his body to protect him, was shot, beaten and stabbed by Headrick. While he was distracted by the daughter, Mrs. Lail ran for help. Headrick expressed a certain degree of admiration for the woman when he discovered she was alive, “By God, the old woman is gone, you can’t kill her, can you?”

Sheriff John H. Jenkins rounded up a posse of 30 to 40 men to hunt down Headrick and caught him hiding in Milt Golson’s barn.

On Nov. 19, 1898, Judge Henry C. Riley sentenced Headrick to “be hanged by the neck, between heaven and earth, until he is dead.”

The Missouri Supreme court affirmed the conviction and the execution was carried out on the Hanging Tree on the Jackson courthouse lawn.

Sheriff Bernard Gockel reported to the court, “I hereby certify that I served the within and attached Death Warrant, at the County of Cape Girardeau, State of Missouri, on the 15th day of June A.D. 1899, by reading the same to the within named John Headrick, and on the same day between the hours of six o’clock and seven o’clock, A.M., and at the same County and State, and within the Jail Yard of said County, within an inclosure surrounded by a fence higher than the gallows and sufficiently closed to exclude the view of persons on the outside, I did inflict the death penalty by hanging the said John Headrick by the neck until he was dead.”