Mining Trivia Night for Story Gold by Lucy Burdette

 LUCY BURDETTE: Happy New Year Reds! May it be a great year full of good friends, good health, good food, good books...

Holidays aside, it's been a busy time! I received the copy edits for A DELICIOUS DECEPTION in December, so they took first priority once they landed. This time I learned that I insert "that" into many more sentences than need it. I will try to remember that lesson in the future! Meanwhile I finished two projects, a Key Lime murder mystery for the Friends of the Key West Library, and a short story for the upcoming anthology Key West Noir (which will be part of the Akashic Noir series.)  I find short stories so challenging! The writer has a short time (duh) do everything normally done in a long book—develop characters, present a perfect jewel of a plot, and produce a satisfying conclusion. Plus, the story had to be noir, as in dark. (I tried!)

We had to tell the editors ahead of time what part of Key West we were featuring, so the stories wouldn't overlap too much. I chose Mallory Square and the new Key West cooking school. I wrote it from Nathan Bransford’s point of view in the third person. He's Hayley’s husband and he often gets overshadowed by her and the other characters, especially Miss Gloria. To get the proper background, I convinced six friends to go with me to the Cooking School’s Monday trivia night. We did not win any prizes, but it was tons of fun, and I got good photos and took lots of notes. I’ll show you a few of those and then post a snippet of the story, now called A NOT SO TRIVIAL MURDER. 

they were good sports

isn't it gorgeous?

waiting for snacks, or inspiration?

the tally

Mallory Square, home of the nightly sunset over the Gulf celebration with its patchwork of street performers and purveyors of food and drink, was mostly dark and silent. Across the expanse of stone dotted with palms, he saw a brightly colored umbrella, lit up by the glow of a soft yellow lamp on a card table covered with a deep blue cloth. Lorenzo, a friend of his wife’s, was bent over a spread of tarot cards, explaining something to the client in front of him. Bransford headed in that direction, flashing his Maglite along the walls of the buildings lining the square, greeting a couple of the regular homeless types. Though this square wasn’t a hotbed of crime after sundown, the chief believed that a regular and reasonably friendly police presence functioned as a retaining wall between order and chaos. 

The woman sitting with Lorenzo leaned across his table to squeeze his hands and then got up to leave. Bransford figured he would check in. Though he wasn’t certain the fortune teller had access to a deeper understanding of the universe than most, he was an acute observer of human behavior. If trouble was brewing, Lorenzo would know. He approached the table and waved hello. “You’re working late.”

“I don’t like to rush my clients,” Lorenzo said earnestly. “They come in psychic pain and it’s my job to honor that.” 

Bransford hardly knew what to say, but in some happy twist of fate, his radio crackled before he had to answer. The police department dispatcher, usually unflappable, reported a problem at the Key West cooking school in a breathless voice. “EMTs have been dispatched to the scene. You’d better check in. The bartender was hysterical, so not clear whether someone is dead or dead drunk.” 

Sometimes in this town, it was hard to tell the difference. “I’m on it,” said Bransford. “Have a good night,” he told the tarot card reader and jogged off toward the redbrick building at the far end of the square.

He paused at the entrance to the school, which was located up the only escalator in Old Town on the second floor of the US Coast Guard building, now called the Shops at Mallory Square. The developers had spent a bloody fortune renovating the cooking school space, which he had not yet visited. Despite his own wife’s connection to food and the food world, he was an eat to live guy, not live to eat. Other than investigating a possible crime on the premises, he was not the kind of man who would attend a cooking school or even a single demonstration. Hard pass.

We’ll see how well I did with this—the anthology will be comprised of talented Key West and Key West adjacent writers (including SA Cosby, king of noir!) Of course I had that in my mind the whole time I was writing, which may or may not have helped. By the way, here's a photo of the winners, which became an important plot point.

Reds, do you read and enjoy short stories? Why or why not? How about trivia, want to join a team?

What We're Writing: Hank takes a short story challenge!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It’s Tuesday, and since I am second alphabetically, Tuesday is my "what we’re writing" day.

My current writing adventures include the final glorious edits of The House Guest, slogging through the hideous middle of One Wrong Word--and the release of a short story in an amazing anthology!

The story all began with the most wonderful email I’ve gotten in a long time. From CJ  Box and Harlan Coben. (!!!) Inviting me to be one of 11 authors to contribute to their short story anthology called Birds of Prey, under the imprimatur of International Thriller Writers. Each story had to be about a bird of prey.  It took me about zero seconds to say yes.

Followed by days of existential angst as I tried to figure out what the heck to write.

As it turned out, the story is a perfect example of an idea that did not work!

When Harlan and CJ asked me to participate in this, I tried to think of something as weirdly exotic as I could. And decided I would write about an extinct bird. A bird that did not exist anymore. 

How would I do that? I didn't know, but it seemed like a plan. So, I researched extinct birds. And found the Haast eagle, supposedly the biggest eagle that ever existed, which fell into extinction because it could not feed itself enough. Something like that.  

Oh, I thought, that sounds, metaphorically, like "corporate." A super-big company, devouring everything in sight, and yet, still could not sustain itself.  And that seemed like a brilliant idea. 

However. Apparently not. I could not write that story. I could not figure out, not at all, how to do that. And I was a little bit worried. Really really worried, in fact.

At some point, I walked into our family room and my husband was watching Dr. Zhivago. He has watched that movie countless times. His daughter is even named Lara. I said to him. 

"Are you watching that movie again?" And he said, "Yes, I love this movie."

 And I said, "I know you love it, honey, but how many times can you watch the same movie?" And he said, "I could watch this movie forever."

I burst out laughing, and said "I can just see that, you’re 150 years old, and all you do is watch Dr. Zhivago."

 And he said, "That doesn’t sound bad to me."

 So then I thought--and this is the writer process--what if there were someone who watched the same movie over and over? Over and over and over. Why would they do that?

And that was fascinating to me. And since the bird book was preying on my mind, I thought: how could I made that a bird story? What movies have birds of prey in them? And first, my brain said "The Falcon and the Snowman."

 

And the other half of my mind laughed, and said "No, Hank, that is not the one."

 Exactly. Because of course, there’s only one movie that a person could watch over and over that features a bird of prey. 

And that is The Maltese Falcon. And that is the story I wrote.

It stars Robyn (an ex-con, now senior citizen/nursing home attendant) and her boyfriend Jay, newly released from prison. Robyn has managed to get Jay a job at the home where she works. One of their charges is a resident named Finnian Webley, who has never said a word, or responded to anyone. He just watches The Maltese Falcon all day. Over and over. It's on mute.

Robyn and Jay are walking down the hall toward his room.

(I have to say, this story does not sound like "me" at all. I was so surprised at the way it came out.) 

Here's a tiny bit  from "Jailbirds."

                                                         ******

She remembered when Jay said goodbye that day, or not said goodbye; he’d just turned and walked away. And she had no idea how long 32 months would turn out to be. But it was long enough for her to get angry, then sad, then miserable, then enraged, then forgiving. Now, she didn’t know what she was. Thirty years old, and in love—whatever that meant—with this person, this person with no future, and they were walking along a godforsaken hallway, with godforsaken people, who just waited here to die, and what she was doing here, she didn’t dare to try to understand.

“I can’t wait for tonight,” Jay told her. “The last thing we’re going to do is watch TV, right, Birdie? I may never freaking watch television again. I don’t want to turn out like this guy.”

“Hush. We’re here.”

“I thought you said he can’t hear.”

They knocked on the door of Apartment 410, Robyn assembling her words, assembling her face, putting on the demeanor of a person who cared. She did, actually, if she faced it. Her own parents had died before they got old enough to be in a place like this, and sometimes she wondered whether they might have been lucky.

“Why are you knocking?” Jay asked. “If he can’t hear, what difference will it make?”

She loved his voice, even asking that moronic question. She had longed to hear it, nights and mornings and, sometimes, just walking along Riviera Beach, listening to the waves and the stupid seagulls and thinking about decisions people made.

“I think he feels the vibrations or something,” she said.

The door clicked open, and Finnian Webley sat there, looking at them, or not looking at them; it was hard for Robyn to tell. His short-sleeved plaid shirt, fraying once-blue plaid, hung across his thin shoulders, and a sparse scrabble of spiky white hairs seemed to sprout randomly across his splotchy pale face. She worried about him, kind of, his sunken eyes and the hollows in his forehead. The way he licked his thin lips, as if he were thinking about something that she could never know.

                                       ******

HANK: The anthology  BIRDS OF PREY came out less than a week ago! And it is now an Amazon Bestseller, and the number one mystery anthology! It is an audio only, an Audible original, and is absolutely fascinating.  It includes 11 stories,  by, among others, Tess Gerritsen, Robert Dugoni, Kathy Reichs, SA Cosby, and me.

Here are some of the authors on a zoomcast about it.

Here’s the link to the Audible book! It is quite astonishing. There are owls, and falcons, and seagulls, a condor, a Ford falcon car, and mine, starring predatory jailbirds and a movie.

What bird of prey would you have chosen?

Echoing Sherlock and in great company

HALLIE EPHRON: This week the most lovely package arrived: my very own leather-bound limited first-edition copy of ECHOES OF SHERLOCK, an anthology of stories inspired by the Holmes canon, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger.

It's gorgeous, and signature sheets from all the authors are bound into it. Mysterious Bookshop has done a spectacular job. 

Publisher's Weekly named it a TOP 10 MYSTERY pick for the fall.

The hardback edition is available October 4, and it can be ordered now.  
Amazon/Kindle  
Barnes&Noble/Nook
The book has stories in it by three Reds, and today we're treating you to a taste of each.

• "Understudy in Scarlet" by me (about a movie actress who once played Irene Adler is now cast as Mrs. Hudson)

  It's not an open casting call, Angela Cassano realizes as she takes in the emptiness of director Glenn Lancaster's outer office. The gloomy space, on the second floor over storefronts on Santa Monica in Beverly Hills, has rough stucco walls painted off-white. The furnishings are chrome and ebony and black leather, and the stale air smells faintly of cigar. Her appointment was at two. At three she's still waiting for Lancaster to emerge from his inner sanctum. "They want you," her agent had said when he called, sounding as surprised as she was that a remake of A Scandal in Bohemia was afoot...

• "The Adventure of the Dancing Women by Hank Phillippi Ryan (in which Annabelle Holmes follows a trail of pictogram emails to a missing fiancee)

"It's the end of literacy as we know it," I complained. I leaned back in my swivel chair, plonked my black boots on my desk, and glimpsed the last of the Wednesday sunrise, wisps of pale lavender, still visible behind the coppery foliage of our towns famous beeches. This morning, however, I was lured from our front window and the glorious autumn by the curious email that had pinged onto my computer. I studied it, perplexed. I recognized the sender, but there was no subject line, nor were there words in the message section. The page showed only a colorful jumble of tiny graphic symbols.

• "The Case of the Speckled Trout" by Deborah Crombie (featuring Holmes's cheeky goddaughter)

My name is Sherry Watson. It's a crap name, Sherry, I know. But what can you do? It's not like I had a say in the matter. My parents, to give them credit, were trying to do the right thing--a sentimental gesture I wondered if they were sorry for after.

Deb and Hank were at the official launch party at Bouchercon in New Orleans ... I was not (sigh.) That's Les Klinger to the left of Deb, and   in front of him is Laurie King. Catriona McPherson rear left and Meg Gardiner front right. Off camera about a half-dozen other wonderful authors of short stories in the collection. 



Here's a list of the other authors whose wonderful stories appear in the book:

Tasha Alexander
Dana Cameron
John Connelly
Cory Doctorow
Meg Gardiner
William Kent Krueger
Tony Lee & Bevis Musson
Jonathan Maberry
Catriona McPherson
Denise Mina
David Morrell
Hank Phillippi Ryan
Michael Scott
 
Every year, hundreds of Holmes-inspired books and stories and TV scripts and movies are created, and the canon goes on inspiring. I, for one, can't wait to see what fresh hell the BBC's Sherlock gets up to this season.

How do you explain the lasting influence, and for the writers out there, how do the stories inspire you?

A Sneaking of Shorts

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  What could be cooler than a sneak preview? And that's exactly what we have here today—courtesy of the fab Malice Domestic.  As they say in TV news: Shawn Reilly Simmons has the story. Er, stories. Er, short stories.

SHAWN: This just in! (Couldn’t resist.) After a fifteen year hiatus, Malice Domestic is pleased to announce the return of their annual short story anthologies. Malice Domestic 11: Murder Most Conventional, published by Wildside Press, will be released during Malice 28 (April 29 – May 1, 2016). The anthology includes twenty-two original stories and one modern classic reprint, each representing their own take on the “cozy” style of mystery, those in the tradition of Agatha Christie.

HANK: And the amazing Barb Goffman and Verena Rose and Rita Owens edited, (Barb really made my story shine--what a  terrific line and developmental editor. And they all worked so hard--putting together an anthology is a huge job) and  Katherine Hall Page wrote the thoughtful introduction. What a treat. The stories are hilarious. Clever—and very specific.

SHAWN: Yes, definitely!. The stories all have to do with some type of gathering or convention. But turns out, like any good anthology there’s a wide range of stories, from historical pieces to modern takes on fun gatherings.

