From beginning of Chapter One…

Paradise isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

Sure, Valerie Corbin knew she and her wife Kristen were supremely fortunate to now reside in the quaint, still-stuck-in-the-1970s town of Hilo on the magnificent Big Island of Hawai‘i—home to lush jungles, fiery volcanoes, black sand beaches, and coral reefs teeming with eye-popping tropical fish.

But at this moment, all she could focus on was the bull terrier-spaniel mix next door barking so loudly that it almost—though not quite—drowned out the whine of the pneumatic tools its owner was using on a jacked-up truck, the parts of which were currently scattered all across his driveway.

Letting loose a few choice words regarding both dog and man, Valerie slammed shut the window above the kitchen sink, then returned to the stove to poke at her potatoes simmering in a pot of water. At the sound of the back door opening, she looked up to see Kristen and her nephew, Sean, come inside from the lānai, Valerie and Kristen’s little white dog, Pua, trotting after them.

“We couldn’t take the racket anymore,” said Kristen, tossing her Outside magazine onto the counter. “Does he ever stop?”

“Who—Akoni or Larry?”

Kristen laughed. “Both, I guess. And yeah, I know the answer: rarely. Especially Akoni, with his constant yowling. Though I gotta say, it seems like Larry’s been working on his vehicles a hell of a lot more of late. And I don’t believe I’ve ever even seen that particular truck before. You think he’s started repairing other people’s vehicles, too?”

“Oh, God, I hope not. Though that would explain the increased frequency of the noise.” Valerie switched off the heat under her potatoes, then turned to Kristen. “I wonder if it’s legal to have a car repair business in this neighborhood. Maybe I should ask at tonight’s meeting if anyone knows.”

“Or maybe you could just talk to your neighbor about it,” put in Sean, who’d taken a seat at the kitchen table and was busy typing something into his phone.

Valerie and Kristen exchanged glances, after which Valerie replied, “Maybe later. But first we should figure out where we stand on the issue.”

Sean set down his phone with a shrug. “So what’s this thing you’re going to tonight, anyway?”

“It’s the monthly meeting for the neighborhood orchid society,” said Valerie, carrying the pot to the sink and dumping the steaming potatoes into a colander. “Shirley invited me—you know, the woman who lives at that house down the street with all those beautiful orchids in her tree ferns? I was admiring them the other day, and after we got talking, she invited me to come along tonight to see if I might be interested in joining. You wanna join me?”

Sean let loose his man bun, held in place by a wooden hair stick, and shook out his dirty-blond locks. “No can do; I’m working tonight at the hospital. It’s my first time in the ER, which should be interesting.”

Sean had come from Arkansas to do a three-month stint as a visiting nurse at the Hilo hospital and was now on his second week at the job—and at Valerie and Kristen’s house, where he’d be staying for the duration of his time on-island. “I didn’t know you were into orchids,” he said in a lazy drawl, pulling his hair back from his face and retying the bun.

“I wasn’t, not till we first got to Hilo. But they’re so amazing and, I dunno . . . other-worldly.”

Star Trek flowers, I call them,” said Kristen, and Valerie nodded.

“And they’re so easy to grow here, so I’m thinking it might be fun to try it myself. Plus, it’d be a great way to get to know some of the folks in the neighborhood a little better.”

“Like Larry?” asked Sean with a grin.

“Ha. I’m not so sure he’s really the orchid type . . .”

***

Excerpt from MURDER, LOCAL STYLE by Leslie Karst. Copyright 2026 by Leslie Karst. Reproduced with permission from Leslie Karst. All rights reserved.

ONE

Present Day, Los Angeles
Carly Bennett

Light blue on dirty blonde.

Creative writing professor Carly Bennett did a quick scan of her face from its reflection in the window that overlooked the University of Southern California quad and smoothed a crease in her pencil skirt.

If Carly had known that the dean of the English department would schedule a last-minute meeting with her, she would’ve picked a better outfit than one that screamed, “I had no time to take this to the cleaner, so I ran a fast iron over it. But thank God the skirt is black so no one can see the stain from when my coffee cup lid jimmied its way free this morning.”

Nothing like near first-degree burns on your thigh from an errant Starbucks Pike to jolt a person awake during LA’s slog of a commute.

No matter. Here she was.

And she’d be ready. Even though she needed to master her prep on the fly.

Carly turned the corner to the English department’s Office of the Dean and forged through her speaking points that she’d deliver to her boss, Bert Scanlon.

“Making the LA Times’s ‘Thirty-Under-Thirty’ list was a complete surprise, but I’m so happy that the article will shine a spotlight on the great work our team is doing under your leadership.”

Ack. Too mealy-mouthed. Plus, it made her sound like a big-headed brown-noser. And nobody likes that person.

“Thank you for the kind words. Please know how much I appreciate that you believe in me, and I swear, I won’t let you down.”

Better, and that sentiment was from the heart.

Carly pictured her face, front and center on the page when she’d pulled up the LA Times story that morning and hoped that the people she used to know from her early Malibu days saw it too.

Elitist jerks.

