Cover of Sharon A. Crawford’s mystery short story collection

“Live passionately, even if it kills you, because something is going to kill you anyway.”

– Webb Chiles

Starting with this week’s post, Bast Overture, crime reporter turned PI will be interviewing characters from the other stories in Beyond the Tripping Point. Some of them will require him to do a variation of time travel. This week’s interview is with Elsa Richards, the main character in “16 Dorsey St.” Elsa and Bast are in the same time frame (late 1990s).

Bast: You are a fashion designer who works from home?

Elsa:  Yes, I prefer that because my boss, Monsieur Louie is always breathing down my neck at his place. I’m a very creative person and I need solitude to create my best. It’s like I’m in another world with all senses, all areas of my mind focused on the current dress or skirt.

Bast: But your new home, an apartment in a former old Rosedale home doesn’t turn out to be so solitary. Could you elaborate?

Elsa: The other tenants were mad and scary old people. It makes me shudder to think about them.

Bast: I understand. But could you tell us something about them?

Elsa: (Takes a deep breath). Okay. Did you ever watch those old Frankenstein movies starring Boris Karloff? (Bast nods). Well, Harold Marchant has a face just like him. But believe me, he doesn’t move around stiffly like Frankenstein. And the old biddy, Winnifred Hoyle – her eyes just bulge out so far you’d think they would pop out. She says she’s a retired school teacher.

Bast: Probably scared her students into studying?

Elsa: (chuckles slightly). Probably. Don’t know when she was a teacher, maybe in the 1940s because that’s how she dresses, complete with padded suit jackets and nylons with seams. Who wears stockings with seams anymore?

Bast: Didn’t you think for a time that there was a third person living in the old house?

Elsa: Well, I suppose so.

Bast: Tell me about that.

Elsa: I’d go out to run errands and such and when I returned I’d find some of my things like my lipstick and hairbrush moved from where I put them. I’m very particular where I put my stuff. Then there was that wig. I couldn’t figure out where that came from until my sister, Sylvia, reminded me of a Halloween party costume I word a few years ago.

Bast: That brings up my next question. You tell your story through emails to your sister. Why is that?

Elsa: Because, Sylvia doesn’t live in Toronto. I know; there is the phone. But I’m like you a computer techie and then there is the privacy issue. Our mother keeps popping unannounced into Sylvia’s place and stays for a bit. So Sylvia and I don’t want her to know about all out conversations.

Bast: Your mother comes up with a cryptic revelation later on in “16 Dorsey St.” What do you think of that?

Elsa: I’d rather not say. I go through a harrowing experience…

Bast: That’s right. Life threatening, even.

Elsa: Sh. We don’t want to tell the readers all.

Bast: Right. Well, thank you Elsa for your time and I hope you, your sister and your mother can sort out all these, er, matters.

You can read more about Elsa, her sister and the scary oldsters in my mystery short story collection Beyond the Tripping Point, (Blue Denim Press, 2012). Click on the book at the top and it takes you to my profile – including books reviews – at www.amazon.com. The book is available there in print and Kindle. For Kobo e-book  go to http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/search/?keywords=Beyond%20the%20Tripping%20Point or go to any bricks and mortar store and order in a print copy.

The video link to my thatchannel.com interview and reading from Beyond the Tripping Point on You Tube can now be accessed via the new page “Video” at the top of this blog.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford