A Winsome Murder Read Free

said. “Thanks for driving in.”
    Lachlan took off his jacket, and they both slid into the booth. He’d already sweated through his shirt. “So,” he said, “Mara speaks highly of you.” He set his iPhone down on the table and turned up his coffee cup. “You two been friends long?”
    â€œWe met at the book expo about fifteen years ago.”
    The waitress with the beautiful everything came over and filled Lachlan’s cup without asking. “Cream,” he said, not looking up. He was about to say something else when his iPhone spun in a half circle on the table before him. He groaned slightly. “Sorry, I have to get this.”Jillian waited as he listened to the message. Lachlan smiled, trying to fill the awkward silence, saying, “Mara really likes your books, by the way. I haven’t had a chance to read them yet.”
    Neither has anyone else, Jillian thought.
    The waitress brought over a tiny bowl mounded with containers of cream.
    â€œEat?” she asked, setting it down.
    Lachlan, still listening to his messages, glanced at his watch and said no.
    â€œYou?” she asked Jillian.
    â€œNo, thanks.”
    The waitress left and Lachlan put down his phone. “Sorry about that.” He emptied a few creams into his coffee. “So,” he said, “this idea, this story of yours. Talk to me.”
    Jillian lit another cigarette. “Mr. Lachlan,” she said, “I’m sure you’re very busy. I drove three and half hours and I have to be back by five, so here’s the pitch. If you don’t like it, thanks for your time.”
    Lachlan took a long sip of his coffee, and said, “Go.”
    â€œWinsome Bay, Wisconsin. Bucolic small-town America. Apple pie, county fairs, Corn Queens, unlocked doors. Then a murder. The brutal killing of a young girl. First murder in the town in sixty years. A sort of Fargo meets Northern Exposure meets In Cold Blood . A killer on the loose. Will it happen again? Weekly installments written in chapters. Creative nonfiction.” Jillian leaned into the table. “A true crime story evolving in real time. The reader gets my point of view, not some famous author who churns out a book a month, or brilliant about-to-retire detective on his last case, but me, someone who usually writes children’s books and has never even been on a crime scene before. Someone who doesn’t like dead bodies. Someone who is scared to even put this murder down on paper.”
    â€œWhat murder?” Lachlan asked.
    â€œDeborah Ellison. It happened a week ago.”
    â€œI’ve heard the name.”
    â€œThe girl in Wisconsin.”
    â€œI read about it.”
    â€œThey found her body in the town right next to mine.”
    Despite his best efforts not to, Lachlan began to listen more closely. “Tell me more.”
    â€œHere’s the angle. I don’t apologize for my lack of experience, or my fears, I write about them. I write about the very same fears my reader has. This story is bound to get ugly, lurid, unimaginably horrific, and I want to make the reader complicit with every turn of the page, just as I’m complicit every time I write one. Our reader doesn’t have to go on. They can put the story down. I don’t have to write it. I can stick to children’s books. But neither of us stops. Just like the killer who could have stopped, but didn’t.” Jillian mashed her cigarette into the ashtray. “That’s what I want to write about.”
    Lachlan waved for more coffee. “Any suspects?”
    â€œNo. But I’ve already interviewed a few people from the town who knew the victim and her family, and I’ve got a meeting set up with the chief of police there.”
    â€œYou think there’s enough to make a serial out of it?”
    Jillian took a thin manuscript out of her bag and placed it on the table. “This is rough. There’s enough there