As for herself, Carly had read the write-up, over and over, until she could now recite it in perpetuity.

Carly passed by the USC English department’s wall of fame, which showcased its students’ esteemed awards through the years. She paused when she saw her name, capturing a moment in time from freshman year. Her: scared to near speechlessness amongst the far cooler co-eds but finding strength behind her pen.

Winner of the 2018 Undergraduate Writing Prize—First Place: Carly Bennett

Had she really come this far? Most would’ve marked her a losing bet at age twelve, her personal line of demarcation, but sometimes, even dark horses can come from behind and win the whole damn thing.

Four. Three. Two. One.

“You got this,” Carly whispered.

She reached for the security of her inhaler in her briefcase and entered Scanlon’s office.

Gretchyn Olson, a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair was working the phone with precision. She held up a single finger when she saw Carly.

While she waited, Carly continued to clutch her briefcase in one hand and placed the other behind her back, where she dug a fingernail into a stray cuticle.

After a beat, Scanlon’s assistant put the call on hold.

“They’re waiting for you,” Gretchyn said. “Hang in there, kid. Sometimes, you need to play the game.”

They? And what game was she talking about?

Carly’s neck felt hot, but she made certain she was smiling when she entered the office, where she locked eyes with Scanlon, who rose to greet her. Scanlon had a Mr. Clean, shiny bald head, and his stomach struggled to stay behind the confines of the clasped gold buttons of his tweed coat.

Seated across from the dean of the English department was an unfamiliar male, who was well dressed, neatly manicured, and appeared to be in his early fifties.

Carly shot the stranger an equally polite smile. Who was this guy?

“Miss Bennett, thank you for taking time to swing by under such short notice,” Scanlon said.

“Of course, sir.”

Maybe the man was another reporter from the paper who covered the education beat and was writing a follow-up article on the English department.

“I don’t believe you’ve met Franklin Yeager. You taught Frank’s son, Landon, last semester.”

In that moment, Carly felt like someone had jabbed an ice pick into her high-flying helium balloon.

The room became very still as Carly struggled to find the appropriate response.

“In all due respect, if this is about my former student, I think any further discussion should be held in private and between the administration, but I was under the impression the incident and disciplinary action had been decided,” Carly said.

A robotic delivery, but at least she got the words out.

“There’ve been some developments that have been brought to my attention. I asked Frank to come in so we could clear the air, so to speak,” Scanlon said. “Please, sit, Miss Bennett.”

Carly kept her place, arms folded, standing above the men, but when Scanlon cleared his throat, she acquiesced and found a seat next to her former student’s father.

“Landon didn’t plagiarize the paper,” Yeager said.

Yes, he did! Carly wanted to scream. Instead, she slipped her hands underneath her legs, in case her palms started to sweat.

“If my son did cheat, I’d be the first to request that USC boot him out the door on his fanny,” Yeager continued. “But I know my kid, and I also know a liar, and Landon is beside himself over this false accusation. I’ll be honest with you, when Landon first told me about the whole mess, I was ready to call my lawyer, but since Bert is an old friend, I thought, why not try and hash things out man-to-man first.”

She had to respond. The words were there, ready to make her point, if only she could find the ability and the guts to say them.

“But he did ch-ch-cheat,” Carly said, despising the catch in her voice.

When was the last time she’d stuttered? Probably a year ago, during her annual review with Scanlon. She wondered if the universe would grant her a reprieve, and somehow the two men hadn’t picked up on her residual speech impediment, which still ambushed her in the worst possible moments, rising like an unkillable weed despite all her years of work to get rid of it.

She shot a glance at Yeager, whose mouth had turned up into a bow that resembled a smirk or, worse, pity.

If she were going down, at least she had to throw a punch.

“I want all my students to excel, and if they need extra time on an assignment, they know I’ll give it to them, and my door is always open if they need additional help. But the paper Landon wrote was a complete replica of one I received from a different student last year. We’re talking down to the semicolon.”

Carly looked to Scanlon, hoping for some back-up, but the dean kept his focus on Yeager.

“Then it wasn’t a case of cheating but purely accidental on Landon’s part,” Yeager said. “Or is the word coincidental? You’re the English whizzes in here, and I’m a businessman who wouldn’t know a semicolon from a hyphen, but I do know mistakes can be made, even by well-meaning young professors. How long have you been a teacher? You look more like a co-ed than a professor, and I mean that in the most complimentary of ways.”

Yeager chuckled, sounding to Carly like the laugh was cover so he wouldn’t sound like a creep.

Too late.

Carly fought to speak up and defend herself. But she remained still and silent, stuck between two powerful, rich males who were doing a very fine job of reeling in the young, errant female who didn’t know her place.

“This is my second year at USC.”

“Miss Bennett is still relatively new to our school as a professor, but she’s a rising star in our English department and did quite well as a student here before joining our professional fold.”

The heat that Carly had felt in her neck earlier had now exploded into a full-blown, five-alarm inferno, despite Scanlon throwing her a pseudo-bone.

