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

Dana Bowman had planned to interview Lilly Clarke of  “Unfinished Business” from Sharon A. Crawford’s short story collection Beyond the Tripping Point (Blue Denim Press, Oct. 2012), but Lilly hasn’t returned Dana’s calls. Meantime, Dana has been into Cooks Regional Police Headquarters to look at all the surveillance tapes of someone using Bast’s debit card at ATMs and a short selected video of that is now out in the media. The only thing definite about the person caught on the tapes is that it is not her brother Bast. Now Dana has received an urgent call from Detective Sergeant Fielding and he is meeting her today in the Thurston Public Library boardroom.

Fielding enters the room, nods at Dana, sits down, opens his briefcase and hauls out a laptop which he turns on.

Dana: And good morning to you, too. What have we here?

Fielding: I’m asking the questions today. But have a look here.

Fielding swings the laptop around towards Dana. She leans in to take a look.

Dana: What are all these numbers?

Fielding: Phone numbers – all to and from your brother’s cell phone. I need you to take a look and see if any are familiar to you, particularly that one (He points), which is repeated 12 times from Bast’s cell and eight times to Bast’s cell.

Dana: No, the number doesn’t sound familiar. Let me check my cell’s list of saved numbers…Nope. Is it a burner number?

Fielding: Probably.

Dana: Oh come on, Fielding.

Fielding: Very well, yes a burner phone. Our IT is working on it. Now please check through the remaining numbers.

Dana: Fine. Oh, this one looks familiar. Just a sec and I’ll check my phone list. Aunt Doris? Her cell phone. What was Bast doing calling her and I see she called him back – six times. Fielding, what is going on? You’re not insinuating Aunt Doris had something to do with Bast’s disappearance? She and Bast aren’t best buds but Aunt Doris is old school and committing crime is not her style.

Fielding: Understood. We have contacted her and…

Dana: And you didn’t think to let me know?

Fielding: At first she had nothing to say – she hadn’t heard from Bast. We called her on her land line by the way. Then she called back and said she couldn’t find her cell phone. That was timed with when the calls to and from her cell number started.

Dana: Again, I repeat…you didn’t think to tell me?

Fielding: I’m telling you now.

Dana: Yeah, but those calls started two weeks ago. When did you actually talk to her?

Fielding: A number of times. Right after Bast disappeared and then one of my detectives called her back about once a week to check in.

Dana: And you used her land line for all these calls.

Fielding: No, we used both, but only the land line two weeks ago because her cell had no room in her voice mail.

Dana: I’m still not getting why you didn’t tell me this before. Fielding? Fielding, there is something else you are not telling me.

Fielding: D…D…Dana, your Aunt Doris has also disappeared.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

You can read more about the characters and their stories in from Beyond the Tripping Point (Blue Denim Press, 2012). Click on the book at the top and it takes you to my profile – including book reviews – at www.amazon.com. The book is available there in print and Kindle. For Kobo e-book  go to http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/beyond-the-tripping-point or go to any bricks and mortar store and order in a print copy. Spread the word.

See Sharon A.’s Upcoming Gigs, workshops, guest blog posts, etc. at http://www.samcraw.com/Articles/BeyondtheTrippingPoint.html