HANK: Psst. Sneak preview!  Here are just a few samples. And you can tell, even from this, how amazingly different they are!

 *******************

From:  

THE PERFECT PITCH

by

 Marie Hannan‐Mandel

Before you begin to feel sorry for me, don’t. I’m here for an

inventors’ convention with my lint-collecting dryer sheet

prototype, the Lint-Locker—the guaranteed way to ensure your

laundry doesn’t get covered in lint—so I can meet James Maguire

O’Reilly, megastar inventor. As soon as I’d found out he was going

to be running workshops and hearing inventor pitches—something

he never does—I’d registered, even though it meant coming to

Maine in January. I signed up for every one of his morning

workshops, and I’m going to make sure he notices me. He’s going

to love my product and help me get financial backing for it. All he

needs is to hear my pitch.

Soon enough I’ve found my destination, a chain hotel on the

edge of town. It has cookies in the lobby, racks of brochures, and a

fake fire.

“I’m here for the inventors’ convention,” I say when I catch the

front desk clerk’s eye.

  

From 

The Vanishing Wife

by

Victoria Thompson

January 1899

“My wife has vanished.”

This was the last thing Frank Malloy had expected his welldressed

client to say. When rich men came to his Confidential

Inquiries office in Greenwich Village, they were usually concerned

with marital infidelities or dishonest employees.

“What do you mean, she vanished?”

Delwood Hooper rubbed a well-manicured hand over his pale

face. “I came home last evening, as usual, but my wife wasn’t there

to greet me. I asked our butler where she was, and he informed me

that she had left town.”

“Then she didn’t exactly vanish,” Frank said, settling back in

his chair. He was still breaking it in since it, like everything else in

his office, was brand new. “Didn’t he tell you where she went?”

“That’s the problem, you see. Marjorie occasionally does go

out of town to visit friends or relations, but she always leaves me a

note telling me exactly where she went and when she will return.

This time, she didn’t.”

From: 

Two Birds with One Stone

by

Rhys Bowen

“The pipes are playing to celebrate the Gathering of the Clans,”

I said. “Binky felt we should do the right thing with visitors from

all over Scotland coming together here. It’s a great honor, you

know, to be chosen to host the annual Gathering of the Clans. It

only comes to us about every twenty years. I was a toddler last time

it happened in 1913, but I vaguely remember all the fuss and that I

was terrified of those huge men in kilts and ran back to Nanny.”

“Huge men in kilts?” Queenie perked up at this.

“They’ll all be wearing traditional Highland dress for the

games.”

“What sort of games?” She was looking quite interested now.

“The Highland Games are the main part of the gathering,”I

explained. “You know, they toss the caber and throw the hammer.

All sorts of feats of strength.”

“They have strong feet?” she asked, puzzled.

I tried not to laugh. “No, I meant contests to demonstrate how

strong they are. You can go down and watch them practicing later,

if you like. My brother has set aside the meadow beyond the

stables as a practice field. Oh, and speaking of my brother, I have

to go and inspect the facilities after breakfast to make sure all is in

order. You know how—” I broke off. I had been going to say “You

know how hopeless he is about organizing things,” but one does

not criticize

From 

A Dark and Stormy Light

by

Gigi Pandian

A few years ago, while I was still a graduate student, I began

attending Asian History conferences. At the fateful gathering I will

always think of as The Conference, we didn’t fill up the entire

hotel. Instead, we found ourselves sharing the space with a mystery

writers’ convention.

If I’m being true to the story, I need to say that it began on a

dark and stormy night. If it hadn’t been for that storm, the whole

fiasco would have been avoided.

 From

The Clue in the Blue Booth

by

Hank Phillippi Ryan

I touched the flowered silk scarf tied around my neck, and the

strand of pearls underneath. It’s not usually necessary for me to go

undercover to blend into a crowd, because my whole life is

undercover. But coming here in costume had seemed prudent, and

now, surveying the lobby, the line of registration desks, and the

vast convention floor, it turned out my costume was not only

prudent, but hilarious. It was like being in a massive hall of

mirrors.

Blond wigs—or, on some, I supposed, real blond hair—scarves

and pearls and twin-set cashmere sweaters, stockings, and sensible

shoes. Plaid skirts. Some women carried magnifying glasses, and

some, like me, wore little vintage hats tilted rakishly over one eye.

A fluttering canvas banner suspended from the erector-set

ceiling announced why we were all dressed that way, and why we

were here—not exactly why I’m here, of course, but why the rest of

them were here. NANCY DREW CONVENTION, it trumpeted.