Carly had crossed her legs and put a hand to her throat to try and cover her growing rash when she noticed Yeager was staring at something on the bottom of her black high heel. Whatever it was seemed to give him great satisfaction.

“Mr. Scanlon . . .” Carly pleaded, but the dean interrupted.

“I appreciate that you hold your students to the highest of standards, as you should, but since Frank is a trusted friend to the school, this time, we’ll expunge the previous disciplinary action and wipe the slate clean. Landon can resubmit the assignment and finish up the course through independent study, so he won’t lose credit. I have your word that Landon will be more careful in his work going forward, Frank?”

“You bet. My kid is a good boy, and I knew we could wrangle this problem to the ground. You have my word on my kid and on my continued support. Generations of Yeagers have supported this school, and we’ll continue the tradition. “Fight on for ol’ SC, our men fight on to victory!” Yeager warbled, hitting the notes of the USC fight song slightly off-key but with great confidence in his delivery.

When Yeager stood to shake the dean’s hand, Carly looked to the bottom of her high heel and saw a Macy’s close-out sale sticker still affixed to its outsole.

Her previous high-flying balloon was now bits of spent plastic that an entitled rich boy and his adult minions had tossed into the dumpster.

“No hard feelings, OK? New teachers can make mistakes with the best of them,” Yeager said.

He extended his hand to Carly.

You sold your integrity for a buck, and to a total cheese bag when you know I’m right! Carly wanted to scream to Scanlon.

Instead, Carly remained quiet and stared at Yeager’s outstretched hand.

Scanlon cleared his throat again.

“Miss Bennett, the matter has been settled,” Scanlon answered.

The dean’s eyes narrowed, and Carly followed his cue.

She reached for Yeager’s hand, gave it a quick shake, and regretted it the second her skin touched Yeager’s.

“That will be all, Miss Bennett.”

This was so unfair. She had to stand her ground.

“Is there something else you wanted to say?” Scanlon pressed.

Carly paused, searching for the words. They were right there, but when she jumped from the platform to catch the brass ring, she missed and spiraled into freefall.

“Miss Bennett?” Scanlon asked.

“Th–th–th–thank you, sir.”

She couldn’t remember leaving the office, but there she was, back in the lobby. Carly hurried past Gretchyn, and by the time she reached the corridor, she was certain that she heard the two men laughing from behind the office door.

“HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!”

*

After escaping the humiliation-fest in Scanlon’s office, Carly lowered her head so she wouldn’t have to make eye contact, or worse, engage in fake, idle chitchat after her fall, and continued her fast walk to the USC faculty bathroom. She had ten minutes until her advanced creative writing class started, which was threading the needle a bit, but the familiar vice was constricting her chest, and if she didn’t take a pull from her inhaler soon, she’d be in the throes of a full-fledged, not to mention very public, asthma attack.

She struggled for air and rushed into an open stall. Once inside, she slammed the door, snatched her inhaler from her briefcase, and gave it a quick shake. She heard the familiar whistling sound coming from her throat and shoved her rescue inhaler into her mouth.

Feeling like a five-hundred-pound man was now sitting on her chest, Carly fought to stay calm. She closed her eyes, forced herself to hold her breath for the requisite ten seconds between puffs and prayed for the corticosteroid to kick in.

When the tightness in her lungs loosened, she could see, plain as day, her old practice phrase, the one she’d started reciting at boarding school to help conquer her stutter.

When her breathing steadied to a normal inhale-in, exhale-out, she whispered the words aloud to find her center.

“The girl wore her hair in two braids, tied with two blue bows.”

Not bad. Her voice was clear and strong this time, unlike her herky-jerky performance earlier.

How had she let herself choke, and on such an epic scale?

Feeling like she was no longer dry-drowning from her asthma attack, Carly took one more hit of her inhaler. She squeezed the metal canister and pictured Scanlon’s and Yeager’s mugs, having a big old chuckle at her expense.

“Never again,” Carly whispered, not quite believing it, but at least it was a start.

She rose from crouching position in the stall, straightened her shoulders, and then shot her middle finger in the air.

“That’s bravery right there, giving the bird to a restroom door instead of standing up for yourself. Next time will be different.”

Carly exited the stall and was relieved to see the faculty bathroom was still empty.

She splashed cold water from the sink onto her face, then patted her sticky armpits with a wad of paper towels from the dispenser on the wall. A poor girl’s spa day.

Having no idea how much time had passed since the start of her asthma attack, Carly worried that she was late for her next class. She grabbed her phone from her briefcase to check the time and gasped.

On the home screen was a photo memory, which captured a hoped-for promise never to come.

Carly ran her finger over the image of her mother and studied her twelve-year-old self. The photo had been taken by her then soon-to-be stepbrother Julien, on the day she’d met him and the rest of the Whites.

A pang of melancholy cut through her. Everybody would’ve believed her if she were a rich boy.

***

Excerpt from Everyone Is Perfect Here by Jane Haseldine. Copyright 2026 by Jane Haseldine. Reproduced with permission from Jane Haseldine. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

“Nobody’s allowed to die on one of my sets!” hollered Jack L. Warner. “Who’s the jackass who wants to halt my production?”

