Finding the Dead Body

[Karen J. Laubenstein]

When is the best place in a story to find the body? Why?

[I. J. Parker]

Harry, this works without a body!

[Jude Hardin]

Page one's a good spot. Here's the opening to my wip:

When you walk into a motel room in St. Augustine, Florida, and find the only woman who ever really mattered lying on the floor with a hole in her head, a chill slithers up your spine and your good knee goes to powder and your gut feels like you swallowed a bowl of pennies.

You lift the tail of your Hawaiian shirt and ease the Smith and Wesson from its holster, cock the hammer back and scan the room, knowing the most beautiful girl in the world did not do this to herself. You push the bathroom door open, find nothing but a toothbrush and a tube of Crest with the cap off. You catch your own reflection in the mirror. You look older than you did an hour ago.

I hadn’t seen Nancy for twenty-five years, but her hair was still black and her eyes--staring blankly at the ceiling now--still green. The lips I had kissed a million times hung slack, frozen in a pout, and a thin trail of blood ran from the corner of her mouth to the carpet.

I knelt down, careful not to disturb any evidence, and checked her neck for a pulse. Nada. Her face had the waxen sheen of a mannequin.

A pillow lay close to Nancy’s right arm, along with a .22 caliber revolver. The pillow had a hole in it, and a burn mark from the muzzle flash. Otherwise, the room looked undisturbed.

[Lee Lofland]

Hi Jude. I'm curious about this scene. Is the guy a cop? If so, he'd never pull the hammer back on his weapon, though he'd definitely be wearing a Hawaiin shirt. My closet is full of them.

[Jude Hardin]

He’s no longer a cop. He’s not a private investigator, or a bounty hunter. The only rules he plays by are his own, and he doesn’t take American Express.

Meet Nicholas Colt: Pool hustler, bass angler, Runaway Recovery Agent. If all other avenues fail, and if you have cash, he’ll bring your kid home safely. Guaranteed. A former runaway himself, Colt has a soft spot for wayward teens.

Thanks for the tip, Lee. Since he's an ex-cop, he would probably still be conditioned to follow police protocol where his weapon is concerned. I'll make the change. Gracias!

[Lee Lofland]

Didn't mean to stick my nose where it didn't belong, but police officers aren't trained to do that sort of thing and they tend to follow what they're taught to do. That's why my monthy donut bill is so outrageous...

[Jude Hardin]

No way, man. I absolutely appreciate the advice.

So tell me this: Krispy Kreme or Dunkin?

[Lee Lofland]

Sorry Ingid, I misunderstood. You're right, the first chapter better be a page turner.

And...your point about the morgue is one of the great reasons for committing the crime there. Detectives would likely focus (I'm speaking of real-life circumstances) on the people who had immediate access to the facility, not an outsider who could have stolen a key, etc.. And, even if it was an insider, forensic evidence would more than likely be tainted or destroyed. Cops would have to rely on old fashioned crime-solving techiques, and if the killer didn't talk about it or no one saw him do it, it would tough to prove. Keep in mind, though, that there is no such thing as a perfect murder, only imperfect investigators.

[I. J. Parker]

Well, it's a good thing that there are no perfect murders. Otherwise where would we be? Do we assume that the secret intruder made one teentsy mistake and left something behind that couldn't possibly belong to the employees?

[Lee Lofland]

Without fail, criminals always take something away from a scene and they always leave something behind. It just takes a shrewd investigator to discover whatever those items may be.

[carole gill]

the perfect murders are the ones no one gets arrested for.

[Jude Hardin]

The perfect murder: A man takes his wife sailing in the ocean, at night. Ten miles offshore, he shoves her overboard. He sails down the coast a ways, and then frantically notifies the Coastguard that his wife is missing. No body, no witnesses, no evidence. All we have is this guy's word that it was an accident, and there's no way to prove that it wasn't.

[carole gill]

what about the Thomas Capano case--in prison now for the murder of Anne Marie Fahey. Big shot lawyer from Delaware. he was supposed to have dumped her body at sea.