They’d included a huge graphic portrayal of the iconic silhouette of

the 1930s girl sleuth, all waved hair and cloche hat and pearls and

cardigan. Just like me.

Just like all the attendees, because all were requested to dress as

Nancy Drew. Clearly, these women followed directions. The

organizers had promised a big-time surprise guest speaker, and as

of now, word hadn’t leaked about who that would be. Not even to

me, which was somewhat unnerving. I don’t like surprises.

From

A Gathering of Great Detectives

      by Shawn Reilly Simmons

“What’s going on here today?” Detective Murphy asked,

making eye contact with his partner briefly before turning his gaze

back to the couple. “Are you having some kind of event or

something?” He glanced at their vintage clothes and Mrs. Adams’s

hair, which was curled and sprayed into place. They looked like

they’d stepped out of one of those old black-and-white movies his

mother was always watching. Mr. Adams wore a tux with a white

bow tie and Mrs. Adams was in a shimmery black evening gown

with a string of pearls around her neck. They were pretty decked

out, especially for noon on a Saturday.

Mrs. Adams placed a hand lightly on her chest and said, “It’s

our annual convention, A Gathering of Great Detectives.” She

waved at a wooden table along the far wall of the foyer near the

reception desk. A few leather badge holders with names written on

yellowing paper tucked inside were lined up on the table. “We

gather every year, about sixty of us, and solve a mystery.”

“Murder,” Mr. Adams boomed from behind her, causing his

wife to jump slightly.

“Yes, murder, that’s right, dear,” she said. “We’re different

from the average murder mystery weekend though. Attendees must

appear as their favorite detective and stay in character all weekend,

or until the mystery is solved.”

HANK and SHAWN: We bet you cannot wait to get your hands on one of hese! Friday night during Malice, right after the live charity auction, there will be a special signing event for the contributing authors, over twenty in total. We hope to see you there!  

 However,  Murder Most Conventional is also available for pre-order (http://tinyurl.com/hku7k6p)  For more info about Malice visit us at www.MaliceDomestic.org

HANK: And we’ll give a copy, of course, as a prize to one lucky commenter! This’ll be easy, since you don’t actually have to write the story—where would you sent a short story that had to be about a convention? I first contemplated a convention of convention planners.

Shawn Reilly Simmons is the author of the Red Carpet Catering mystery series published by Henery Press. The third book in the series, Murder on a Designer Diet will be released June 7^th. Shawn is a member of the Malice Domestic Board of Directors and a contributing author to the Murder Most Conventional anthology.

www.ShawnReillySimmons.com

   

What We're Writing? Hank says: Elementary, my dear Scully

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  What we’re writing? You will never believe it.  Up until eleven years ago, what I wrote were facts. Reporting and writing only what I saw and heard and discovered.  Only whatever truth I could discover.

Then one day--and my point is coming--I realized I could make stuff up. Write fiction. Make new worlds, and “report” on them. I created Charlotte McNally—and more good news on that soon. I created Jane Ryland—and the new Jane book WHAT YOU SEE is on the BOLO Best of 2015 list, hurray! And was also just named a Library Journal Best of 2015.

 Hurray.

And the new Jane and Jake, titled---well, I'll keep that a secret for now--is in to the publisher! And I'll soon start on the next one.

             Hurray.

 But I am also working in two more voices. One, in for the upcoming anthology of Sherlock Holmes-inspired short stories edited by Les Klinger and Laurie King—wow, huh?—I am the voice of Annabelle Holmes, a private detective in western Massachusetts.

And for an upcoming anthology of X-files stories edited by Jonathan Maberry—wow, huh?--I am the voice of Dana Scully. Yes, indeed. And in my story, she and Mulder are married. And expecting.

Here’s a taste of each.

 From “THE ADVENTURE OF THE DANCING WOMEN”

“Miss Holmes?” Our visitor stood in the open office doorway, the glare from the morning sunshine creating a momentary silhouette.

Most of our clients are amused by my name, and as he came inside, our visitor’s smile revealed he had also made the connection. Surely as all Rhodes are Dusty and all Cassidys are Hopalong, if one’s name is Holmes, one is inescapably called Sherlock. Even though my real name is Annabelle.

As for the real Holmes, Watson reports she has read a few of the classic stories; certainly they are many and beloved.  I have not indulged, preferring to create my own adventures. Perhaps I’ll write them someday. Or perhaps, in keeping with literary tradition, Watson will.