Flanked by his personal assistant Bill Schaefer, Jack dragged Hal B. Wallis, his head of production, over to the sound stage filming Yankee Doodle Dandy, starring James Cagney. He swung open the door as soon as the red warning light turned off and stormed inside.

Michael Curtiz, the film’s director, dumped his megaphone and threw down the gauntlet. The parade band on stage accompanied his rage with a drumroll and cymbals.

Warner nabbed Curtiz’s discarded megaphone. “Rally the troops—all of them! I have a studio-wide announcement.”

Curtiz, turning red, clamped his hands over his ears. The actors and background extras, dressed in woolen military uniforms, stopped marching and sweltered under the hot lights. The live orchestra fell silent.

“Sir, maybe we should check out the dead body first,” Schaefer suggested with hesitation.

At Warner’s command, an assistant rolled back a piece of movable scenery to reveal a prone figure, an unknown young man wearing bloodied street clothes, but with a swastika carved on his neck.

“Are you sure he’s dead?” Warner asked. “He looks like he’s just sleeping on the job.”

Backing up a few steps, Wallis broke out in a cold sweat. “Has any-one been a-ble to i-den-ti-fy him?”

The assistant director strained to keep self-control but trembled. “Every-one denies knowing him. Our director, however, insisted we ignore the victim and stay on schedule.”

Wallis, turning green, gulped down his rising bile but regained his voice. “That’s unconscionable. We should secure the set. Everyone will have to swear to secrecy, and under no circumstances is the press to know about it.” Schaefer clutched his stomach, and his knees became unsteady. He grabbed a chair to brace himself.

Jack L. strutted the sound stage like Napoleon planning a counterattack and examined the casualty of war with a sense of unnerving calm. He wrinkled his nose and instructed his assistant, “Better call the Burbank PD. Won’t take long under these broiling lights for him to stink to high heaven.” The actors, who’d remained in the stance of military attention, were about to wilt. Offstage, on both sides, waited singers and female tap dancers dressed in skimpy satin costumes as a tribute to Uncle Sam.

“At ease!” Warner shouted, accompanied by a round of relieved sighs. “You think you can direct my film picture?” Curtiz shouted in his choppy version of Hungarian-bastardized English.

“I can and I will,” Warner barked. “Don’t forget, I sign your paychecks! Furthermore, I still can’t understand why you summoned half the musicians’ union to play instruments off-camera when you could’ve used a recording. Money wasted!”

Curtiz glared, with fire in his eyes. “It’s because they’re featured on camera at the beginning and the end of the scene!” He cursed in his native Hungarian tongue and stormed off the set.

Jimmy Cagney, the star of the show, followed. “You can find me in my dressing room.”

Undaunted by his director and lead actor’s histrionics, Warner demanded to see the production notes. After a quick glance, he scraped his fingernails through his receding hairline.

“Too much…can’t picture it. Summon your editors and set up a projector—somewhere—anywhere, on the damned wall if we must. I’d need to see the dailies and bring me that hot-headed Hungarian Goulash Gulag Meister and his la-di-da lead actor.”

Wallis broke the point of his pencil by slamming it down on his notepad. “All these delays…I don’t want to hear a word from you about going over budget.”

“I’m the one who makes the final decisions. Respect your commanding officer!” Warner admonished his confused subordinate.

Wallis gave him a weak salutation, but only out of respect. “Aye! Aye, sir!” Warner gave one last look at the body. “Go ahead, call the police,” he said to Schaefer. “And hire those two private detectives.”

Wallis scratched his head with a look as if a screwball comedian had thrown a cream pie in his face. “Who?” he asked.

Warner clenched his jaw. “Babs Norman and Guy Brandt, those young kids who solved the Blackbird Killer Case and saved the cast of The Maltese Falcon. That was a close call for everyone.”

* * *

The phone rang at B. Norman Investigations. Guy picked up and said Jack Warner’s assistant was on the line. Babs motioned for him to hand over the receiver.

“The Big Boss desires your company,” Schaefer told her.

“If he doesn’t mind throwing in two mouth-watering prime-rib dinners at the Smoke House for us,” Babs said, who hadn’t eaten all day, “we’ll consider that his consultation fee.”

The two PI partners headed downstairs to their building’s garage, where they now had their own assigned adjacent parking spaces instead of playing roulette for empty spots on the street. Babs put her key into the ignition of her ailing Crosley—the Clown Car, the brunt of Guy’s constant jokes, with a paint job that resembled a motley patchwork. The moment she put her foot on the gas pedal, it made a bone-shaking screech of metal against metal and emitted exhaust that would’ve choked a triceratops.

“We’re taking mine,” Guy said after he stopped wheezing. He rolled up his windows to keep out the foul scent. “Can’t believe you never had the sense to replace that fossil since it never ran well.”

They pulled out of the garage, and he donned his sunglasses. “Now, you’re stuck with it since our government stopped new automobile production and only people in vital professions, such as doctors and clergymen, qualify to purchase remaining inventories.”

“Private eyes don’t have priority?”

