It’s been two years since THE PROVIDENCE OF
DEATH was published, and folks who’ve read it are getting antsy. Questions are being
asked, both in face-to-face meetings about town and in emails. They go beyond,
“When’s your next book going to be ready?” Many of the questions have been
about specific characters.
As a neophyte to the world of creative writing,
this has become one more item on a growing list of unexpected, but very pleasant
surprises. Never was it thought that fictional characters would come to be
viewed in the same light as the new neighbor who moves into the neighborhood.
Readers want to know more about them.
Writing the second Joe McKibben novel is proving
to be as slow a process as the first one. Joe, an ex-cop has an insatiable
curiosity. Even when I’m not sitting at the keyboard, he’s still thinking about
what should be done next. That is very frustrating. He gets a bright idea about
doing something that will help solve the mystery. I start yelling, “No. Don’t
do that. I’ll have to rewrite. He doesn’t listen. I’m doing a lot of rewriting.
As an interim measure, an effort is going to be
made on a hopefully regular basis (monthly) to answer some of the questions
that have been asked to date. And should others arise, they will be added to
the list. That is, assuming the answer has been determined. Maybe some day I’ll
learn how to control a fictional character I created.
The process will start with a character that
most folks didn’t like. Hampton’s new Chief of Police who took office near the end of the book.
CARROLTON DAVENPORT
Since city council made it clear his appointment
was for only one year, he started looking for another job after six months. Four months later, he resigned to take a
job as chief in a small town in southern Georgia near the Florida state line.
Clyde Kimmel, Hampton’s long-time councilman and
mayor, invited Joe to lunch where he said if Joe wanted the chief’s job, it
would be his. He told Joe he’d talked privately to other members of council.
The vote would be unanimous.
Joe told the mayor he
felt honored, asked that the members of council be thanked for their
consideration. But he declined the offer with the comment that he would never
again carry a weapon, which he would be required to do as police chief.
The mayor asked, “Is
that because of the man you shot while in uniform?
“Yes. That, and I
promised Cam when I retired that I would never again carry a weapon.”
“I’ve heard stories
about the shooting. Do you mind telling me how it happened?”
Joe’s gut reaction was
to refuse. It was a day he didn't want to talk about. But the mayor had been a staunch ally during his days on the force.
He owed the mayor an answer. He took a deep breath and told his story.
“I was the field
training officer for a rookie who had finished his downtown foot beat and
assigned to motor patrol. We were working expired city stickers on Mercury at
ten o’clock on a Wednesday morning. Supposedly the safest time to make a
traffic stop. We pulled a car with an expired sticker down by the aerospace
park. I told the kid it was his turn to write the ticket. He committed a rookie
mistake. Walked up to the driver’s window without stopping short and asking the
driver to show both hands and keep them in sight. The driver had a handgun. He shot
the rookie twice in the face. I’d stepped out of the patrol car to stand at the
rear of the stopped car. When the driver fired, I emptied my weapon through the
back glass of the car. Two shots hit the driver in the head.”
“Is what I’ve heard
about the shooter correct? Booze and pills?
“Yes. Well over the
legal limit on blood alcohol content and full of pills. He was drunk and wired.
“Some things can’t be
helped. There’s nothing you could have done.”
“Bullshit. I was the
rookie’s training officer. I should’ve done my job. Kept an eye on the kid.
Yelled for him to stop short of the driver’s window when it was obvious was not
going to.”
“I can see why you
didn’t yell at the rookie. That would have been a big embarrassment to him.”
“Clyde, living with
the idea of embarrassing a rookie would have been easier than living with the
fact I had to attend the rookie’s funeral."
After hiring a firm
from Boston to conduct a “national” search, city council selected the new chief
from internal ranks. A major with seventeen years experience in Hampton got the
job.