“May we help you?” Watson asked. With her growing-out military haircut and newly-purchased “girl clothes” as she calls them, part of her job is to approach arriving clients and barricade me, as it were, from the initial contact. That gives me time to contemplate, assess, and calculate.

This morning’s visitor was dressed like a handsome groom on a wedding cake. Hardly expected for seven on an October morning.  The young man—late twenties, I calculated-- held a carryout cup of coffee in a white paper container.

“Annabelle Holmes?” He looked at me as he entered, then at Watson, then back at me.  As if trying to decide which of us he sought--the scarecrow in the black jeans, black t-shirt, spectacles and ponytail, or the short-haired cherub in the flowered skirt.

This waiter, or possibly bridegroom, was clearly flustered: his cheeks stubbled, dark hair in disarray, bow tie slanted askew, one of the black onyx studs in his shirtfront placket missing.

“I see you have not rented that evening wear,” I said, standing and holding out a welcoming hand.  “That you are left-handed.  And, moreover, that you are health conscious.” I hid my smile at his wide-eyed response. “I am Annabelle Holmes.  How can we be of service, Mr.—Arthur?”

   “Health conscious? Left-handed?” The man fairly sputtered in surprise as he shook mine. “And how did you know my name?

“And I must ask,” I continued, “since you are clearly in…” I paused, choosing my word carefully. “…distress.  Are you missing the bride to your groom?”

 “Missing the bride? How did you know?” He blinked at his reflection in the front window. “I see. Yes, I’m Arthur. Arthur Daley. But how did you know that?”

I glanced at Watson, who, as always, looked at me for answers. She still has not learned how I look for small details, and how they combine to create larger answers. Sometimes it is not difficult.

“Your name is written on your coffee cup, sir,” I said. “Along with your health conscious choice for skim milk.”

Watson rolled her eyes. “You kill me,” she muttered.

FROM “We Should Listen to Some Shostakovich”  (In which Scully and Mulder have received a huge oil painting of Dmitri Shostakovich as a wedding gift.)

“I knew it,” Mulder said. He stood at the top of the basement stairs, triumphant. He held a file folder in his hand, and no question what was coming next.

We were at breakfast; I was at least, sitting at the little table in the corner of our kitchen. Thirty seconds until my tea water boiled. Tea was about all I could hold down these days. 

And the Shostakovich had entered our lives as well. Not just Sitnikov’s painting, but the music.  The music of Shostakovich, his Eighth String Quartet, floated through our sun-lit room, the sorrowful notes poignant and heartbreaking.  We’d listened to a lot of Shostakovich over the past few days, and now, Mulder was saying he’d found articles about –well two things. One, that Shostakovich used codes in his music. For instance, that he’d transcribed DSCH, for Dmitri Shostakovich, into the first notes of the Quartet.

“With the note D as the letter D,” he’d explained. “And musicians know E-flat is S, and then C, and B is H.”

At least he’d come upstairs with research, not an X-file, which is what I had expected. But those were still at headquarters, and while the powers-that-be weighed our fates, the files were off limits. Or out of reach, at least. I considered my uneaten wheat toast. “Why does B equal H?”

These are the conversations we have.

“Who knows, “he said. “I don’t make the rules. I just find them.”

 And then, Mulder had looked up the dates of the Eighth.

“Check it out,” he’d said. “Shostakovich, according to this, wrote the eighth string quartet starting July 12, 1960. Know what else happened that day? A U.S. Navy C-47 cargo transport plane crashed into the side of a mountain near Quito, Ecuador, killing all 18 souls on board.”

“We’re not going to Ecuador,” I said.

He ignored me, what else is new. “On July 13, 1960 he was still writing. And you know what happened that day?”

All kinds of appropriate answers came to mind, but it was better just to let him talk.

“John F. Kennedy got the Democratic nomination for president.”

“We’re not going to Dallas,” I said.  Not again.

“All I’m saying,” Mulder poked the microwave button, handed me the cup of hot water. “All I’m saying is that our painting has got to be a code, too. Music lasts, paintings last. Better than microchips or microfilm or secret letters. Anyone can see them, or hear them. But the codes only communicate meaning to those who know what they’re looking for. Or listening for. The music means something. And the painting is telling us how to listen. Or, possibly, the music is telling us to look at the painting.  Either way, they’re connected. At least to each other, and probably to something more.”

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I really hope you scrolled down, looking for what came next. It’s been a true joy to write these stories, and I’ll let you know when they come out!  So, Reds, would you rather read an X-Files story? Or a Holmes-ish one?