He shook his head. “Not in your sweet life. Those assembly lines are being converted to produce tanks, aircraft, and weapons for the military. Mark my words. Next thing you know, they’ll demand that we ration fuel and rubber for our tires like they do in England. Read the papers if you don’t believe me.”

Guy flashed his Warner Brothers pass to the gate security guard. Babs panicked as she searched inside her purse. “I must’ve left mine in my car.”

“Try flirting,” Guy whispered.

She snorted in defiance. “I will not!”

Much to her surprise, he sweet-talked his way into saying, “She’s with me,” and pulled into an empty guest parking slot.

When they arrived at the Yankee Doodle sound stage, the crime scene investigation was well underway. The Burbank PD sectioned off the area where the deceased lay, but nearby, Curtiz insisted on conducting rehearsals even if it was too noisy to roll sound. He ordered the gaffer and his electrical crew to prep the lights for the next set of shots, but they went berserk, thinking a light was shorting out every time the crime scene photographer’s flashbulb went off.

Curtiz insisted his captive cast and crew finish what they started. He’d work around the police, even if it meant yelling and screaming, at the risk of losing his voice, to make sure they kept quiet.

“Isn’t Jimmy Cagney your star?” Guy looked around for the missing actor.

Curtiz made an unintelligible grunt and spat into his handkerchief. “We shall work around his crybaby tantrums.” He launched a new battle with Wallis. “You complain that clocks ticking means money. Then why does Warner have to be such a stingy fat cat?”

Wallis bit his lip to keep from laughing at the director’s deliberate jabs at the English language. “Our detectives-for-hire are here.” He pointed out Babs and Guy. “Jack wants you to perform the entire number, Yankee Doodle Dandy, from start to finish.”

The director stood his ground. “That’s not how we shoot it. We fall behind schedule. Then Jack gets more and more angry.”

Warner paced the floor, bellyaching to himself and to any of the cops who would listen. “What if Cagney had been the intended victim? Not that I’m glad this man is an unknown Joe Palooka, but you get where I’m coming from.”

The moment Babs saw the corpse, her stomach lurched. Guy took his handkerchief and covered his nose and mouth. “Did you find any ID?”

“Found a driver’s license in his wallet,” said one cop. “He’s got a German-sounding name: Gerhard Sauer.”

Warner, holding a script, muscled in on their conversation. “I want to see this scene played out from start to finish.”

Since Cagney left the set, Guy volunteered to stand in and improvise his choreography, but the studio head ignored his suggestion. “If that fussy thespian wants to act like a child, I’ll just have to take over and go through the motions.”

Babs took her notepad out of her pocketbook. “Did anyone hear any strange noises?” She looked around for reactions but got none. “Did you consider that someone killed Sauer elsewhere and, for whatever reason, dumped his body backstage?”

Babs blew her anger out of her nose. No one seemed to listen. Wallis gave the PIs an overview to get them up to speed. “The film, Yankee Doodle Dandy, is about the life of lyricist and composer George M. Cohan. He performed with his family, and they called themselves The Four Cohans. Playing his father, we’ve got the famous actor who played the shot-up Captain Jacoby from The Maltese Falcon, Walter Huston.”

“Give My Regards to Broadway is also one of Cohan’s famous songs,” Guy mentioned.

“We’ve included that one, along with Over There. All patriotic numbers that helped us endure WWI. Just think, we have a song for every star and a star for every stripe.”

Wallis stopped and scratched his chin. “You know…I rather like that line. Must insist on using that quote for our trailer. However, what you’ll see on screen is a show within a show, as if our cinematographer was shooting a documentary. At the beginning and the end of the scene, the camera will pan, showing an establishing shot of everyone inside the theater. That’s where our live orchestra comes in.

“The Cohans perform in a stage production of a show titled George Washington, Jr. The song-and-dance medley scene we had been shooting before everything went haywire centers on Grand Old Flag. Once edited, it will look like we shot it from start to finish, but since Warner told me you used to be actors, you probably know that most of the time we shoot scenes out of order. We’ll stop within sections to film close-ups and from different angles. Everyone’s curious to see if there are clues about the killer in the footage we’ve shot so far.”

Babs asked Wallis if he’d drop her a line when the footage was available for viewing.

Jack Warner, however, seemed to have his own agenda. He took over as director and insisted on doing a dry run. “Up with the curtain! Places, please. Stand by, and on with the show of the century. It’s the most original thing to hit Broadway. You know why? Cagney…or Cohan, to be more accurate, is the whole darned U.S. of A. squeezed into one pair of pants.”

Wallis asked the PIs to follow him and take seats with the extras in the audience.

“How many actors does the scene start off with?” Babs asked.

“Not including the live orchestra and the packed seats filled with the audience, I guess there are about thirty-five, but more join in later.”

Lighter on his feet than expected, Warner skipped across the stage and justified substituting for Cagney, who refused to leave his dressing room. “Believe it or not, I’ve had experience as an entertainer. When my brothers and I started our family business, I used to sing in the aisles in between screenings.”

Wallis drew a deep breath and released it. “There he goes again. The boss loves telling everyone the story of his debut in show business. Often, I wonder whether Jack secretly always wanted to be a performer instead of running a studio.” He explained the upcoming scene while everyone blocked the action. “Jimmy sings Grand Old Flag. Twenty young Boy Scouts stride in from the top of the stairs. Betsy Ross sews the flag, upstage center. Eight more adults, who look like members of a military band, join them in song and advance from upstage right. After that, we cut away to five or six members of a fife and drum corps.”

The PIs made every effort to follow Wallis while Warner danced on stage with the hired actors. “Upstage left, a variety of singers march forward, representing the common man and the working class—policemen, bakers, bankers, a nurse, miners, railroad workers—showing their solidarity. Everyone turns toward the flag and breaks into My Country, ’Tis of Thee in front of people manning an anti-aircraft gun.”

Guy, who had been counting on his fingers, lost track. “How many would that add?”

“Probably another thirty. Central Casting must’ve broken out bottles of champagne after receiving our requisitions. Then the stage curtains close, and the spotlight falls on Cagney, downstage right. In come the tap- dancing dames, many bearing American flags. This is where we rival MGM’s schmaltzy musicals with their elaborate costumes and choreography. Enter Uncle Sam, played by Walter Huston, and the Statue of Liberty. Then Jimmy wows everyone with his signature dance steps. More female flag bearers emerge from behind the rear curtain. Our stage crew has rigged the floor with conveyor belts, giving the illusion that the actors are marching toward the audience while they’re actually staying in place.”

“Otherwise, they’d march right off the stage,” said Babs.

“Correct, but we wouldn’t want them to do that,” Wallis explained. “As the cinematographer pulls back and widens the focal length of his lens, background curtains continue to open until we see a painted backdrop of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. I’m no expert in visual effects, but it gives the audience the feeling there must be well over a hundred people proceeding down the boulevard. Pretty spectacular, don’t you think?”

The assistant director leapt onstage and reminded Warner that the soldier actors were still suffering under the scorching lights and waiting for their next order. “Sir, we’re not rolling camera. We should dismiss them.”

“Tell them it’s a wrap until further notice. I won’t approve an exorbitant dry-cleaning bill for everyone schvitzing in their costumes.”

With military precision, the assistants rounded up the various groups of performers and shuttled them toward wardrobe. Curtiz and James Wong Howe, his cinematographer, remained to discuss how they’d execute the rest of that scene.

Warner scribbled a note and handed it to his assistant. “Bill, tell these two to drop everything. I’m calling a meeting to order and want them present.”

Schaefer reviewed his memo pad. “Sir, you scheduled one with them already.” Then he checked his watch. “They should be there…right now.”

Jack pointed to Babs and Guy. “Then you’re coming with me and away from the crime scene.” In a rush, he sprinted ahead.

Babs shouted loudly enough for him to hear her as he gained distance. “We’ll need to sign a contract to make our assignment official!”

“Pick up the pace, you slowpokes, and I’ll cut you a check after we get there.”

***

Excerpt from Round Up the Unusual Suspects by Elizabeth Crowens. Copyright 2026 by Elizabeth Crowens. Reproduced with permission from Elizabeth Crowens. All rights reserved.

May 1979

In 1979, I was living in a two-bedroom apartment in my hometown of Skokie, IL with my best friend Gary. I was 22 years old, a few months removed from my sophomore year at Illinois State University–and I say `removed’ literally, since the Dean of Students had strongly pointed out that school wasn’t the best choice for me. Gary and I both had “floater jobs” which basically covered our monthly rent, weed, beer, and food, in that order. The landlord would likely say the rent and weed could be in a reverse order. Basically, I seemed to be following a destiny first noted in my 8th-grade yearbook from Oakview Junior High, where I was dubbed “town clown.” My mom was horrified. Me? I took it as a badge of honor, one that kept wearing through high school and my short stint in college.

It was a typical September Sunday. Gary and I were laying around, recovering from hangovers and planning our next adventure. Around four o’clock, the phone rang. It was my Dad.

“Hey, Jeff, are you busy?”

“Well, a little. Hanging out.”

“I really need to speak with you. Can you come over?”

I was at that age when I didn’t really have anything against my parents. I’d see them for birthdays and holidays and when I wanted to conduct a secret withdrawal from the packed meat freezer they kept in their basement, but I didn’t see the need to spend any time with them. “Is it important?”

His answer was firm. “It’s important enough that I’m asking you to come over—now.”

That was good enough for me. I quickly jumped into the shower to wash off the after-aroma of the previous night’s parties. As the hot water rushed down, my mind began spinning with scenarios. What did he want to talk about? Abruptly it dawned on me that maybe he was going to tell me he was dying. My mind always moved at a mile a minute, and all of a sudden it came to a screeching halt.

Why else would he need to talk to me? My dad was an ordinary man–52-years old, husband, father of four, CEO of an Envelope Company, recovering alcoholic, and my hero. He really was my rock, and more than made up for my distracted mother. How would I survive without him? We always shared this unspoken bond of my inheriting his OCD gene. And while he never appreciated that I was that town clown and high school fuck-up, he admired my work ethic. When I did put my mind to something, I took it to completion, whether it was shoveling neighbor’s sidewalks in those Chicago winters or moving their lawns in the summer. Even as an eight-year-old. And if I had suddenly kicked the bucket at age 20, that would have been the story of my life—a human oxymoron who had a great work ethic yet couldn’t keep a job.

He hugged me when I came through the door and told my mom to let us be. We went upstairs to my parents’ bedroom, which was decorated with a complete Brady Bunch-era motif: matching avocado and orange bedspread and curtains, beige shag carpeting, large imitation Picasso paintings on the walls. We sat together on the bench seat at the bottom of the bed, connected at the hip. He started to put his arm around my shoulder, and almost instantly I began to cry. “Dad, please don’t die on me!” I began to sob.

Startled, he jumped to his feet, then put his hands on my shoulders. “Listen to me! That’s not what this is about. I’m not dying! But now that you mention it, you are killing me.” I started to say something, but he quickly interrupted, “Seriously, I need you to listen to me.”

He started speaking to me, but it was more of a sermon. The tone in his voice was unlike anything I had heard from him before. I had never heard him in such an authoritative voice. I could already tell that I had either upset or disappointed him, but just did not know how or why. I quickly learned. “You are wasting your life,” he said. “You have always had an outstanding work ethic, he told me, along with an incredible quick wit, which I was just throwing away by being a smart ass, just looking for the laugh. “If you were ever able to use that wit in a more “think on your feet” manner instead of just being a comedian, you could have great value to some company one day.” He looked at me directly in the eye. “I didn’t send you to college to be a fuck-up. You have a gift, and I cannot allow you to waste it. You need to get your collective shit together.”

I was stunned, and very upset. Not so much about what he said, but because I knew it was dead-on.

My mind jumped back to a moment two summers before, when I was working in his company warehouse. The combination of my 17-year-old male hormones and the highly Latina warehouse staff were just too much for me to overcome, and I devoted far more time to chasing skirts than my responsibilities. He sat me down then, too, but instead of giving me a sermon, he fired me. I know that conversation was painful for both him to say and me to hear as well. It wasn’t so much that I embarrassed him as the boss’s son getting canned, but what hurt me most was that I had let him down. Here I was, letting him down again. What most upset me was knowing that he was not proud of me.

I drove back to the apartment. The aroma of cannabis greeted my arrival. Gary passed me the loaded a pipe as I entered, saying something to the extent of “you look like you need one.” But what I needed is what I had just received. My dad was my hero, and I had been confronted with the fact that I was failing him. And really, I had also been confronted with the fact that I was failing myself. “No thanks,” I said to Gary, echoing the words my dad had just said to me, “I really need to start getting my shit together.”

The very next day, I started searching the Help Wanted section in the Chicago Tribune. Some company called Tek Aids two towns over was looking for a warehouse worker. I had never heard of them, but I knew I wanted that job. I’m not sure why, but the ad called out to me. Maybe I just wanted a job quickly so I could get back into my dad’s good favor. For the interview, I put my best foot forward, wearing the blue blazer my mother bought me for high school graduation and borrowing a paisley tie I had bought Dad for Father’s Day.

They were a family business about five years old that had set themselves up as a computer peripherals distributor. They sold printers, monitors, and bins full of internal parts. Jud, the founder and CEO, gave me a tour of the 15,000sf facility. I could tell he had great pride in his operation, and I was impressed that he knew every employee on a first-name basis.

The warehouse was sloppy and seemed a little disorganized. I knew I could fix that. What surprised me is that they also had a tech area in the warehouse, run by a guy wearing thick lenses a lab coast – he looked like mad scientist. They were building student tech systems for community colleges, based upon Ohio Scientific’s Challenger 1P single-processor computer systems. “A warehouse and tech?” I said to Jud, without reply.

I did find it interesting that he was already introducing me, and after the tour, we went into his wife Lorrayne’s office and they both told be the job responsibilities. I was trying not to jump the gun, but it sure seemed like I was already hired. And I was really hoping they would, and I knew I was looking into a crystal ball and seeing my future. Perhaps I was willing it to happen by confidently adding “I look forward to hearing from you sometime tomorrow.” She gave me a strange look, perhaps due to my presumptuousness. “The blazer and tie won’t be necessary when you come back,” she said. At that point, I knew the job would be mine. I was already reorganizing the sloppy warehouse in my head.

I started two days later. Two years later, I was promoted to Vice President of Sales. Twenty years and three days after my Dad’s sermon, I founded my own IT server-building company, morphing into the video surveillance recording market in 2009. By the time of my retirement on my 66th birthday on July 21, 2023, I had built a company that is the world’s largest supplier of purpose-built surveillance video recording appliances, with over a quarter-million devices recording the video surveillance from over four million cameras in 91 countries around the globe. And all at the most secure sites or coolest companies in the world.

Here’s the story of how that happened.

***

Excerpt from It Worked For Me by Jeff Burgess. Copyright 2026 by Jeff Burgess. Reproduced with permission from Jeff Burgess. All rights reserved.

Prologue

The girl held her breath, hoping her pounding heart wouldn’t give her away. She’d squeezed herself under her parent’s four-poster bed, between totes of out-of-season clothes. It had been her favorite place to hide when she was little… but she was almost full grown now. A stupid choice. Wouldn’t it be the first place they looked?

Fear wouldn’t let her chance a move.

The roar in her head made it difficult to hear what was happening in the other room. Still, she listened.

She knew one thing. Her parents were dead. She’d heard their pleas, their screams. Then gunshots.

Silence after that.

She fought back her tears. Swallowed hard. Held her breath.

Now, the killer was rummaging through the house. Looking for something. Looking for her.

Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall and then stopped at the bedroom doorway.

She clamped her hand over her mouth. Tears dripped down her cheeks, gathering at the cleft of her chin before landing soundlessly on the carpeted floor.

Scuffed black boots walked across the room and came to a stop at the foot of the bed. So close, she could reach out and touch them.

She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to face her fate as it unfolded. She was next.

But a cell phone chimed, and the boots turned. The footsteps moved away and toward the door.

She opened her eyes and risked a small breath.

In her hand, she gripped the key her father had passed to her just before he’d told her to hide.

Chapter One

Six months later

I stuffed crackers in my mouth and washed them down with a Diet Coke before leaving my desk and heading for the probation department’s training room. It was early morning, and I felt like I had a killer hangover. Strange, because I’d had nothing to drink in the last few days. I’d thought about calling in sick, but I’d never done that before, and I didn’t want to ruin my perfect record. Even if no one else was keeping track.

Plus, this training was mandatory. I’d put it off until the last class offering, and I needed to get it done.

Most of the seats in the cramped room were already taken. I didn’t have a record of being on time, so I didn’t sweat it.

“Casey,” my coworker Claire called from across the room. “I saved you a seat.”

I dropped into the chair next to her, took another drink, and placed my Big Gulp on the table. “I can’t take another day of this,” I said, under my breath.

“Sorry to hear that,” the trainer said, reaching around me and placing a binder in my lap. “Just for that, you get to go first.”

I cringed. “Sorry. Didn’t know you were standing there.”

“Obviously not.” The trainer walked over to the dry-erase board, picked up a marker, and opened the cap with a flourish. I didn’t know her well, but she was on the fast track to becoming a supervisor. I also didn’t know she hated me until now. “So, Casey, give us your greatest weakness.”

Right now, it was my stomach. The leftover burrito I’d eaten for dinner last night must have been spoiled, but that wasn’t what she meant. I hated this question. The goal was to name something that you could turn into a strength. Nothing came to mind.

Hands shot up around the room. Apparently, not the case for those around me.

“Impatient,” someone yelled.

“Opinionated!”

“Sarcastic!”

“Workaholic!”

The trainer couldn’t write fast enough.

“Okay, that’s plenty,” I said. I loved my job but clearly had to work on my reputation.

The list was moving into a second column when my work cell vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out. Betz, my ex-husband. Well, he was more than that, but I’d pumped the brakes on reconciling while I figured some things out. Still, taking his call was a good excuse to escape the room and the assassination of my character my peers were treating like a game show. “Gotta take this’” I got to my feet and hurried from the room. “It’s a detective.”

“Evasive,” someone added to the list before I silenced them by closing the door. I answered as I walked down the hall. “What’s up?”

“Sorry to interrupt your day,” Betz said. I could picture him rubbing the back of his neck. Didn’t matter what he was calling about, most times when we talked, he rubbed his neck, shook his head, and I’m pretty sure his blood pressure rose. And yet, he wanted us to get back together. If we reconciled, he’d probably stroke out at the young age of thirty-five from the stress I caused him. Still, he loved me.

“No problem,” I said. “You’re saving me from a painful day of training. Please tell me you have something that can get me out of finishing the class.”

“You supervise Martin Phillips?”

“I do.”

“He’s a suspect in a double murder that happened six months ago. Think it’s over drug money. We want to take him into custody, but we don’t want to spook him since he’s armed and dangerous. Think you can trick him into showing himself?”

My adrenaline kicked in, stomach problems vanishing. A double murder was nothing to sneeze at. And if it had happened months ago, before he was on probation, there was nothing I could have done to stop it. Now we had to get my client off the street. “I can text him. Tell him I need to do a field visit, and I need him to be home.”

Typically, we didn’t warn our clients we were coming. But sometimes, if we had enough failed attempts, we’d set something up. Anyway, Phillips was fairly new on supervision. He didn’t know the drill. But he knew we had to do regular home visits, and he was due. He’d probably fall for it.

“That should work,” Betz said. “Gear up, and I’ll meet you at the employee entrance in ten.”

I disconnected the call and took the stairs two at a time to my cubicle. I loved playing with cops. Although I never wanted to be one. Too much blood and guts for me.

***

Excerpt from Diversion by Cindy Goyette. Copyright 2026 by Cindy Goyette. Reproduced with permission from Cindy Goyette. All rights reserved.